Chapter One
RHOADES
He mesmerized. Captivated and enthralled me. I’d watched Austin dance for months, his grace and poise outstanding in the crowd of dissolute men waiting by the stage to paw at him. A true master of his emotions, he’d matured from a skittish deer hiding in the shadows to a man taking his rightful place as the king of the club.
Everyone wanted him.
I couldn’t be angry with Austin for leaving me in this dingy back room when I’d broken every rule I’d set for myself by kissing him. The blame for Austin’s flight rested solely on my shoulders. All it took was one touch.… One simple, devastating kiss and the tight check on my emotions unraveled, sending everything I held together for years spilling out in wild abandon. I lost control. It both shattered and bewildered me, and I hated that. I was always in control.
At the sound of frantic knocking, I buttoned up my shirt and redid my tie with cool precision. A swift glance in the mirror to check and make sure all looked well on the outside and then I opened the door.
“Where is he?” James burst into the room. “Where’s Austin?”
“Hello to you too.” I smoothed my hair and gave him a lazy smile.
“Don’t give me your bullshit now. This is serious.”
I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen James anything but coolly elegant. Now, his tie was askew and unknotted, and the blond hair he normally wore perfectly styled lay stuck to his forehead in sweat-darkened strands. Tension coiled through me, and I gripped his arm. Hard. “What’s wrong?” I squeezed, and James grunted in pain. “Tell me.”
Ignoring me as he’d always done since we were teenagers, James twisted out of my grasp. “I need to find Austin because wherever he is, hopefully Frankie’s with him.”
“Oh?” My rapidly banging heart settled back to normal, and I smirked. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a crush on little Frankie?”
With a wrinkle of his elegant nose, James looked every bit like a refined Englishman disdainfully peering down on one of his serfs. But my brother couldn’t pull his bullshit off on me.
“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response. If you’re ready to get your mind out of the gutter for once, I’ll explain. Frankie has an ex he’s afraid of. One night they had an argument, and Frankie got hurt and ended up in the hospital. He says he fell down the stairs. Aaron freaked out and ran, then got into a bar fight, beating some other guy so bad, he needed surgery. Frankie was called to testify and stated they had a volatile relationship, and that sort of sealed Aaron’s fate. The bastard spent almost a year in jail. He’s out now and showed up here. Tonight—”
“And we need to make sure he doesn’t hurt Frankie. I understand.” I finished the sentence for him and sprinted toward the open door. “Austin left here only a few minutes before you came in.”
“Then most likely, he went to the dressing room,” James said, right on my heels. “This way to the back. It’s quicker.”
He pulled me in the opposite direction, down a maze of darkened hallways. The blare of the music grew a bit fainter, but my heart pounded a thumping beat in my head. I knew what someone like Frankie’s ex could do if he was out for revenge. And what other reason could he have for coming to the club?
James stopped before the door and pounded. “Austin. Austin, are you in there?”
“Why not just go in? It’s your club.”
Back in his position as my moral compass, James brushed the hair off his brow. “Because I made the men a promise to treat them with respect and dignity and told them I’d never barge into their private space.”
“Well, in case of emergency, that shouldn’t hold up. But if you insist.”
I pounded my fist on the door. “Open up, or we’re coming in.”
Footsteps pattered from inside the room and the door opened, revealing Frankie’s troubled face. “What the hell’s going on? Is there a fire?” He raked me over with a withering look. “Why are you here?”
“We need to come in, Frankie, and it has nothing to do with Austin.”
Sensing our urgency, Frankie stepped aside, granting us access to the room. Immediately I spotted Austin huddled in a chair. His lush mouth tightened to a thin line in a smile so brittle, it would have cut me if I put my lips on his. Which wasn’t happening. I’d let myself get carried away once, but now I was back in control.
“What’s wrong?” Austin asked, ignoring me and directing his question to James. “I needed a moment, and Frankie was staying with me. We were going back out, I promise. I wasn’t slacking off.”
Waving his hand in the air, James brushed off Austin’s explanation. “I’m not concerned, and that’s not why I’m here. I wanted to talk to Frankie, but when I couldn’t find either one of you, I figured you two were together.”
“Talk to me?” Frankie’s brows pinched together. “About what? Care to share, or do you want to talk alone?” A hint of his natural flirtatiousness showed in his smile, unlike Austin, who seemed to look upon most people with suspicion, as if believing he’d be used and hurt.
“Your ex is here.”
I watched Frankie pale beneath the makeup and flush of alcohol. Austin jumped out of his chair and hugged him close, and I could see Frankie drawing on his strength.
“Aaron? But I-I have an order of protection against him. He’s not supposed to come near me.” No longer sparkling, Frankie clutched Austin’s arm.
“Next time when you come dance, bring a copy and give it to me. I’ll make sure Hector keeps it up front. Along with his picture.”
“Why are you still here?” Austin challenged me, his arm still protectively hugging Frankie. “This is between us.”
Like they were a family and I was the interloper. In a way I was. I had no reason to be there—Austin was correct, but for my own admittedly selfish purposes, I wanted to be where he was. I didn’t want the night to end between us on a bitter, unfinished note.
“May I speak with you? It will only take a moment.”
He opened his mouth, resistance lighting flares in his eyes, but Frankie gave him an elbow, then whispered something so low, I couldn’t hear. Later I’d have to remember to thank Frankie because Austin let go of him and dragged his feet as he walked over to me.
“What?” Austin asked in that same rough voice, but he didn’t fool me. Up close, he smelled of fear, and I saw his lips tremble.
“I’m sorry about before. I was out of line.”
Suspicion clouded his blue eyes. “Why’re you being nice to me? I don’t get it. We don’t know each other. If you think buying me expensive shit and paying me to dance for you means—”
“It means whatever you want it to.”
“Nothing. I don’t want it to mean anything. Go be a sugar daddy to someone else. I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.” With that, he turned on his heel and hurried back to Frankie, who’d returned to his chair.
I walked out and down the hallways back onto the club floor. The dancers entertained the crowd, and I watched as the muscular blond cowboy play-roped a patron onstage with him to bump and grind their hips, while the tall, mysterious dancer wearing a mask and cape swung around the pole, the silky material sailing after him to wind around his lean, half-naked torso. A large crowd gathered by the stage and threw bills at him in encouragement. The iridescent lights picked up the gleam of his raven hair, while the majority of his features remained hidden beneath his black mask.
I didn’t want them. I wanted Austin. Fuck. No, I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Without him dancing, I had little reason to stay, and yet knowing how scared both he and Frankie were with Frankie’s ex lurking about, I couldn’t leave. As I made my way to the bar, I listened to bits of conversation from the men I passed.
“The futures were shit today.”
“What the hell are they thinking in DC?”
“I’d give a paycheck to fuck that guy’s ass. Did you see him dance up there?”
Those last words stopped me in my tracks, and I found myself glaring at an older man with a lascivious glint in his eye and a glass of scotch in his hand. Imagining that pig with Austin—touching all that soft skin, running his pudgy fingers through the silk of Austin’s dark waves, licking his ripe mouth—made me sick. My hands itched to wrap around his jowly neck and squeeze tight.
Disgusted, I stomped over to the bar, and José, immediately sensing my foul mood, poured me a double shot of Macallan 18. The amber liquid called to me, and I tossed it down and pushed the glass back. “Another, please.”
With a raised brow, he did as I requested and kept the bottle at his elbow. “What’s wrong?”
“What makes you think anything’s wrong?” I downed only half this time and licked my lips, welcoming the burn as it ran through me. The resulting warmth did little to dull the ache in my chest. I should never have started coming here. I was better off at home. Alone.
“Because a while ago I saw you leave the dance floor with Austin. Now you’re out here slamming down shots, and he’s nowhere to be found. So I’ll ask again, what’s wrong?”
“I, uh…” Embarrassed, I rubbed my chin. “I may have gone too far with him.”
The smile on José’s face faltered. “Meaning?” He leaned his arms on the bar, and I saw the tension in his corded muscles. José had worked in the mailroom of my father’s company before James scooped him up and enticed him to work here. I’d noticed the dancers congregating around the bar, talking to him like a confidant, and had no doubt he’d take their side over mine.
“Meaning I let him get to me.” I hesitated, then confessed, “I kissed him.”
Realization mixed with surprise dawned in his eyes. “Did he kiss you back?”
“I didn’t force him—if that’s what you’re asking.” My attention was drawn to the opposite side of the room where James had entered flanked by Austin and Frankie. After a few murmured words to both, they climbed onstage, and with huge smiles on their faces, began to dance with each other as if the past three quarters of an hour hadn’t happened. Frankie had even placed a crown on his head and a royal purple cape around his shoulders.
“Looks like everything’s back to normal. But Rhoades?” A man waved an empty bottle of Patron at José from the opposite end of the bar. José picked up the bottle of scotch, placed it back on the shelf, and before taking care of the customer, said to me, “Don’t fuck with Austin. He’s been hurt enough.”
Haven’t we all?
I scowled into my drink, not bothering to respond, and studied Austin dancing up onstage. He’d also changed and no longer wore the little gold shorts with my jock peeking out. Now, red, sequined shorts hugged his peach of an ass and molded to every sinewy dip and curve. His freshly oiled body shone under the lights, and when he twisted himself around the pole, the men went wild, tossing bills at him like confetti. But I knew better. I hadn’t spent all this time watching him not to recognize his heart wasn’t in the dance. His eyes searched the crowd, flicking over me as if I was another stranger and not the man he’d kissed with such passion and intensity, we’d both almost taken a risk neither was prepared for. They were haunted eyes, brimming with loneliness and fear. He kept himself between Frankie and the outside of the stage as if protecting him.
James appeared at my shoulder. “I had the bastard removed and told him I was calling the cops.”
“Good.” I nodded with approval. “Maybe you should hire some backup security. It couldn’t hurt.”
“You know what?” James leaned against the bar and gave me that infuriating, snide look he’d perfected when we first learned we were brothers. I hated it then, and now, years later, nothing had changed. “I don’t need you to tell me how to run my business.”
“Then step up your game. Keep your employees safe.”
“From what I can tell, the one person Austin might need to be safe from is you, big brother.”
My face flamed, and I was never more glad to be shielded by the colorful, flickering lights. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I gave James my back and drank more of my scotch, hoping like hell he’d go away and leave me alone. In an alarming show of affection, something we’d never allowed ourselves, he took the empty space beside me, nudged my shoulder, and joined me, José having already poured him a glass of the same scotch I was drinking.
“That’s not true. Whenever you see Austin, you come alive.” He nudged me again, forcing me to face him.
“You think because I come here, I’ve forgotten? News flash, baby brother. Looks can be deceiving.”
The unexpected sympathy in James’s eyes proved too much, and I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions if he said something comforting, so without another word I pushed my way out of the bar area, leaving James behind. I couldn’t resist one last glance up at the stage at Austin, who frowned when our eyes met. My rigid body tingled with awareness, the taste of his silky tongue and sweet breath still hot in my mouth. After picking up my coat from the checkroom, I hurried out into the night and slid into the back seat of my black car, staring blindly out the window at the streetlight-washed people.
My driver wisely left me alone, and in less than twenty minutes, pulled up in front of my West 82nd Street brownstone. Before I had a chance to place my foot on the first cement step, the front door swung open, and Edgar’s relieved face peered out.
“I wondered if you were coming home tonight.”
“Where else would I go?” Irritated, I passed by him and entered the brownstone, welcoming the warmth. I dropped my coat on the hall chair and headed straight to the library. This room—all dark wood, brass, and leather—was a “real man’s retreat,” as my father used to say, but its rich interior and the fire crackling in the grate offered no panacea for my thoughts. I poured myself a glass of scotch and took a seat by the window, staring out into the darkness, torturing myself with questions I could never answer.
Until tonight, I’d thought myself capable of holding back, merely entertaining myself with thoughts of Austin and what he might feel like in my arms. But now that I’d tasted the forbidden fruit, instead of retreating back into the shadows, I craved to kiss his soft mouth, to feel him twist in my arms, and to experience again the rush of passion I’d buried years ago.
And that scared me more than anything.