I tipped her chin up and met her glassy eyes. My thumb dragged over her cheeks and wiped her tears away, and I ached to kiss her again. To give her assurances that weren’t true or realistic.
“Emily is a colleague, and nothing more,” I told her. “We were discussing a case. But you are right to be confused. I’ve been giving you mixed signals, and for that, I apologize.”
“I don’t understand,” she murmured. “Why are you with me? You act like you want me and then—”
“I do want you.” I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against hers. “I want you so fucking much sometimes it physically hurts. But it wouldn’t be right to take you. And the things I like… I can’t ask them of you. It was never my intention to consummate this marriage.”
She didn’t respond. I could feel the tension in her body, but I wanted to know what she was thinking. I wanted her thoughts, her feelings. It was a selfish desire, and one I couldn’t act on.
“What kind of things do you like?” she breathed.
“Things I couldn’t ask of you.” My grip on her deepened. “Things I wouldn’t ask of you.”
“Tell me,” she begged. “I just want to know.”
I sighed. “I can’t tell you, pet. It’s hard to explain. The only way I could think of… is to show you.”
A storm reeled in the gray landscape of her eyes as determination grew roots in her soul. “Then show me.”
“WHAT IS THIS PLACE?”
Lucian gave me a dark look from the driver’s seat. “It’s a member’s only adult club.”
I glanced back at the mammoth-sized house surrounded in by a large wrought-iron fence. It didn’t look like any adult club I’d ever heard of, but it wasn’t difficult to imagine what might be going on in there. There were a lot of kinky sex spots in Vegas.
“Is it a BDSM club?” I asked.
Lucian shook his head. “It’s an anything goes club. Fetishes, fantasies, role play… whatever two consulting members agree on. Sometimes, even more.”
“I see.” The lump in my throat wouldn’t go down when I swallowed.
“There are things inside that I can’t prepare you for,” Lucian cautioned. “If you choose to go in, you need to understand that nothing is off-limits. You might witness scenes that could be a problem for you.”
I didn’t falter in my decision as I looked straight ahead. “Okay.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
It was the fifth time he’d said it, and that was after we argued about it for an hour. He didn’t want me to do this. He wanted to protect me from his secrets, but I needed to know what his darkness was. I had to see it for myself.
“I want to,” I assured him.
He looked out the window, a strange intensity bleeding into his features. “If at any point you feel uncomfortable inside, I want you to tap on my arm. That’s all you have to do, pet, and we’ll leave. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
We got out of the car and walked to the door together. He entered a code on the key pad and let us in, where we were stopped at the entrance by two burly men. One nodded at Lucian but didn’t address him by name.
“She’s with me,” Lucian said.
Another nod, and then they held out a dish where Lucian put his keys and phone.
“Locker 7,” the first guy said before he turned to me.
“She left her phone in the car,” Lucian told them.
The guy on the left ran a wand down us to ensure we were clean of devices before waving us through.
The house was larger than I thought. The farther we ventured inside, the further it seemed to go on. The entire lower level didn’t open up to all the horrors that Lucian warned me about. It was simply a social environment where groups gathered to drink and smoke and laugh at bad jokes. From this viewpoint, it looked like any other bar. But I knew when Lucian led me to the stairs, it was about to get real.