It didn’t take long for Dom to get over his bashfulness. He abandoned himself to that kiss like there was no one else in the room, pressing his body tight against Adam’s and making contented sounds in the back of his throat.
When Adam’s hands slid down Dom’s back until they cupped his ass, I honestly wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. A part of me certainly wanted to look away, but I couldn’t deny that another part-perhaps even a larger part-was wildly turned on by the sight. They were just so damn sexy, both of them. My inner slut would have loved to slip in between them right now, absorb the incredible sexual energy they exuded. I wanted to slide my hands over Dominic’s ass, just like Adam did, and feel Adam’s impressive erection digging into my belly. Or maybe even other places…
I shook my head to clear it, and the lust level lowered enough to let me tear my eyes away. However, my pulse still hammered in my throat, and I doubted I would ever get those images out of my brain.
I cleared my throat loudly. “Okay, boys, I got the point. Now could we just get on with it?”
They both laughed.
“I’d love to get on with it,” Adam said suggestively.
Like a fool, I let my gaze slide over to them again, only to see that Adam’s hand had moved. Now it wasn’t Dom’s ass he was stroking. Dom’s eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open, his head thrown back in pleasure. As far as I could tell, he’d forgotten I was in the room. Or he just didn’t care anymore.
I mustered my mental forces. “Look, the man I love may be getting tortured right this moment. Do you think you could forego the incredible pleasure of making me uncomfortable so we can rescue him?”
Adam sighed dramatically but let his hand fall away. Dominic opened his eyes and visibly swallowed a protest.
“All right,” Adam said. “You have a point.” He gave Dominic’s hand a quick squeeze, then stepped away to put on his shoulder holster. Unlike Dominic and me, he wasn’t wearing a costume. Since he was required to carry his sidearm at all times, he said he’d always found it easier just to dress like a normal person and wear a jacket to hide the weapon when he went to The Seven Deadlies.
I thanked God for small mercies. Adam was dangerously sexy in his street clothes. I’d hate to see what he’d look like in some kind of bad-boy costume.
Just before we ventured out of the room, Dominic handed me a cell phone.
“Here,” he said. “In case we get separated.”
“We won’t!” Adam said, and it was clearly an order.
“We won’t,” I agreed. But I took the cell phone anyway, sticking it into a convenient pocket at the top of one thigh-high boot, and Adam didn’t object.
We arrived at the club shortly after midnight. The nearest parking was two blocks away. I felt like everyone on the street was staring at me as we walked those endless two blocks. It was all in my mind, of course-I probably didn’t look all that outlandish in a South Street — after—midnight context.
I practiced taking slow, deep breaths, and reminded myself that Brian’s life might well depend on me keeping calm and collected.
From the outside, The Seven Deadlies didn’t look like anything special. The neon sign above its doorway was actually rather understated, and the facade was for the most part unadorned. I guess I’d expected the place to scream out its nature from miles away, though Adam and Dominic had reminded me repeatedly that it was both more and less than an S&M club.
At a ticket booth right inside the front door, Adam and Dominic showed their membership cards and claimed me as a guest. Adam generously paid my admission, and a relatively demure-looking young woman stamped the backs of our hands.
There was a good-sized crowd waiting to get into the depths of the club, and we had to wait in line to go through the doorway. I took the time to look around me and was surprised by what I saw. There were a number of other people dressed, shall we say, exotically, but there were also a large number of relatively normal-looking folks. The age varied from just barely legal to forties, maybe even fifties, with a high concentration of twenty- somethings. I’d estimate about half the crowd was drop-dead gorgeous, and I wondered how many of them were demons. I decided I didn’t want to know.
We had to pass between a pair of bouncers to enter the main room of the club. They hardly spared me a glance as I stepped by them, but they both moved to block Adam’s way.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to check your weapon,” one of them said.
I drifted a little farther away from the door, well out of Adam’s reach. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that if the staff confiscated Adam’s gun, he’d try to abort our mission. I wasn’t about to let that happen.
He reached for his back pocket, then flashed his badge. The bouncer didn’t budge. Adam rolled his eyes.
“You’ve never had a problem with it before,” he said. I think he was trying to sound calm and reasonable, but the distinct edge in his voice ruined the effect.
“We’ve had a policy change.”
“I’m required to carry my sidearm even when I’m off duty!” Adam said, his posture radiating menace.
The bouncer didn’t look intimidated. I wondered if that made him brave, or brain-dead. “Then I suggest you find a club that will let you keep it. This isn’t the place.”
The crowd behind Adam was getting irritated with him, but he ignored them. “Let me speak to Shae.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to either check your gun or step aside.”
Adam looked like he was one step short of killing someone. He tried to glare me into coming back through the doorway, but I didn’t think he was surprised it didn’t work.
With a snarl, he ejected the clip from his gun and shoved it at the poor flunky. The flunky gave him a ticket and a dirty look in return.
I think he seriously considered grabbing me and dragging me out kicking and screaming. I also think he realized it wouldn’t work. It would be kind of awkward and unconvincing to pretend he was arresting me when he’d escorted me in, and he didn’t seem inclined to make a scene.
He shook a finger in my face. “You stick to me like glue, understand?”
“Sure.”
He glowered at me a little more; then Dominic put a hand on his shoulder and the tension eased out of him.
“Let’s go get a drink, shall we?” Dominic suggested.
I wanted to get on with it immediately, but Adam said we needed to blend in with the crowd.
When we pushed through the door to the main body of the club, I had to stop for a moment to adjust to the assault on my senses.
I’d heard the dull thump of music before we stepped in, but that hadn’t prepared me for this wall of noise. I’d done plenty of club-hopping in my early twenties, but not so much lately. I’d forgotten how deafening these places could be. Worse, the so-called music had a heavy techno beat with a droning, repetitive melody and no vocals.
The place was dark as a pit, with multicolored strobe lights providing intermittent illumination. People packed a minuscule dance floor, bodies jerking to the rhythm of the music. The floor was so crowded, it was hard to tell who was dancing with whom, and bodies rubbed together with careless abandon. A sign over the dance floor said Purgatory, which I thought an apt description.
The second floor of the club featured a balcony that circled the dance floor. The balcony was crowded with people, some leaning against the railing to watch the action below, some waiting in front of a series of closed, numbered doors like you’d find in a hotel. A sign over the stairway leading up to the balcony declared Heaven.
The strangest thing of all was the pair of tables set up one on each side of the entrance. One table held headbands with cheesy devil horns on them, and the other held headbands with cheesy angel halos. Many of the milling crowd wore one or the other.