“It’s natural to be turned on by it. It’s the best fucking job in the world,” Lucien said, interpreting Dylan’s thoughts without difficulty. “It gets easier to detach in one way, but the day you stop wanting to strip off and fuck someone is the day to walk away. You need a healthy appreciation for sex to do this job justice.”

A healthy appreciation for sex was one way to put it. A burning desire to hunt Kara down and screw her hard against the wall in the next five minutes was another.

Lucien headed up the nearby staircase at a jog, a man at ease in his environment. Dylan followed, knowing that if what he’d seen downstairs was any kind of yardstick, then upstairs was going to blister his eyeballs.

“This is how it’ll be here, night in, night out. People come to drink and to fuck, simple as that. No drugs, no fighting, just fucking.”

“As someone who has managed some rough clubs over the years, that is music to my ears, man,” Dylan said, peering into one of the playrooms as they passed the open doorway. Seven or eight naked clubbers writhed on the oversized bed, a nest of nude bodies, their mouths feasting on each other. Painted lips sliding over rigid cocks. Tongues lapping between spread legs. Hips banging hips, mouths sucking nipples. It was a veritable sex carnival, the players utterly lost in the acts of giving and receiving pleasure.

“There’s an absolution and purity to fucking that strips people back to their primal core,” Lucien said, and his eyes moved from the playroom to Dylan. “Life is filled with double meanings and hidden secrets. There’s no hiding here.”

They moved along from room to room, scene after scene of sex, from vanilla through to deepest darkest kink, the kind of stuff Dylan had barely even considered let alone taken part in. And he was no prude. But Lucien’s words sat heavier on his mind than the scenes unfolding before him. No hiding.

Was he hiding? And what kind of a man did that make him?

“Lucien, I know I’ve given you no reason to trust me.”

Dylan watched the man he’d come to think of as a friend lift one shoulder, the other leaning on the doorframe of a room set out for people who liked a little pain along with their pleasure. Cages. Shackles. Whips. And suddenly Kara was foremost in his mind once again, her promise of being a very bad girl suddenly more real as he watched a blonde gasp with pleasure as a riding crop left red welts across her exposed ass.

“Trust is a strange thing. Sometimes we give it even though it hasn’t been earned, because something in our gut tells us to,” Lucien said, as the man swung the crop down on the woman’s cheeks again. “She’s putting her trust him, even though she probably doesn’t even know his name.” He went on, “And I’m trusting you with my club and my friend, even though I’m well aware that I don’t even know your name.”

Dylan nodded. That didn’t surprise him. Lucien was way too acute not to have looked into Dylan Day’s background. He’d have done the same himself in the other man’s shoes.

“And I don’t need to know it,” Lucien said, turning abruptly from the door and walking towards the stairs at the far end of the corridor. “But whatever trouble you’re in obviously has you running scared. I’ve been that man, Dylan. It’s tiring, isn’t it?”

Dylan leaned his back against the wall at the top of the quiet stairwell.

“Fucking exhausting.”

Lucien looked away for a few seconds and shook his head, then looked back again. “Can I help?”

Dylan huffed softly. “I appreciate that more than you’ll ever know, man, but no. No one can.” He pushed his hands through his hair. “And just so you know, my troubles are my own, and hand on heart, they will not and cannot follow me here. Your trust is not misplaced.”

He stood with his hand outspread on his chest, feeling his heart beating too fast for comfort. He wouldn’t lie, but the truth wouldn’t come out either. It had no place here, and Lucien’s opinion of him would inevitably change. Right now it meant a lot to count him as a friend.

They both turned at the sound of footsteps and found Kara coming up the staircase.

“Hey Sailor. I’m on break. Keep me company?”

Lucien placed his hand on Dylan’s shoulder for the briefest of seconds, then left him to Kara’s ministrations.

“What was that all about?” Kara asked, gazing after Lucien.

“Boy stuff.”

Kara arched her eyebrows with a grin. “Boy stuff, huh? Dylan and Lucien, sitting in a tree…”

Dylan dropped his hands to Kara’s waist. “The way you look in this outfit?” He ran his palms appreciatively over her velvet-clad hips and pulled her against him. “Not a chance.”

Kara wound her arms around his neck. “I’ve got ten minutes,” she murmured, kissing the golden hollow at the base of his neck and sliding her hand down over his crotch. “Take me somewhere private and find out what’s underneath this dress?”

Dylan didn’t need any further encouragement. He felt in his back pocket for his keys as he tugged her down the stairs. “In here.” He flicked through the keys to the right one and slid it into the lock, not easy with Kara already wrapped around him, sliding her hands inside his shirt.

In the darkness, he reached for her.

“Tell me this isn’t the broom cupboard,” she whispered, her nimble fingers already unbuckling his belt.

“It’s the broom cupboard.” Dylan rucked Kara’s dress up her thighs, running his hands over her stocking tops.

“You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”

“You betcha,” he muttered. “I wish I could see you. Stockings make me horny.”

Kara freed his cock into her waiting hands. “I can tell.”

“Fuck… English,” he groaned. “You’re pretty good at that.”

“I know.”

Dylan pulled Kara’s lace knickers to the side and backed her against the wall. It was her turn to groan. “You’re pretty good at that.”

“I know,” he said, exploring inside her. “I’ve been thinking about you all night.” He lifted her and pinned her against the wall with his body. “Thinking about fucking you.”

“So do me.”

“Do me?” Dylan reached into his back pocket for a condom and sheathed himself. “You sound like a teenager,” he murmured, thrusting his cock deep into her, making her cry out.

“It was your idea to screw in a cupboard,” she panted, dragging his mouth onto hers.

“It was a good idea,” he said, fucking her hard, loving the sounds she made and the way she wrapped her leg around his ass to clamp him close.

“The best,” she said, her voice trembling when he reached down and fingered her slick clitoris. She was going to come, he knew it and she knew it, and he put his hand over her mouth to muffle her yells. He held her up with the weight of his body, his hips pumping hard as he let go of his control.

“The best,” he repeated, lowering her slowly back down to her feet. He kissed her slowly, smoothing her dress back into place regretfully as she stroked his hair. “The best, English.”

Chapter Nineteen

“I’m bushed.” Kara fished around in her bag for the keys to the Mustang as she walked back to the car with Dylan at the end of the night.

He held out his hand. “Let me drive.”

She handed them over willingly and flopped into the passenger seat.

“Remember to drive on the right.”

“We drive on the right in the States,” he said. “It’s only you guys who do it the wrong way.”

“The right way,” she objected automatically, closing her eyes and enjoying the sensation of being taken care of.

Dylan threw his arm over the back of her seat and glanced over his shoulder as he reversed. “You have good taste in cars.”

“Mmm. I seem to have a thing for all things American at the moment.”

“You have a thing for me, English?” Delicious, sexy humour threaded its way through his drawl.

“Hmm,” Kara said. “You. Mustangs.” She yawned. “You.”