“What do you think of the club?”
Her soft gray eyes widened and then narrowed. “It’s big and fancy. You can’t miss it as soon as you drive into the city.” There was a pause and her breath hitched. “You named it after me.”
I grinned at her. She was the key to everything that mattered in my world and in this city. Of course I named it after her.
“All the members got a lock or a key when they joined and paid their membership dues. The men all have a lock, one that is either open or one that is closed. If the lock is open, it means the gentleman is attached, married, has a partner, but is still up for anything and everything. The closed lock signifies that that particular man is off-limits and must engage with another member on his or her own terms.”
She lifted an eyebrow at me. “And the keys?”
I shrugged. “The women have the keys, to the locks and to the men’s hearts. Don’t they always?”
She moved a little closer and our knees brushed together, and I felt it in my balls. I sucked in a quick breath as the mere touch made my dick throb.
“So the women can just go around unlocking and locking men up all night long? They have no rules?”
“Women make all the rules when it comes to sex, Key. You should know this better than anyone.” I wanted to reach out and pull her off the edge of the desk so that she was sitting in my lap. “They have the key but they don’t have to use it, and if a member with a closed lock doesn’t want them to set them free, then that’s it. There is no pressure. There is no persuasion. It should all be mutual and it is all facilitated by men and women that want to be here. I’m paying a small fortune for the people that know this industry inside and out. I built a grown-up amusement park where nothing is off-limits. People love their kink. People love their sex.”
She blew out a breath and I wanted to lean forward and capture it with my own mouth.
“What about you? Do you love your sex and kink, Nassir?”
I smirked at her. “Sex is a part of life; it’s necessary and here in the Point it is currency. Kink I can give or take depending on the person on the other end of it. I’ve seen too much torture and degradation in my lifetime for the extreme and dark side of sex to be appealing.”
I saw the questions my quietly spoken words fired to life in her eyes, but instead of asking them, she was the one that decided to change the subject.
“Tell me about this business proposition you had in mind when you came to Denver. You want me to dress in latex and spank people? You want me to get on my back and spread my legs for a line of guys while people watch? What’s your game plan?”
I frowned at her and couldn’t stop myself from moving closer to her as she spit the harsh words out at me.
“You think I want to watch you have sex with other people, Key? You think it’s been fun for me to watch you burn your way through every available and not-so-available boy in the Point because you weren’t ready for me?” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Now, which one of us needs to have some accountability?”
She flushed pink and leaned closer to me. She might be scared of me and the way I wanted her, but she never backed down, and that made my desire for her burn in a way that would never be extinguished.
“What did you have in mind, Nassir?”
I reached out with the very tip of my finger and brushed it along the raised-up surface of her scar. She flinched away from me and I could still see her on the filthy floor of the strip club, her crimson life force covering my hands as her eyes fluttered closed. I refused to let her die just like I refused to let her leave. I was not a man to be denied the things he wanted most.
“I want you to buy in and be a partner just like Race did. You are what sex is about in the Point, Key. Your face. Your body. Your heart. Your attitude. The legacy you left. Everything about you is what men dream about in this place. I want you to lure them in, empty their pocketbooks, and then send them on their way with a smile.”
She reared back and then burst out laughing. She cackled so hard her eyes started to water. “You want me to be a mascot.”
I furrowed my eyebrows because I had no idea what she was talking about. She must have seen my confusion because she stopped laughing long enough to fill me in.
“Like a dancing chicken or a singing taco. Like the big stuffed furry critters that dance around for the crowd at halftime during a football game. You want me to be a mascot for a sex club.”
I was lost. “I don’t watch football.”
“Well, trust me; that’s exactly what you’re asking me to do, and I have to pass. I need more out of my life than flaunting my boobs and getting groped for a dollar.” She flicked that bloodred hair out of her eyes and stared me down.
I blinked at her slowly and lifted a hand to rub my thumb across my lower lip. I liked the way her eyes tracked the movement. She was as affected by me as I was by her; she just hid it better. She always had.
“The amount of money that this place has already generated without the doors being open is double what the Pit cleared in a month. Lock & Key is poised to be the unofficial bank of the Point, Key. Being a partial owner entitles you to a portion of all of the revenue the club is going to generate. It’s enough money to allow you to do whatever you want, buy anything you ever wanted, and all you have to do is be here. You make the place tick. You give it life.” Just like she gave life to me.
“It’s all dirty money, Nassir. What happens when the club gets shut down? What happens when someone burns this place to the ground like the last one? You want me to put all my eggs in one basket. A basket you are holding in your hands and can drop the second you feel like it.”