Knight and Day

Chapter Seventeen

The staff had all been on site since just after five, and Kara’s entire body vibrated with first night nerves. This was by no means her first opening night, but that knowledge did nothing to slow the flood of adrenalin through her veins. She lived for nights like this - the thrills, the anticipation, the risk.

Not that there was much risk, really. Lucien and Dylan had made sure of that where the club was concerned, and she and Sophie were one hundred percent ready for curtain up in the boutique.

She looked slowly around, a careful three hundred and sixty degree spin. Every shelf stocked, every cabinet artfully lit, every mannequin unsuitably dressed. It looked beautiful; an elegant boudoir, a sexy prelude to the main event.

Over the past few years she’d become accustomed to the adult club scene, grown to love it even. She’d never been inside one as a paying customer. She wasn’t sure she would have ever been brave enough, yet the idea of working here alongside Dylan over the summer made her body thrum with lust. Not that they could or would take part in the front of house action, but every time she looked at the bar she could only think of being bent over it by Dylan.

Launch night. The calm before the storm. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. This was no mean feat, given that Sophie had laced her aubergine velvet corset dress with some gusto an hour or so back. They both wore the same outfits, a suggestive uniform that set the tone perfectly, both sophisticated and sexy as sin. The three freshly trained boutique staff were similarly attired and almost as excited as she was. She glanced up as Lucien appeared in the doorway.

“Got five minutes?” he asked. Even Kara had to admit he looked lethal, dressed in black from head to toe, the perfect canvas to set off his bronzed Viking looks. “Looking good, Mr. K,” she grinned, following him towards the bar. And then she saw Dylan, and acknowledged that good as Lucien looked, he didn’t have the same flip-flop effect on her heart as the beautiful American currently popping the cork on a bottle of vintage champagne.

Sophie was perched on a high stool at the bar, laughing at something Dylan had said. Lucien crossed to stand behind her, his fingers idly toying with the laces down the back of her corset.

“If you keep that up, the boutique customers will get more than they bargained for,” she said dryly, wriggling her shoulders to stop him from inadvertently loosening her bodice.

“You can keep it on for now. But I get to take it off later,” he murmured, for Sophie’s ears only.

“Are we celebrating already?” Kara asked, accepting the glass that Dylan held out to her. His fingers brushed warm against hers. She noticed how his eyes were drawn to her mouth and lingered for a beat longer than could be considered polite, and knew that whatever was going on inside his head that very second would be deliciously filthy. A month spent in his bed had taught her that he was a man who loved sex voraciously, and when it came to him the feelings were mutual. She couldn’t get enough. They screwed, and she just wanted him all over again, only harder. Rinse and repeat. He had a way of making her feel alive and beautiful, as if her every curve was his idea of perfection. He went straight to her head, and she found that she just wanted more, more, more.

“Okay. Doors open in fifteen, and we all need to be outside to meet and greet. The press are out in force from what I can see out there, so be ready to turn on the charm and smile for the cameras,” Lucien said, his eyes on the screen of the outdoor surveillance monitor tucked away in the corner of the bar. No one noticed the frown that puckered Dylan’s brow as he followed Lucien’s gaze, sipping his champagne automatically.

“A toast,” Lucien said turning back to them once they all had a glass in their hand. “To Gateway Ibiza, and all who screw in her.”

Kara raised her glass to the others with a smile. She’d heard the toast several times, but it still amused her.

“To all who screw in her,” she murmured, her eyes touching Dylan’s again, knowing that he was thinking exactly the same as she was. And to all those who’ve already screwed in her.

Or was he? He looked more unsettled than he had a few moments ago, less relaxed. His laid-back Californian feathers definitely seemed ruffled to her eye, practised as it was at looking at him good and hard.

“So what’s your plan tonight?” Kara asked him as Sophie and Lucien wandered away towards the office, his arm protectively around her waist. She leaned over the bar to afford Dylan a clear view down her Jessica Rabbit-style cleavage. “Because I can offer you a really special discount if you come by the boutique. What’s your poison, Sailor?” she murmured, touching the folded back sleeve of his slate grey shirt. “Cuffs?” She circled her fingers firmly around his wrist, feeling the beat of his pulse beneath her thumb pad when she pressed down. “Nipple clamps?” She shimmied her shoulders to jiggle her breasts, gratified by the way his expression softened from tense to turned on. Whatever was on his mind, it was a thrill to know that she could make him forget about it. “Or maybe you’d like something a little kinkier…” she murmured, fucking him with her eyes. “Maybe you’d like to bend me over your knee and spank me with one of our leather riding crops. Because Dylan…” she whispered, pausing to lick her lips. “When this place closes tonight, I plan on being a very, very bad girl.”

Outside ten minutes later, and the place was alive with queuing customers and the flash of cameras hungry for a shot of Lucien Knight, patron saint of the world of erotic clubs. They’d gone to great pains to create Hollywood red carpet-style glamour for the opening night, although the carpet was deep purple rather than scarlet. It was soon obscured by VIP guests milling around and posing for the cameras before entering the club, all keen to be portrayed as risque to enhance their images. Lucien and Sophie stood to the side giving interviews to the press, and he turned to beckon Dylan and Kara across for a photograph of the management team.

Kara nodded across the hordes in acknowledgement and placed her hand on Dylan’s arm. “We’re needed,” she murmured, leaning close so as not to interrupt the conversation he was holding with a group of excited first night attendees. The scent of him filled her head, making her want to lick his neck. He turned to her with a smile, which slid from his face as his gaze moved to Lucien and Sophie and the waiting press photographer.

He excused himself from the conversation, his mind racing. He badly didn’t want to let Lucien down tonight, this was the acid test. Equally, he didn’t want his image splashed across tomorrow morning’s local papers, or more worryingly, over the pages of entertainment industry magazines. The slim chance that someone back home would see the picture was enough to bathe his body in clammy foreboding. He followed Kara slowly because there was no other choice that he could see.

A few weeks here and already this place and these people felt dangerously like home. He didn’t want it entangling with his former life. Fuck.

He met Lucien’s eyes as he drew close, and saw the question in them. Was it written all over his face how much he didn’t want to be photographed?

“So much charisma in one photograph,” Kara said, linking her arm through Sophie’s, her eyes on Dylan and Lucien. “Hope they don’t break the camera lens.”

Lucien reached into his pocket for his phone, flicked the screen on for a second and frowned.

“Sorry guys, minor emergency,” he murmured to the photographers. “Dylan, the DJ’s having some last minute hitches with the energy supply. Would you go and see what’s going on? We open in five.” Lucien moved between Sophie and Kara, an arm around each of their waists. “A thorn between two roses,” he smiled graciously for their benefit, jerking his head imperceptibly at Dylan to disappear.

Moving away into the safety of the crowd, Dylan was well aware that the DJ would not be waiting for his help. He let his breath out on a long, slow huff. That had been close. Too close, and he now owed Lucien his thanks and some kind of explanation. He’d already been more economical with the truth than sat easily with his conscience. He really didn’t want to lie to these people, but there was no way he was dragging them into his mess.