Love and Let Die (Masters and Mercenaries #5)(54)

“You’ve never been here before. How do you know?”

She looked over his shoulder. “I made a quick trip around the place when you dropped me off.”

Well, naturally she wouldn’t stay where he put her. Again, another point for the caveman. Still, he understood what she’d been doing. “How many ways out did you find?”

She would need to know. After so many years of having to survive, Charlie had an ingrained need to know every escape route and possible point of ingress. What Ian had learned from years in the military and CIA, Charlie had learned in childhood.

“Four, but I actually feel pretty safe here. It’s kind of like a fort, isn’t it? There’s the front door, though it’s guarded. Is that bulletproof glass in the doors?”

She had a good eye. “Yes. There are only a couple of windows, but they’re all tinted and bulletproof.” He didn’t need people off the street watching his clients and friends playing. Some of his clients included very high rollers. The CIA might have paid shit, but Sanctum made its money back in droves.

“There’s the back door with the fire escape. You keep that guarded, too. I could get out the window in the storage room,” Charlie said. “But I doubt many people could get in.”

That little tiny thing? “It’s secure, baby. I don’t know that you could get out even if you could get it open.”

“Trust me, I could wiggle out. I’ve gone through smaller places before.” She shivered a little.

“Well, I think our Russian assassins probably won’t try. They would get stuck and they wouldn’t like what I would do to any body part that happened to be inside my building.” It would be fun actually. Like that Winnie the Pooh story Sean had read to Carys, only way more bloody and with Pooh Bear screaming in agony.

“See, I always get scared when you get that look on your face.”

“I was just thinking happy thoughts. What’s the third weak spot?” He was curious. She had a damn better eye for weakness than anyone else he knew.

“The air ducts.”

He breathed a little sigh of relief. He wondered where she’d found a spot high enough to get up and check out the air ducts. “They’re my escape hatch. That’s why they’re so big. They’re locked, too. I had them custom fitted with gates and electronically protected. The guy who built it for me thought I was f*ck-all insane. I need to hire an engineer who won’t look at me like I’m crazy. I need a MacGyver, but I worry I would just get another Adam.”

Two of him was too much. Why were all the creative thinkers such smartasses?

“So I’ll say it again. We’re not going to the locker room.” This time when she said it, there was a husky, seductive quality to her voice.

It went straight to his dick. He nodded as he walked past the bouncer who took care of the privacy rooms.

“Number three is open, boss,” the bouncer said.

It was a busy night at Sanctum if he had to go to three. He’d seen Jesse sneaking back with a pretty brunette named Jana, who liked it rough. Ian wasn’t going to mention that to Charlie, though. She’d handled the fact that he’d screwed Amanda pretty well. He wasn’t going to give her a rundown of what every sub in the club liked and didn’t like. “How do you know I’m not tossing you out on your lovely backside?”

Her smile was sure as she glanced up at him. “Because I was a good girl and let you set me on fire. You owe me.”

He did and that was just another reason to let his dick loose. A night of orgasms was one of the ways he liked to balance the equation. The subs gave him what he needed and he gave them what they needed. Oddly enough, most of the time the sex was unsatisfactory for him, a mere biological process.

Maybe that’s the way it would be this time, too. Maybe his brain was making too much of the connection to Charlie. He’d been younger, less wise. Maybe it was just the first time he’d met someone he really sparked with. Charlie was different from anyone he’d ever met. Perhaps memory was playing tricks with him and he’d f*ck her and she would be just like the other women in his life.

Good luck with that, buddy. Because this is your dick talking and my memory is way longer than that piece of meat you call your brain. That is my * and I can’t wait to get back in it, so you keep right on thinking as long as you f*ck her.

Damn, even his dick had an inner monologue. That was Charlie’s fault, too. It was actually a little handy to have someone around he could just blame for everything. Usually he had to spread out the guilt, but Charlie was a one-stop blame shop. Who to blame for his solitary existence? Charlotte Dennis. Why was his left side aching a little? He’d hit a rock when he’d been forced to save Charlie. Why was the price of oil so high? No idea, but he was sure Charlie was somehow behind it.

The door to three was obligingly half open. He was pretty sure the bouncers left them the slightest bit open because most Doms entered with a sub in their arms, and kicking the door open was the most expedient way to get in.

The lights were on a dimmer switch. The whole room was a low amber. He tossed Charlie on the big bed and stared down at her. Her hair looked a fiery red in the low light, her skin a silky pearl. She let the robe fall open, giving him a spectacular view of her breasts.

“Ian, are you going to make love to me?”

Yes, this was why it was so much easier when she wasn’t talking. “Charlie, I thought we already discussed this. No, I am not going to make love to you because I don’t love you. I am willing to f*ck you because you did a good job out there.”