Praise (Salacious Players Club #1)(22)

When I get back to the table, Garrett is watching me. “You look all up in your head,” he says. The others are talking about something on their side of the table, so he mutters quietly to me to keep things between us. “Everything okay?”

I rub my hand over my face. “Everything’s fine. Just stressed. We open in six weeks and that building didn’t look anywhere near done.” I glance sideways at Drake, to make sure he didn’t hear me, but he’s too busy telling some elaborate threesome story loud enough for the whole bar to hear.

Garrett slaps a hand on my shoulder. “Relax. It’s not as bad as you think. Once they pull the equipment out of there, it’ll look ten times better, you’ll see.”

I nod, trying to let his words of comfort seep in. “You’re right.”

His hand stays on my shoulder as he watches me take a sip of my drink. “Hey, we’re good, right? I didn’t mean to overstep today…”

Quickly shaking my head, I give him a reassuring expression. “Yeah, we’re good. She’s just my secretary. I was serious.”

Holding his hands up in surrender, he nods. “I believe you. I was just having a little fun. I didn’t mean to—”

“Garrett, it’s fine. She’s just…too young for all of this. I didn’t really want her getting involved.”

I know before the words are out of my mouth that it’s a hypocritical thing to say. We have plenty of twenty-one-year-old women working for us. Subs, Dommes, dancers, waitresses, performers, whatever. As long as they are of age then age doesn’t matter.

“You were about to tell me where you found her,” he says with a quizzical wrinkle in his brow.

A minute ago, I was about to tell him, but suddenly I’m not ready. Once I let it out that I’ve hired my son’s ex-girlfriend, things will get complicated. It’s almost like I don’t want them judging me for something I haven’t even done yet. Nothing sexual can occur between me and Charlotte. I hired her solely for the purpose of trying to get my son back—how, I’m still not quite sure, but it has to work. All that matters is I don’t cross that line.

“Another time,” I mutter over the rim of my glass.

“Hey,” Hunter says, holding up his drink, “can you guys believe we’re finally doing this? We need to toast.”

“We’re still six weeks away,” Maggie reminds him. “Don’t jinx it.”

“I’m not jinxing it. The sign is on the door, the opening event is scheduled. We’ve hired a staff and have a full membership. You guys…we’re opening a fucking sex club.”

“Cheers to that,” Garrett says, lifting his drink.

The rest of us echo him, clinking our glasses before throwing them back, and then we fall silent as the words settle in. We’re opening a fucking sex club.





RULE #11: DON’T COMPARE YOUR HOT BOSS TO YOUR DAD MOMENTS BEFORE TOUCHING HIS HEART LINE.





Charlie





“Oh my God,” I stammer, opening my email to find a picture of a woman suspended from the ceiling, naked and wrapped in black cord. She looks like she was caught in a fishing net, and although I can’t see her backside clearly, I’m willing to bet it’s in a prime location for…access.

Emerson furrows his brow as he glares at me.

“Everything all right?”

“These applications…”

A deep chuckle echoes from his corner of the room, and I look up at him in shock. “I mean, what even is this?”

He stands and walks over to see my computer screen. Resting his hands on the back of my chair, he leans over me and stares at the same image I am. “It’s called Shibari,” he says quietly, his deep voice rumbling through my body.

“Is that something you…hire people for?” I ask, gulping on a breath.

“It was Garrett’s idea to have a rope bondage presentation, so we need a few experts to demonstrate.”

“It looks like it hurts,” I grimace. It’s difficult to look at, and even more uncomfortable to be scrolling through the various pictures this woman has sent with Beau’s dad standing over my shoulder.

“You’d be surprised how many people want to be tied up and…”

I turn my face and gaze up into his eyes. When he looks back down at me, my skin grows hot.

“That’s a little more than tied up,” I reply in a low whisper.

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” he says.

I drag in a deep breath, inhaling the cedar musk scent of his cologne.

“Have you?” I ask carefully.

“Been tied up like that?” His tone is laced with humor as he leans back. I can no longer smell his cologne, and it’s disappointing. “No.”

“I meant…never mind.” This is getting uncomfortable. The notion I held two weeks ago about being able to be a sex club owner’s secretary without talking about sex is basically out the window. We keep cornering ourselves in conversations that inevitably end up inappropriate. It doesn’t help that I don’t know when to quit. “I ask too many questions.”

“Yes, you do.”

It also doesn’t help that over the past fourteen days, I’ve grown more and more attracted to Emerson. Maybe it’s curiosity or daddy issues or just a plain old crush, but the fact that he’s forty has become attractive instead of sickening. Most guys my age are a mess. Emerson is the epitome of perfection. Everything he owns is upper-echelon expensive and even his skin is clear and perfect. I find myself wanting to run my fingers through his short beard and scratch my nails through his salt-and-pepper hair.