A Perfect Storm (23 page)

He couldn’t bear her guilelessness without cracking. “You know nothing,” he uttered and began walking away.

“You just made my point for me,” she called out, her tone still low but loud enough for the sentiment to ring in Lucien’s ears. “And I never will know if you aren’t willing to trust me and tell me.”

The words sank into Lucien’s blood, but he didn’t slow his stride. He couldn’t. He had to get to a place of privacy and get his shit together before Sophie came to find him again. Without a doubt, he knew she would.

When she did, Lucien had to be prepared to break his own rules and take her to a place of debauchery she would never be able to wash off her or adequately explain.

Chapter Eleven

Later that night, Sophie read an e-mail from Miranda.
Your brother isn’t satisfied with your e-mails. He remembered your mentioning me, managed to get someone at the station to disclose my cell number, and called to speak to me in person. I told him you are fine and that I talked to you in person as well as in e-mails, explained to him why you were at Raven Island and what you were working on, but he just swore up a storm in my ear and then hung up on me. Good luck with that. I’m sure he’ll find a way to get in touch with you soon.

What the heck, Royce
? Sophie shot the computer screen the stink eye she would happily send her brother’s way if he stood in front of her right now.
Harassing my coworkers is unacceptable
. She could imagine how unprofessional it would have looked for her if Royce had spoken to anyone except Miranda; Sophie was mortified. At least she could take comfort in the call going to Miranda rather than her boss or any of her other superiors. Miranda would keep Royce’s violation of Sophie’s workplace to herself. Her brother could be such an overprotective jackass sometimes.

Rather than using one of Ravenstoke’s landlines to call Royce, and thus make him believe the boundaries he’d crossed were okay because in the end he got what he wanted out of it, Sophie sent him another e-mail. After assuring him
one more time
that she was okay, she typed out a few choice words in capital letters, with a handful of exclamation points on top of that, so he would understand just how pissed she was at him.

With that done, she turned back to her research. This time on Lucien Cabot. Armed with more information now, Sophie sent an IM to a colleague who worked the political scene in DC. After that she channeled her search to that area. Jade had mentioned working in a nightclub in DC and having met Cale and Emma there. Pair that with the information Lucien had inadvertently shared with her that day in the study when he’d thought Magnus was at the door—about a woman named Joan he’d wanted to help out with the assistance of a man named Titus—and Sophie could now make a pretty good educated guess that Lucien owned a club in DC. Or at least he had once upon a time. It was too much of a coincidence to believe Jade, Cale, and Emma could have such equal loyalty to Lucien if each of them had not worked for him individually for a very long time.

Rather than using a search with Lucien’s name, she tried entering “Joan” along with “nightclub” and “DC.” Instantly basic information for a club called the Lion’s Den appeared, showing one Joan Dekker as the proprietor. The club had a Web site that offered the most basic of information: hours of operation, some of the pricey booze they had available, and photos of happy, beautiful people dancing the night away in a lovely modern establishment.

Beyond that, Sophie found a gossip column that referred to the club as an always evolving, trendy place for the young up-and-comers in DC politics to hang out. After a few more similar small mentions in local newspapers and magazines, Sophie tracked far enough back to find an article featuring Joan herself, as a fresh young owner taking charge of the Lion’s Den. The article mentioned she’d bought majority percentage from a holding company that kept the previous ownership anonymous.
Lucien
. Sophie located the date of the article, and sure enough, Joan had taken the club under her wing two years ago, just before Lucien, anonymously again, had purchased Raven Island.

As Sophie leaned back in her chair to absorb the information, she whispered, “It has to be you.”
I now know something more about you, Lucien
. Of course, uncovering this only roused Sophie’s curiosity more. Why own the club anonymously? And heck, no matter how successful that one club had been—and still was—in a town full of lobbyists with money to burn, it couldn’t bring in enough money on its own to allow Lucien to purchase an island.

Leaning forward in her seat, Sophie did a search on the holding company mentioned in the article. After sifting through a mess of useless junk, she found clubs in Albany, Miami, and Atlanta, as well as seven other smaller cities—nightclubs with names like the Spider’s Web and the Cheetah’s Run and the funky-sounding the Lizard’s Lair—all owned by this same holding company. All had transferred controlling ownership to other individuals right around the time Joan had taken control of the Lion’s Den.

Right then, an IM popped up from Sophie’s friend Clarisse in DC.

Clarisse: Hi. Haven’t heard from you in ages. A Joan Dekker owns a club in DC. What do you want to know about her and the Lion’s Den?

Sophie: Anything I can’t find on the Internet.

Clarisse: Not much there. They run a tight ship. Rumor is they pay their employees shitloads of money for guarantees of silence. It’s in the contracts.

Sophie: Do those rumors go back to the previous ownership too?

Clarisse: Oh yeah. Rumor is a continuation of the code of silence was part of why Joan became the owner. I’ve met her. She does a good job. Poker face better than most professionals in the sport.

Sophie: Any other rumors? Ones that go back to before Joan?

Clarisse: Why do you want to know?

Sophie: Can’t say. If you don’t want to share without quid pro quo, I understand.

Clarisse: Nobody has ever been able to get inside to prove it, or to get someone to talk on the record, but some think the nightclub isn’t where the Lion’s Den makes its real money.

Sophie’s chest squeezed. Drugs? Her body instantly recoiled at the mere thought. No way would Lucien traffic in drugs. She knew that for a certainty and wouldn’t believe he did, even if those were the rumors circulating around town. Taking a breath, she typed her next question anyway. She had to know.

Sophie: Where do those people think the money is coming from?

Clarisse: A sex club specializing in BDSM on the upper levels of the building. That’s the real business, not the nightclub. Or so some people whisper.

Sophie slumped back into her seat. Of course. It made perfect sense. No wonder Emma, Jade, Cale, and, heck, even Magnus were all so comfortable with each other and in front of Lucien sexually. They hadn’t tended bar or served drinks for him in their former lives; they’d been a part of his secret side business.

Clarisse: Sophie? Are you still there?

Sophie: Yes. Sorry. I have to go, though. I owe you one down the line.

Clarisse: Damn right you do. Bye!

After signing off with Clarisse, Sophie shut down her computer. Unable to ignore the tug inside her, she got up and walked to the window, hoping to find Lucien across the way in his room. Just a few days ago, she might have had a tough time reconciling the grief-stricken man she’d spent time with earlier today with a business tycoon who’d once owned ten nightclubs that were fronts for sex clubs. Sophie didn’t need confirmation on the Lion’s Den to believe the rumors, or to then extrapolate that Lucien had run secret sex clubs out of every one of the other clubs he’d created and once owned.

Being at Ravenstoke had opened Sophie’s mind and heart to the complexities that could exist in humans, changing it from a philosophy she’d believed in theory to openly accepting such a truth in reality. Nothing in Sophie’s life had ever challenged her to be more open and less judgmental about the choices of others than her time at Ravenstoke. Lucien Cabot sat as the catalyst challenging not only her beliefs but also what she wanted, what she desired, for herself.
Him. His desires inflicted on me. Whatever they may be
. Sophie shuddered as she came to fully accept—finally—that truth.

Lucien was not in his room, though. Or, if he was, he was in a place that did not allow her to see him.
Like in bed
. Sophie groaned, and her body naturally heated as she imagined him lying naked in bed, all tangled in his sheets, while fast asleep. She craved catching a longer glimpse of him in such a state, unaware, and thus not plugged into that disinterested charm he wore as a second skin.
I could go to him. I could slip into his room, crawl into bed with him, and wake him up in a most explicit way
. No, that was creepy, even for a place with its own set of mores like Ravenstoke had. She would not want anyone to invade her room without permission, and she would never do it to another person. Even a person like Lucien whom she found fascinating and wanted with a burning fire she wasn’t sure would ever be quenched.

A band of light crossed the darkness in Lucien’s room just then, and a moment later, Lucien entered her line of sight. Standing in profile next to a dresser, he removed his watch first and then his belt, leaving both on top of the piece of furniture. He then toed off his shoes while pulling off his shirt, and Sophie swore she could hear his moan of relief as he stretched. As she stood there, staring, unable to tear her gaze away, it hit Sophie that peeping on Lucien like this was no less wrong than sneaking into his room. It was one thing to be a voyeur to people who knew they were being watched; it was quite another to spy on someone who was unaware.

As if he could sense her eyes on him, Lucien glanced up and suddenly went still. Through two panes of glass and the narrow distance of the courtyard, he caught her gaze and trapped it in the unbridled, somehow unholy, amber glow of his. A tremor rocked through Sophie, and a voice inside her head said to run like hell and not to stop when she hit the rocky shores of Raven Island’s beach. It said to swim that tumultuous span of water, still riddled with debris from the storm, and not to stop paddling until she reached the safety of the mainland once more. Sophie heard all that noise in her head, yet Lucien held her to him with a more powerful invisible rope, just with the depth of his stare. He did not pull his curtains, and he did not back away into hiding. In fact, while watching her, he unsnapped the button on his jeans. The second he began to tug the zipper down, Sophie turned and started running. She ripped out of her room and tore down the hall, not toward the exit, but straight to Lucien’s bedroom.

Sophie knew right where Lucien’s door would be, and even if she hadn’t been able to figure it out, by the time she got there, Lucien had the door partially open, and he stood just inside. Up close, he emanated even more waves of volatility and danger, and his stare held darkness and something that conveyed a soul on the razor’s edge of control.
Oh my
. Sophie’s heart beat up into her throat.

Once again, a shout inside Sophie’s mind told her to leave this man. Rather than step away, though, she put one foot over the threshold into his room and cupped her hand against the rough stubble covering his striking jaw. He flinched, but she kept touching him and said, “It just occurred to me that for everything we’ve done, you’ve never kissed me.” She let her fingertips dance over his lips and lost herself in the desire to change those hard lines to something lush with lust.
For her
. “I want you so much,” she confessed, “and I think it’s past time we remedy that oversight.”

Sophie didn’t even get a chance to lean in to meet Lucien halfway. Lucien groaned, grabbed her around the waist, and claimed her with a breath-stealing kiss. He clutched her hard enough to leave bruises and dragged her into his room while devouring her mouth. Firework after firework exploded in Sophie, sparking bursts of heat in her belly that quickly pooled wet heat between her thighs. Every pant of humid air Lucien breathed into her mouth and every slide of his tongue across hers licked fiery lines of pleasure across Sophie’s skin as if he’d kissed every inch of her body. With a little mewling noise she didn’t recognize, Sophie curled her arms around Lucien’s neck and writhed against his front, overcome with the need to fuse her flesh to his.

Biting Sophie’s lip first and then her cheek, Lucien groaned as he brushed his lips against her temple and then darted a little lick against the sensitive skin there. Exhaling unsteadily, he skimmed his hand down the front of her body, grazing her breasts along the way—the lightweight shirt she wore no barrier at all—and drew a tremble from her.

His voice beguiling, Lucien said, “I want inside your sweet little body before we end this night.” Lucien took her hand, shoved it against his crotch, and forced her to rub the thick ridge of his cock still hidden in his jeans, making her feel his arousal. “But I want to watch you scream and lose yourself as you learn to accept a new level of pleasure first.” As he shared, his erection twitched and pushed harder against Sophie’s hand. “I want to watch my people restrain you and touch you so intimately you can’t help but come.” As he looked at her without blinking, his topaz gaze burned with rich gold in the soft light glowing in the room. “Tell me you want the same.”

A shiver immediately rolled through Sophie, and her heartbeat kicked up into triple time. She’d liked hugging the sidelines and watching the others at Ravenstoke enjoy sexual pleasure together, and she’d reveled in Lucien plying orgasm after orgasm out of her in front of those people. Becoming a full-fledged participant in group play changed the game, though, in a big way. A huge way.
Letting other people touch me; people I like but don’t have romantic feelings for…
Sophie shivered again. She wasn’t sure she could take that step. Not even to have Lucien. It might be too much too fast.