Tearing Down Walls (Love Under Construction Series Book 2) (2 page)

“Hey, man, how’ve you been?” Vic said, grabbing Steve McCoy in a bro hug in the parking lot mid-afternoon. “Haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks. Guess that’s good news, huh?” he laughed.

“Hell yeah! Usually, if you see me around the Walters family, there’s some kind of shit going down. How ya doing, Cabrizzi?” Steve asked the huge Italian. Steve had always liked Vic; he was just so, well, Vic. Everyone liked Vic.

“Good enough. So, this is the place?” Vic looked at the building. He’d expected something in the five-thousand-square-feet variety, but it was huge. There was no signage; no one going by would know that the building was even in use unless cars were out front. The parking lot was pretty big for the size of the building, and a wide swath of the perimeter was covered in fresh-looking asphalt as though the parking lot had been enlarged.

“Yep. We don’t open until five tonight, so this was a good time for you to come by. Come on in.” Steve locked the door behind them after they stepped into the entryway.

Vic looked around at a small reception area; no big deal, a windowed office area with a computer system and a door next to it, all clean but unremarkable. Steve pointed at the office. “When we’re open, we keep this manned; most nights it’s José. He’s just scary-looking enough that nobody ever challenges him. Everyone has to go through here to get in the club. I thought about using a swipe card entry system, but decided against it. That just wouldn’t be secure enough. So everyone has to be buzzed in after we’ve looked up their photo identification on the computer system.”

Huh,
Vic thought.
Not secure enough? What’s he got in here?

“Come on in. I guess Tony wants to know about the condition of the building, right?” Steve asked.

“Exactly. I think if it needs some work, he’ll . . .”

“Nope. It’s in great shape. Come see. By the way, most of my security employees work here at some time or other during the week. And Peyton’s taken over the bar. He manages it, but somebody else works it when he’s on security detail.” Steve opened the door next to the office with a key, then led Vic down a hallway to a larger room. “Let me go hit the lights.” He stepped away, and Vic peered into the darkness of the room, trying to figure out what he was seeing.

The lights snapped on and, after a second for his vision to adjust, Vic looked around and his eyes went wide. He was standing, staring in disbelief, when Steve walked back out, clapped him on the back, and said, “Welcome to Eden’s Gate.”

“What the fu . . . you’re not serious . . .”

“Yep. Kink, my friend. BDSM. You know, the old slap and tickle,” Steve said, an evil grin spreading across his face.

“Oh my god, I haven’t been in a club like this in, well . . . a long time. Does Tony know . . .”

“I have no idea. Never thought to ask. It’s not like I keep it a secret or anything,” Steve said as Vic walked around the room, trying to take it all in.

On the wall behind the front reception area was a huge bar. Vic tried to count the taps, but in his state of total astonishment he kept losing track. It was beautiful too; it looked like it had been salvaged from an old pub, and the turned wood and big mirror gleamed. Multi-colored pendant lights hung over the bar itself and reflected off the marble top, and the barstools were leather-covered and very expensive-looking.

But it was the rest of the room that set up a clatter in Vic’s brain. There were several low stage areas, and they had various kinds of furnishings. One had a huge cross-looking apparatus – Vic recognized it as a St. Andrew’s cross – and another had a bench with shackles. Every performance space had a rack on the wall of various instruments like whips, canes, or paddles, all in a range of sizes and lengths. Theater lighting hung from the ceiling over each stage so they looked and felt like performance areas too.

“Well, whaddya think?” Steve asked, still grinning.

“I think I learn something new about you every time I’m around you,” Vic said, still trying to process everything. “This is nice. Elegant. You’ve done a good job.”

“I take it you’re familiar with the lifestyle?”

“Extremely.” Vic was still looking around, thinking about how much money and how many hours Steve had put into the place. No wonder he didn’t want to move the club.

“So you’ve got your classic performance area where our Doms and tops scene with their subs and bottoms. Plus we usually have a house Dom or top who hangs out, metes out whatever folks want. But we’re kind of low on those these days. And by the way, we don’t allow sex in the performance areas.”

Vic had never dreamed this was Steve’s thing, but somehow it didn’t surprise him. To Vic, Steve had always seemed just warped enough to try most anything, so it seemed they had more in common than Vic had ever thought. He pointed down another hallway in the back. “Private rooms?” he asked Steve.

“Ah, you’ll like this! Come on,” Steve said, motioning for Vic to follow. He pointed to a door on either side of the hallway. “Locker rooms,” he said, “complete with showers. We have AEDs in there and first aid stations too. And we’ve never had a deficiency with the health department.”

“That’s a good thing.” The locker rooms looked great, nicely tiled and very clean. “Inspected monthly?”

“Oh, hell yeah, of course. If you have a shower area, it had better be clean. Plus being a sex club, we’re under a different set of laws, and we’re required to divulge our sanitation procedures. And never a deficiency, never. We run a clean club.” Steve seemed very proud.

They stepped out from the end of the hallway into a large space with doors all around it. “The private rooms,” Steve said, then started unlocking the doors and opening them.

“Monitor windows?”

“Of course.” Almost as though he could read Vic’s thoughts, Steve said, “We don’t want anyone getting hurt. If someone’s being abusive, not honoring a sub’s safeword, being too aggressive, we put a stop to it. We practice SSC here – safe, sane, and consensual in everything.”

Vic looked through the first door. The room looked like a classroom, complete with globe and pull-down maps. But the big desk had eye bolts on each corner. The next door was a room that looked like what he thought a gynecologist’s office must look like, complete with a table with stirrups. There was one outfitted like an office with not only a huge desk, but also a big conference table; one that looked like a mechanic’s shop; and another that looked like the inside of a barn, straw everywhere. Vic was impressed. “Very nice. You’ve done a good job.” They were so realistic that Vic had to remind himself that they weren’t actually as they appeared.

There were several others, and the last one opened into a small room with stairs and a door at the bottom. “Ah, here’s the best of the best,” Steve said, unlocking the inner door. “The dungeon.”

Vic was beyond shocked; the room was almost mystical. It looked every bit like something out of medieval times. Every instrument of torture imaginable, and even beyond the imagination, was in that room. For some reason, Nikki’s image flitted across his mind.
Shit! I can’t be thinking like that! That’s fucked up!,
he told himself. “Wow. This is amazing. So, do you have lots of members?”

“Couple hundred, believe it or not. Some of them are people you know and know well,” Steve laughed. “And you’d never guess, not in a million years!”

“What’s your confidentiality policy?”

“We vet all of the members in confidentiality when they’re awarded membership, and we’ll revoke for a known breach. But remember, in order to tell someone you saw John Doe in here, you’d also be admitting that you were here. So it’s kind of self-policing, if you know what I mean,” Steve laughed.

Vic could see how that would work; being a member here was not something he’d want to have publicized. How was he going to tell Tony what Steve’s club was? He sure didn’t want Nikki to be around when he spilled that revelation. They were about as vanilla as anyone could imagine – well, Tony at least.

“So, what do you think about the building?”

“Looks like it’s in real good shape. I’d like to walk around the outside, look at the foundation, but everything seems good. I’ll tell Tony.” The initial shock had pretty much worn off as they climbed up the stairs from the dungeon and walked back up the hallway.

“So I’d like for you to come by sometime when we’re open, check the place out,” Steve said. “I think you’d like it. Let me tell you, some of our regular subs and bottoms would
love
for you to get your hands on them,” Steve said, smirking, and added, “literally. You’d have all you could handle, if you know what I mean.”

“Um . . .” Vic started.

“Hey, if it’s not a good fit for you, it’s not a good fit. No harm, no foul. I can’t imagine that you were ever involved in the lifestyle and gave it up. Besides, I could see a pretty sub shivering at the sight of you with a whip in your hand.”

Wow,
Vic thought,
you have no idea what a mistake that would be.

Who in the world could that be?,
Nikki thought. The sound of the engine was unfamiliar. It had a deep, earthy growl almost like a Harley. She opened the front door and shrieked.

“Oh, my god, Vic! It’s beautiful!” The Shelby Mustang GT500 convertible sat in the driveway right in front of the door, and Vic leaned against the front quarter panel, a smug, sexy grin on his face. As Nikki walked around it, the deep burgundy paint job turned to a bright, penny-like copper. “Oh, sweet lord, chameleon paint! When did you get this?”

“Right this second. I wanted you to be the first to see it.” Vic smiled wide and opened the driver’s door. “I know how much you love them. Wanna take her for a spin?”

“Hell yes! Are you sure?” Nikki asked him, breathless with excitement just from listening to the engine lope.

“Feel free.” He helped her into the driver’s seat and closed the door. “Take your time. Hey, where’s your man?”

Nikki was staring in wonder at the instrument cluster. “At this very moment, I don’t know and I don’t care; in the house somewhere, I think. I’ll be back in a bit,” she said, depressing the clutch and putting the car in gear.

“You do know how to drive a straight shift, right?”

“Yeah, Tony taught me. See ya in a few!” she waved, barking the tires as she shifted.

Vic stood in the driveway with his arms crossed and watched her leave. God, he loved her so much that it hurt. There was a sound behind him and he turned to find Tony coming through the door just in time to see the taillights disappearing down the long drive.

“Shit, man, don’t bring that thing back over here. She damn near had an orgasm right there in the driveway when she saw it!” Tony growled, watching Nikki gun the car and take off over the hill.

Vic tipped his head back and laughed. “Whoa, I would’ve loved to see that!”

“Yeah, I was in the back of the house and I could hear her squealing all the way back there. She doesn’t make
that
much noise in the bedroom,” Tony said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Well, okay, wait, that’s not entirely true,” he added, a wistful grin breaking across his face.

“Better watch out, cuz. You know I’m waiting in the wings. You don’t keep that little girl satisfied and I’ll swoop right in!” Vic laughed again.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to worry about that. I’m locked and loaded with my finger on the trigger, if you know what I mean!” Tony laughed, giving Vic a conspiratorial wink. “But I tell ya, now that I’m spending more time here with her, she’s just about to run my ass into the ground. She’ll appear out of nowhere and jump my bones. That woman is insatiable. Just one night I’d like to get a good night’s sleep.” Tony stopped for a few seconds, then added, “That’s a lie. I can sleep when I’m dead.”

“I hate to tell you this, but she promised me a blow job if I’d let her drive it,” Vic laughed harder this time.

“Oh, ‘zat so?” Tony chuckled. “I guess we’re just gonna have to have a little chat when she gets back! You’re early for dinner. By the way, what
are
you doing here this time of day? Don’t you have a job?”

“Once a slave driver, always a slave driver! Hey, you’re not my boss anymore! I’m the boss of me!”

“Damn. I’ve created a monster,” Tony said, slapping Vic on the shoulder. “Come on in and have a beer. Unless you’d rather wait until after your blow job,” he added.

“No, I think I’ll take it now. It’ll make the disappointment go down much easier when she backs out on me,” Vic chuckled, following Tony into the house. “Why don’t you decrease the chances of that and go back to whatever you were doing before you came out here?”

“Not gonna happen, buddy, not gonna happen. But a beer always makes the rejection go down easier,” Tony said, heading to the kitchen. “That’s why they serve it in bars.”

Vic pried the top off his Newcastle and they both sat down on the patio in the unusually-warm January sun – it had topped out at seventy-three degrees that afternoon. “Before I forget, I just wanted you to know that I got Molly settled in an apartment over close to the office until her house closes, and I think she’s going to do okay in the administrative assistant position. It’s interesting, though; your brother asking her for a divorce has completely changed her personality. She’s really nice. I know that’s hard to believe,” Vic said, taking a drag off his bottle.