The Secret (The Evolution of Sin 2)

Chapter Six.

I hadn’t been to a club since the incident in Mexico, and at first, I had been nervous, especially when we entered Sinner’s nightclub and Cage was practically assaulted by a group of women. Most of them didn’t know he was a rock star but it didn’t really matter, the French singer exuded sex and impossible magnetism. I tried to side step away, to give him space to entertain the scantily clad women, but his hand had reached through the gaggle to snare me and tuck me against his side.

“Ladies,” he rumbled in his low, accented voice. “I owe this gorgeous cherie a drink so please, excuse us.”

“So smooth.” I laughed as he turned us towards the bar.

He shrugged and squeezed my waist. “You know how it is to be beautiful.”

I didn’t argue with him. As soon as we had left the restaurant, I decided to let Cage take the lead. A night in the life of a rock star had to be a thrilling experience and I wanted to remember what I had felt like with Sinclair in Mexico, throbbing like a strobe light with sexuality.

“Four shots of tequila,” Cage ordered, cutting to the front of the crowded bar without fuss.

When I raised my brows at him, he lifted my hand and quickly licked my skin before shaking salt onto it. “For Mexico.”

I sucked in a shaky breath, tucked a lime into one hand and the shot in my other. “For Mexico.”

That had been four hours ago, I thought, or at least three. But I had lost all sense of time in the black space, punctuated only with flashing colours catching on glistening bare skin. My dress was damp with sweat, mine and those I had danced with, both men and women who had felt my body intimately as if being on a dance floor gave them the right.

My current partner, a handsome all-American kind of guy in the last pieces of the suit he had probably worn to his job on Wall Street, ran his hand up my knee to my thigh and hitched it over his leg to bring our pelvises closer. I closed my eyes and focused on the pulse of the bass rich song and the swirl of alcohol tingling in my blood.

Cage was beside me, somehow dancing equally with three girls at the same time, his dark brow glittering with a crown of sweat that made him appear sexier, less civilized and more heathen. He was keeping his eye on me but it didn’t feel obtrusive. He was my fun keeper, assuring that every moment I spent with him was filled to the brim with it.

My partner, Tim or Jim, pressed his nose into the damp hair above my ear and whispered, “You are so fucking sexy.”

I pulled back, pressing one hand to his damp chest and smiled coyly as I bent at the knees, dragging my hand from his sternum to his hip as I descended. His groan vibrated against my hand.

He wanted me. The shape of his arousal through his slacks was obvious and the heat in his eyes was blatant, almost pleading. I wondered hazily, if it wouldn’t be a good idea to go home with him. I’d never had a one night stand and Sinclair had awakened a neediness within me that I couldn’t quench alone, in the dark of my room with my fingers.

I was just opening my mouth, my lips grazing his dimpled chin, when he was jerked away. I lost my balance as I had been flush against him and it took me a second to right myself and see what was unfolding. A man I had never seen before – massive and currently scowling – drew back one corded arm to pound it into Tim/Jim’s nose. Blood erupted immediately and made it almost impossible to discern his curses as he crumpled in on himself.

I watched in a daze and reached behind me to find Cage. His hand snagged on mine and threaded our fingers. Still distracted by the fight – it couldn’t have been because of me, I didn’t even know the guys – it took me a moment to recognize that the hand in mine was too lean to be Cage’s, the fingers long and strong. My breath caught in my throat and slowly because I feared that he would fade away like an apparition as soon as I laid eyes on him, I looked over my shoulder.

Before I could turn fully, he was off, dragging me through the gathered bodies without issue. We passed close to Cage who was looking at me intently, the end of his braid in one hand brushing the tail against his lips.

Sinclair didn’t break pace until we were off the main dance floor and climbing the steps to the open second level. The atmosphere was slower than the strobe light thrum of sexuality downstairs. Here, it was thick with sensuality. People spoke in low velvety voices, close together in semi private booths obscured by glossy black curtains. A few people mingled on the dance floor, touching each other in slow motion with a deliberateness that spiked blood pressure.

I barely had time to observe the VIP lounge though because Sinclair powered across the floor without speaking to any of the people who tried to stop him. Finally, we came to a stop at the far side of the second floor after shimmying through a small door in the bar. Without a word, he swiped a card and pushed me gently into the room. I whirled around to yell at him but the door had already closed and I could hear him speaking to someone on the other side. I tried to yank open the door but someone on the other side was holding it closed.

Furious, I spun back around to face my temporary prison. It was a medium sized office, the front wall made entirely of glass in order to overlook the main dance floor bellow. The floor thrummed slightly with the force of the music and the dark room flashed with colored lights. Suddenly cold, I rubbed my hands hard up and down my arms and decided to snoop a little. If Sinclair was going to shove me into a room like a freaking Neanderthal then I was going to take advantage of it.

The large matte black desk was L-shaped, facing both the door and the windows, and it was clear of paraphernalia. Frustrated, I moved around to sit in the high backed red leather chair in order to open a few doors. I was just about to close the first one when I noticed the white edge of a Polaroid photograph sticking out from between two black folders. My heart picked up speed as I carefully pulled it free and looked at a picture of me. In it, I lay on my back with my red hair a swirling mass around a sleepy, satiated face. My lids were low over slightly smiling eyes and one hand rested against the creamy top of my breast. I barely remembered him taking the photo, sometime after the move from the balcony to the bedroom on our last night together. I couldn’t believe he had kept it but somewhere beneath my shock, a sense of powerful calm was rising.

I didn’t look up when the door opened and closed. Instead, I crossed my legs, aware how high the hem of my dress rose over my thighs, and continued to look down at the picture.

“Pretty risky, having something like this laying around.” I was grateful that the tremor in my heart wasn’t echoed in my words.

“As I recall, it wasn’t exactly ‘laying around’.”

I leaned back in the chair, steeling myself to look up at him. “Why do you still have this, Daniel?”

He stood halfway between the door and the desk as if he was unsure about approaching. I had never seen him unsure about anything and I wondered, hopefully, if I was making him nervous.

I sighed when he remained silent. “Fine. How about you tell me how you knew I was here? Or, better yet, what happened downstairs.”

Amusement tipped the corner of his firm lips. “Don’t feel like it.”

“Excuse me?”