Coincidentally, we had a room with that exact label on it

  The thought of taking Beck there made my mouth go dry. Amidst all the equipment and restraints, I’d be vulnerable, and more than that, complicit in Maslow’s scheme. Considering that scheme was arguably the only reason I was on Earth, and my boss had made no secret of his ability to discern when I was keeping things from him, it seemed I had reached the end of my resistance.

  I needed to eat. To get my strength back. To resume my place under the spotlight and in the air. To keep myself from fading.

  It wasn’t just want or hunger anymore; it was survival. The cruel mechanics of my existence demanded it. I needed sex to keep performing, to keep seducing, to keep pretending I liked this.

  I wasn’t sure what moved me first—resignation or despair—but I offered Beck a small nod.

  “This way.”

  Edging around him, I made my way through the crowd. Every step was a brush past sequins and sweat-slick skin, and the throb of music trailed behind me like a second pulse. Beck fell into step, silent and watchful, and I wished he would put his arm around me. It would have been a welcome touch, the kind I so rarely got.

  Colette’s voice chased us as we passed the bar. “I’ll wait here, then,” she said, a hint of amusement stitched into her tone.

  We passed out of the main area into an adjacent hall. The noise of the club was swallowed by the hush of the corridor as we shuffled along. The air back here was cooler, but my skin felt too warm, too exposed. My palms were clammy as I curled my fingers into them and fixed my eyes on the path ahead.

  Beck walked beside me, silent until he began in a gruff whisper, “Zephyr?”

  “Just a little farther,” I said, pretending like it didn’t make my insides twist when he said my name. The name his associate claimed she’d heard many times recently.

  From him? What had he been saying about me?

  “I should’ve been clearer from the start,” Beck continued despite my dismissal. “And behaved more… professionally. There’s no excuse, really. I know how this works. I’m a businessman. So are you.”

  My eyes angled over, rife with skepticism.

  “Anything’s a business if you get paid for it,” he explained.

  “I haven’t been getting paid.”

  He heaved a sigh. “I know.” When he thumbed open his suit coat, I nearly squirmed out of my skin.

  Drawing to a halt, I spun toward him and pressed my palm over where his had dipped inside his jacket. “I don’t want your money.” I expelled a heavy breath of my own before admitting, “My boss does.”

  Beck blinked but failed to appear surprised. “That’s his prerogative.”

  I hummed a low note.

  “And you deserve to be paid. Your…” He paused to take in the scope of me. “You have worth.”

  The words resonated as something Maslow would never say. Something I hadn’t even thought of myself.

  You have worth.

  My hand fell away from Beck’s chest, and I swallowed, trying to regain my grip on the plan. My intention to appease Maslow. To behave professionally. Because I was a businessman. On that note, maybe I should have taken Beck’s money.

  But I would start with getting him into the room.

  “The, uh… private area…” I took a leading step onward. “We’re almost there.”

  I started moving again, trusting him to follow. Considering this was the third instance of me leading him through the club, I felt increasingly like the predator Maslow claimed I was. Setting a line and then reeling it in. Catching my prey.

  It came as a relief that Beck couldn’t see the battle being waged on my face. Inner turmoil shaped itself in a tight frown and furrowed brow.

  At the end of the passage, the “Private Area” waited as a dead end. Neither Beck nor I spoke as I stopped before the door and laid my hand on the knob. My pulse fluttered at the base of my throat.

  I didn’t know how to explain or introduce the place, so I let it speak for itself by pushing through the entry, then stepping aside so Beck could take in the view.

  The bed, the cross, the racks of floggers and restraints… Every feature added an extra beat to my heart’s unsteady rhythm. It could have been arousing. Tantalizing. Beck might have thought it was, and in bringing him here, I had opened that door both literally and figuratively. If he wanted to take me in this place, in this way, I would have no right to stop him.

  I lingered as the quiet grew, rubbing my wrists and imagining leather cuffs being used to stretch my arms wide and offer my body for inspection or abuse. A gag in my mouth would silence any protest, and I would lose my voice the same way I was steadily losing everything else. All while Maslow watched from behind the camera’s lens.

  After a pause that left me painfully raw, Beck asked, “What is this place?”

  “It’s…” My throat tightened, threatening to take my words prematurely. “It’s my room.”

  He entered at last, weaving a path around the furniture and various trappings. Passing the bed, he smoothed his palm across the sheets and watched the satin ripple. Then he glanced back at me.

  “Yours?”

  I didn’t want to admit it, but I forced myself to nod.

  He progressed further into the space, stopping beside the cross with its lacquered surface and attached shackles. He gave one a rattle that echoed in my teeth before he chuckled.

  “I didn’t realize you were a torchbearer for the sex Olympics,” he scoffed. “I think you mean it’s Maslow’s…”

  When he looked at me this time, I pinned my lip between my teeth and bit down, hoping the pain would stave off tears.

  Beck returned to me in a series of swift strides, drawing close and reaching out.

  But before his fingers grazed my naked torso, I heard myself mumble, “He’s filming. You deserve to know.”

  Beck jerked back as though stung, then cast a narrow glance around the room. I pointed out the camera, and when Beck saw it, he snarled.

  “The bastard built a goddamn porn studio?” he exclaimed, targeting the red dot of light with his wrath. “I didn’t sign a fucking waiver!”

  He deflated a bit and pressed the heel of his hand to his face, wincing like the idea made his head ache. “Ah shit, it really would be a fucking waiver. What the hell?”

  I started to wrap my arms around myself, shrinking from impending rejection, but Beck grabbed my elbow. Turning me toward the hall, he dragged us both out of the room and stopped a few paces beyond it before releasing me.

  He was clearly upset, brows drawn down while a vein jumped at his temple. The strands of silver hair there shimmered in the ambient light.

  “Why did you bring me here?” he asked.

  His anger differed from Maslow’s. Less targeted. More abstract. I could stomach it, feeling unsure rather than thoroughly cowed. But I still wasn’t sure what to say.

  “You didn’t before.” Beck swung his hand toward the room we’d abandoned. “Was this here then?”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled.

  “Was it booked or something?” he asked. “Do your friends bring clients here too?” Aggravation sizzled in the air, making every breath taste like static.

  “No, it’s… just me. Mazzy built it…” I swallowed roughly. “For me.”

  Over Beck’s shoulder, the door remained ajar like a watchful eye. But Beck put himself between that place and me. He’d created a barricade I would have sooner thrown myself on than tried to pass through. And I might have clung to him if he didn’t look so baffled and I didn’t feel so ashamed.

  Finally, he shook his head. “So, Maz wants the money. You turn tricks; he sells what? Souvenir videos?” I cringed as Beck made a dismissive gesture. “I know he wants the money, but what do you want?”

  “What?” I croaked, barely registering the question. Another thing Maslow would never say. Something else I hadn’t dared think for myself.

  Beck tipped his chin toward the room. “Do you want that?”

  Maybe I had thought about it, enough to know my opinion didn’t matter. I’d traded torment in Hell for servitude on Earth, and I didn’t regret that. I wanted to stay far more than I wanted to return, and staying meant sustaining this strange new form. This demon who asked over and over for one thing.

  “I want…” My tongue grated like sandpaper across the roof of my mouth, and I swallowed dry. Then I looked at Beck, forcing myself to hold his gaze long enough to ask, “Can you feed me?”

  He frowned. “You mean… sex?”

  I nodded and swallowed again, like the action would ease my hunger pangs. Like I didn’t already know it wouldn’t.

  Beck cupped his hand to my cheek, then lifted my head until we were eye to eye. Uncertainty cut lines across his forehead, and I wondered if he didn’t believe me, or if he sensed the gap between my wants and needs.

  It was a gap I needed him to fill because he had become both. Something desired and demanded. But I reduced it to my vice, that insatiable beast that had been stripping away my soul since the moment I woke up in Hell.

  My lips parted, and I breathed in the tendrils of lust that stretched between us.

  “Are you hungry, Beauty?” Beck’s voice was low and smooth in a way that made me quake.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  Yes, feed me.

  Yes, fill me.

  Yes, give back what Maslow took.

  “All right,” Beck agreed. “But not here. I don’t intend to perform for an audience, and I don’t want to…” He stopped so abruptly it was like he’d sucked the words back in. With a jerk of his head, he beckoned to me. “Outside. I have a car.”

  He pulled away, but I stayed put, buffeted by a new wave of fear.

  I couldn’t leave the club.

  It was bad enough to leave the room after the cameras had doubtless seen Beck enter then leave without accompaniment. Maslow would wonder. He would ask, and he would smell the sex on me, sense I was full again. So really, I couldn’t feed either.

  The thought of spending another night starving, deprived of what Beck was willing to give, made me nauseous. I gulped at the air, swallowing and adding emptiness to my emptiness before I managed a weak protest.

  “I… I can’t…”

  Beck’s mouth bent in a frown. “Can’t what?”

  “There’s guards… the bouncers. They aren’t supposed to let us…” I took a moment to corral my frantic thoughts, then settled to say, “We have to stay inside.”

  I saw Beck’s questions accumulating, ready to fall on me like a barrage. If he asked, I would answer truthfully. I would tell him all the things that made me bitter, the rules that kept me confined, and the secrets Maslow insisted we keep because customers didn’t care about our lives, or our names, or why I only had one.

  “Do you want to stay inside?” Beck asked.

  I had no reply for that.

  Beck glanced up and down the corridor before shrugging out of his suit coat and draping it across my shoulders. My eyes stretched wide as the warm garment covered me to my thighs. The fabric felt slick and smooth against my skin. Like my silks. Like safety. Like rescue.

  When Beck stepped away, his expression was almost tender.

  No, not almost. It was. Because I had value. Because he asked what I wanted. Because he was going to give it to me.

  “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  Beck

  I don’t want to share you.

  It was a dangerous thought, and one I almost let slip while standing across from Zephyr in the lonely hall. Since the moment I approached him at the bar, I’d deviated from my every intention.

  I hadn’t dismissed him with a handshake and parting thanks.

  I hadn’t paid him.

  I hadn’t ended anything.

  Instead, I asked him what he wanted, and he all but admitted he wanted me.

  He meant as a food source. Nourishment. But I wasn’t bothered by that. Sex was vital to him, and taking part in it made me vital too. More essential than I’d been in what felt like lifetimes.

  It bore consideration, though. In a place like this, how could Zephyr be anything less than sated? Between the stage performances and activities in the executive suites, lust was practically oozing out of the walls. Then there was… that room. The sex dungeon turned recording studio.

  There were plenty of people in Vegas who’d line up to bed an incubus—and pay extra for a recording of the experience. Something to jerk off to later. An X-rated souvenir.

  If that was happening, Zephyr should’ve had no use for me. But… was it happening? The hallway had been empty. No line of horny johns adjusting their zippers, making sure they were hard for the main event. The room itself had been pristine, without sights or smells of recent use, and Zephyr had looked terrified. Clinging to the doorframe like he thought it might swallow him whole.

  Which begged another question: what happened to a creature who feared his own nature?

  Reentering the club’s main room, I was assaulted by a blast of sound. My attention tunneled through the crowd, seeking the bar where Colette had promised to wait. She was there, balancing a martini glass while clapping along to the music.

  A glance at the stage found Marvel front and center. He wore a metallic green G-string and a cape that fluttered as he marched along the row of footlights, striking poses and flexing his muscles to the tune of “My Hero” by the Foo Fighters.

  The crush and chaos of the club must have dulled Colette’s hound senses because I was able to weave through the mob and get close enough to tap her shoulder, breaking her rapt attention.

  She spun toward me, free hand twitching toward her hidden revolver before she broke into a grin. “This is pretty good!” she called over the racket.

  My lips pulled into a tight smile. “Something to be said for nubile demon boys, after all?”

  Colette raised her glass in a mock toast. “They make a strong case for themselves.” Her gaze drifted toward the main event and lingered there as she commented, “I think this one could crush me with his arms. Or his thighs.”

  The observation forced me to look again, noticing the sheen of oil that highlighted the deep cut of Marvel’s abs and the bulge of his biceps as he set his feet and flexed. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, and tall enough to look down on most men, he was quite the specimen.

  “That’s a good thing?” I asked.

  “It’s certainly not bad.” Colette took a sip of her cocktail, relaxing while the urgency of my mission caught up to me.

  “Listen,” I told her, leaning in to attempt discretion while whisper-shouting. “I’m taking Zephyr to the car.”

  Colette fixed me with a narrow glance. “Not stealing him, are you? I think you only pay to borrow, not purchase.”

  I waved her off. “I’m not stealing him, just⁠—”

  “Borrowing.” She gave an exaggerated nod. “For how long? Five, ten minutes? Should I make myself comfortable?”

  “Not yet,” I replied. “Help me get him outside, then you can come back and… get comfortable.”

  Her red lips quirked. “Why do you need help with that? Can’t he walk out on his own?”

  I hesitated to answer that when I didn’t fully understand it myself. Comments Maslow had made about his business model left a foul taste in my mouth. Suffice to say, it felt important to get Zephyr out of this place, the same way it had felt important to give him my suit coat. An offer of protection and a promise to return.

  Colette remained unconvinced. “You see how this sounds like you’re stealing him.” She looked past me as though searching for the incubus I’d abandoned. “Do you have him gagged and bound somewhere? Rolled up in a rug?”

  “A rug?” I repeated. “Where’d you see that?”

  “Again.” She swirled her martini. “The films.”

  The idea of Zephyr waiting and worrying I wouldn’t come back nagged at me. I needed to hurry this along.

  “He told me he can’t leave,” I began again. “Something about the bouncers. I need you to distract them.”

  The crowd burst into cheers, lauding some move Marvel pulled on the stage. Colette and I both missed it, and she looked perturbed by the fact.

  “Haven’t you borrowed him before?” she asked. “Without the car?”

  “Yes,” I admitted grudgingly.

  “Then why do you need it now?”

  “Why do you care?”

  Colette huffed. “Because the dick kissing can be messy. The fluids. Like a fountain.” She pantomimed an almost volcanic eruption, then began ticking items off with her fingers. “On the windows, the seats, the floor⁠—”

  “The bouncers, Coll.” I snatched the martini glass from her hand, then grabbed her shoulder and spun her toward the entrance. “Keep them busy. Once Zephyr’s out, you can rejoin the ogling masses. And when you get back, give Marvel a tip. He’s earned it.”

  With a grumbled protest about sticky upholstery, Colette headed for the door. I watched long enough to make sure she didn’t deviate from her task before downing what remained of her martini and offloading the empty glass onto a passing waitress’s tray.

  Cutting back through the crowd, I found the doorway Zephyr had led me through earlier. The hall was as vacant as before, and near the end of it, the redheaded incubus stood near the wall, bundled up in my suit jacket.

  His head whipped my way, and his wide eyes softened. But the pinch of his brows and the press of his lips betrayed something other than relief at my return.

  I came swiftly within reach, then offered my hand. “Are you ready, Beauty?”

  Zephyr hesitated, his fingers white-knuckled on the lapels of my jacket. The damn thing looked enormous on him, drowning his narrow shoulders, but he clutched it like a shield.

  “Beck…” His lashes fluttered. “Mister Beckett, I really can’t go. If Mazzy finds out⁠—”

  “It’s just the parking lot,” I replied while leaving my hand extended. “You aren’t actually going anywhere. Though if you’d like to leave, the car does drive.”