Page 57 of Theirs to Desire (Club M: Boxed Set)

AVERY

T his is a crapshoot, I tell myself as I sign in. I check my coat, surrender my phone, and step through a metal detector, moving on autopilot, my nerves on edge. There’s no guarantee that Maddox and Kai are going to be at Club M.

“I’m going to assign you a mentor,” Xavier Leforte had said to me at the tail end of my interview. “He’ll show you around. Make sure you’re comfortable, that nothing happens that you aren’t prepared for.”

That guy, Caleb Reeves, is waiting for me at the entrance. “You’re Avery Welch?”

I nod. He gives me a friendly smile. “You look nervous,” he says. “Relax. No one bites. So, what brings you to Club M?”

He seems like a nice guy. He’s giving me the once-over, and it’s obvious he likes what he sees, but his gaze is warmly appreciative, not sleazy.

Things would be so much easier if I could let go of the past, but I can’t.

Ever since Fiona Clarke mentioned Kai, my dreams have returned, over and over again, to the fortnight I spent with the two American men.

When I close my eyes, I see Maddox Wake laughing at something, his brown eyes dancing with merriment.

When I dream, Kai Bowen saunters into my mind as if he belongs there, his stormy blue eyes smoldering with intensity.

I don’t want to give Caleb the wrong idea. I tell him what I told Xavier Leforte. “I dated a couple of the members here a long time ago,” I say quietly.

“And you were hoping to rekindle the flames?”

“ Hoping being the operative word.”

That’s an oversimplification. I made a lot of mistakes ten years ago. I thought I was doing my duty by my parents when I married Victor, but my heart had never been in it.

My marriage had been two years of hell. Victor was hypercritical of me. I could never do anything right. I wore the wrong clothes. I talked in the wrong accent, to the wrong people. I was too friendly to the help. I was common.

About the only thing I had going for me was that I was young. Victor was in his forties, and he wanted heirs. At nineteen, I was bound to be fertile. Except I didn’t get pregnant. And then, when he hit me, I finally found the courage to leave.

Caleb steers me into the room, one hand in the small of my back. I’m about to pull away from the possessive gesture, but the moment I enter the club, heads turn in my direction, and several faces fill with avidly covetous stares. “Umm, wow.”

“What’s startling you? The decor or the attention?”

“The attention.”

Caleb chuckles. “Why does that surprise you? You’re a beautiful woman, Avery.”

I murmur acknowledgment of the compliment while taking in the room discreetly.

The rich golden hues are unexpected, but that’s not what’s holding my attention.

It’s the people. Men wear bespoke suits; the women are in cocktail dresses.

Not as much leather as I feared, and hardly any nudity, except for the raised platform in the middle of the room, where a completely naked woman dangles, suspended in the air, her body bound by intricately knotted ropes that make her breasts bulge.

“How long has she been there?” I ask, swallowing the nerves that clutch my throat. “Is she okay?”

Is this what Kai and Maddox expect?

Caleb gives me a reassuring look. “See the man sitting by himself?”

I follow his gaze. “Yes.”

“He’s her dom,” he says. “He’s watching out for her.”

He’s right. Now that he points it out, I realize that the man has never taken his eyes off the bound woman. “How will he know she’s had enough? Does she have a safeword?”

He nods. “Some people play without safewords, but in the club, that’s not an option. See the red ball in her hand?”

“It wasn’t her hands I was looking at,” I mutter under my breath.

Caleb laughs again. “If she drops that, he unties her. And if he misses it, there are at least five monitors who are also keeping an eye on her.” His lips twitch. “I get the sense you’re dying to be next on the center stage, Avery,” he teases.

“Yeah, I need to work my way up to that.” I continue to search the room, sifting through the crowds, looking for the two men I’m here to find. Where are Kai and Maddox?

Then the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The weight of their gazes pulls at me, insistent and demanding. I look up and see them in a corner, their stares hard, their expressions closed.

As you deserve.

They’re angry. It’s visible in every line of their bodies. Every tightly clenched muscle. For one second, I fight a shameful urge to pivot on my heels and flee. Go back to the bland safety of my life, the one I’ve fought so hard to make my own.

But their gazes tug at me like a tidal wave, and I’m pulled under. One glance, and I’m drowning.

Kai’s chocolate brown wavy hair is untouched by gray. There are a few lines around his face, but otherwise, he looks exactly the same as he did ten years ago.

Not so Maddox. Ten years ago, Maddox’s hair had been shoulder-length, pulled back in a ponytail. Now, it’s cut short. His goatee is gone, replaced by honey-gold stubble, but though he looks different, I’d know him anywhere.

Caleb’s saying something at my side. I tear my focus away from Kai and Maddox and transfer my attention to him. “I’m sorry. I got distracted.”

His expression is knowing. He bends his head toward me. “Let me guess,” he says into my ear. “The men you used to date. Kai Bowen and Maddox Wake?”

My throat is dry. “Is it that obvious?”

“They’re friends of mine,” he replies, his lips curling into a smirk.

“Although it’s hard to tell, given the way they’re glaring at me.

” His expression turns serious. “There are rules in place to protect you,” he says quietly.

“You can always say no. You never have to do anything you don’t want to. You don’t have to go over there.”

Actually, I do. From the moment Fiona Clarke mentioned Kai, I’ve been fighting this compulsion. Now that I’m here, I’m done pretending. “I want them,” I say simply. “Will you help me?”

He’s a perfect stranger. There’s no need for him to do anything.

His hazel eyes survey me thoughtfully. “’A long time ago,’ you said. How long ago?”

“Ten years.”

His eyebrow rises. “You met in London?”

I nod. He smiles slowly. “How interesting,” he says. “Come on then, Avery. We’re going to go over and say hello. Follow my lead.”