Midnight Seduction (Midnight Dynasty Book 1)

by CR Robertson

  “How long has it been going on?” Ash asked, not removing his eyes from the pulsating crowd.

  Jordan shrugged. “Best I can tell, over a year.”

  There was a hell of a lot of information he’d had access to in that time.

  “Should we be worried?” I asked Jordan.

  “Nah, I’ve never let the little shit have access to anything important. He was always a bit of a dick.”

  Ash’s eyes cut to Jordan. “He’s my brother.”

  Jordan lifted the bottle to his lips again. “Doesn’t change the fact he’s a dick.”

  Ash and Jordan eyed each other across the booth before Ash shrugged. “Fair enough.”

  He’d never been diagnosed, but Jordan was the most insane motherfucker I’d ever met. We all went to school together, and the number of times we’d saved each other’s asses was ridiculous.

  “Your security detail is chasing his own tail looking for you,” Jordan informed me as he took another mouthful of my expensive vodka.

  “You’re here to protect our sorry drunk asses.” I scratched the side of my face with my middle finger.

  He gave a dark chuckle. “Yeah, I’ll be no good to either of you soon.” He saluted us with the bottle. Jordan could be a real asshole, but no one wanted to be responsible for the death of someone we knew. Yet that fell at his feet to deal with. I raised my glass in his direction before pouring the freezing cold liquor down my throat.

  “Let’s go to The Midnight Rooms,” Ash said, stretching his arms above his head.

  “No drunks allowed,” I reminded him.

  “I fucking hate rules!” He rolled his eyes.

  “Don’t we all,” Jordan said before downing the remainder of the bottle and slamming it on the table.

  ***

  Whoever ordered the marching band that was pounding their way through my head deserved to be shot. My mouth tasted like I’d been licking the floor of a toilet in the Sahara Desert. I didn’t even attempt to open my eyes for the sun to assault them.

  “Wakey-wakey, sunshine.” Jordan flung the curtains up and I shoved my head under a pillow, muttering death threats.

  “You and Ash have a meeting today, and I can do without your fathers bitching at me about your drunken asses.”

  I lifted the pillow enough to see him standing with a cup of coffee in his hand. “Why are you not dying after the amount of vodka you drank last night?”

  His shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I’m resistant to vodka. Perks of my job that I’m available to take care of problems twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Fuck you!” I muttered, pulling the pillow back over my head.

  “You have two minutes, or I will throw a bucket of water over you and sleeping beauty on the sofa.” Jordan sauntered out of the room. The psychopath wouldn’t think twice about soaking us with freezing water.

  I dragged myself into the shower and stood under the hot, pounding water until I felt remotely human. Several cups of strong coffee later, I found myself sitting beside Ash in a conference room, filled with God knew who, while I sat with my eyes closed behind my incredibly dark sunglasses.

  “Xavier?”

  My eyes shot open and my head snapped toward Dad. Fuck, the movement hurt my head, and I swallowed a groan.

  “Hmmm?” I replied. His disapproval had rolled over me in waves of frowns and grimaces when I stumbled in earlier.

  “We were discussing the purchase of the hotel in Paris.”

  If looks could kill, I would be dead right now. The room was too warm, and it felt like someone was draining the oxygen out until I could barely breathe. Every eye in the room stared at me until I swore I was an exhibit in a zoo.

  “I don’t think that hotel has the projected return that the company normally looks for in an investment. I would suggest we look at some of the options in Krakow that could be stripped back and remodelled into the image we prefer.”

  Ash turned into full accountant mode. “We’ve dealt with a few other properties in Poland and know their legal network. It’s still developing and is a huge tourist destination.”

  Ash and I were heirs to two of the largest families on the Council. Most of our businesses were illegal, therefore we studied accountancy and law to ensure we knew our ways around the murky waters.

  Dad glared at us for several long seconds. “You realise you both smell like a bar?”

  I flashed him my widest smile. “We received bad news and had a rough night.”

  He was there when the Council voted on Michael. Dad’s face lost some of the tightness of his suppressed anger. His gaze took on a distant quality and he shuffled the papers in front of him.

  “Of course,” he replied, visibly calming himself before continuing. “Xavier and Ash seem to have given this much thought. They know this industry and have never been wrong in the past about their assessment. We need all the information you can gather on all the relevant properties in our selected area, and then we will make a final choice before we enter negotiations with the hotels in question.”

  Dad didn’t like to build the hotels in our portfolio from the ground up. He preferred to take something that possessed the character of its location and add to it. Tourists loved to feel as if they were immersing themselves in the culture of a place.

  With a wave of his hand, he sent all the solicitors and legal advisors scuttling off to dig deep and ferret out information that could help in a business takeover.

  When the room cleared, he slowly turned to stare at our hungover asses. “What are you two thinking?” he demanded.

  I shrugged. “That we’re about to lose a family member and we needed to numb the pain.”

  Dad closed his eyes for a brief moment and for once looked his age. “You both need to be careful. Stick to business and let the dust settle. Understand?”

  “Yeah,” I replied, pushing my hair back with both hands. “We might take a trip to Krakow and have a look round the hotels. Get a feel for their situation and the people.”

  He nodded. “When we get a short list, I think that would be a good idea. Until then, I want both of you to keep a low profile.”

  In other words, security was looking at every single person on the Council to ensure there were no other moles. The finger of death trickled down my spine and I suppressed a shiver.

  ***

  Chapter Eight

  Cassandra

  “What exactly is this torture that you signed us up to?” Megan hissed in my ear.

  We were in the toilets at the half-way break. In a bid to try and show my best friend that there were other ways to meet men that did not involve having sex with anonymous men in the dark, I signed us up to speed dating.

  It was grim.

  Five minutes to make small talk and try and decide if you wanted to meet the person again in real life. The first three men’s eyes glazed over when I said I worked in a law firm. From that point on I made a different profession for every man who sat his ass down in front of me. I’d already decided I was never going to meet any of them again, so they’d never know I told a few white lies.

  I started off being an air hostess, then graduated into nursing. The last guy was strange and creepy and kept putting his hand under the table to rub his groin. So, I told him I was a prostitute and embellished an extravagant hourly rate, which he seemed very interested in. I told him I went to these events to find new clients.

  What disturbed me more than the lack of chemistry that existed, was that any of these men that I discarded so easily could have used my body in the pitch black and I would have been none the wiser. The strange man who was interested in my prostitute profession could have been the silent man who’d climbed on second in my last visit to The Midnight Rooms and had fucked me without a word before crawling away again.

  I didn’t know what was worse. That I would reject him in the light of day or accept him in the dark of night. It was a paradox that was steadily giving me a headache.

  “It’s called speed dating
,” I replied to Megan as I dried my hands in the warm stream of air. “I’ve been told it’s very successful.”

  “Hmmm.” She tended to make her bumblebee noise when she didn’t believe something or wasn’t happy. “Some of the men are very disturbed and I can’t judge their heights since I’m sitting down.”

  The ladies sat at their allotted tables while the men made the journey to another destination every five minutes as they travelled clockwise around the room.

  “I couldn’t judge the height of the men last time we were in The Midnight Rooms,” I snapped, searching through my bag in a desperate hunt for my lip gloss.

  “Is this what this is about tonight?” Her eyes met mine in the vanity mirror. “Our last time in The Midnight Rooms?”

  Yes and no. I enjoyed my time with the second man on my first visit. The second visit made me feel cheap. The second man that relieved himself inside me without any thought about me still bugged me. The fourth man knew I’d had enough and kept going because I didn’t say the magic word. He’d given me an orgasm, but still, it left me feeling empty and raw inside, my emotions mixed and in turmoil.

  “That last man, Jay, practically raped you,” I whispered, revealing my greatest fear. We had no control down there, the weakest were overpowered while the strong took their pleasure.

  “He would have stopped if I said the safe word. He always has, Cas.”

  I met her eyes in the mirror and held them this time. “We let strangers fuck us. Men who could have wives and children. The same men who could be in that room wandering from table to table. We judge them and put a tick or a cross in a box when they step away, yet we would let them into our bodies without thought.”

  Megan sighed. “Let’s go and have a drink and talk. I think I need to explain the concept of The Midnight Rooms to you.”

  “What about the rest of the evening?” I asked.

  “I think we’ve both already decided that the men in that room are not getting any boxes ticked tonight.”

  I nodded, as it was true, but it didn’t mean I would be rude enough to leave in the middle of the event.

  “We’ll pretend we got an urgent phone call,” Megan suggested, knowing I hated bad manners.

  I let her deal with the unhappy organiser while I stood in the shadows outside contemplating the chaos that had engulfed my life.

  Megan eventually joined me, grimacing. “She is one humpy lady. I swear to God she has a bug up her arse and it’s laying eggs.”

  I smiled at her description, even as she linked arms with me and drew me away from the hotel that hosted the event. We found a table at our local bar that was situated between where Megan and I lived.

  “What happened?” Her voice was low, her eyes focused on me.

  I shrugged, there was nothing really to tell. She had had an active sex life her entire adult life, and I had stuck to a few relationships that went nowhere.

  “I know you’re upset, Cas.”

  I remained silent.

  “I met Jay a few years ago in a club. He was serious but sexy as hell and I adored him. He introduced me to the scene. It started with him spanking me, then he tied me up, and then he introduced me to the club.”

  My eyes darted up to her face.

  “Not the rooms in the dark. The ones upstairs are set up for every sexual fantasy you can have. He taught me what true submission meant—that I wasn’t less than him or subservient to him. I held the power over his pleasure by choosing to kneel before him. No man has ever made me feel what Jay does, not Mark, no one.” Megan covered her face with her hands for a brief moment. “But he never lets anyone in, and as soon as he starts to feel anything for you, he walks away.”

  I sipped my drink. This was the first time she’d ever revealed anything about this side of her.

  “The Midnight Rooms were a way for me to try and forget him. Faceless men who gave me an orgasm and allowed me to save a fortune on batteries. They could be any man in that room tonight, and I don’t care. That is the simple beauty behind the inky darkness. No one cares who you are, we are only interested in pleasure. You’ll never see them in the light, and they’ll never know who you are. If he’s not pressing your buttons, then call ‘midnight’ and push him off.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, then shut it again.

  “What happened?” Megan asked again.

  I blinked, but nothing came out.

  “One of my first experiences was a guy who left me lying there with my legs open and frustration screaming that he come back and finish what he started. I quickly realised I had to vocalise what I wanted.”

  I decided to meet her half-way. “The first guy last time we were there was fine, but the second guy just climbed on and crawled away afterwards. I could barely even feel him as I lay there.” I traced a shaky hand through my hair. “The third guy was really interactive and determined that everyone involved should have an orgasm.” My brow furrowed. “But even when I said I’d had enough, the fourth guy kept going. I forgot the safe word.”

  Megan cursed.

  “He made me come, but it was my lack of control…” My voice trailed off.

  “You should have grabbed his balls and yanked them.”

  My eyebrows rose in question.

  “What?” Megan demanded. “If he was being an arrogant ass, he deserved it. You need to put a value on your body and accept nothing less.”

  Looking back over my relationships, I didn’t have any value at all. When they wanted something, they belittled me until I gave in to their wants. In fairness, the guys in The Midnight Rooms were more honest in their sexual requests. At least some of them attempted to give me an orgasm.

  “You can say no and choose someone else, Cas. You don’t have to open your legs to anyone in those rooms. You’re entitled to select who you want to sleep with. Just because they crawl between your legs doesn’t give them the right to stick their dick in you.”

  I scowled at her use of language, and she grinned, knowing she’d scandalised me.

  Megan stood up and held her hand out to me. “Come on.”

  “Where to?” I asked with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “Our motto was always that we didn’t hide from fear.”

  I swallowed the invisible bitter pill that was lodged in my throat.

  “Don’t have sex with anyone,” Megan said. “Just sit in the dark or wander around, listen, and feel.”

  I let her pull me up. I didn’t want to go into the dark. Monsters resided there.

  ***

  I sat in the dark, my legs tugged up against my chest, making myself as small as possible. I’d found a sofa in the main area where the corridors branched off.

  It was true that when one of your senses was taken away the others became more acute. My hearing picked up noises in all directions, and I scented sex in the air. I’d never thought about the musky smell of sex before, but sitting here, it was hard to avoid. Men and women moving between areas, with the odour of sweat and sex on their bodies.

  A couple behind me were having sex against the wall, her back thudding with every grunt from him, vocalising his thrusts. A woman giggled somewhere to my left as a man propositioned her.

  Megan was long gone, heading in the direction of a pattern she had yet to explain to me. The air felt cool on my body, and I thought longingly of the cardigan that was hanging upstairs.

  The voices of two men alerted me to new people arriving. I tightened my hold on my legs and leaned deeper into the corner. One of the men headed in the direction of where I’d ventured last time I was here. The other man wandered around the room, his footsteps echoing.

  My heart thudded when those footsteps moved in my direction. I held my breath and closed my eyes. He stopped a few feet from me. I sat still for so long I thought he’d move on. Instead he sat beside me.

  “Not enjoying yourself tonight, beautiful?”

  I recognised the voice from my first night. He’d called me beautiful then as we
ll. He obviously used it on everyone. Instead of answering, I pretended to be a statue.

  His dark chuckle washed over me. “Last time I found you,” he continued as if I’d spoken to him, “you partner had left you unfulfilled.”

  I gasped. “How do you remember me?”

  I felt his chuckle this time as he leaned closer. “Your perfume,” he whispered. “It’s how I knew you were here. Everyone has a unique scent.”

  Fuck!

  His finger landed on my arm and traced a lazy trail all the way down to my hand. He lifted it, his thumb caressing the pulse at my wrist.

  Static energy rippled across my skin.

  “Are you not participating tonight?” he asked in the same deep tone.

  I shrugged. “I was sitting this one out.”

  “Oh.”

  We sat for minutes as his thumb sent chills into my body. I relaxed as the heat of his body soaked into my cold one.

  He stood slowly and tugged my hand. “Come with me. There’ll be no sex unless you want it. But this place is grim to sit in.”

  I followed him only because I didn’t know what else to do with myself. I’d felt stupid sitting alone and afraid in the dark. I lost track of where he led me, but I was nearly sure it was the room he found me in last time we met.

  “Not every man is a selfish prick,” he murmured against the back of my hair. “We can all give pleasure if we desire. I believe giving pleasure is part of receiving it.”

  I wrapped my arms around myself in a useless gesture, considering I was in a room with a sexual predator dressed in nothing more than my bra and panties.

  His heat seared me when he pressed against my back, lifting my hair over my shoulder to press a kiss against my neck.

  “Take your clothes off,” he commanded.

  My body froze and my breath trapped in my chest. He’d promised no sex. His hands landed on my waist and slid round to span across my stomach, drawing me back against him.

  “You’ve had a bad experience in The Midnight Rooms. Let me show you what it’s really about.” He pressed gentle kisses across my shoulder until he reached the top of my spine. I shivered when his lips started a trail down every vertebra.