20. Hannah

Hannah

W hat does one even wear to a sex club?

Thank God for Brit, or this Mission Impossible trip wouldn’t be happening. The clothes she lent me are strewn across the bed, but to be honest, I have no idea how I’m going to get any of them on.

Black leather, lace, chains, spikes for “flavor” as she’d said, though the spikes might not be a bad way to keep people away from me.

Get it together, Hannah .

I pull back to stare at myself in the full-length mirror in nothing but my black lacy bra and a leather skirt that hugs every. Single. Curve.

I feel . . . sexy? Alluring? Maybe there’s something to be said about putting on the leather skirt, but I don’t think my ass has ever looked this good. I slip on the black lacy corset top, but . . . like everything else in the pile, I need help to get it on.

Somehow, I feel like that was intentional.

Like I’m greeting a wild bear, I crack the door to my room.

“Mason, can you help me?”

There’s a pause and then I hear the shuffling of his heavy boots on the hardwood floor.

God, help me.

He looks like sex incarnate tonight. Black button-up that showcases the tattoos on his forearms. Dark jeans. Dark eyes.

Right now, those eyes are aimed at the black corset top.

“I can’t get the back hooked,” I mumble, cheeks hotter than the sidewalk outside.

He doesn’t reply save for a flash of something across his eyes, so I turn around. It’s better than facing him.

Carefully, he steps forward, and I hold my breath while he hooks the small clasps together at my spine. His hands brush my bare skin and a shiver ghosts through me.

Goddamn body.

He makes a small sound and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was chuckling . Asshole.

He lingers longer than he should and both of us hold completely still, save for the buttoning of my top. Finally, when it’s done, he steps back as if I’d burned him.

The top is tight. I know it’s supposed to be, but I’m dangerously close to having the knock-off version of a Janet Jackson nip slip.

“Thank you,” I breathe, my skin buzzing with electricity where he’d touched me.

He looks around the room and suddenly, I’m hyper-aware that Mason Carpenter is not only in my Malibu Barbie DreamHouse but also in my bedroom. Like, where I sleep. With a bed. Where people have sex and do other naughty things.

Having him in this space feels too . . . intimate for Mason and me.

He’s always been the unobtainable. The man I couldn’t have and the one I could never get out of my head. I’m falling deeper and deeper into a hole I don’t think I’ll be able to climb out of.

Mason Carpenter is quicksand, sucking me in. My drowning is inevitable.

I shake my head, forcing myself to slip on the black Gianvito Rossi boots that are higher than anything I’ve ever worn before. I bought them a year ago when I was feeling particularly rebellious before one of Mom’s never-ending events that I was expected to attend.

I never got the chance to wear them because I chickened out before I left. Now, I imagine if my mother could see me, she would either disown me or lock me in the closet for a week.

I look like sex in a Sunday hat, but . . . when in Rome.

I turn around and find Mason leaning against the door frame. His gaze travels over me, down to the heeled boots on my feet, over the skin-tight leather, to the top, and finally, my eyes. His gaze burns a path in its wake and his jaw ticks, as if he’s making note of something.

I don’t know if I like the sound of that.

“Don’t look at my ass,” I grumble quietly when he helps me climb in the truck.

“Too late,” he murmurs, and just when my mouth falls open, he shuts the door on me.

“Your feet are going to be killing you by the time this is over,” he grumbles when he climbs in the driver’s seat. I swear, now that we’re forced to be in the small cab together, all my senses are on high alert. His scent, the way his button-up hugs his shoulders. The way those jeans look on his butt—I know, I know . . . hypocritical of me.

Heat washes through me and I find that even though I’m wearing less clothing than I have in a long, long time, I’m incredibly warm.

Maybe asking him to take me to a sex club was a bad idea.

“Hopefully this won’t take long.”

He peeks at me as he drives. It’s then I notice the thick veins in his hands. How have I never noticed how hot Mason’s hands are?

No. Stop it. We aren’t that desperate, Hannah. They’re just hands.

Big, rough, calloused, working man hands with sexy veins, but hands, all the same.

“Worried?”

“No. Why?”

“You look it.”

“I think I look fine.”

He peeks at me, his gaze traveling over the black lace at my midriff, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Thank you, by the way. For taking me. And for bringing me flowers. And for not saying anything to your sister. At least in front of me.”

That last part sucks because I know, without a doubt what was going through Mila’s mind when she saw me. Everything Missy had done was my fault because I was the one present. I’m an extension of her and it sure doesn’t help that we’re twins.

He chuckles darkly, but he doesn’t respond. The tension in the cab hangs thick in the air between us. So thick you could smear it on toast.

The buzz that’s always there when he’s around is suddenly tenfold. Maybe because of our kiss, but maybe because we’re going to a sex club. Either way . . . my heart hammers against my chest at the way he looks at me.

Like he might swallow me whole.

“So what’s the deal with this place? You act like you’ve been before.”

“Once,” he grits, fingers tightening on the wheel.

Uh-oh.

“And?”

“And, what?”

I roll my eyes, breathe out a sigh and lean back in the seat. Mason’s eyes stay locked on the road, but I can tell he’s tuned into my every move, just as I am his.

Interesting.

“How was it?”

He takes the highway, toward downtown, his tongue running over his teeth.

“You’ll see.”

“I’m serious, Mason. Is there anything I need to know before we enter the lion’s den?”

He cocks a brow. “Nothing is off-limits here. Piss, the illusion of rape, blood,” he says roughly. “Don’t touch anyone, you don’t want to get hurt. Don’t let anyone touch you, you don’t want to get hurt. Don’t drink the water. Good enough for you?”

“Why would it matter if anyone touches me? You said it yourself. This isn’t a date.”

He chuckles darkly, running a thumb across the stubble over his lips. I briefly, like a creep, wonder what it would feel like against my skin, again.

“Try it.”

The Inner Sanctum is located in an old brick warehouse downtown. It’s covered in graffiti, as are most buildings in the area, and from the outside, despite the bumping beat of music, you would think it was just a decrepit old warehouse.

Everything is dark in this area of LA. Bleak. Trash lines the sides of the road and some people sleep in the dark corners of businesses closed for the day. I want to help them because I know the charities Mom started are supposed to be helping people like this, but like most things government, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

Unfortunately, I have a job to do.

And I need answers.

“Doesn’t look like a club,” I murmur while Mason pays to park across the street and pulls the truck into a spot in the dimly lit parking garage.

Now that we’re here, my stomach is in knots. I don’t want to go in, but I know I have to if I ever want a clue regarding my sister’s whereabouts.

Why did she have to be so damned difficult? Why couldn’t she enjoy cupcake parties? I’ve never heard of one, but I think it would be a hell of a lot more enjoyable than a bunch of sweaty bodies belonging to God only knows who.

I mean, think of the possible STDs.

Mason puts the truck in park and I notice the way his hand clenches around the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white.

He doesn’t want to be here, either.

“Maybe we should just go home.”

Mason eyes me with that damned bored look I wish I could slap off his face.

“You won’t get answers that way.”

“I don’t have any idea that anyone here knows anything.”

“Only one way to find out.”

“And then . . . he’s gone,” I grumble when he climbs out, coming around to open my door before I can even extract myself from the seat belt. “A gentleman, even at fetish clubs.”

His jaw ticks, but he doesn’t respond. He starts toward the exit, but when I don’t budge, he reaches back and intertwines our fingers. It’s the most intimate, non-intimate thing that’s ever happened to me.

“I don’t know about this, Mason,” I whisper when a car door down the line opens and a girl gets out, wearing only a pair of sky-high heels and a thin strap of material that looks like the female version of a banana hammock, covered by a fishnet dress. “I don’t look like I belong here.”

The muscles in his jaw feather and his eyes flare with a dangerous heat. Slowly, he steps toward me, his big chest backing me into the truck. He leans in and I think he’s going to kiss me, but before his lips touch mine, he slips lower to murmur in my ear.

“You’re the sexiest woman here, little doe.” The scratch of his stubble against my jaw sends a shiver down my spine and for just a moment, I forget where we are. At least long enough to rest my hand on the muscles of his abs, which, might I add, are hard as hell underneath his button-up.

He pulls back enough to look at me, his gaze traveling from my eyes, down to my lips, and back. To anyone else, we’d look like any other couple. Really, I’m trying not to have a panic attack at the prospect of what we might find out inside.

“What if someone . . . I don’t know. Touches me?” I feel selfish asking about myself, but the thought of someone else’s hands on me makes my skin crawl.

I’ll do damn near anything for my sister. I won’t do that, though.

In the darkness of the parking garage, Mason looks like a romance novel mob boss. Tattoos, the dark glint in his eyes . . . the way that stare threatens to eat me alive.

“No one will be touching you.”

He’s so sure of it, I almost believe him.

“And you?”

He chuckles darkly, reaching up and brushing a loose strand of hair from my cheek. “I can assure you, little doe. Only one person here has anything I want.”

My mouth clamps shut.

“Now. Let’s get this shit over with.”

He takes my hand in his again and leads me around the front to the line at the door. It’s not long— from what Mason said, this place is invitation only.

We hand our ticket to the bouncer and he checks our IDs like he’s doing background checks for the FBI before he lets us in. I suppose it’s a good thing they’re so careful, but I’m still embarrassed that he knows I’m coming to a sex club.

God, maybe Britt is right. I am a prude.

As soon as he opens the door for us and I step inside, I’m ready to step right back out.

The first thing to hit me is the scent. Sickly sweet perfume and cologne mixed with an underlying aroma of body odor and sex.

The first thing I see? “

A dick, hanging freely in the wind surrounded by a pair of crotchless chaps and thick black pubes.

Ew.

Immediately, I spin around, covering my eyes and running smack into Mason’s chest, who just chuckles and pulls me against him.

“You’ve got to move, Hannah,” he murmurs, voice low in my ear. His hand presses at the center of my back and he steers me away from Free Willy toward a bar in the far corner and away from any wild penises that roam the rest of the room.

The lighting makes it look like Satan’s bedroom, as does the added fog hanging in the air.

On a stage near the center, a man is bent over, his head and hands locked in a pillory while a woman stands behind him, whipping him. Even though I’m pretty sure he’s bleeding, he still begs for more, the sounds of his cries being drowned out by the thumping music in the club.

A couple people are below them, watching with a weird look of sick pleasure and satisfaction on their faces and something uneasy stirs in my stomach.

Another stage shows a girl on a tarp getting peed on. That’s it. Just two men peeing on her and groaning like they’ve been holding it for hours.

That explains the smell.

Despite the darkness, it’s impossible not to see the various stages of sex happening all over the room. A threesome here. A foursome there. Bodies move together like any other club, only at this one, there are hardly any clothes.

“Spit on me” some guy in an actual cage demands when we pass him, but he takes one look at Mason at my back and the possessive way his arm bands around my stomach and falls back in the cage. “Nevermind.”

Holy shit.

Mason leads me to a bar, ordering two drinks. I don’t even hear what he says. I’m too busy staring around the room like a creep.

Drugs flow as freely as the alcohol.

I feel like a peeping Tom, watching people in their most intimate moments. While I have no problem with these clubs if everyone consents to what’s happening to them, I have never once thought about coming to one.

Or coming in one.

Perhaps, that’s how Missy and I are different.

We may look a lot alike, but she’s far more adventurous than I am. I knew that. Now, I can see it.

“Here,” Mason says, handing me a shot glass. “It’ll help with the nerves.”

I don’t even ask what it is, I just swallow it whole, the smooth burn of vodka coating the length of my throat as it slides down. Mason watches me, keeping close. My brain is having a hard time remembering that he’s doing this for show and not because he wants to. His comfort only goes skin-deep.

“You look like you’re going to bolt at any moment, Hannah.”

“I’m really thinking about it.”

“Just try to blend in. You don’t have to do anything.”

“I don’t want to do anything.”

“Come on,” he tugs my hand, leading me toward a dance floor that’s filled with people dry humping. Not unusual at a club, save for the tits and dicks flying everywhere.

I let Mason pull me into the crowd of people. I let him circle his arms around me from behind and I let him force me to dance.

Yeah, I’m definitely glad I brought him because if I didn’t, they wouldn’t have even let me in.

“How are you so calm?” I ask him quietly, the sound of my voice impossible for anyone else to hear over their own, drug-induced sex craze. Well . . . and the music. “What did you do last time?”

I can feel him stiffen behind me and ice fills my stomach.

I move to turn toward him, but he grabs me by the hips, pulling me back into his hard chest.

“I didn’t do anything,” he murmurs low in my ear. A shiver moves through me from his stubble against my neck and I relent, letting him move me along to the music. “I came with an ex. I left after five minutes. This isn’t my scene, Hannah.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” I grumble, putting on my best I’m ready to get railed by strangers face, so no one suspects that inside, I’m ready to bolt.

It’s not that I’m against anyone getting off. I actually don’t care what you like, so long as you aren’t hurting someone or doing something you shouldn’t.

It’s the depravity for everyone to see that makes me uncomfortable.

“You’ve just got to blend in,” Mason whispers, quietly.

“I don’t know how.”

“Feel my cock?” Mason’s fingers on my hips tighten and he presses his erection against my back. A warmth envelopes me when his lips trail up the side of my neck and if I didn’t know any better, he’s enjoying this a little more than he would like to let on.

So maybe Mason Carpenter’s not as indifferent to me as he’d like me to believe.

I bite my lip, hazily appalled at myself that I’m even thinking things like this in a room full of sweaty, sex-fueled people. It’s not them, though . . . it’s him and how he can turn me into a puddle of mush with just a few words.

“That’s only for you, little doe. And you look so fucking pretty right now, grinding on it.” I let out a shaky breath, my hand finding his on my hip as I arch into him. I don’t know whether I’m trying to hold him there or pull him away, but when his hand slides up my stomach, all I can think about is what I want him to do to me.

Act like you want to be here, Hannah , I urge myself, but that anxiety still bubbles beneath the surface. People swallow us in the crowd, and between Mason’s roaming my body and the thumping of the overhead music, my mind is maxed out.

He nips my ear and then he’s spinning me in his arms and tugging me to him. I let myself follow his lead and lift my face to his. He obliges, pressing his lips to mine and drinking me in.

Someone presses up behind me and I realize it’s a woman from her breasts when she pushes them into my back, her hands above Mason’s on my hips and swaying me with the music.

“Easy. I have you.” Mason breathes against my lips when I stiffen. My skin crawls, but I force myself to lean into him, even as another person comes up to wrap her arms around his back.

Forcing myself to breathe, I sink into him, wrapping my arms around his neck and pushing the stranger's hands on my body out of my mind. I knew coming here, I might have to kiss someone, at the very least. I’m glad it was Mason and not someone like spit on me man from the cage near the bar.

When the girl behind me slips her hand up to my top to cup my breasts, I jump, recoiling at the feeling, but Mason doesn’t release me. Instead, he takes her hands and pulls them back to my hips, slipping his lips down my neck, like he’s kissing me there, instead of speaking.

“Off the bathroom, there are private rooms.”

“No,” I breathe, forcing myself to stroke the side of his neck and hoping he can hear me over the music. I refuse to do that here.

“The same hallway leads to the dressing rooms in the back,” he murmurs, so low I don’t think anyone else could have heard him. “We buy a room and sneak into the dressing rooms when the guard’s busy.”

He slips back up to my lips, slipping his tongue between my lips and tangling with mine until my world rocks on its axis. The woman behind him reaches around, rubbing my ass and disgust fills me.

“Ladies,” Mason says when he disentangles me from the two women trying to form a grind train on us. “My wife needs a break.”

They both boo and I can’t stop myself from rolling my eyes. One of them—a beautiful brunette wraps her arms around his waist and tries to grope him through his jeans. Luckily, he catches her hand and pries her away before she does, but the sickening feeling of both jealousy and revulsion rise inside me.

Mason steps away from them and wraps his arm around my waist. He pulls me toward the back where, sure enough, there’s a booth and someone handing out room vouchers.

Mason pays the person, while I struggle to catch my breath and take in the depravity around me. To my left, a girl has one man thrusting above her, another below her. She looks like she’s in pain, judging by the grimace on her face, but no one stops. To my right, two men are tangled up together and the sounds of their grunts feel like they’re battering the edges of my brain.

God, this place gives me a headache.

Finally, Mason’s pulling me toward the doors, as if he can’t wait to get me alone.

As soon as our room door is shut, I break down.

Mason locks the door and I sink onto a cool leather couch that’s probably covered in half the city’s bodily fluids and try to catch my breath.

“Hannah.”

Mason is in front of me, sinking to his haunches and taking my chin.

“Breathe.”

“That is the most joyless excuse for sex I’ve ever seen,” I stammer, chest aching painfully. “Call me old-fashioned, but I have to actually know and like someone, before I let them grope me.”

Mason chuckles, brushing a hair out of my face.

“You did good.”

I roll my eyes.

“You’re just saying that because those girls were hanging all over us.”

His eyes flare and before I can react, he’s wrapping his fingers around the back of my neck and pulling my lips to his with a harsh, rough kiss that heats me from the inside out.

When he breaks it, his eyes are wild.

“I have no intention of fucking anyone here but you, little doe.”

He stands, pulling me off the dirty couch and stepping back toward the door while I gawk at him. He peeks his head out, motions me forward and we slip back out into the hall.

While the club is dark, the hallway is nearly pitch-black save for the few red lights overhead. Doors line the corridor, but none of them are open save for a crack in the very last one.

All kinds of sounds come from behind those other doors. Someone sounds like they’re getting whipped in one. Another sounds like a woman is being murdered. Mason’s hand tightens around mine when he feels me tense, but he doesn’t say anything as we near the end.

Light streams from inside, but when he pushes the door open, it doesn’t lead backstage, at all.

It’s a fucking office.

A wall of security cameras sits behind the desk, each with a display of live-action porn playing from various areas of the club. The private rooms. The stages. The bathrooms. There’s not a square inch of the place that isn’t covered.

Ew.

“Look what the cat dragged in.”

I was so preoccupied with all the laws the club is breaking that I hadn’t even noticed the man sitting at the desk. My gaze flits to him and he’s smiling wickedly, like a cartoon villain.

“I was wondering when we were going to see you.”

Drew Marshall. I hadn’t heard of him since he and Bailey’s engagement ended, let alone seen him. I would have thought he would have skipped town, knowing Mason and all, but here he is, creepy smile and all.

Time hasn’t been good to him. His good looks have waned, and he no longer looks like a Disney prince. His once-perfect skin is now aging, the stubble on his jaw holding little flecks of gray despite his young age of thirty-three. His hair, once glorious and full is now thinning on top of his head. But it’s the scar . . . circling his eye and leading down into his cheek that really alters his appearance.

I pause because Drew’s looking at me. Mason stiffens, putting himself between me and Drew, but I can still see the purple-hued glasses covering his eyes.

“Should have known you were behind this shit, Marshall.”

“It’s Mr. Hollywood, now, actually.” Drew smiles widely, spreading his arms out as if to say ta-da . “And this is my house. Funny how that works out, huh?”

“I don’t really give a shit who you are now. You’ll always be the same spineless little shit who pissed his pants when I came after him.” I step closer to Mason because honestly, Drew Marshall gives me the creeps, but mostly because I feel like I’m going to be snatched from behind at any second. I could totally take him if I needed to . . . I hope. “We came for information.”

“Well, all information comes at a price and I don’t disclose the identities of my patrons.” He looks past Mason and directly at me. “Even your sister.”

I could vomit.

“You know, Hannah Gaines, this is a poor place for someone who wishes to remain hidden. I bought this club and made it my own because I like to watch. It’s fun for me and fun for them.” He stands, walking around the desk as if he’s giving a college lecture on literature. “What I don’t like, is people showing up snooping around.”

Fuck.

“Please . . .” I push away from Mason and slip under his arm. His arm bands around my waist to prevent me from getting any closer—something that doesn’t go unnoticed by Drew. “My sister is missing. I know she used to come here. We need information about where she could have gone.”

Drew chuckles as if I’d said I’d like to speak to the Pillsbury Doughboy.

“I know she came here. Religiously . I’m afraid she’s in danger.”

“Well, you’re all in danger, aren’t you? What with Mommy trying to eradicate small business and all.”

“Drugs,” I correct. I may not like my mother, but one thing I find admirable from her time in office is her fight against the drug problems of California. “She is eradicating drugs.”

Drew just smiles wickedly from his side of the desk.

“How bold of you to come here, expecting me to give you information on Melissa Gaines.” He sits down in his chair and leans forward until the lamp in front of him reflects off the purple lenses of his glasses. “Melissa Gaines is a dead woman. If she’s not already. She fucked me over.”

Surprise, surprise.

“And . . . I’m afraid, I just don’t care.”

My heart drops to my toes. So many people want my sister dead. And for what? I’ve only just scratched the surface of her mental health crisis, but already, I’m beginning to wonder if she doesn’t deserve it. After everyone she’s hurt. The drugs. The poison.

When does it end?

“You’d care if the FBI found out about your cameras, wouldn’t you?”

Mason steps forward, placing me behind him, again as he watches Drew with pure, unadulterated hatred.

“Savannah settles for a lowly FBI agent and now you’re going to throw him around whenever you like? Oh, don’t tell me you’ve never dreamed of being the one creeping in the shadows, Carpenter,” Drew laughs sardonically.

“No, but I have dreamed about finishing what I started the night you tied my sister to your bed and left her to die.”

Drew’s jaw tenses, right underneath the scar rippling on his face. Something tells me Mason knows exactly where he got that scar.

“How about I make you a deal, Carpenter? You can have all the information you want. The girl stays.”

Horror washes through me. I would rather chew off each of my toenails than spend another second inside this delusional club. Much less with Drew Marshall and his rapidly receding hairline and dirty fingernails.

“The girl goes where I go. You won’t be touching her.”

“I could just call security? I can assure you my men aren’t police. We don’t handle things the way you might be accustomed to.”

Mason shrugs. “Call them,” he murmurs darkly, reaching back under his shirt to pull something from the waistband of his jeans. The glint of a pistol shines in the light when he presses the hard steel down against the table. “That is if you think they can get here before I can finish what I started three years ago.

Suddenly, Mr. Hollywood isn’t so cheerfully delusional.

He looks back and forth between Mason and the gun, his eyes flashing warily. If he knows Mason, he knows not to poke the bear, and right now, Mason’s looking more like a grizzly than any cuddly teddy bear I’ve ever seen.

“I think I’ll take that information now.”

Slowly, Drew swallows over the lump in his throat. Then he nods.

Carefully leaning forward, he grabs a pen and pad of paper and scribbles an address on it before handing it to Mason with a look of bleeding fear in his eyes.

I find myself wondering what Mason did to him years ago, but I hope it was everything he deserved.

“Thank you,” Mason replies with fake politeness. His voice is little more than a hum. Like a vampire in the night, right before he leaves his victim on the brink of death. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be leaving. Smells like come and piss in here.”

Mason grabs me around the waist and steers me toward the door, but before we reach it, he stops.

“Oh, and I don’t think I need to remind you, you didn’t see us tonight.”

A slow, quiet nod from Drew.

“Good.”