thinks it’s part of the game,” Gabriel said.
“Well, game’s over!” Tess tapped at her watch. “Do you realize what time it is? I scheduled a run-through with Erica Summers tomorrow at eight-thirty.”
“That’s why we’re hitting the club tonight. You have to see this place to believe it.”
“Hey, I already have the concept for the ad, and I’m not changing it. I want to go home and sleep.” She shot him a hard stare. “Why do you care what I do with the Faustini account? Unless you want me to make a wrong move and fall on my face.”
“That’s cold,” he said. “The account was supposed to have been mine, and I put in a lot of time thinking about it.”
“Sounds like a reason to want to sabotage me, not help me.”
“It would be, if I worked that way. This is a concept you might have learned in kindergarten, Tess. It’s called sharing.”
Conviction again. And it was very convincing when he decided to turn it on. A shock of dark hair had worked its way free from his ponytail and was flirting with his jawline. He didn’t bother with it. She wanted to. It was difficult not to wonder what he’d look like with his hair loose and flowing. Way out of style these days, but probably wildly sensual on him. The man could have invented sex. It was that bad.
“Okay, maybe I shouldn’t accuse you,” she said, hoping to appeal to his sense of honor. Ha! “But some other night, okay? You can take me to the club and punish me for being bad.”
“You said it. I’m not letting you out of this cab, though.”
“That’s abduction, Danny.”
“You called me Danny.” He said it as if that had some kind of special significance to their situation. “And no, it’s not abduction in the criminal sense. It’s a great sexual fantasy being played out by a man and a woman, whom everyone will believe are two consenting adults. I could throw you over my shoulder and carry you into the club kicking and screaming. No one would say a word.”
“That’s evil.”
“Yeah, it is. You’re going to love the place.” His smile was panic-inducing. Probably that damn scar.
“I’ll love it some other time.”
“Come on, check it out. What are you afraid of, Tess? That someone else might have a good idea? Or that you might like the club?” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “You’re a freak at heart?”
“You wish. How do you know so much about this place?”
“Mitzi, of course.”
“Mitzi’s freaky?”
“She’s adventurous, which is more than I can say for you.”
Tess heaved a sigh. Clearly, she wasn’t going to talk him out of it.
“I’ll take a look,” she finally said. “Fifteen minutes, and then I’m out of there, with or without you, agreed? Those are my conditions, but only if you pay the cabbie in advance to wait outside, all night, if necessary.”
“Not a problem. I already have the cab for the night, the entire night.”
Moments later, the driver pulled into an underground parking garage and stopped in front of an elevator bank. Graffiti marred the garage walls, making it look more like a tenement than an upscale club. Tess didn’t have much hope for the place, and she was more suspicious of his motives than ever.
She’d locked most of the materials for tomorrow’s run-through in her desk drawer at the office, but her sketch pad didn’t fit in the drawer, and at the last minute, she’d crammed it in her tote bag. She didn’t like the idea of leaving the tote in the cab, but it was probably safer than taking it into the club, so she put the bag on the floor, hoping the driver wouldn’t realize it was there. As she and Danny got out of the car, she noticed a symbol painted on the wall above the elevator. It looked like a snake, curled in a perfect circle and swallowing its own tail. How reassuring.
The elevator rose to an unmarked floor and the doors opened to oceanlike darkness. Things slithered and swam in front of Tess’s eyes. Light and shadows? Living beings? She couldn’t tell.
She didn’t move until Danny took her hand. “Come on,” he coaxed, leading her out of the car and onto a path illuminated by red votive candles with white flames. “I’ll protect you.”
She didn’t miss the irony in his tone, but Tess wasn’t so sure she wouldn’t need protection. Muted screams drifted up from some lower floor. The club probably had a dungeon. Tess imagined floggings and body parts being stretched. But probably it was nothing more than tattoos and piercings being done without benefit of anesthesia.
They’d only taken a few steps when a scarlet spotlight illuminated a scene to their left. Tess’s vision hadn’t adjusted, but it looked like a woman in stocks. Her head and hands were enclosed in wooden yokes that were secured to low posts, forcing her to bend at the waist. A man stood just behind her, and—
Tess ventured closer. Was she naked? At first, Tess thought they were statues. Neither seemed to be moving, but then she caught the rhythmic motion of the man’s hips, and the look of utter ecstasy on the woman’s face.
Tess jumped back. They were both naked, and he was either having carnal knowledge of her from behind, or doing a very good job of simulating it.
Was that legal in the state of New York? Tess didn’t look at Danny. She must be as red as the glow from the spotlight.
Another scene lit up the path to their right. Tess could see a man kneeling in a pool of soft fuchsia light. He was holding on to the thong of a bullwhip, the end of which was wrapped around his neck. He wore a tattered T-shirt and jeans, but the woman who wielded the whip was nude, except for her tightly laced stiletto boots and the snake bracelets coiling up her arms. Clearly, she was the dominant of the two, a fuchsia goddess as she gripped the whip handle in one hand and a branding iron in the other.
“This is all playacting, right?” Tess resisted the tug of Danny’s hand. “Tell me it is, or I’m leaving.”
“Sure, play-acting.”
Tess allowed herself to be nudged along, until a howl of anguish brought her to a dead stop. Not the branded love slave. It hadn’t come from his direction, but it was nearby. “What was that?”
“A sound track, obviously. It’s all playacting.”
“Thanks.” It was a sad state of affairs when a smart-ass like Danny Gabriel was your only ally in a hellhole like this. Tess had no desire to see what came next, but the path kept lighting up as they walked, and it was nearly impossible not to look. To their left, a sinuous female creature in black body paint writhed over the supine body of a naked man, who, except for the twitching, looked nearly comatose. And deliriously happy. Maybe he was the one who’d howled.
“She’s a succubus,” Danny explained.
“And a succubus is…?”
“A nasty little she-devil who preys on sleeping males, drains all their precious vital fluids and leaves them for dead.”
“Maybe I could help her pick her next victim.” Tess locked her gaze on the path ahead and kept it there. These places were not designed for women who’d sworn off sex, especially if they were in the throes of PMS, which for Tess was the hormonal equivalent of a Siamese cat in heat. Possibly she should have wrestled the whip from the fuchsia goddess and laid claim to the love slave, although the comatose guy was probably more her speed.
More spotlights came on, creating a vibrant rainbow in the red-to-purple spectrum. Since Tess was reluctant to look, Danny was kind enough to describe the new scenes, one being a contortionist who could pleasure herself while doing back bends, the other a female magician who was making the clothing disappear, one piece at a time, of a restrained man whom Danny