it’s not this place. It’s him. Spider’s messed with my head so much that seeing Sam ravaged by five men, and the threat of Spider letting the same thing happen to me, makes me hot. How does this even happen?
“That collar is gorgeous, by the way.” Tequila nods toward my neck.
I cover the black collar self-consciously while a strange sense of pride threads through me. Pride that I’m wearing something I know is a mark of Spider’s ownership. It marks me as his as clearly as the spider web scars on my chest. The feeling fills me with shame.
“I wish he’d take it off,” I tell her icily.
“Why?”
“He put a leash on me,” I grumble, looking at the leather loop on the bar as if it’s nailed there, trapping me here.
“It looks good on you.”
I glare at her. “You’re not helping.”
“They really did a number on you in that place, didn’t they? What would they do to you if they knew you watched what the guys did to Sam?”
I snap my head up, the notion making me shiver. “You don’t want to know. That was just so wrong.”
Her manicured brow goes up and her mouth quirks. “It got you hot, didn’t it?”
My face burns until I’m surprised my cheeks don’t melt off.
I shouldn’t want anything to do with Spider, but I’m craving everything he is, everything he does to the depths of my soul. My body is such a traitor.
“Kill me now,” I tell her. “Just kill me now.”
“Why? What’s wrong with that?”
“Everything,” I moan. “I shouldn’t have gotten off on… on that.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s wrong.”
“Says who?”
I look away. When she puts it like that, everything I’ve been taught about sexual pleasure sounds so silly, and yet I can’t shut off the fear I feel when I imagine what would happen if anyone I grew up with knew what I’d just allowed myself to see. Or if they knew what Spider does to me.
Tequila shakes her head and leans close to me on the bar. “Look, Emma. That’s what you have to learn about this club. There is no judgment here. That’s why a lot of people join an MC. What those guys did to Sam was hot as fuck. You saw how hard she came. If seeing a woman have a train pulled on her gets your motor revved, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
So that’s a train. That’s what Jules meant. My cheeks heat again.
“And there’s nothing wrong with you wanting Spider either. The women in this club are here because of men like him.”
“He’s everything I’ve been warned about. The pastors would say he’s the Devil incarnate. A demon.”
“Don’t let Spider hear you say that. He’d get a kick out of it.”
I make a strangled noise.
“Those asshats at your Colony told you sex is evil, right?” she says. “The clit’s the Devil’s doorbell and all that.”
A snicker slips out at the strange phrase. “Something like that.”
“They told you you’d burn in hell and you’re a whore if you fuck a guy, right? Anyone but who they say.” She shakes her head. “Gaslighting bullshitters. No one here will hold it against you if you get off on what Spider does to you. It’s natural.”
“But that’s not who I am. It can’t be.”
“Why can’t it?” She shrugs.
I blow out a breath, unable to process what’s going through my head. If it is who I am… The ramifications are just too high.
I latch onto something she once told me as if it’s a lifeline, something that can save me from being sucked into the maelstrom that is Spider. “You told me once that I’m just a piece of ass to him.”
She sighs and looks over at him, and then at me. “Don’t tell him I said this, but most of the women here have known you aren’t just booty to him for a while now. He wouldn’t admit it, but it’s true.”
I widen my eyes. Surprise and gratitude for her respect makes me smile, though I resist the urge to tell her she must be seeing things if she thinks Spider feels anything for me.
“What makes you think he cares about me at all?”
“Because. The way he sees it, with you escaping, getting kidnapped, you’ve caused a lot of trouble for him. You’ve upended his life, and he hasn’t killed you yet. Spidy must be in love.”
“Well, that’s reassuring.”
She grins.
The thought that Spider harbors real feelings for me makes my heart skip. Then it makes my heart sink when I remind myself