“Maybe if you had a girlfriend, you wouldn’t worry about my love life so much.”

And there it is. Sabrina has decided to switch tactics from yelling at me to trying to divert attention away from her feelings toward Kaga. It’s working, although she doesn’t know it. My mind has been preoccupied with Natalie since I left her.

I glance at my watch. I could sneak down into my office to check my messages. I have yet to hear from her. Was she mad that I was in her bedroom? Would she have wanted me to stay? Call me wasn’t an invitation. It was a command. Maybe she didn’t understand that. I hadn’t abandoned her, but I didn’t want to freak her out more by staying.

If I’d stayed, I would have wanted to climb into the bed with her, that pink-and-white monstrosity of a thing. She had more pillows than the bedding department at Macy’s. Hell, it could have been the bedding department at Macy’s.

I’d left with an uncomfortable ache in my pants and another pang slightly higher and to the left. The feeling hadn’t gone away either. I’d had to take myself in hand in the shower both last night and this morning; something I hadn’t done for a long time, because I either had someone else around to take care of that or I went without.

But last night when I got home, I couldn’t stop thinking about Natalie. She felt right in my arms. She fit—in a way that Deena and all my past women had never done. I wouldn’t have gotten any sleep that night if I hadn’t taken care of my hard-on, so in the shower I’d fantasized about pulling down the sheets, licking my way from her calves to her core.

By the time I had my tongue deep into her pussy, I was coming. After a quick cold-water rubdown, I’d been able to fall asleep, only to wake up with her on my mind. So I took the same course of action again. I was left just as hungry and nearly as hard as when I’d started.

She has until tomorrow to call me back before I take matters into my own hands.

“What are your plans?” I ask Sabrina.

“Going to a bar with some friends.”

“Have fun tonight, squirt.” I lean down to give her a quick kiss on her forehead. “Be safe. Call me if you need a ride.”

“Tell Kaga I said hi,” she says softly into my shirt.

I stiffen at her words, but wanting to avoid another fight, I give her a half smile. “Will do.”

Priya, Kaga’s drop-dead gorgeous assistant, meets me at the side door. “You’re late,” she says in greeting. Priya lives and dies by her schedule, and his. I’ve suspected more than once that she suffers from at least a mild case of OCD. I once accidentally moved the stapler on her desk and she about melted down until it was repositioned.

But her attention to detail was why she was the perfect match for Kaga, a guy who ran two empires—one in the US and one in Japan. I often wondered if they had a thing. Priya is almost too beautiful not to make at least one play for, but I never got anything but a boss/secretary vibe. Probably Kaga would say that it was dishonorable to take advantage of an employee.

“Only by fifteen minutes. That’s early by New York standards.”

Priya frowns, but says nothing. She silently leads me up the stairs to the owner’s suite. In every bar Kaga owns, he has a private suite that overlooks most of the club. It’s equipped with televisions if you are bored with the floor show, a private bar, catered food, and several flat, soft surfaces for when you want to take your dancing from vertical to horizontal. I’ve done my own share of fucking in his private suites. There is just something about clubs that makes women want to take their clothes off. The one-way privacy mirror feeds their exhibitionist fantasies without exposing them in any way.

I wonder what fantasies Natalie has.

“You look fierce. Kaga’s not even here,” Ian says as Priya opens the door. “Japan. A family issue,” he adds before I can ask where and why.

Kaga’s comment about cleaning house followed by his quick departure gives me pause. I’m glad when a knock at the door interrupts us. A dark-eyed beauty walks in with a sultry smile and a tray holding two glasses of amber liquid. God love Priya’s efficiency.

She bends near Ian first, her body brushing his. He draws back and makes a show of reaching for the glass with his left hand so that the platinum of his wedding band flashes in the light. She’s smart enough to recognize the rebuff and turns her attention to me.

My left hand is noticeable too, but in a different way. Either Priya gave her a heads-up or she’s got good self-control, because she doesn’t react at all. She treats me with the same seductive attention. A cynical part of me knows that of course she’s going to treat me the same. A guy with a prosthetic—who is a personal guest of Kaga—likely has a big enough bank account to make up for all kinds of deficits, including the lack of a limb. Or two.

“Anything else I can provide?”

Ian raises his eyebrows to indicate that the invitation and response are mine alone. Another time, maybe I would’ve taken her up on it. Ian would have excused himself and this young lady would discover that the rest of my body still worked just fine.

Instead, I shake my head. “We’re good.”

Her regret seems genuine as she nods and leaves.

“Not feeling it tonight?” Ian asks. “Too easy?”

He likes the chase—a waitress offering herself along with Kaga’s aged whiskey wouldn’t have enticed him before his marriage. I don’t mind easy offerings. “Not interested.”

“Why not? She was gorgeous. All legs and boobs.”

“There are dolls for you if all you are interested in are legs and boobs.”

He nods and without another question turns back to the large windows overlooking the show.

In the cages and on the stages at Club 69, couples simulate sex acts—there’s something for everyone. Gays, lesbians, heteros. In the center a rotating stage rises and lowers on a hydraulic lift—something that gave Kaga a dozen headaches pre-opening.

From this room, we can see the various acts and the clubgoers writhing on the dance floor. Ordinarily one of the acts would’ve stirred me, but tonight all I can think of is Natalie.

“How can you even see her down there?” I ask, referring to Ian’s wife and my employee, Victoria. Ian calls her Tiny, which I freely admit I don’t get. She’s average sized.

“I just know. I could pick her out from a thousand look-alikes. She’s on the dance floor, northeast corner.”

I squint and make out a pretty light brown head next to a curly-topped head and one security guard, standing as a buffer between the crowd and the two girls.

“That doesn’t look like one of mine,” I comment, pointing to the guard.

“Kaga’s security,” Ian admits. “Steve wouldn’t come. He’s too busy chasing that waitress.”

“Still? I don’t know what to be more impressed by. His persistence or her ongoing refusal.” It seemed like months since we’d discovered that Cecilia Howe, a wealthy socialite, was blackmailing a number of people in order to maintain their silence about her husband’s infidelities—among other things. One of Howe’s victims was a waitress trying to keep her younger brother from going back to prison.

“His persistence,” Ian says. “Because who’d want to wake up to his crabby ass every morning?”

Steve is Ian’s bodyguard, driver, and good friend, but surly is his default setting.

“Why are you up here with me? Shouldn’t you be down there marking your territory? I think I saw a male hand come within six feet of Victoria.”

He scowls at me. “I’m up here learning to be an evolved man, not the Neanderthal she keeps calling me.”