2

Mia

As soon as I’m in the elevator I go over all the sensible things I can say.

I need to talk up my waitressing experience. Talk about that first.

I’ll mention things like customer service and being a people person.

I waitressed for five years. Before college and during, while I lived on campus. It was all to help my living expenses. I got a scholarship to Harvard so the fees were taken care of. It was just everything else and I was so happy to be there that I didn’t mind the work. Dad, helped too because business at the time was booming. He’s a software developer and owns his own company.

Our family was doing reasonably well, and Carter wasn’t as bad as he is now. No one would have foreseen the trouble my brother would land himself in, just brewing on the horizon.

The elevator stops on the fifth and as I go through the door the vision of the place sweeps me off my feet. The effect makes me stop in my tracks.

I’m in a Venetian style hall, with an endless gold roof and grand décor comparable to the pictures you’d see of Venice and the venues they hold masquerade balls.

I went to both Venice and Rome a few years back, so I know my imagination hasn’t gone wild.

There are multiple levels and balconies. I see bars circle the dance floor. Pillars and platforms and Arabian type cubicles with sheer curtains beautifully intertwined along the outskirts of each floor.

Wow, it’s all so beautiful and classy.

I’d love to look around but I’m not here for exploring.

I continue down the corridor and find the office. The door is made of polished oak and has a sheen that glistens against the overhead lights.

I knock on the door and a deep baritone voice calls out, “come in.”

It’s the kind of voice that seeps into you and commands respect. Instantly I wonder what the owner of the voice looks like.

The boss. Is he a mob boss? Or, is he just the boss as in the manager of the place?

I don’t know but I’m about to find out.

I push the door open and go to smile by default, except the smile doesn’t come.

It’s caught mid-expression as my brain turns to soup when my eyes land on the most attractive man I’ve ever seen in my life.

His eyes get me first. They get me and paralyze me with a wave of desire I can’t deny.

They’re an ice blue, almost silver and glacier-like. So light they have an otherworldly appearance in the subtle light that drifts through the window. He stares back at me with intense curiosity. It heats my body up, everywhere.

He’s standing by the long French window, tall, tall at what I guess is over six feet. I’m five four and from way over here he seems to tower over me in height and presence.

He’s well-built with muscles outlining powerful looking shoulders and the white button-up shirt he wears only accentuates his hard body. It’s the kind of body you’d see in a wild sexual fantasy.

His face, all angles and planes, tilts to the side as he regards me and a lock of his dark hair falls over his eye, making him look more alluring if that was possible.

Attractive, gorgeous, handsome… all feel like they’re lacking in description for the way I would describe this man, but they’re all the words that come to my mind.

The door taps against the wall as it connects and the slight sound registers in my brain, and -shit! - I’m staring. I realize I’m just staring at him like some kind of freak. Great first impression Mia.

Great first impression. I’m here for an interview and the job is one I desperately need so staring and fucking things up is not what I need to do now.

Quickly, I gather myself, even though I can’t quite get my brain to follow suit. It refuses to tell my eyes to stop staring.

“Good morning…” I chime, then I remember morning went a couple of hours ago. “I mean good afternoon,” I correct quickly and blink to focus.

A smile comes into his eyes. It’s like he knows I’m nervous and finds some humor in it.

“Hello,” he briefly answers.

I think of what his name is and remember I didn’t ask. Great.

I didn’t ask for his name and now I don’t know what to call him other than ‘The boss’.

I step forward, walking into the office and the door swings back closed with a click.

“I’m Mia Chase. Thank you so much for making the time to see me. I’d love to find out more about the waitressing job here at The Dark Odyssey.” Good, I found my voice. Although I’m starting to babble.

The beginning of a smile tips the corners of his full sensual lips.

Full sensual lips that look like they were made for kissing. Like serious kissing. The kind that curls your toes and weakens you, the kind that’s so effective it speaks to the soul.

I’m crazy. I’m totally crazy. What the hell is wrong with me? I can’t be thinking about his lips now, or stupid things like kisses. I can’t even figure out if his lips look more delicious as a full smile inches across his mouth and dances in the alluring vision of him.

Why is he smiling like that?

God, I hope I don’t have something on my face or in my teeth.

“Would you?” he asks, like a challenge.

I don’t know what he means because I’ve been too busy thinking and checking him out.

“Would I…what?” I stutter.

“You’d love to find out more about the waitressing job,” he clarifies. All this time his eyes don’t leave mine.

Those eyes hold me in place, exuding power, confidence and strength.

I like it, even though I shouldn’t. It’s just attractive.

“Yes, I used to waitress at... um… Red Lobster.” Lord, it sounds so amateur in comparison to what this place must be, but since it’s the bulk of my experience I have to talk it up. I was there for three and a half years and only worked at the student union restaurant at Harvard for eighteen months because dad wanted me to focus on my studies in my final year. “I have five years’ experience and I loved it. I’m a real people person.”

I sound stupid. That’s what. I actually sound like a babbling buffoon and it’s all much to his amusement.

I need to calm down. Calm the fuck down and focus.

He moves away from the wall and takes a few strides toward me, stopping in front of the large mahogany desk that’s a few paces away.

He continues to stare, now assessing me.

I’m not sure how to react when his gaze drops from my eyes and lands right on my breasts.

I’m used to that.

It wouldn’t be normal for me to talk to a guy and that doesn’t happen. They all look at my breasts and undress me with their eyes.

This guy is no different.

But… if feels different coming from him. I actually feel desire pull at the insides of my core and it nearly weakens me the longer he stares.

Does he actually know he’s overtly staring at my breasts?

I have the urge to cover myself or clear my throat. Something to snap his gaze back up to meet mine.

After what seems like a forever of tension, his eyes climb back up my neck like he’s studying me then meet my eyes. What I see is pure desire that darkens the ice blue hue.

“What do you know about The Dark Odyssey?” Comes his simple question.

I’m thrown because I actually don’t know what to say. Of course, I did my research, so I know the general run down. Somehow though, telling him details like there’s no entry to anyone under twenty one and nudity is optional don’t seem to cut it. He looks at me like he wants more of an answer than that.

I’ve heard things, Chloe tells me things because she comes here a lot. I know enough to stay away. I know enough to know that if you aren’t used to seeing certain things out in the open, the place is not for you. No offence to anyone who’s into the life of wild sexual adventure. I kind of wish sometimes I could be like that. I just know on the regular this club would not be on my list of places I want to visit.

Do I say that?

Hell no. Not if I don’t want him to show me the door.

“It’s classy,” I nod and offer up a smile again, bringing my hands together I think of all the good I can tell him. Like what I observed. “Very classy and definitely the kind of place I would love to waitress in. I’m used to dealing with a variety of different clients.”

His gaze intensifies at that answer. “That’s what you know about the club, Miss Chase?” The way he says my name is with an edge of the desire I see in his eyes. He chuckles and runs a hand through his hair. “The fact that it’s a sex club completely goes unnoticed to you?”

I’m almost afraid to answer. I know it’s silly not to mention that but who would? “No, I noticed. I noticed for sure that it’s a sex club.”

“Does that bother you?”

“No,” bald faced lie. Jesus, I can’t even believe I lied with the straight bald face too although I can feel my cheeks flush. “Not at all.”

The curiosity comes back into his eyes, replacing the desire. Now he walks over to me, right up to me and looks me over. He walks around me slowly and my nerves spike from the effect of having his eyes drink me in. Even when I can’t see him, I feel the effect of his eyes. The sexual tension sends shivers down my spine and our eyes lock when he returns to face me. Our eyes lock and I swallow hard wishing I weren’t so attracted to him.

“Waitress it is. The hours are seven until midnight unless given other instructions. You work five days a week, unless given other instructions. The salary starts at fifty to a hundred grand.”

I blink rapidly and scrunch up my face because I’m not sure I heard him right. I can’t help the look of shock I give him. I couldn’t have heard him right at all. Yes, Chloe might have said the pay was good but what he’d just said is unreal.

The starting salary at the law firm after internship was over a hundred grand. How can it be that here for waitressing?

His lips arch into a sexy grin when he sees my reaction.

“I’m sorry, I’m having a little trouble hearing today. Can you repeat that please?” I ask.

“Seven until midnight, pay starts at fifty to a hundred grand.”

“For a waitressing position? And five hours work a day?”

“We value our waitresses here Miss Chase. The Dark Odyssey is no regular sex club. You are chosen and considered as part of the attraction to the patrons that come here. You have to do certain things, some of which make you more special.”

God…

Why did that sound not quite right to me? Do certain things that makes you more special.

In a sex club what could that mean?

I’m not stupid. Not at all. Stupid didn’t earn me graduating top of my class at Harvard. Neither did it secure my internship at Silvermans.

Stupid, however, makes me want to doubt what he means and err on the side of logic. Waitressing means taking orders for food and drink, right?

It’s desperation that makes me cling to that and not anything else.

But … what waitress do I know makes a starting salary of a hundred grand a year? Starting salary…

“What do you mean by special?” I ask. My voice is a little firmer than I’ve been.

“Special here can mean many things, it also determines the level of salary.”

“Isn’t it based on experience?” My voice now comes out slightly high-pitched.

“No, it’s not. It’s based on perception. Opinion, and what she is valued at.” He’s looking at me and the heat in his eyes burns me up. I get the instant impression that he’s talking about so much more than the job.

“How does that sound to you?” he asks.

I open my mouth to answer but I really don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to say. He’s told me something about the job, yet at the same time I feel like he hasn’t really told me anything.

And, am I really in a position to be picky?

I’m here because I’ve hit rock bottom.

I’m here because I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been back in Chicago for eight months and I can’t find work. I can’t find any work that will pay what I need. Dad can’t work as much as he used to.

He can’t. All I have to do is remember getting that call from the hospital, telling me he’d been taken in with a heart attack. He had emergency surgery. That was where my savings went. All of it because Dad never told me how bad things were. I truly found out the hard way.

That was how it started. I was nearly at the end of my internship and got the call that changed everything.

I thought that was the bad part and when I got home I found out the rest. Everything else. It just got worse from there.

“It sounds interesting,” I tell him. “Is there any more you can tell me? I mean like what the job involves. I’m guessing special means a lot more than waiting tables.”

“Miss Chase… can I call you Mia?”

“Yes. Sure.” I swallow hard again and find there’s a lump in my throat.

“Mia… this part is the part where things change. If we truly proceed to interview, things will change… and they might not be exactly what you’re used to. I need you to be aware of that.” He smiles with an air of confidence that’s sexy and sinful all at once.

The suspense is building and I want it to be over. I want it to be over and done with so I can stop trying to guess what the job would be like and what it would be like to work here.

“Okay… I understand.” I nod.

“And you’re ready for the interview?” His eyes flash with heat and desire. He almost looks like a predator about to pounce on its prey. The prey being me.

“I’m ready.” I pull in a quick breath.

His smile widens although it’s still even, with a cool edge. He sits on his desk and scans me again.

“Good. Then take off your clothes.”