She blew out a breath and I wanted to lean forward and capture it with my own mouth.

“What about you? Do you love your sex and kink, Nassir?”

I smirked at her. “Sex is a part of life; it’s necessary and here in the Point it is currency. Kink I can give or take depending on the person on the other end of it. I’ve seen too much torture and degradation in my lifetime for the extreme and dark side of sex to be appealing.”

I saw the questions my quietly spoken words fired to life in her eyes, but instead of asking them, she was the one that decided to change the subject.

“Tell me about this business proposition you had in mind when you came to Denver. You want me to dress in latex and spank people? You want me to get on my back and spread my legs for a line of guys while people watch? What’s your game plan?”

I frowned at her and couldn’t stop myself from moving closer to her as she spit the harsh words out at me.

“You think I want to watch you have sex with other people, Key? You think it’s been fun for me to watch you burn your way through every available and not-so-available boy in the Point because you weren’t ready for me?” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Now, which one of us needs to have some accountability?”

She flushed pink and leaned closer to me. She might be scared of me and the way I wanted her, but she never backed down, and that made my desire for her burn in a way that would never be extinguished.

“What did you have in mind, Nassir?”

I reached out with the very tip of my finger and brushed it along the raised-up surface of her scar. She flinched away from me and I could still see her on the filthy floor of the strip club, her crimson life force covering my hands as her eyes fluttered closed. I refused to let her die just like I refused to let her leave. I was not a man to be denied the things he wanted most.

“I want you to buy in and be a partner just like Race did. You are what sex is about in the Point, Key. Your face. Your body. Your heart. Your attitude. The legacy you left. Everything about you is what men dream about in this place. I want you to lure them in, empty their pocketbooks, and then send them on their way with a smile.”

She reared back and then burst out laughing. She cackled so hard her eyes started to water. “You want me to be a mascot.”

I furrowed my eyebrows because I had no idea what she was talking about. She must have seen my confusion because she stopped laughing long enough to fill me in.

“Like a dancing chicken or a singing taco. Like the big stuffed furry critters that dance around for the crowd at halftime during a football game. You want me to be a mascot for a sex club.”

I was lost. “I don’t watch football.”

“Well, trust me; that’s exactly what you’re asking me to do, and I have to pass. I need more out of my life than flaunting my boobs and getting groped for a dollar.” She flicked that bloodred hair out of her eyes and stared me down.

I blinked at her slowly and lifted a hand to rub my thumb across my lower lip. I liked the way her eyes tracked the movement. She was as affected by me as I was by her; she just hid it better. She always had.

“The amount of money that this place has already generated without the doors being open is double what the Pit cleared in a month. Lock & Key is poised to be the unofficial bank of the Point, Key. Being a partial owner entitles you to a portion of all of the revenue the club is going to generate. It’s enough money to allow you to do whatever you want, buy anything you ever wanted, and all you have to do is be here. You make the place tick. You give it life.” Just like she gave life to me.

“It’s all dirty money, Nassir. What happens when the club gets shut down? What happens when someone burns this place to the ground like the last one? You want me to put all my eggs in one basket. A basket you are holding in your hands and can drop the second you feel like it.”

She didn’t trust me.

She was smart.

I stood up, which made her gasp and had her leaning back so that she was almost lying flat on my desk. Her legs parted involuntarily to let me between them and her hands went to the center of my chest as I hovered over her with my hands next to her hips on the glass. The cuts burned but I didn’t want her to see them. Now wasn’t the time to show weakness.

“You buy in and you own it, Keelyn. You get a say in how things are run, what happens, and the role you play in it. Your buying in means you are part of the business whether it prospers or fails. We are on equal footing and the only person holding the basket is you. I’ll manage the profits and the power . . . you manage the people.” I didn’t have it in me to pretend that the basest human behaviors were interesting or important, but she did.

Her fingers curled into the fabric of my shirt and my cock ached as it pulsed against the inside of her leg. We had never touched this intimately and this was the closest I had ever been to her. I could feel my body humming in reaction and my blood whispering at me to take her, to claim her, to make her mine after being denied for so long.

“I buy in and I have to stay?” Her voice shook.

I nodded, and some of my hair fell forward and brushed against her cheek. I felt her shiver and it made me want to trace those faint tremors with my hands.

“You have to stay.” She had to stay if she bought into the club or not, and eventually she was going to realize that.

“I can do what I want, suggest changes, use the money I make however I want even if it goes against everything that makes sense to you?” She gulped as she asked the questions and her clutching hands went flat and pressed into my chest where my heart was trying to reach out for her hands. “What about us, Nassir?”

“What about us?” Even though there had always been an “us,” there never really had been an us. I wasn’t sure what she was asking me, or what kind of plans she had for the sizable profits she would make if she agreed to buy in.

“We get all tangled up in business and pleasure and then one or the other goes bad, and where does that leave us? You can destroy me without even trying. You’ve been doing it for years.”

I could destroy her, but she was the only thing in the world that made me weak, so she could end me without a thought just as easily. I wanted her to be mine. I wanted her to let me have her in every conceivable way, but more than that, I needed her here. I needed a life with her in it, so if that meant I had to make a choice, I chose keeping her around over having her under me panting my name in erotic satisfaction hour after hour and day after day.