Madame (Salacious Players' Club, #6)

by Sara Cate

“You can’t be worse than I was.”

“Fuck, I don’t know. We just…love the fuck out of each other. We get on each other’s nerves and fight and fuck and laugh and then do it all over again the next day.”

Things with Jade and Clay are a lot more serious than I want to admit. Fuck.

“Hunter, I just sent the VIP numbers—” Garrett stops when he sees me sitting in one of the chairs in Hunter’s office. “Hey…Madame.”

“Quite the performance the other day in the voyeur hall,” he says flippantly.

“I fondly remember you giving a similar one last year.”

He holds up his left hand, the gold band shining in the office light. “Tu...

“I’m texting Emerson,” Garrett says with a smug grin.

“We should throw a party,” Garrett says before I can respond to Drake. “A party?” I ask. “Fuck yeah.”

“The anniversary party,” Hunter replies. “Three years on the seventeenth. We’ll celebrate the club and Eden’s new position.”

The energy in the room is electric. The guys are going back and forth, talking about big plans for the party and ways to draw in more members.

Yes, I’ve been here for years. And yes, I’ve always been welcome and appreciated, but I never felt like one of them. Even when they gave me a room to run my business out of.

“You’re taking it?” Emerson’s voice from behind me jolts me from my quiet thoughts.

“I thought you guys worked from home,” I say with exasperation when Emerson Grant enters the room.

The other men in the office go silent as I stand from my chair and turn to him. He’s wearing an expression of h...

Right after Ronan, Emerson is the one person who helped to give me a new start—and he doesn’t even know. Emerson Grant took a chance on me. He saw something in me no one else did.

“I’m not an owner.” “You might as well be,” I say.

“Because I wanted to share this moment with you.” She turns her attention to Jade. “Both of you.”

“He’s going to make you pay for that.” Fuck yeah, I am.

Reaching down to Jade, I grab her by the scalp and drag her upward as I continue pounding into her from behind. My other hand slides down her front, and I pinch her clit between my fingers, making her scream.

Right now, my only focus is them.

His head rests on my thigh as I stroke his head and ignore the fact that slowly over time, I’ve watched the light die from his eyes.

“What are we doing?”

He’s angry, and I feel myself tensing up in fear.

“Eight months. Eight months I’ve been coming here, and I keep waiting for the day when you’ll admit that what we have is real, but that day never comes. It’s just the same, over and over and over again. How long can this possibly go on?”

“What are we,...

“Do you care about me at all?” The pain and fear on his face gut me, but I feel so blindsided by this outburst I can’t seem to form a response to anything.

I love you. I care about you. I need you.

He walks to the opposite side of the room, keeping his back to me. And I feel the impending doom of his words even before he speaks them.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

My heart falls to the pit of my stomach. “What? Why?”

“If I asked you to come home with me tonight, what would you say?”

“You called me yours. You tell me that I mean everything to you, but then you keep our relationship hidden in this room, and now I don’t know what’s real anymore, Eden. I just know that I’m in love with you, but I don’t know if you feel the same. Or if this is all just a game.”

“I just want you, Eden.”

He drops his hands from my face. It’s like feeling the floor drop away from me.

And just like that, I watch the love and affection drain from his eyes as he stares right through me.

For fuck’s sake. Say something, Eden.

“When we’re in here, you’re everything to me, Clay.”

“Stop. Do not walk out of that door.”

I’ve changed. I’m not afraid of commitment anymore. I’m ready to come out with our relationship, even to Jack. So why do I still feel so weird?

I can see Jade and me sitting on the bench to watch Jack ride circles around the park. And Clay would be out there with him, teaching him how to do tricks off the curb and tending to his wounds if he falls.

“I would really love that,” I add. “I’m sure Clay would love that too. Especially if he can bring my son. You can fit that many on there, right?”

Either I missed something, or he did, but right now, I’m too afraid to give something away that I shouldn’t. There’s no way Jade already told her dad about our relationship,

“I’m right here, Mama.” By that point, it’s too late. Tears streak my cheeks as I gather him up in my arms and squeeze him tight.

“I was just chasing birds,” he says with his face muffled against my shirt. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

Everything inside me breaks on those little words. He has no idea, but it is my fault. It always is.

Immediately, I know Clay is wrong.

When Eden doesn’t reach for either of us and takes a seat on the solo chair instead of the couch, I know this is going to be bad.

“I was going to call, but I figured it would be better to do this in person.” Her voice is low and quiet, and I have to fight the urge to start crying already.

“I ran into Jade’s dad today. He didn’t seem to know that you two are dating.”