I don’t affirm her suspicion. Because that’s all it is, right? Just a suspicion she has?
I stare at her hard, hoping to cow her with my death glare. I can feel an annoyed muscle ticking in my jaw from gritting my teeth so hard.
Callie walks up to me, no more than a foot away, and gives me a knowing smile. She primly clasps her hands in front of her and even sways back and forth like a mischievous schoolgirl. “I’m sure Colton would be more than happy to take me.”
Deep breath in… calm the fuck down, Jennings.
“What makes you think Colton is a member?” I ask neutrally as I lean my shoulder against the doorjamb and tap my hat against my leg. I hope my casual nonchalance doesn’t look too fake.
Callie arches an eyebrow at me and then snorts. She walks right past me out of my office, her shoulder brushing up against me. I turn to watch her strut up to her desk where she sits in her chair and picks up her cell phone from the desk.
She looks up at me and says, “It wasn’t that hard to figure out. You and Colton wear matching belt buckles. Well, not matching exactly. Different style but the engraving’s the same. A circle with an inner circle, eight lines creating seven spaces around the ring. It’s the same brand that’s on your drawing in there of The Silo. So, what is that… a secret code to get in or something?”
I squeeze my eyes shut hard, curse internally for a good ten seconds, and then open them back up. She smiles at me in victory.
I attempt to knock it right off her face. “Exactly. And you don’t have one so you can’t get in.”
“Bet Colton can take me in,” she says in a singsong voice.
“For fuck’s sake, Callie,” I yell at her in frustration. “Why would you ever want to go in a place like that?”
She studies me a moment. Almost as if she expects me to come to the answer on my own, but I’m fucking clueless. I have no idea what could possess her to want this.
“Come on, Woolf,” she says with a tinkling laugh. “I’m pretty transparent. I want to be different. I want to do something exciting and adventurous. I don’t want to be dull Callie who does what everyone expects anymore. I want to do what I want to do. And besides… it’s good enough for you but not for me?”
Christ… she had to lay that at my doorstep. The same exact little poor-me speech that worked very well on me Saturday night, inducing me to kiss her hard and then stick my hand in her panties.
I walk up to the edge of her desk and look down at her. In a voice as close to begging as I will ever come for any person, I say, “Callie… please. You don’t belong in a place like that. Trust me on this.”
She eyes me almost sympathetically. “You see, Woolf… I think I belong exactly in a place like that.”
Then it’s on.
We engage in a staring war. Her fern green eyes sparkling with excitement and sass. Mine leveled in a bitter scowl. My will against hers. My ego against hers.
“I can call Colton,” she prods me to action, poising her finger over the screen of her phone.
“Fuck,” I mutter and slam my hat back on my head. “I’ll take you, but that’s it. It’s just so you can see. Quick in and out.”
“We should stay for at least one drink,” she says with a happy grin.
“One drink,” I concede, my brain already spinning fast, trying to figure out all the ways it could go wrong by me bringing the governor’s daughter to a sex club.
“Tonight?” she asks with excitement.
I shake my head and pin her with serious eyes. “I can’t tonight or tomorrow night. But I’ll take you Wednesday.”
She looks like she wants to argue for a moment, but I’m not budging on this. Nope. I need some little victory over her in this battle that she just completely decimated me in. Wednesday happens to be the slowest night at The Silo, and more importantly, I know Colton Stokes will be out of town starting Wednesday. When we made plans to meet so I could look at his stock, we had to choose the weekend since he was going to be gone to a breeder’s conference in Vegas.
It’s going to be hard enough to pull this off, and I sure as shit don’t need Colton to see Callie at The Silo. I don’t want that fucker thinking he can have her in any way, and the dude is into her. I know that’s exactly what he’ll think and while I’m pretty confident this is just curiosity on Callie’s part, I don’t want to take any chances that she would ever want to avail herself of The Silo’s decadence. I know I sure as hell won’t indulge her in that way, but I’m not so sure Colton wouldn’t oblige her… and then I’d probably have to kill the man.
Chapter 8
Callie
I push my way through the crowd at The Wicked Horse, my nerves jangling and my heart about to slam its way out of my chest. The two shots of vodka I took while I sat in the parking lot haven’t helped yet, and for the millionth time, I question the sanity of what I’m about to do.
Woolf had told me to meet him in his club office tonight at eleven PM and he’d take me over. He reiterated that we’d stay for one drink and then we were leaving. I didn’t argue with him about that, mainly because he’s been in a terrible mood the last two days. He’s stayed away from the office for the most part, but the few times I’ve seen him, he’s snapped and barked at me with no provocation.
He’s furious that I’ve forced him to do this, but I don’t care.
The New Callie is on a mission to figure herself out. So no matter how many times I question my sanity right now, I’m going to keep trying things and testing my boundaries, so I can see just what I have inside of me. I’m not willing to let anyone mold me again, but I have to know exactly what I’m made of so I can mold myself.
It doesn’t take Woolf but a moment to open his office door, and bless the great DNA of his parents, he is magnificent. He wears that black hair messily styled, curling over the edges of his ears and just a few inches too long all over. He has on his traditional jeans and boots, but he’s looking beyond amazing in the black, long-sleeved t-shirt that fits his powerful chest and arms like a glove. I’m surprised when he beckons me in. I got a brief glimpse of this place the night Woolf hauled me off the bar onto his shoulder. He brought me here first and no sooner had he opened the door and taken one step in, he was backing right back out again. No clue what made him do that and all I got was a brief, upside down glimpse of an office that was shockingly bare. Now as I take in more detail, I see the same wooden floor as out in the main nightclub, a large desk built for two people to work opposite each other, a leather couch, and a small, electric refrigerator in one corner. Very Spartan, speaking of a place that is meant to do some hard work with no distractions. If I had to guess, I’d say this was more Bridger’s office than Woolf’s.
“I need you to read and sign this,” Woolf says in a tight voice as he hands me a document.
Glancing down at it, I see the words “Non-Disclosure Agreement” on the top. I look back up at him in question.
His lips are in a flat line, which means he’s clearly still displeased to have me here. He nods down at the document. “Everyone that enters The Silo has to sign it.”
“I assume it prohibits discussing the club with non-members?”
“In a nutshell,” he says tightly.
I shrug my shoulders and walk over to his desk, grabbing a pen out of a mug that says, “Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy”. Placing the document down, I lean over to sign it when Woolf grabs my wrist. The contact of his palm to my skin is almost electric, and it makes me realize I’m sexually wound up. My blood immediately quickens, and I feel unsettled and needy. I realize it’s not nerves I’m dealing with at all. It’s a sexual itch I think needs scratched and the prospect of all the naughty things I’m about to see is turning me on. One little touch from Woolf and I want to lie down on the floor and spread my legs for him.