Submit to Desire by Tiffany Reisz

“Another one bites the dust,” Charlotte said, raising
her glass. Two other glasses met it and the resulting clink sent Amaretto sour
dripping over her fingers and onto the floor.
    “Good riddance to bad boyfriends.” London downed the last of
her Fuzzy Navel and sat the empty glass on the bar.
    “I’ll drink to that,” Sasha said, sucking out the last drops of
her Long Island Iced Tea.
    Steele, the bartender, refilled her glass.
    “That’s the problem.” Charlotte tucked a stray strand of red
hair back into her straw cowboy hat. “Nick wasn’t a bad boyfriend. He
was…nice.”
    Sasha and London stared at her over the top of their
drinks.
    “You already dumped him, Char.” London wadded up her napkin and
tossed it at Steele. “Don’t add insult to injury.”
    “You women are all the same.” Steele set three shots up in
front of them. “God forbid you date a guy who’s nice to you.”
    “Nick was nice.” Sasha picked up
her shot. “And kind of hot. Nice isn’t bad. Nice is just…boring.”
    “Boring,” London agreed.
    Charlotte sighed and gazed down into her drink.
    Nick was nice. Too nice. So nice she wanted to kill him for it
sometimes. Last week had been the last straw. She’d fallen asleep during sex.
Missionary position. Five minutes of foreplay. Five minutes of thrusting. Ten
minutes after of “I love everything about you.” Just…like…always.
    “Boring,” Charlotte echoed as she looked up and met the eyes of
a man walking through the bar. The man, whoever he was, looked to be in his
mid-thirties and had shoulder-length dark hair and olive skin. From what
Charlotte could tell, he wore a weird suit, kind of Victorian-looking, like
something off a romance novel cover. And he wasn’t walking so much as strolling,
as if the crowded nightclub was a park in spring, and he was a country squire
out on a pleasant Sunday ramble.
    “Steele, who is that guy?” London asked.
    Steele gave the three ladies a half-cocked smile.
    “That is Kingsley Edge. And he is the opposite of boring. And
if you three have any sense you’ll stay away from him.”
    “What sense I had just took her panties off and laid down in
front of him,” Sasha said with a drunken giggle.
    “God, he looks like a pirate.” London ran her finger around the
rim of her glass.
    “I think he looks dangerous.” Sasha shot the man her best
come-over-here smile.
    Charlotte sighed. Sasha and London had promised her a girls’
night out to help cheer her up over yet another failed relationship. “No men”
had been their promise. Only alcohol and dancing. Maybe it was time to get some
real friends.
    “He looks like he needs a haircut.” Charlotte downed her shot
in one bitter swallow.
    “Hey, do your trick, Char. That’ll get his attention,” Sasha
begged.
    “I don’t want to get his attention. He’s a pimp.” Charlotte had
heard of Kingsley Edge. No one who haunted New York’s nightlife hadn’t. His
respectable business interests included owning several of the city’s top clubs.
Rumors swirled about the man, however; rumors that he made the vast majority of
his money pushing flesh and not cocktails.
    Steele laughed and the three friends spun back around on their
bar stools.
    “Kingsley Edge is not a pimp.” Steele poured Charlotte a fresh
Amaretto sour. “Kingsley Edge is a talent scout.”
    “Talent scout?” Charlotte’s eyes followed Kingsley Edge as he
made his way through the club. Every few feet he’d pause and gaze at her through
the crowd. “What sort of talent?”
    “Maybe your talent.” Steele winked at her. She’d worked at this
club, Le Cirque de Nuit, a few years ago and had
picked up a trick or two.
    Sasha and London looked at Charlotte with pleading eyes. Steele
held out a shot glass full of liquid paraffin. Once again Charlotte decided to
make getting new friends a top priority. She was almost drunk. They were
definitely drunk. And they were making her perform for them. Fine—if