Claimed(23)

Our way.



Shit. He was testing her again. He still didn’t believe her story, and now he was going to… to what?



What on earth was she going to find inside that house?





5





Candles illuminated the front hallway. The pale yellow glow cast shadows on the dark paneled walls and danced over the hardwood floor beneath Hudson’s feet. The scent of wax and incense wafted all around her. And the sounds…



Sex.



The house pulsed with sex.



Husky noises and soft moans echoed from the back rooms, from the corridor to Hudson’s left, from the arched doorway off the entrance. It was everywhere, thickening the air and heating her skin, prompting her to look at Connor in suspicion.



Rylan and the others trudged ahead of her, ducking through the heavy oak doors that led to a room Hudson wasn’t sure she wanted to enter. She grabbed ahold of Connor’s sleeve before he could follow them.



“You brought me to a whorehouse?” she hissed.



He furrowed his brow. “There are whorehouses like this all over the free land. You can’t tell me this is your first time visiting one.”



“My group never got around to it,” she answered in a tight voice.



She didn’t like that he hadn’t corrected her about the purpose of the house. If anything, his cavalier tone triggered a spurt of resentment. She didn’t want to be here. It reminded her too much of the Enforcer compound, where the men passed women around like pieces of gum. It didn’t matter that the women had volunteered to be there. They were still treated like sex slaves and viewed as whores, and it nauseated Hudson to think that the task of pleasuring the Enforcers was deemed an honor.



Everyone was considered equal in the city. People got paid the same amount for hauling garbage as they did for working in the technology sector. They lived in allocated accommodations, all identical in size. They ate at assigned meal halls and were served food that met their nutritional requirements. Hudson’s father had explained that the practice had once been referred to as communism, the idea of common ownership and the absence of social classes.



But every system had a loophole, and the Enforcers had no problem taking advantage of it. The city’s women earned monetary bonuses for offering their bodies to the men. Some were even given annual vacations to South Colony. Keep the Enforcers happy, and you were excused from the job rotation to lie on a beach for a week. High-class prostitution at its best.



Hudson frowned at Connor. “You talk about the free land, but you still call this place a whorehouse. Is that how you view women? As whores?”



A slow grin lifted his mouth, as if he were genuinely amused by her accusation. “We’re all whores here, sweetheart. Every single one of us.”



He uncurled her fingers from his arm but didn’t let go of her. Instead, he kept a tight grip on her hand and led her deeper into the house. They passed several closed doors, and Hudson’s pulse sped up, because it was painfully obvious what was going on behind those doors. Groans of pleasure. The rhythmic smacking of a headboard hitting the wall. A cry of ecstasy as a woman climaxed.



Hudson drew a breath as they neared the set of doors that Rylan and the others had disappeared through. She tried to steel herself, but nothing prepared her for what she found when they entered the room.



The surprisingly large space offered an array of couches and armchairs, and there was a long bar counter spanning one wall. About two dozen people lingered in the room. Men and women, some fully clothed, some naked. Low voices engaged in conversation mingled with the throaty sounds of sex. In a shadowy corner of the room, a brunette was bent over, facing the wall, as a bare-assed man thrust into her from behind, his hands gripping her waist, his lips pressed against her shoulder.



Hudson wrenched her gaze away from the lewd display, but it just landed on another one – a tangle of naked limbs on a plush couch, a woman’s fingernails scraping down the back of the man on top of her.



Did these people have no shame?



Her cheeks were on fire as she sought out a safe place for her eyes. Connor. Connor was safe. Connor wasn’t naked.



And maybe she was as shameful as everyone else here, because the fact that he was still dressed brought genuine disappointment to her belly.



A dark-haired man sauntered up to them. Tall and handsome, with magnetic gray eyes that lingered on Hudson before shifting to Connor. “Well, if it isn’t Connor MacKenzie. Long time, man.”



“Lennox.” Connor slapped the man on the shoulder. “How’s it going?”



“All right.” The man shrugged. “We’ve been hearing about a lot of the Enforcer stations being repurposed. Some are closing down altogether.”