The Sinner's Club [18+] Complete

chapter three.

THE CONTRAST OF inky black water against the perfect white of the yacht makes my stomach turn. Above us, the sky is dark and the moon is barely a sliver of light.

The girls around me are wrapped in large coats, skimpy lingerie hidden beneath. I pull my own coat around my body tighter, wishing I had stayed home as Nate suggested.

But the business associates hosting Nate and his best performers on this ridiculous yacht are insanely rich. They'll tip well, and I'll walk away the better for it. All I must do is endure this night.

It is a small sacrifice; I have endured far worse.

The ramp onto the yacht is grated, and the darkened water laps below, ominous and seemingly endless in depth.

I am careful in my heels, taking the hand offered to me by one of the businessmen even though I'd rather not touch him.

Nate, walking ahead and talking lowly with some investor, glances back to ensure I've made it onto the boat, then continues forward.

There is a prickling at the back of my neck as I stand on the deck of the yacht, gazing up at the two-story inside section. But when I turn my head to find the source of the shiver, I see no one looking at me.

Maksim and Viktor are walking across, but both their gazes are averted. It has been months since I danced for Viktor and many times I have thought I've felt him looking at me. But every time I search him out, I find his head turned or his eyes down.

The boat leaves the dock—land floats further and further away from us until it is but a dot in the distance—and the music is pounding and loud.

The rest of the performers have shed their coats, and I follow suit reluctantly.

I hate the cold. Too many winter nights spent on the street with no way to find warmth but in the arms of another. And that only ever led to worse things than frostbite.

The inside of the yacht is gorgeous, with cream, leather couches and valuables that surely don't belong on a moving vessel, like vases and paintings.

The businessmen cut lines of coke with platinum credit cards and slosh thousand-dollar whiskey out of crystal tumblers onto the cream carpet like nothing is of value.

Nate puts on a good face—he is a brilliant pretender—and smiles and sips his alcohol. But I can see the disdain written in his eyes; he thinks these men spoilt and unworthy, as I do.

I dance for one of the men and he paws at my ass when I bend over. I move away, backing up a few paces so I'm out of arm's-reach, and slide my hands up my body, cupping my breasts.

He tips me a thousand dollars in the end, which soothes the burn of his touch slightly.

"Scorned lover, twelve o'clock," Kitty—one of the performers from Sin City whom I've worked with for some months now—tells me.