In one corner is a table set up with condoms and numerous bottles of lube, sanitary wipes, a sink with hand towels, and a mini fridge filled with bottles of water. Rowan hadn’t considered the logistics of something like this, but it seems like pretty much everything is taken care of.

In the center of the room is a larger than king-size platform bed, topped with a thick black leather cushion rather than a mattress and sheets.

But the bed is much less interesting than what’s in front of it.

Who’s in front of it.

Malcolm.

And fuck, when Rowan actually takes him in—this mysterious Malcolm whose reputation preceded him from the second Rowan stepped into the club—Rowan’s both over- and underwhelmed.

He’s standing at the foot of the bed, weight on one leg, with his arms crossed low over his chest. And Rowan doesn’t know how to describe what he sees other than good in all the right ways, but definitely not how he was expecting.

For one, he’s short. He can’t be more than five foot six or seven to Rowan’s six two, and he’d be lying if he said that the height difference didn’t do something for him. And he’s…. Rowan doesn’t want to say stocky, because that tends to come with a certain sense of unattractiveness, but he’s broad around the shoulders and chest, clearly defined muscles half hidden beneath a layer of softness in his arms and belly that Rowan immediately wants to squeeze and watch the skin turn white under his fingertips.

And Rowan had expected bronzed, but Malcolm is pale, not washed out but with a healthy glow making all that porcelain skin look smoother than it probably is, if the sparse dusting of dark body hair on his arms and legs and the smattering of scars are anything to go by. But the color of his skin is broken by dozens of blackwork tattoos—not an ounce of color from what Rowan can see.

The first piece he notices is across the man’s chest, a trio of lilies—the largest in the center with two smaller ones on either pec—intertwined with two old-fashioned pistols aiming toward his shoulders, plumes of smoke swirling out of each barrel and up toward his collarbones. Next comes his right inner forearm, a skull and crossbones shrouded in black mist.

On his rib cage on the left side is a traditional American-style tattoo—minus the color—of a heart with flowers and leaves peeking out behind it and a curled scroll with the word LISA. It stands out among the realistic style of the rest of his tattoos, and Rowan can’t help but wonder who she is and what garnered her a position on one of the most painful parts of the body to get tattooed. Rowan still shudders, thinking of the pain of getting his own cross tattoo on his rib cage.