Free The Song Bird (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) by Beth D. Carter Page A

Compassion doesn’t pay the salary for twenty dealers, ten kitchen staff, including a temperamental chef, my factotum, who helps me negotiate with the Chinese, the laundress, a dozen different vendors supplying food and drink to this establishment, not to mention various carpenters and a cleaning staff, plus all the palms I have to grease to keep my doors open. Money is a necessary evil, and we all do our part, including me and Jason.”
    “What if you had courtesans instead of whores?”
    She saw him blink and raise his eyebrow as if he didn’t quite understand what she meant.
    “Aren’t they the same thing?” Jason asked.
    “No,” she answered, shooting him a quick glance. “Whores take as many men for the night as they possibly can, making their clients hurry to do their deed so they can move on, looking for the next man. But courtesans are exclusive. They’re trained in the art of sex. It takes a lot of money to have a courtesan, a lot of clout.”
    She saw the interested gleam appear in Eli’s light eyes and knew she had him. “Go on,” he urged.
    “Shut the upstairs down for two weeks—”
    “Two weeks!” he gasped. “I’ll lose a heavy profit. Men will leave, searching for wenches elsewhere.”
    “In the two weeks, we transform the rooms upstairs,” she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. “Decorate them to resemble a Turkish harem. Material, pillows, candles, and mirrors. Pass the word around that the girls are being specially trained in unusual delights. Say that only the deepest purse can afford the new girls.”
    Both of them were quiet, thinking, until Jason wagged his finger at her. “What do you know of Turkish harems?”
    “I’ve seen one.”
    At that, both of their eyebrows shot up into their hairlines.
    “Beg pardon?” Jason asked.
    “My aunt Verity wanted to travel the world, and so I went with her as a companion.”
    “And you saw Turkish harems?” Eli asked, doubt heavy in his words. “In the Ottoman Empire?”
    “Yes,” she answered firmly. “Did you know harem in the Muslim language means ‘forbidden’? It’s usually a place where women gather inside a household, and not necessarily exclusively for the men to have sexual relations with them.”
    “Well, that just ruined a lot of fantasies,” Jason muttered.
    “My point exactly. Most men have fantasies about harems because they’re unknown and exotic,” she stated with a satisfied smirk. “It ignites the imagination with pictures of all types of sexual deviations, ones that men would pay a lot of money to explore.”
    “And you would teach the girls what?” Eli asked.
    “Everything I saw. How to dress, the makeup, even how they walk and talk. It’s an alluring world, Eli, one men would pay handsomely for—which is why you would get only twenty percent of their profit.”
    Eli snorted. “I get eighty now.”
    “Twenty,” she repeated. “The girls are doing all the work.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “It’s my establishment. Sixty.”
    “Thirty. If you treat the girls with respect, they’ll work twice as hard.”
    “Fifty. And they become exclusive to me. No taking johns outside the club.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “You can’t cast them out.”
    “If they work hard, then I won’t have to.”
    “Then I think the terms will be acceptable to them.”
    Even before satisfaction could settle, Eli grabbed her around the waist and hauled her into his body. “I’ll be losing money in this deal,” he said in a silky-smooth voice. “How are you prepared to compensate me?”
    “You want me to compensate you?”
    “You became their advocator. I deserve some recompense from you.”
    His arm was like a steel band around her waist. She could feel the heat of his body bleeding through her clothes, making her insides quiver at his touch. Her mouth went dry as the world faded and she stared into his sky-blue eyes.
    “What do you want?” she whispered.
    “You. Between me and Jason. In our bed, unreserved,