Pink Slip

by Katrina Jackson

  Monica stopped just inside the doorway and let Kierra look. She had a smug grin on her face and Kierra looked away.

  The room suddenly felt crowded with the three of them and all of their lust.

  “I brought your shoes,” Lane announced.

  Kierra attempted to affect a bored look while also struggling not to let her gaze wander to her legs or his Adams apple. “Did you pick out her shoes?”

  “Of course I did,” he scoffed. “May I?” He held the box out for her and ushered her to the bed.

  She turned and moved to the bed, sitting at the foot. Monica sunk down next to her, close enough that Kierra could smell the spicy cologne she wore. Monica kept her hands to herself as Kierra had asked. Which Kierra found disappointing and arousing at the same time.

  Lane knelt down in front of them and pulled the lid off of the box.

  Monica leaned into Kierra’s side, still not touching, and whispered into her ear, “Do you like your dress?”

  “Yes,” Kierra croaked.

  Lane lifted one strappy, open-toed sandal from the box in a shade of yellow that perfectly matched her dress.

  “I bought it for you last year,” Monica said.

  Kierra turned to look at her as Lane lifted one of her feet to slip the shoe on. “Last year?”

  Monica’s eyes traveled over Kierra’s face and she sucked her bottom lip into her mouth.

  “Is she wearing any underwear?” Monica asked, her eyes on Kierra but the question for Lane.

  “Not a stitch.” He buckled the shoe over her ankle and then gently placed it back down to the floor. After some rustling, he lifted her other foot.

  Monica released her bottom lip and Kierra’s eyes locked on it, so close, wet, begging to be sucked into Kierra’s mouth.

  Lane finished buckling the second shoe and stood.

  “Check your bank account,” Monica said. “We’re leaving in ten.”

  Kierra was hot and flustered.

  Wet.

  ◆◆◆

  They were in the back of a town car.

  Asif was driving.

  Kierra was sandwiched in the back seat between Monica and Lane. Their bodies were close, but still not touching. She was trying to surreptitiously slide her thighs together in frustration. She wondered if maybe she hadn’t taken this no touching thing too far.

  “We’re here,” Asif announced, his voice all business.

  When the car stopped, Kierra leaned over Lane to look at the club in front of them. The name was written in English, in elegant black lettering on the front of the building: Menagerie.

  She sighed, “Do all of these clubs have to have the cheesiest names?”

  The bouncer nodded to Lane and pulled the discreet door on the side of the building open as they approached. Kierra followed Monica through and was happy to find that the décor was at least a marked improvement from Club Ménage and Peep.

  There were still plush couches along the perimeter, but they were thankfully in a tasteful modern gray and un-tufted, so the place looked less like a decadent French salon and more like an inviting sitting room. But nothing like the strip club that it actually was.

  In fact, Kierra was momentarily surprised to see the stage at the center of the room, with mirrored floors and poles jutting to the ceiling. But when she did notice, she was so mesmerized at all of the bodies writhing there that she let Monica and Lane steer her to a couch without registering exactly where they were going.

  They positioned her between them and ordered drinks when the cocktail waitress appeared. Kierra’s eye flitted from one woman to another, but kept coming back to the soft flesh in light brown skin, only slightly darker than Monica’s, in front of them. The dancer’s tiny thong left absolutely nothing to the imagination from the back and Kierra’s eyes danced over her smooth and perfectly round ass as it jiggled in rhythm with the song playing at ear-splitting levels. She smiled in appreciation; that took skill.

  When the dancer turned toward them, Kierra’s eyes traveled over the front of the bikini and found the shocking pink of it at the cleft of the woman’s legs evocative. Her gaze traveled up her gently rounded stomach, to her small and slightly sagging breasts. The outline of her nipples were clearly visible in her bikini top. She was so mesmerized that it took her a while to finally raise her eyes to the dancer’s face and realize that she had been practically undressing Chanté with her eyes for a few long minutes.

  The smirk on Chanté’s face indicated that she had very much noticed.

  Kierra swallowed but didn’t look away.

  The cocktail waitress returned with their drinks and Lane leaned down to whisper in her ear. She nodded and approached the stage, motioning for Chanté.

  Chanté smiled big and wide and walked to the curtain at the back of the stage. Just before she disappeared behind it, she turned, locked eyes with Kierra and winked.

  “You like her.” It wasn’t a question and Kierra could hear the jealousy dripping from each of Monica’s words.

  She turned to her and the look in Monica’s eyes confirmed what Kierra heard. She leaned forward and licked the seam of Monica’s frown. “Don’t worry, boss. I like you more.”

  Monica shivered and Kierra felt the same surging power pumping through her veins as she had last night.

  Lane cleared his throat, reminding them that he was still there. As if they could forget. As if they wanted to.

  Kierra smiled at Monica and then stood up. She walked in between Lane’s spread thighs, straddled him and lowered herself onto his lap, her eyes on Monica the entire time.

  His hands moved instinctively to her butt, but she pushed them away. She leaned down to press her lips to his. “You’re still not allowed to touch me.”

  “For how long?” He asked, the soft texture of his five-o-clock shadow brushing her lips.

  She could have said “We’ll see” or “I don’t know yet” but those would have been lies. And they would have seen through them immediately. Because the answer was that her boundaries were clear. She wouldn’t let them touch her if they were just going to send her away again as they’d done in Serbia. She’d felt rejected, alone and depressed for months and she wasn’t interested in returning to that place again. But Stepanov was still somewhere trying to kill them. They all had bigger fish to fry. Kierra weighed the words that were jumbled in her head, unsure if this was really the right time to have this conversation.

  Thankfully Chanté stepped up onto the raised platform where they were seated and interrupted the charged moment between them.

  “Well well well,” she said in her cheery voice. “Now what do we have here?”

  She had thrown a silky robe over herself, but her beautiful legs were still bare and the robe was hardly tied tight. She slithered into Kierra’s abandoned seat.

  Monica leaned forward, running an index finger along Chanté’s jaw. “Any sign of him?”

  Kierra and Chanté were both caught up in the moment. Kierra’s eyes on that gentle meeting of their skin. Chanté shivered.

  Lane raised his hand and snapped. “Stay on mission you two.”

  Chanté’s eyes closed and she blushed. “Sorry. No sign of him, but he’s definitely got men around.”

  “Who?” Monica leaned down and whispered the word, disguised as a kiss against Chanté’s cheek.

  She gulped before she could answer. “Kenny’s been marking them with their drinks. Everyone with a lime on the rim is someone I’ve seen with Stepanov before.”

  Kierra turned and kissed Lane’s cheek as his head shifted so that he could scan the room. He settled his hand on Chanté’s thigh and tapped four times to indicate the four agents.

  Chanté licked her lips and nodded. “I can’t say that that’s all of them, but those are the ones I know I’ve seen before.”

  When Lane turned back, Kierra turned to the room. She saw a few of the agents with limes on their drinks and then spotted Kenny behind the bar, smiling and chatting with one of the dancers who was
clearly flirting with him.

  When Kierra turned around, Monica’s one finger was gliding over Chanté’s lips, over her chin and down her neck. She stopped just above the other woman’s cleavage and traveled up again. Kierra was so mesmerized by that finger that it took her a second to realize that Monica was speaking, but not to them. She turned to Lane and he whispered through gritted teeth, “ear piece.”

  She nodded and then leaned forward. She licked his lips and he spoke into her open mouth. “If you see Stepanov, take him out.”

  Kierra gasped.

  “We’re outnumbered. No need to take any chances,” he breathed against her lips.

  “You always take chances,” Kierra said.

  His eyes were intent upon hers. “Not with you.”

  “Jesus,” Chanté whispered and began fanning herself. “Are they always this intense with you?”

  Kierra could feel the smile trying to break free and she tried to keep it restrained, but it was a lost cause. She turned to Chanté, but locked eyes with Monica instead. She unconsciously ground herself against Lane’s crotch. He groaned and shifted his hips against her. Monica licked her lips, her finger stilling just above Chanté’s cleavage as she watched them.

  And then Monica’s eyes cleared and her body stiffened. “Stepanov’s car is approaching.”

  “Showtime,” Lane breathed and then placed a soft kiss to Kierra’s cheek, shifting her off of him.

  “Go to the back and stay there. Do not leave the building until one of us comes for you,” Monica said to Chanté.

  “Yes ma’am,” Chanté said and then stood. She turned to Kierra and smiled. “Would it be too weird for our new friendship if I told you that I’m gong to go fuck myself crazy thinking about you three?”

  “A little,” Kierra said.

  Chanté leaned forward and kissed Kierra’s cheek quickly, “Then pretend I never said anything.” And then she turned and sauntered away as if nothing urgent was happening.

  Monica reached up to pull Kierra onto the couch. “It’s not Stepanov,” she said. “It’s his boyfriend. Sergei Petrov.”

  “What does that mean?” She asked.

  “That Stepanov is a fucking coward,” Lane said just as Stepanov’s boyfriend/assistant walked into the room.

  It was like a flip switched. The four men that Chanté had identified stood immediately and flanked the man, the music stopped and the lights raised slightly. Everyone who didn’t know what was happening at least had the wherewithal to know that something dangerous was on the horizon. Dancer’s slipped off stage and horny men moved as quietly and quickly as they could to the exit.

  Sergei zeroed in on their couch and began to make his way toward them.

  One of the guards hurried ahead and placed a chair in front of them. They all watched as Sergei lowered himself elegantly into it.

  Monica squeezed Kierra’s hand before moving to graze her thigh and then rested her hand on her own knee. Kierra belatedly realized what the lust had clouded; Monica’s dress was probably a really great cover for a whole lot of weaponry.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Hudson,” he said in a Russian accent. “If those are your names.”

  “Does it matter?” Lane responded in an irritated tone.

  “I guess it does not. My employer has come to make a deal.”

  Kierra raised an eyebrow. A deal. A fucking deal. They’d tried to kill her at least twice and now they wanted to make a deal?

  Monica clearly felt as incredulous as she did because her voice was dripping in disbelief and annoyance. “This should be interesting.”

  Sergei ignored her. Which made Kierra irrationally angry.

  “We’re listening,” Lane said, his voice tight with fury.

  “My employer is wiling to forgive your trespass against him for an even exchange.”

  “Meaning?” Lane rolled his hand to indicate that Sergei should keep talking and faster.

  Kierra agreed. This whole exchange was bad TV movie dramatic.

  “Meaning that if you give him her,” he said, finally deigning to look at Kierra, “to do with as he pleases, he will let you both live.”

  There was a brief moment of stunned silence before Kierra, Lane and Monica burst into near hysterical laughter.

  “Is that a fucking joke?” Lane asked, wiping tears from his eyes. “Jesus, how are all of you fucking corrupt pieces of shit so entitled and dim?”

  And then Kierra had another one of those moments where so many things were happening all at once that she had a problem keeping track of them as they unfolded.

  Lane jumped up from the couch, a gun firing in one hand while he grabbed one of their drinks from the table and smashed it into the face of the Serbian guard closest to him. His next shot went directly into the fallen man’s forehead.

  Kierra thought he’d missed his first shot, but he’d actually been aiming at the sprinkler system. When the water started falling, the remaining guards were shocked, just enough to delay their responses. And then they lurched forward and fell crumpled to the ground. Kenny stood behind them, a gun in each hand.

  Kierra didn’t see what happened to the last guard closest to Monica. It was only when he fell to the floor twitching, that she spotted the knife sticking out of his right eye. She decided to look away.

  Monica moved, pulling Sergei up from his chair, a very large knife with a curved blade on one side and and a small serrated edge on the other at his throat.

  Monica’s dress had been pulled apart and, just as Kierra had suspected, underneath she wore a simple bandeau dress covered in a harness strapped across her chest, full of knives and brass knuckles and a lock-picking set for Lane, which Kierra irrationally thought was very sweet.

  “Now we’re going to counter with a deal of our own,” Monica said in a terrifying whisper.

  Kierra couldn’t blame Sergei for shaking like a leaf in her hold. But she could blame him for pissing his pants. She looked up at him in disgust. “Your boyfriend’s bff was a fucking European dictator. Have some self-respect,” Kierra said.

  “You tell your boss that he has two options and twenty-four hours to make a choice. Either he turns himself in to local authorities or we kill him.”

  “That goes double for you,” Lane added.

  “You’re going to regret this,” Sergei spat.

  Lane sighed and shook his head. “I feel like you’re not taking my wife’s threats seriously.”

  Sergei spat something at them in Russian that Kierra didn’t understand, but it was apparently so offensive that both Lane and Kenny aimed their guns at his head. Kierra cringed as the odor of his loosened bowels filled the air between them.

  “Jesus dude,” she said and pinched her nose shut.

  Monica’s hand moved too fast for her to see, but she assumed that Sergei’s cries meant that she hadn’t slit his throat. He was crouched on the ground crying, blood seeping from his head. His right ear was lying on the floor beneath him.

  “If you move fast enough, you can relay our message to your employer and get to a hospital,” Monica said, just a bit louder than her normal speaking voice to make sure that he could hear.

  If Kierra hadn’t been holding her nose, she might have snorted with laughter. And that would have been inappropriate and mean, so she pressed her lips together.

  Sergei pressed one hand to the right side of his head, grasped his ear from the ground and then ran awkwardly in his soiled pants to the exit.

  “He’s coming your way,” Lane said. Kierra assumed he was speaking to Asif.

  “Pssst,” a voice said from behind them.

  When Kierra turned she almost wanted to laugh at Chanté’s head poking through the curtains. “Can I come out now?”

  “Are you kidding me? We told you to hide until we came to get you?” Lane yelled.

  “I know, but I’m nosy,” she said.

  Lane let out an exaggerated sigh as Chanté walked toward them. Kierra noted that she’d changed into a pair of black jeans and a lo
ose deep v-neck t-shirt and she was sad about it.

  “Alright, you take them back to the safe house,” Lane said to Kenny. “We’ll handle Stepanov.”

  “You said he had twenty-four hours,” Kierra said.

  “We lied,” Monica replied simply. She moved to belt her dress and Kierra stood.

  The thought descended on her that this scene was similar to Serbia and her heart began to beat faster, much faster than it had when there was a literal gun and knife fight happening in front of her. She didn’t want to interrogate that too much in the moment, it wasn’t as important as walking into Monica’s arms.

  She could feel the harness between them but she pressed closer still. “I’m going with you.”

  “Oh girl no,” Chanté mumbled in soft judgment.

  “It’s too dangerous,” Monica said.

  “Is this a made-for-tv spy movie now?” Kenny asked in disgust.

  Kierra ignored them both.

  “And then what?” It was supremely bad timing but that seemed very on brand for this entire messy affair. And Kierra refused to let them walk away from her in this club the way they had in Serbia.

  “You said in Serbia that this was the end of the road. But I’m not done with you two,” she said, tears springing to her eyes. “I let you send me away once, but if you do it again, this is it. It’s really over and I don’t ever want to see either of you again.”

  Lane moved to press himself against Kierra’s back. “Kenny’s just going to take you back to the safe house. We’ll kill Stepanov and be right back,” he said and then pressed a kiss to the back of her head.

  “Oh,” Kierra said, her face warming in embarrassment. Could it really be that easy? “Well then I’ll see soon, I guess.”

  Monica smiled and then gripped Kierra’s chin between her thumb and finger. “You’re very fucking adorable, sweet girl.”