Reaching around her back, she unbuckles her bra, lets it float down her arms and jumps onto the floor a few feet from where I’m seated. She’s got perfect tits, but I knew that already. Full and clearly natural, they sit high on her chest. Her nipples are pink and hard already and I pray that Marcel thought to turn the cameras off because I’m a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen.
I blink longer than necessary and the momentary darkness helps sober me. I’ve got both feet planted on the floor and one hand under my chin, the other on the arm of the chair. I grip it tighter than I need to as she drops her panties. I don’t look at her below the waist, but instead focus on her face and that brilliant, wicked expression. It taunts me, and in the game we are playing I am nearly satisfied accepting that she has complete and utter control over the situation because to do otherwise brings a sharp and cutting pain to the hardened shaft between my legs. It wants her.
“Are you going to turn the music up?” The remote control rests between my legs and she reaches for it.
That I don’t react is the only thing I’m proud of in that moment. She cranks the music up – some song by Miguel – turns away from me and lifts her hair away from the back of her neck so that the whole of her backside is bare. She keeps her legs together and sinks into a low seat. Her ass meets the erection throbbing on the underside of my zipper and I curl my fingers so hard into the arm of the chair, velvet rips off around the tacks.
I want to tell her she isn’t allowed to touch the clientele, but I know that my voice will break if I speak. Plus, I like the sensation too much. Enough to be reminded that she’s a clear autumn breeze and I’ve spent the past days swimming in the bottom of a handle. She smiles at me as sweetly as a Disney princess posing for kids at Disney Land, rather than on her hands and knees on the floor of my strip club. When she rises, she loses her balance and catches herself on my chest.
“Sorry,” she whispers, tone dangerously real for just an instant before it too becomes a mask. “I hope that isn’t a fireable offense.”
She lifts her right leg high and straddles my thigh and when I look down, I catch a flash of that pink prize before slamming my eyes shut. I want to respond to her quip, but my tongue is lodged in the back of my throat. I clear it while she continues to dance inches from me, undulating in a sexy wave. I want to touch her, but don’t, and then in an instant everything changes. I don’t hear the back door open, but it makes a hell of a racket when it clangs shut.
I shoot up onto my feet and the slut – the girl – falls back. She catches my arm as I cradle the backs of her elbows with my hands, which feel massive against her slight frame. Somewhere in the ballpark of hopeful, her expression is one I can’t decipher and I don’t have time to probe when the one person I’d wanted to show up – now the last person I want to see – strolls into the room.
“Aiden.” My voice isn’t my own. It’s gravel, a depth that I feel rumbling through my gut.
Taking the girl by the hands, I guide her into the shadow of my body. My adrenaline is still racing, and I feel more sober than I have in days though I wish I weren’t. Because it’s in that moment I realize something critical: I’m protecting her. Aiden crosses his arms over his chest and remains immobile in all but the eyes, which seek to find what it is I’m hiding. I need to explain before he does something drastic. Or irrevocable.
“What do you have there?” His voice is a slow, insidious snarl.
“Aiden, turn around.”
He begins reaching into his coat. “Your friend looks familiar.”
“Aiden!” My voice echoes off of the ceiling and walls and I pull the girl close to me so that I can feel her heat like a blanket against my spine. “Turn around.”
“No.”
I clench my back teeth, knowing that he’s in a foul mood otherwise he wouldn’t be baiting me like this. “Hold on.” I turn, shrug out of my jacket and wrap it around her mid-section. Snatching her clothes and purse off of the floor, while being careful not to step too far away from her, I lower my voice. “Go to my office, wait for me in there and don’t touch anything.”
She spares a curious glance over my shoulder at Aiden, runs her fingers through her hair and flushes for no reason I can identify. But she doesn’t protest, even though I half expect her to. I wait until I hear the office door open and shut, then I close the distance between my brother and I by half. “She’s the witness who saw me brawl with the Popov brothers, but she works here now. I’m keeping an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t talk.”
“You don’t want her quiet?” Aiden asks, voice lifeless as he talks about lifelessness.
“She’s been quiet and she’ll stay that way.”
Aiden stares probingly at my face for a moment before casting a final glance towards my office. I flinch towards it. “Fine. That’s not what I came here for anyway.”
“What is it?” I exhale, relieved in a way that I hate.
“Ollie got jumped by a group of Russians. They thought he might know where Loredo is.”
“Loredo? I thought the Russians were looking for their boy, Spade.”
“Not these guys.”
I pause. “Any idea why?”
“No.”
My mind is a fog, blood still pumping through my erection making it harder to focus. I shut the music off but that hardly helps as the sight of the stage is a better visual aid than any song. Every time I blink I see her prowling towards me like I’m prey.
“Thanks for telling me. I’ll wrap up here and head to the house.”
“You do whatever you want. I’m going back to the hospital. Knox, Mer, and Charlie are going down to the barn. Charlie’s fighting tonight and Mer’s agreed to take over the bar with Griffin’s little brother as her bar back.”
“And Clifton?”
“At Ollie’s apartment.”
“Is Ollie okay?”
“Got a broken arm, but he’ll live. Seems like the Russians were just sending a message.”
“Yeah, but to who?”
Aiden shrugs. “Hard to say.”
I hang my head and massage the bridge of my nose. “Okay.”
Aiden nods once and leaves the way he came. I wait until I hear the door slam shut before hurrying back to my office. There’s no other way in than through the front door, but there are windows, and I’m not fully convinced that Aiden wouldn’t call an audible and make a decision that would mean nothing to him and might haunt me. Her pussy on my mind, her brains splattered across my desk.
I push the door open, evidently startling her because she jumps. “Dang,” she exhales clutching her chest. “Is everything okay?”
“That’s really none of your business,” I snarl, coming off meaner than I intended. I’m pissed I stood up for her, pissed Aiden walked in on us in the first place, pissed about Ollie, about Knox and the fact that he’s taken one of my businesses away from me, about Mer, most of all, the bitch who started this.
I notice my laptop sits open on my desk and I slam it shut, then pick it up and fold it under my arm. I cock my head. “Out.”
Wordlessly, she hoists her purse up onto her shoulder and heads back into the club. I start to follow her, then pause as my gaze drops to her long, lean legs peeking out from beneath the edge of her short skirt. My cock is still a halfie though my mind is a million other places. Still, it’s because of that halfie that I open up my personal safe – not the bar’s – and peel a few hundred off in fifties from the nearest stack.
She hovers by the table closest to the door and I admire her for a moment as she’s looking in the other direction. Long throat, graceful hands. Among other things. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pried,” she says, turning.
She wasn’t prying. She knows she wasn’t prying. I know she wasn’t prying. “Fine.” I step too close to her, fully invading her space, and grab her hand. I crumple money into it. “I’ve got rules,” I say without releasing her. “You break them, you’re out.”
Surprise, concern, a tilting of the head, and then, “Does that mean I’m in?” Her lips creep up into that slow smile that’s nothing if not persistent. I nod once and she claps her hands together. As she bounces lightly in her heels, she teeters dangerously and I grab her by the elbow to keep her standing.
“Sorry,” she whispers, brushing the hair from her face. “And thank you. And…” Finally finding her fist and the cash I smashed in it, her cornflower gaze glitters. “What is this?”
“Earnings,” I grunt. I’m all grunts today, no eloquence. I need a drink. Maybe drinks are my issue. Even if that’s true it doesn’t curb the need or the action of my hand reaching across the bar for a bottle. I pour some into my mouth as I head to the back door. She stumbles after me.
“Woah. This is seven hundred dollars.”
“It is.”
“I don’t understand.”
I sigh, exhausted, “Three fifty’s the going rate for a private show. The rest is for the lap dance.”
In the hallway by the dressing rooms, she stares at the cash she holds between us and I catch a glimpse of true emotion in her face the first time all day. She’s desperate and it shows. Maybe more than most of the girls that work in this place. Maybe more than most of the men. Everything about her cuts into me like salt and sadness.
“Doesn’t the club usually take most of this?”
“I am the club. So not today.”
“Wow.” She licks her lips and that cheerful smile returns, the real girl behind it erased. “Thanks…”
I cut her off. “I said there were rules. The first is never to leave the building without an escort from one of the bouncers, bartenders, or managers. A male escort. I don’t even want you stepping outside for a smoke alone.”
“I don’t smoke,” she says.
“Good. You come in a car?” She nods and moves forward as I hold the back door open for her, then steps out into the narrow parking lot wedged behind the building. Cool wind carries the scent of an arriving winter and complements the smell of her hair, which is untouched by the air freshener we use inside. I inhale deeply through my nose.
“Park here next time. If the lot’s full, call into the bar and one of the boys will walk you from Mercer.” She smirks at that. I ignore her. “When did Donnie schedule your debut?”
“Wednesday.”
I grunt.
“Pardon me?” she asks and I try not to look at her.
When I blink, I picture her twisting around the pole like a snake, or better yet, gliding between my legs on her knees. It’s been too long since I’ve been laid. My mind flickers back to the brunette I banged in a motel a few weeks ago. I’ve been celibate since. I think briefly about ending the nightmare tonight with Mindy, one of the strippers from Camelot. I could bend her over my desk and screw this blonde free of my memory, the only hiccup being that I told myself when I bought the joint I wouldn’t mess with any of the dancers. There’s too much drama there and I don’t plan on changing that because of a blonde with a tight ass and a wily smile.
I realize I haven’t answered her when we reach the corner of Prospect. She hangs a left onto Eighth, catching my sleeve to stop me when I do the same. A car breezes past us – one I don’t recognize. The windows are tinted and the ivory Mercedes has dealer plates. I watch it drive past as a distraction from the pressure of her hand on my arm and I wonder if she senses my discomfort because she pulls away quickly.
“Wednesday tends to get relatively busy. Most girls debut Tuesday night,” I respond.
“Donnie said as much, but I have class Tuesday nights. I’m really sorry, but it’s a lab and there was no way for me to get out of it.”
“So you are a med student.”
“Yes, sir.” She pulls out her keys and it doesn’t occur to me right away that this is her car until she turns the key in the lock and pulls open the door. It’s nearly rusted shut and she has to use most of her bodyweight to wrench the thing ajar. When she does, it seems to hang on by threads. My guess is that the 1988 Volkswagen was most recently painted red, but in the places where rust shines through the roof I can see a melee of other colors – blue, green and yellow, all the colors of a bruise. The tires are bald and I find myself breathing hard through my nose, arms clenched tight to my sides. I’m angry. And it’s what I find in the backseat that really tops me off.
“You got a kid?”
“I do,” she says and she smiles that same irritating smile. The slut. The whore. The mother. I feel the erection in my pants still lingering and in my mouth, I taste poison.
“And you drive this?”
“I sure do.”
“Your baby daddy lets you drive his kid around in this?” I repeat.
Her mouth twists – still not a frown. “Nobody lets me do anything, and yes. This is the car I drive.”
I take a step towards her though I don’t know why I bother. Slut’s a slut. I shouldn’t let this bit of information take me by surprise. “I took you for responsible.”
Her teeth press against her lips. “You may take me sir, for whatever you like so long as I’ve got a job.”
“You’ll only keep that job if you follow the rules.”
“You said so before.” She throws her purse into the car and plants her hands on her hips. A slight twitch in her cheek is the only reaction she gives me, the only indication that true emotion hides somewhere beneath the surface of that freakishly effusive veneer. “Park in the lot, get an escort. Anything else?”
“No kids, no men, no drama.” I hold up my pointer finger. My middle lifts alongside it. “No fucking the customers in or outside of the club. I don’t care how desperate you are.”
Not an inch of her moves except for her eyelids as she blinks, and somehow that small act seems to change everything about her expression. Her smile is still slight and fixed, but her gaze pans past me, seeing through me to something else. Or maybe the opposite. Maybe she sees me for what I really am. A monstrosity among men.
“I signed on to be a stripper, not a prostitute.”
“I wasn’t sure after your performance.”
“I’m sorry, was it in some way unsatisfactory?” She glances towards her car, and I understand that she wants to get into it and get away from me but something keeps her from it: desperation. And the desperation that I’m throwing in her face now is the same one that I exploited earlier.
I take a step towards her, feeling heat in my arms that I don’t often feel – an irony given that the last time I felt this way I was also with her, though the situation couldn’t have been more different. Then I was trying to keep her from being slaughtered.
“You don’t touch the customers. They don’t touch you.”
“Funny you didn’t mention that earlier.”
My rage spikes and I press her backwards until she’s right up against the opening of her car. The position is menacing and I know if I saw us standing like this from the other end of the block, I’d call the cops or intervene myself.
“Maybe I was wondering how far a little slut like you would take it. You seemed eager enough to do anything for the right price. You still do. And I don’t want any of that shit in my bar.”
“I got it.” Her voice is louder than it had been, and severe, and then all at once it breaks as she spits, “Is that all?” She coughs into her fist and the ball of rage and tension in my chest bursts.
“What are you even doing here? Have you ever set foot in a strip club before today?” I grab the edge of her car door and paint flakes off against my rough hands. It’s cold to the touch and feels flimsy enough to snap myself.
“That’s really none of your business,” she says, parroting my own words back to me before reapplying that saccharine grin to her face. “Are those all the rules you have? If so, then I really should be going.”
I bare my teeth but she doesn’t break, so I cock my chin towards her car. She gets in and I slam the door shut before she c
an reach for its handle. Her ignition clicks again and again before finally catching, then she drives off. She doesn’t look back – better that way. I don’t need to be caught in the memories of yet another crap mom.
Sara
Sherry flips back long, vivacious curls and traps her straw between her lips. She sucks hard, though her drinks are almost empty and flashes do me eyes to the bartender. Instead of giving her anything for free, he chuckles to himself.
Amber sits up higher on her barstool and tugs hard on the wrists of her long-sleeved shirt. “My lord, Sherry, do you have to be such a tramp?”
“My lord, Amber, do you have to be such a trout?” Sherry fires back.
I laugh hard and sweep my hand back through my hair. It’s greasy at the roots. I haven’t had time to wash it between running from the hospital, home, and back again. This is the first night off I’ve had in three weeks – since Brant came into my life – and I feel guilty without him now. I just love him so much. I worry about him alone with Stephanie, even if she is Amber’s little sister. Brant’s not even six months. What if he gets scared without me? He’s probably still in shock after losing his mom…
“Stop looking at your phone,” Sherry says, slamming her hand onto the flat face of my cell just as I reach for it. “And tell me more about this new boss of yours at the club,” she leers, “I still can’t believe you’re doing this. You just went from my most responsible friend to complete badass.”
“Don’t be so crass, Sher,” Amber mumbles on Sherry’s other side. “You know she’s only doing this because you convinced her it would be more lucrative than working at some place respectable.” She turns to me then and ruffles her brown hair. “At least until you pay your med school loans off and land that amazing residency at Westfield Hospital, like you know you deserve.” Her plump pink lips lift and so does her margarita. Margarita Mondays at Cactus were our favorite when we were undergraduate students and even though it feels so good to be here now, I’m still feeling guilty.
The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1) Page 13
