Dancing With Fire

by Maia Dylan

  Bella stared at them both for a moment, and Hayden felt his heart ache at the resignation that filled her eyes.

  “You know, I think you actually do believe that, and perhaps there are threads of truth to what you are saying. But in my experience, the proof is actually in what is tangible and right in front of you.”

  She reached into the back pocket of her jeans as she stepped closer to his desk, and pulled out a piece of white paper. Hayden’s confusion began to build as she began to unfold it and he caught a glimpse of the bold red and black insignia across the top of the letterhead. Then she lay the paper down on the desk, and Hayden swept it up.

  The logo was black, solid and masculine, but had a splash of red underneath it that gave it definition and a touch of class. Or at least Hayden had always thought so when he'd designed it twelve years ago, when he and Zac took over the company. But the fact that this was their letterhead, on the parchment they favored, wasn’t the reason for the thread of unease that unwound within him. It was the fact that it was a letter advising of an imminent rental increase, a bank account that did not look familiar, and there were two signatures scrawled along the bottom of the page.

  He and Zac had both signed this letter and, although he was no handwriting expert, he was willing to bet that they were authentic.

  “What the hell?” He heard the confusion in his own tone as he handed the letter to his brother and turned to look at Bella, who now stood behind the chair she had been sitting in.

  “This is real?” Zac’s question had Bella’s eyes narrowing again.

  “Yes, of course it’s real!” she said indignantly. “What do you think I did? Stole your letterhead, forged your signatures, and increased my own rent? Look, I can tell that you two are shocked at what I am telling you, and perhaps you need to go and look into your own affairs to see how you could own a building and employ a man without knowing anything about either.” Bella glanced at her watch and winced. “But, I have to go. Thanks for taking the time, albeit reluctantly, to see me.”

  And with that Bella swept out of the office. Zac and Hayden shared a quick glance, then scrambled out of the office after her, watching as she stepped into the conveniently ready lift. “Bella, wait.”

  She turned to look at them, reaching out to no doubt press the button of the elevator button for the ground floor. “Look, like I said, I have to go. Work waits for no woman, even if she really just wants to go home and crawl into a bucket of crispy chicken. Look into things here. You know where to find me if you need to.”

  The lift doors closed, and Hayden released a puff of air. “Jesus, what the hell was all that about?”

  “I have no idea,” Zac said slowly. “But I have a feeling I know who to ask about it.”

  Chapter Two

  “What’s wrong, hon?”

  Bella’s gaze left her own reflection in the mirror and flicked to Trisha, who was standing behind her.

  “You look lost or something. You’re usually the one bouncing around back here talking a mile a minute.”

  “Nothing,” Bella said with a slight shake of her head. She had to get the meeting with the Firestone brothers out of her head, and concentrate on the night ahead. “Just a little distracted is all.” Trista gave her a look that clearly said she didn’t believe her, and Bella couldn’t blame her.

  Bella sighed as she applied a layer of deep red lipstick. This was part of what she really hated about this job. When she had started here, she’d been given lessons on how to apply makeup because she hadn’t a clue what to do. Concealer, foundation, blushers, eye-shadows, contour, all of it had seemed strange to her, but at least now she didn’t make herself look too much like she’d just flunked out of clown school.

  “We have a full house tonight, and I know that Denny has a few VIPs in the audience,” Trista said as she leaned forward over Bella’s shoulder and pushed her hair up a little further. “We’ve all been told that we need to be flawless. Apparently, these VIPs are coming with pockets full of cash, so Denny will hand pick the best of us to sit with them after our set. Oh, I love it when the high rollers come in! I have had my eye on these black Mary Jane pumps with the cutest silver bow buckle on the side for a long time now. If all goes well, I’ll be wearing them on my date tomorrow night. And if that date goes well, they’ll be the only things I’ll be wearing at the end of the night!” With a grin and an exaggerated eyebrow waggle, Trista flounced off, and Bella sat motionless for a moment.

  Adrenaline filled her system, and Bella’s heart beat a little faster. Could these VIPs be the men she was looking for? If they were the Asian gang lords known as the Trinity, then progress was being made. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she went back to putting on her makeup, taking extra care to use her black liquid eyeliner and dark grey eye-shadow. She pulled her straightened long blonde hair up into a ponytail, pulling it high on her head. She stood up and walked over to the full length mirror.

  Wincing at what her mom would have thought of her current outfit, Bella plumped her breasts up over the cup of the push-up bikini top she wore, straightened the waistband of the matching bottoms, and closed her eyes on a deep breath. Drawing into herself, she embraced the stage persona that would help her get through this next part of her job. She searched for a reason to dance, just as she did every night, and a small smile came quickly at the thought of two men with dark black hair, one with startling green eyes, the other a brilliant blue.

  “Hey, Lulu!” a man’s voice called from across the changing room. “You’re up in five. Sam has that new song cued up for you. Remember, I want fucking flawless tonight. I won't be happy with anything less.”

  She opened her eyes and any hesitation that may have existed moments before was gone, determination in its place. “Keep your toupee on, Denny.” Bella turned from the mirror, flicked her hair back over her shoulder and sashayed toward the stage door. “Flawless is Lulu’s middle name.”

  ****

  Zac stared around the crowded club and had to fight a yawn. Despite the amount of female flesh on display in the place, he was unmoved by any of them. His mind was very much on the blonde spitfire who had confronted him and Hayden earlier that day. As soon as she had left, they went to confront Mrs. Crowther, but the woman had already left. Judging by the fact she'd taken all of her belongings, including the photos of her grandchildren that sat front and center on her desk, she wasn’t coming back in the morning.

  Zach had spent the rest of the afternoon on the phone with his legal team while Hayden went down to speak to their head of finance. It was starting to look like Bella’s allegations were not only true but that Mrs. Crowther was very much involved.

  He and Hayden had wanted nothing more than to drive over to the Monticello building and talk more with Bella, but were quickly reminded that they had plans. Vic Traverse, a friend of theirs since childhood, was getting married in two short weeks, and he and Hayden were standing up for him as groomsmen. Tonight was Vic’s stag night, so instead of talking with the deliciously delightful Bella Strand, they were sitting in the front row of Essentials, an up-market strip club in the entertainment district.

  The bar and waiting staff were wearing clothes that left a lot of skin bare but didn’t leave them completely naked to the view and touch of the patrons in the club. There were quite a number of security personnel on the floor as well, and judging by the way their gaze continually swept the crowds, they were professional in their jobs at least.

  “You do realize,” his brother said directly into his right ear in order to be heard over the heavy thump of the music, “that most people who frequent a place like this actually look at the mostly naked female dancing on the stage.”

  Zac turned and leveled a glare at Hayden. “I looked. I just didn’t see anything that held my attention.”

  Hayden nodded. “I can understand that. I take it your attention was held by our visitor this afternoon?”

  Zac’s glare morphed into a grin. “Hell, yeah, you could say tha
t. Bella most definitely held my attention. Did you see how she reacted to my touch?”

  “Yeah, I did. She stared at her hand the same way she did when she and I shook hands.” Hayden’s expression turned thoughtful, as his gaze dropped to his own hand. “As soon as our hands touched there was this feeling, a—a—”

  “A jolt?” Zac supplied, and Hayden looked up from his hand with surprise and nodded. “Yeah, I felt that, too,” Zac grinned. “I think we found her.”

  Hayden returned the smile. “Me, too. Mom and the dads are going to be over the moon when we tell them.” Zac couldn’t agree more. His mom had been on at him and Hayden for years about settling down, but neither of them thought it would actually happen. And to be perfectly honest, Zac had been content with his life up until that moment.

  He and Hayden had made a name for themselves and enough money to enjoy life any way they wished. But now, having met Bella, and despite not having had any real time to get to know more about her, he felt his life lacked something. Only time would tell if Bella could fill that void for him and Hayden.

  “Gentlemen!” A man’s voice sounded over the club’s sound system, and Zac became aware that the previous act had finished and an excited tension had filled the room. “Please, draw your attention to the center of the stage.”

  Seated as they were in the booth directly in front of the center stage, that was an easy instruction to follow. The entire stage was dark. Then a spotlight flicked on, lighting up a silver stripper pole in the middle of the stage and a swath of black material that had been dropped at the back of the stage. Whatever was about to happen, from the way the crowd fell into hushed excitement, Zac had a feeling it was going to be something pretty amazing.

  “Essentials is very pleased to provide for your entertainment this evening the erotic dance style that is unique to our establishment, and to the star of our show, the one, the only … Lulu!”

  Over the roar of approval from the crowd, the familiar and heavy opening chords of an electric guitar heralded the song “American Woman” by Lenny Kravitz, and a woman walked sensuously into the spotlight. Zac couldn’t help but lean forward as he watched the woman walk. Every step she took appeared almost fluid, and her body was the picture of seduction. She turned her back to the audience, and Zac groaned at the sight of the rounded perfection of her ass, presented so beautifully with the thong of the blue panties she wore disappearing between each sumptuous cheek. There were words tattooed on her left side, along her rib cage, but Zac couldn’t make out what it said from this distance.

  She leaned down, grabbing both her ankles, before dropping into a quick gentle squat that had his dick twitching behind the zipper of his pants, and then she swept her hands up her long legs to stand. With infinite grace, she spun to face the crowd, and Zac had to swallow in order to get some moisture back in his mouth. The bikini she wore was patriotic to say the least with red and white stripes across her left breast and the blue with white stars adorning her right. The bra must have been one of those push-up ones, because the plump curve of the top of her breasts was pushed up, high. The bottom of the swimsuit he knew was a thong, but the front triangle was blue with white stars as well. Very appropriate for the song, and with the woman’s amazing body and golden tan, she was the epitome of a wet dream. His eyes trailed up the woman’s body, and he looked into her face.

  “Holy. Fuck.” He growled low, and flicked a quick glance to his brother. From Hayden's shocked expression, Zac knew his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him.

  The dancer, with her long blonde hair pulled up into a tight, sleek ponytail, her smoky eye makeup, and red lips, was definitely someone Zac would have ordinarily wanted to meet. Hell, he would have crawled over broken glass for a chance to meet her, but in this case, he already had. The dancer before him may have been introduced to the club as Lulu, but she was most definitely Bella. As he watched, she moved her body in a slow step forward, and then just before the first words were spoken she ran at the pole in the center of the stage.

  The crowd seemed to inhale at the same time as she launched herself at the pole, and it looked to Zac like she had missed it for a split second before he saw that she had somehow managed to grab the thing against her hip, wrapping her left leg around it to hold herself in place on the pole. She hit it just as the first word was sung. The thing that had the crowd roaring its approval and his heart leaping into his throat was the fact that the bottom of the pole was not actually attached to the floor.

  Zac watched as she and the pole seemed to float out over the crowd, and realized that as soon as she’d hit the pole, someone had pulled it up a small amount so that she didn’t hit anyone when she moved out over the crowd.

  “Jesus Christ, Zac,” Hayden yelled to be heard over the crowd as they watched the woman they had met that afternoon wrap herself around the pole, spinning herself this way and that in an impressive display of strength and skill. “That’s Bella!”

  “Yeah,” Zac nodded, his eyes locked on the woman who was currently holding herself upside down on the bar with nothing more than her knee. “She holding your attention?”

  “Abso-fucking-lutely.” Hayden’s growled answer would have had Zac laughing if Bella, or Lulu, or whatever the hell the woman’s name was, hadn’t executed a flawless split at the top of the bar.

  Then she seemed to fall, sliding to the bottom of the pole, and Zac stood up with a shout, Hayden doing the same beside him, just as she halted her downward fall and flipped from the pole. Somehow they had been so enthralled by the routine, Zac hadn’t realized that they had lifted the pole off the ground by at least seven feet. When his heart started to beat again, pounding within his chest, she was holding the bottom of the pole, her feet only a few inches from the floor and she started a spin that had her moving so damn fast she blurred.

  She dropped to the floor, facing the crowd with a cocky but beautiful smile on her face as she stepped forward to stand at the edge of the stage, her hip cocked forward and her hands on her hips as the song drew to a close. A split second later the crowd erupted into applause, the house lights came up, and she waved to the crowd.

  Zac didn’t know if she noticed him and Hayden because the lights went up, or the fact that out of every damn person in that room, they were the only two that stood stock still, too shocked to applaud with the others. Either way, Bella turned in their direction. Her gaze locked with his, then slipped to Hayden. The cocky smile slipped from her face, and she stared at them in shock for the beat of a single heartbeat before the lights dropped. When the lights went back up, Zac growled at the empty stage.

  “Let’s hear it for the amazing Lulu one more time!”

  As the roar of the crowd swelled again, Zac slid out of the booth they were seated at, knowing that Hayden was right behind him. The two of them made it over to the side entrance to the stage, and were stopped by security.

  “Can I help you gentlemen?” The guy had to be at least three hundred pounds of pure muscle and aggression.

  “Yeah, we’d like to speak with Bella,” Zac asked, using her real name in an attempt to show the guy that he and Hayden actually knew her, but from the confused look on his face, he had no idea who they were talking about. “You know her as Lulu.”

  The guy’s expression cleared then locked into a snarl, one that Zac was fairly certain he would have to have practiced in the mirror to get that level of badass in his expression. “There ain’t no way you two are gonna get time with that girl. Denny’s got VIPs with bankrolls to rival any man’s here tonight, and after the performance that little girl just gave, she ain’t gonna be going to anyone’s table but Denny’s, and she’s gonna be busy all night.”

  Zac growled low in his throat at that.

  He looked at Hayden, and figured the disbelief that shone in his brother’s eyes must mirror his own. He wanted nothing more than to push past the guy and demand to speak with Bella. It was one thing to dance for a living, but from what he was hearing from the behemoth security
guard in front of him, Essentials was a full service kind of club. And if that was the case, then perhaps it would be better to just leave. Zac had never thought of himself as the judgmental type, and it was not a trait he was overjoyed to recognize in himself. But one thing was certain. He could not just sit here in this bar.

  He and Hayden turned back to their table and convinced Vic that it was time to move on. As they turned to leave their booth, Zac’s gaze swept over the exclusive members’ booth. It was behind theirs and slightly raised to afford them a better view of the performers on the stage. The booth was the largest in the club, and was serviced by a private bar, and security stood at either entrance to the area. There were three men of Asian descent sitting in the booth, a tall and slightly rotund European man and four dancers.

  Nothing about the booth seemed out of the ordinary, except for the dancer sitting between two of the Asian men. From the way she moved, to the way she was dressed, to the stunning blue of her eyes, she was most definitely extraordinary.

  Chapter Three

  Bella was going to throw up. It could have been because she was more nervous than she had ever been in her life, or it might have something to do with the bruises she sported down her left side. She’d been called in to work on her night off at the request of her superior, and the job she had stepped into had turned violent. Her partner, Angie, was adamant that their boss had pushed the button too soon, and the result was a shit-storm when it didn’t really need to be.

  As the illuminated numbers on the wall went higher and higher, showing her ascent to the top of the building, that feeling intensified. She took a series of breaths, as deep as the bruises on her ribs would allow her to take, in an attempt to stave off losing what little she had eaten for breakfast that morning on the tiled elevator floor.

  The ominous ding of the elevator, as it announced its arrival at the floor she had selected, had her heart pounding even harder behind her chest. She had thought she’d prepared herself for this in the forty minutes she had spent sitting in the lobby downstairs, but from the way her body seemed to be shaking like she was holding onto a live wire, she figured she wasn’t as primed as she’d thought she was.