“Your honey is quite delicious, Mecenna,” he said, licking his lips. “But you’re still an employee and I do not fuck employees—because it just makes good business sense.”
Ice-blue eyes trapped his. The venom and fury in their depths unsettled his soul.
“Have you ever fingered one of your employees before?” she asked tartly.
Casey smiled, perhaps only to make matters worse and life surely more complicated for the both. “No. I haven’t. Just you.”
****
Sara stood tall on jelly-filled legs and tried her damnedest to make it seem as though Casey hadn’t put a lit match to a full can of gasoline. Every pore in her body was tingling in anticipation. Every molecule was set to explode. She’d nearly had a full blown orgasm by way of a single finger shoved inside her, and the ingratiating smile on his face signaled this as his every intention
Therefore, she knew she had to react, kill guilt before it set in. “And you won’t ever again.”
She did not wait to see what his return reaction would be to her words. Sara turned on her heel and walked swiftly to the dressing room where she’d left her wrap. A full minute later, after she could calm down long enough and not look so damn guilty in the mirror reflecting her image as full-blown mockery, she left the building, wounded pride barely intact.
Lace had taken the car, but the five-block walk would do her good.
This had been her every intention.
Casey—one finger fucking bastard—thought otherwise. He caught up to her a half-block away. “Get in the car, Mecenna.”
Her steady strides did not stop. She placed one foot in front of the other. Her arms swung back and forth, purely out of spite, their pendulum arch high and deliberate.
The infuriating man revved his engine nearer the sidewalk. “I said…get in.” His tone left no room for doubt that he was pissed at how the evening was turning out.
Sara slammed on the internal brakes and turned to glare at his arrogance. During the half-block near sprint, she’d been contemplating on how to get even with the man for what he’d done to her inside the club.
Well, two could easily play his game. All she had to do was figure out what the rules to the game were, then go on from there. How hard could that be?
Casey leaned over the console of his car and opened the passenger door. “You’re not walking home at three in the morning Mecenna.”
Sara meant to stay silent, but her temper got the better of her. “Why the fuck not?”
“Because…”
She watched Casey swallow, trying to get the words past his tongue without choking on them. “Jesus, Mecenna, you are naked under your wrap…and that could get you in a lot of trouble out here. Get in. I’ll take you home.”
Bloody Hell!
She hated when he was right. This wasn’t exactly an upscale neighborhood. But she didn’t want Mr. Know-it-all to be right. She wanted to be angry with him. Not only with him…alas, with all men, as a generality. He’d more than turned her body into an infernal flame of want over need inside his club, but he’d tossed every emotion inside of her away, as if yesterdays’ news, once it suited his needs. That hurt.
She did not want any man to be able to hurt her again.
“Fucking Hell, Mecenna! Get in the goddamn car! I won’t wait much longer.” He glanced forward to check for traffic. At three in the morning, Griffen’s fancy sports car was the only vehicle on the street. It was a seedy street and not exactly the place to drive a one hundred fifty-thousand dollars car on at three a.m.
Equally, out of the corner of her eye, she could see their conversation had caused interest in two men of ill character farther down the block. They turned, switched money for a plastic baggie, and started coming her way. Either she got into the devil’s car or she could deal with the devil’s spawn while naked, half-drunk, and at three in the morning.
With fury in her actions, Sara slid into Casey’s car, crossed her arms over her chest, and pointed her chin forward. Surely she could endure her temporary humiliation for another four blocks until home.
Casey reached over her body, shocking her even more. All he’d wanted to do was make certain she put on her seatbelt. Holding herself rigid, he locked the belt into place, seeing as how she was doing her level best to throw a silent tantrum, then grabbed the gear shift, slammed it into first gear, and sped away from the curb.
It was a good thing he’d locked her into place. The man’s driving proved he was a crazed lunatic…as well a bastard.
Only problem was, after ten blocks passed in an absolute blur, and that crazed lunatic kept driving, Sara knew well and good he’d lied to her. Well, technically he did not tell her the whole truth. He’d driven past her street and was heading out of town. The only home out there was his.
He must have known what she was going to say even before she opened her mouth, because he said it for her.
“I said…home. I did not say which one.”
His devil grin remained rather prolific the eight full miles it took to get there.
Chapter Four
“Where were you last night?” Lace questioned from the opposite side of the bar.
Tonight was two-for-one, in every sense of the word. Two drinks, two dances, two girls—for the right price anything could be bought inside Griffen’s Club.
Lace was taking a breather from her first pole dance. The second would be done within the private room, where she made a ton of money. Moreover, the reason Sara was trying to perfect the pole. If a girl could get into the private rooms, she could make an easy grand if not more, every night of the week.
Sara was the freeloader in Lace’s home. She contributed what she made from bartending, but nothing more came out of her pocket. Lace was fine with the arrangement. She told Sara she’d always wanted a roommate.
Sara hated freeloading, though it did seem to suit her purpose. Yet she wasn’t about to put herself out on a limb because of finances. Where else would Lace have found the perfect roommate, if Sara, the naturist, hadn’t come along?
“I woke up at seven, and you, my friend, hadn’t slept in your bed,” Lace added. She gave Sara a knowing look, then a knowing wink, darting a glance to the grumpy bouncer holding vigil at the door.
“I fell asleep in the back room—after you left me here to fend for myself,” she lied. Easy enough to do when she did not look at Lace’s face.
Casey had taken her to his home under protest. However, once there, he’d pointed Sara to his couch while he’d gone upstairs within his big, fancy house, to sleep on his big, fancy bed. He hadn’t even allowed her the comfort of a blanket; told her being cold all night was punishment for the stolen tequila.
And he did not think two kisses and a fingering job until nearly coming into the palm of his hand hadn’t been punishment enough?
When she awoke, cold, stiff, and pissed, there’d been cab fare and a note set on the table, informing her she was to stay an extra hour in the club tonight to pay him back for the cab fare.
Wretched bastard! Stinking rich, he could surely afford a few lousy bucks for the returned safety of his employee to her home, couldn’t he?
“And why the hell ain’t you off your shift yet?” Lace asked.
Sara raised her eyes and looked her roommate dead to rights. “Tequila punishment.” This much she would tell her roommate. The rest of last night she would keep a secret—for now.
Lace smiled. “How many hours did he give you?”
“Just one.”
Sara started on the order of drinks their topless waitresses wanted. Lace’s smile held firmly in place until two of Casey’s girls walked away.
“Just one?”
“Yep. Only one.”
“Christ! I’m surprised Boss Man didn’t bring out the big guns, once he found out about our…um…Sunday evenings,” Lace whispered. If any of the other girls found out, there’d be hell to pay.
Lace then glanced over her shoulder to make certain Boss Man wasn’t ov
erhearing this conversation, as well.
Sara gave said man a quick glance, too. When he must have sensed eyes on him, he turned and smiled her way. Not at all a friendly smile, his grin looked more on the terms of a caught you in the act upturning of the lips.
Her eyes snapped from his. Big guns? No. The wretched beast brought out a pair of sensual lips and one talented finger to give Sara her due.
“Surely after I left you two alone he said something about you working pole?” Lace was fishing for answers and using the wrong bait for the wrong type of fish if she thought Sara would intentionally tell her the truth.
She looked at her one and only friend in the whole world. “Yeah, he said something.” She then handed another waitress the last of her order: two beers from tap with no foam. “It’d been on the terms of…Hell no! And not while breath still inside his body…or to that effect.” She might have glorified the man’s anger, but Lace would never know.
“Shit! Really?”
“My sentiments, exactly,” Sara answered, glaring across the crowded, elbow-bumping, fist-pumping, eager beaver hunters to the man standing near the door.
She was then called down to the end of the bar. Lace followed and stood behind the customer. When the man did not move over, Lace gave up trying and walked to the other side of the bar. This action pulled Casey from the doorway, post haste. He literally stormed over to the women.
“Lace? Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else?” he rudely said. His eyes hit both women, waiting for the answer from only one.
Lace stuck out her tongue but did as she was told. “I’m going, I’m going,” she said tartly.
She had a customer in two minutes. They all knew she needed to limber up and the only place to do any limbering would be inside the back room.
Casey held firm his position until his favored employee moved off. As Sara watched her well-endowed, topless friend slip through the door labeled private, her boss remained where he was, opposite her side of the bar.
When her eyes turned to his, he snapped out, “Say anything to Lace about last night…and I will fire you.”
A dire warning, if ever heard.
Sara took it as another way. “Oh, really? Well, fire me then.” She was daring the angry man into action. Enough of the cat and mouse game between them. Either he came clean about what he wanted from her, or she would just move on.
Casey signaled for the other girl who bartended with Sara to take over. He then grabbed Sara by the wrist and physically dragged her into his office. He did not slam the door shut, but he sure as hell looked as if he wanted to. However, a slammed door was a real attention getter, and he wouldn’t have wanted his customers unsettled, even though he looked quite unsettled himself. The veins in the sides of his neck were sticking out. His body coiled, his eyes were filled with lightning.
“I am going to give you a half-second to apologize to me,” he warned.
“For what?” she demanded, yanking on her arm.
“For beginners…,” Casey stalled, glaring at her face. He must not have put much thought to he’d been nearly crushing her wrist in his grasp.
“Yeah?” she snapped. “For starters…”
“Christ, Mecenna!”
Sara felt waspish all of a sudden. “Christ, Casey!” she mimicked.
The man took a step forward.
She took a step back.
He grabbed her arm.
She slapped his hand away.
He turned and slammed his fist onto his desk, so hard she could hear bone crack.
Sara stood her ground, but thankfully, Casey did not witness the flinch and sudden flash of memory she’d made behind his back.
He took a deep breath, flared his nostrils, and turned to face her.
Sara took a deep breath, and held it for as long as she could—a mere second.
Without ease of warning, he grabbed his other wrist, muttered under his breath something vulgar, something Sara did not hear properly, asking him what it was.
“Care to repeat that?”
“I think I just fucking broke bones because of you!”
Sara almost felt sorry for him. Almost. An inner part of her did feel sorry for her fellow human being. But when any sympathy pertained to this man, her sorry scale was a bit lowered most days. Still, she took a step forward.
He took a firm step back.
She held out her hand to him as a peace offering, which then able to identify the trouble if he cooperated.
Casey glared at her hand—hard.
“Jesus! Let me take a look at it, would ya?”
“What? You know what a broken bone looks like?”
“I do,” she answered tartly.
Her eyes trapped his while he must have weighed the pros and cons in his head. But she knew he was in too much pain to argue otherwise, accepting any possible cons with a grain of salt. He very slowly held out his arm for her to gather a hypothesis.
Sara placed Casey’s wrist into her palm and gently touched the wrist bones. Had she not her own broken wrist from the car accident a few years back, she wouldn’t have known how they felt out of place—or what could make them hurt. And Casey’s were certainly out of place.
Sara jabbed the one she knew to be, just to make it smart.
With a shine of fury in his eyes he yanked his arm from her grasp, and made his wrist hurt even more. “Fucking Hell, you did that on purpose!”
Sara wasn’t going to deny she had. “You’re the one who broke it.”
The forced smile that came forth on his face lit up the small room. “No. You broke it! I just happen to have it inside my body!”
“Me?” she quizzed. “How the bloody hell did I break your wrist?” This, she had to hear.
“You made me do it!”
A sharp brow rose on Sara’s forehead. “Oh really? I made you pound you wrist onto your desk…hard enough to break bone?” Any explanation in favor of this would surely be a lie.
Casey lied. “If I didn’t have to pull you into my office, I wouldn’t have hit my desk for the pure fact you infuriate me so bloody damn much, it’s all…” He paused, growling loudly at her.
Sara rolled her eyes in spite of to do so could easily get her into a lot more trouble than she already in.
“And since I may have broken it,” he added.
“May?” she recklessly slipped out, checking her grin.
“Yes, may…” A sharp raise of his brow clarified it. “You will now be driving me to the hospital to get it fixed.”
“Like hell I will!”
“Oh, yes you are,” he warned menacingly.
Sara balled her fists onto her hips. “Oh, no I am not. Drive your own bloody damn self to the hospital.”
“Do you want me to go out there and tell Lace exactly how you responded to my touch last night?” he threatened.
Sara’s mutiny returned tenfold. “You wouldn’t dare?”
“Wouldn’t I?” he offered, with a sudden devilish grin to prove his point.
Sara could see he would more than shout what happened between them inside the club last night from the nearest rooftop if it would gain him a ride to the hospital. For a bouncer who could take a lot of pain, he sure as hell was acting like a baby. And using blackmail? That bites!
“Fine. I’ll go with you, but you’ll owe me one full extra hour of pay.”
“The hell I will!”
“Either that, or I go out there myself and tell Ginger to drive you, and we both know you’d never hear the end of it if she takes you there.”
Ginger was his other bartender—took no shit from anyone, not even this man.
“No, Mecenna,” Casey said, shaking his head while he cradled his arm to his torso. “You will drive me to the ER. I will not be paying you an extra hour, and you will do it because if you don’t I’ll not only tell Lace about last night, I’ll tell everyone in the club, and you’ll feel every eye on you throughout the remainder of your now extended two hour shift until your skin cr
awls.”
One look at his face and she suddenly believed him.
Casey was pissed and she was now staring at a very long night.
****
“If you grind the gears on a hundred and fifty-thousand dollar car one more time…” His biting tone clipped at her profile, he’d meant for it to take a little paint off her hide.
Casey knew Mecenna had never driven a stick shift in all her life. She’d told him as much the moment he handed her the keys.
Alas, she’d also been informed on how to run the clutch and gas pedal at the same time, and how to get the car to respond to the slow change of foot pressure…or lose her job.
Even told, she’d killed it twice at the stop sign. By the third forward jolt of metal, Casey slipped down in his seat to hide his face. He sure as hell did not want anyone to see him or recognize him while inside the car, while his baby was being driven by a total nut job.
“I am quite certain you could do this yourself.” Her threat was not as strong as she likely wanted it to be, due to the fact of her having perfected the Find and Grind of the vehicle’s gears again.
Casey flinched—for his car. He felt its pain. If anyone ground his gears as hard as Mecenna was doing to a nearly irreplaceable vehicle, he would’ve punched them in the face. However, his lovely employee was doing her best, and this was all he could ask of her at this point.
His wrist had one small fracture and the ER doc had put into a brace. No cast, thankfully. He wouldn’t have been able to do his job properly if his wrist was set into a plaster cast.
Behavior inside a strip club if the bouncer within it was broken…? Not a chance.
They were on their way back to the club—so long as Mecenna could keep the sleek vehicle going on a forward momentum, and not stalled at every goddamn stop sign!
“I can’t use my right hand. How the hell would I be able to shift gears?” he informed.
Mecenna turned her eyes to his. She looked small on the driver’s side of a man’s car, engulfed into the plush leather seat, and she could barely reach the clutch pedal even with heels on.
“You could easily tell me when to shift,” she reasoned.
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