This, he hadn’t thought about. It could work. But she would actually have to listen to his directions, and so far, she’d made a mockery of anything said from his mouth all night long.
“Pull over,” he rushed past his clenched jaw.
“Pull over? Christ! I can barely get this vehicle to stop!”
“Pull this goddamn car over, Mecenna, or I’ll…”
Her eyes widened and hardened. “Or you’ll…what?”
He hadn’t planned an ‘or what’ as of yet. He already threatened firing, and look how well that turned out for him. “I will punish you beyond your wildest imagination,” he used instead, just winging it.
Mecenna drew in a deep breath, held it, then ground his car into third gear.
Casey knew damn well he’d paled under his tan upon that grinding. He’d felt the paling as if branded by fire. The car slowed, but only because the second she pushed the clutch pedal to the floor he shoved the stick into neutral and sent her a scathing look that clearly said he fucking dared her to put it into fourth gear.
Mecenna yanked hard on the steering wheel. The vehicle’s front tire hit the curb and created a strange, guttural sound out of his mouth.
“Are you fucking crazy?” he quipped. “This is a one hundred fifty-thousand dollar, perfectly tuned, custom specific, mint condition…Jesus! It’s a one of a kind vehicle. You do not hit the curb with a one hundred fifty-thousand dollar tire, on a one hundred fifty-thousand dollar car!”
“Perhaps you should have paid one hundred thirty-five thousand less for your precious baby, and a damn tire wouldn’t matter so much to you,” she threw at his face, her tone baited with amusement.
Casey flared his nostrils. There was not a shred of amusement in his being. Truth be told, if murder wouldn’t lose him everything he’d gained thus far, he would more than give it a try. Blood pressure raised, dry mouth, he clenched and unclenched his fists.
Mecenna merely shrugged her shoulders, waiting for more to come her way, her cheeks sucked in.
The car at a full stop with the stick in neutral, he one-handed opened the door, slid out, walked around the front of the vehicle, yanked open the driver’s door, indelicately pulled the woman out of the driver’s seat directly onto the street, climbed inside, shut the door, and waited for Mecenna to get her ass into the passenger seat.
Casey was too angry to speak.
Mecenna stood on the street with mutiny in her eyes, her arms crossed, her mouth clamped shut, drawing out more of his fury.
“Get in the fucking car, Mecenna,” he growled out.
She openly stared off into space.
“I said…,” he threatened.
She drew in a deep breath, looked as if weighing out her options, then walked around the front of the vehicle to get inside the car. Once settled in her seat, with belt locked, Casey stepped on the clutch. “When I say now, I want you to put it into gear.”
“And if I don’t?”
He turned his large body, so fast Mecenna lurched toward her door. “Then we fucking stay on the side of the fucking pavement for the rest of your fucked-up life. And right now, Sweetheart, that won’t be very long.” He could feel the steam venting from his ears, nose, and eyes as he looked directly at the only woman who’d ever vexed him so badly that any contemplation of murder seemed plausible.
“Ready?” he asked, taking no more of her sass for the night, and settling into the driver’s seat with his foot on the clutch.
Casey cracked his neck side to side, hoping to intimidate.
Mecenna turned her gaze away.
With lightning speed, his good hand grabbed her chin and forced her eyes back to his; his temper an all-time high as his large fingers dug into her flesh.
“I asked you…are you ready?”
“I was born ready, you sonofabitch,” she answered, as her uncontrollable tremors announced she’d hit that fight out of flight mode.
“Then prove it to me,” he demanded, his smile tight.
“How would you like that proof, Mr. Griffen? Me…or you on top?” she asked, sweetly sugarcoating her sudden fury at being manhandled.
Casey ignored her baiting question. Again, he put his left foot on the clutch, and took a deep breath. “Now.”
Mecenna shoved the stick into first gear.
“Now.”
The gears ground into second.
“Now.”
She found third, but got another glare sent her way for the first grind of metal against metal.
“Now.”
Fourth gear had been much harder for her to locate. She’d almost put it into reverse.
By the fifth “Now” said, they’d worked out a system.
First and second gear was rewarded with a glare. Third and fourth came with a groan. Fifth was followed with a near growl. Neutral gained a full string of curses making the ears hurt. Jesus A. Christ! The woman put his car into neutral at nearly thirty-miles per hour.
How the bloody hell…!
She must have a death wish. This was the only plausible explanation he could make for the smile on her face.
Twenty-minutes later, he wasn’t able to speak to her at all. But at least they’d made it back to the bar without any further accidents or acts of murder.
Mecenna went her way. Casey went his. When the club closed three hours later, his employee had to swallow her pride and come into the lion’s den to ask for her paycheck.
His sight rose to her sudden entrance into his life and another growl slipped out of his throat, unchecked.
She looked almost too afraid to move inside his office without some sort of protection.
“What now?” he barked. Any more of this woman tonight and he would be working his way into an early ulcer.
“My paycheck, please?”
Casey’s eyes drifted to pile of those already made out. Hers was yet cast in stone. “Do you deserve one?” His pen was still in hand as his eyes took a leisure roam of the woman, head to toe.
****
Sara’s brain stalled upon No more than you deserve a good whack side the head, but her mouth kept these thoughts tucked safely inside; with any hope to keep as much harm from her body as was possible.
“Yes,” she told him, her voice losing power.
“Oh, really?” Casey pushed back his chair and dragged his sight over her body again—his insolence drew the shivers from her spine.
Sara had on her bartender’s uniform: tight black leather mini-skirt and even tighter white tank top, no bra. If she did the pole, it would be far less. Required outfit for the pole was thong only. This was only to make certain the men closest to the stage didn’t get any ideas of dropping their zippers, grabbing the dancer, then causing an uproar by slamming his dick into the dancer.
Yet, Sara’s bartending attire was certainly less enough to most.
And Casey’s dangerously blue eyes were glued to her ample breasts.
Not immune to what that blue gaze was telling her, she knew he was more than angry with her over something she’d not done, as was always the case between them. Therefore, only to rehash an unending argument or put more effort toward her being right and him wrong, her thoughts ran to let the games begin.
“Yes, really,” she quibbled, with as much force as she could muster.
“And if I say otherwise?” This was a mistake made on his part. Only a fool tested shark-infested waters when that shark was an incredibly pissed-off female.
“Then I say you can go to Hell, Mr. Griffen…and take this shitty job with you. But you owe me two weeks full pay, plus four hours overtime, thanks to your recent jaunt to an ER—and I have more than ample proof you do owe me, so I will see you court.”
“Overtime?” he chuckled, daring her fury to rise.
“Yes. Overtime,” Sara rushed back. “Time and a half for having driven your miserable toy to a fucking hospital dressed like this.” She made a full, exaggerated sweep of her body with only her hand.
“My toy?”
>
“Yes. Your toy.”
Casey’s grin grew even more pronounced. “What would you prefer to drive, Mecenna? Something bigger, or do you prefer it being much harder?”
Sara regrettably felt the heat creep to her face, causing the wrong reaction in her boss.
“Perhaps my huge dick instead? No one would ever know if we went at it right now,” he dared add.
Her red face must have paled because she felt its loss of color as if her cheek slapped.
She would know! And she was the only person who mattered.
“Christ, Mecenna! It was only a joke. Here.” He held the paycheck out to her. He’d already made it out and had put it at the bottom of the pile.
Sara yanked her paycheck from his fingers, forcing another smile out of him. All of a sudden, she could take no more of his bullshit—his in your face arrogance was simply too deep to wade through.
“What the hell do you want from me?” she asked.
“Want?” He seemed confused by her swift change of attitude.
“Yes. Want?”
Casey slowly rose from behind his desk, moved to the front of it, leaned his firm ass onto it, and crossed his arms over his massive berth.
Sara had to step back from the desk to give him ample room.
“I don’t want a goddamn thing from you. And I have told you this, only last night.”
Sara openly snorted, right in his face, the memory too fresh and real. “Then why are you doing this to me now?”
A single brow arched high. “What is it that I’m doing, Mecenna?”
Argh!
“Why do you constantly have to play this cat and mouse game with me? You don’t do this to Lace, or with any of your other girls.” He was toying with her and this made Sara see red.
Casey’s cocked brow and total arrogance returned. “Would you prefer I never did it to you?”
“Of course.”
His smile increased—tenfold. “That is the biggest fucking lie ever told out of your devilishly sweet mouth, and you know it. You love this. You can’t get enough of this. In fact, the sudden twinkle in your eye is from you getting your comeuppance. It’s been there for weeks, Mecenna.”
He then pushed from the desk before Sara could fully react. A half-second later, she found his lips settled against hers, and somehow he was kissing her into pliable submission.
At least Sara felt stuck in a submissive state. Her legs went weak. Her heart raced. Her palms turned sweaty. Her spine had shivers going down the length of it. No man had ever made her palms sweaty or her spine tingle. Not even…
No. No. No! She couldn’t go near pain like that again. Boyd McCarlye was dead and buried to her, same as her unborn.
Casey stepped back, severing the connection of their bodies. “See?”
Sara shook her head, adjusting to the loss. See what? She couldn’t see a damn thing. Her eyeballs had steamed.
He added more. “You’re covered head to toe in goose bumps by a mere kiss.”
“So?”
“So…you can’t lie to me, Mecenna—ever. I do believe I’ve said this before.”
It to have been smart on her part to leave the man’s office before things got out of her control, Sara was never known for her smarts. Her cunning nature? Sure. Her more than hot body? Of course—she’d been told this millions of times. But her ability to see the fire through all the smoke? Hell, no! Therefore, she was unprepared for the chuckle coming out of him, and the complete brush off within a matter of seconds as he rounded his desk and sat back down in his chair. He returned to making out the paychecks as if nothing amiss.
Sara’s eyes widened as Casey physically shut off her presence like tap water from a faucet. Her brain screamed itself hoarse from the depths of thick fog inside her head. Used again! Two very damaging words, that gave her fuel to throw on the growing fire rising between them.
“Tomorrow I work pole,” she announced abruptly, making it sound so completely natural out of her mouth.
His eyes rose, as did his temper. “Like hell you are!”
Sara could not let the control she had in her hand slip from grasp. “Lace is going to allow me one of her times in the room, too.”
His jaw tensed, eyes narrowing. “Lace doesn’t make those decisions for my club.”
Sara kept going before she lost her nerve. “And she informed me if you fought it, she would quit. Then you would be stuck with no dancer for Friday night and a lot of unhappy customers.”
Their biggest night for high-profile big spenders was the Friday after payday. Griffen would lose tens of thousands if Lace quit.
Casey rose to his feet, the fury in his eyes unhidden. “She said this, did she?”
He was giving her ample warning to correct her statement, but Sara was having none of it. She nodded, calling the man’s bluff.
“Not more than five minutes ago. Right before she left.”
They only way he could ask Lace would be by cell phone. However, Sara had planned for this. She’d slipped Lace’s cell phone out of her roommate’s purse before Lace left for home. The phone was now in Sara’s possession. She would give it back to Lace in a few hours. For now, it was her ace in the hole to get this man to agree to her unrealistic demands.
While she waited for the expected explosion, Sara thought of her past life. The bi-polar mother she’d buried in a church cemetery; a joke in and of itself. The married lover who’d shamed her into a regrettable disappearing act. The lost child from that man…a child she was glad she’d lost, knowing it then had the chance to be in Heaven before its mother given the opportunity to screw it up.
All of this kept her gaze firm and unwavering, determination fueling her thoughts and actions.
Lace said nothing of the kind about sharing one of her times, but if Sara could keep her gaze locked and steady, Casey would never find out he was being lied to.
Sara wanted one night where the man in front of her would die without having her. At this point, she did not care if she knew the man’s name. The only thing mattering was his interest and desires put fully onto her, and not on anyone else.
When the customers came into the club, this was all they ever asked for—one sultry, incognito night. They wanted to leave the club hot, sweaty, sex-starved and fully entertained by one of Griffen’s dancers who could get them with a hard-on, panting, yet without any physical touch to achieve the goal.
Somehow, this thought must have been in her eyes, because Casey took hold of Sara’s control and nearly ripped it out of her hand by fury alone.
“The only pole dance you will be doing for any man will be for me! And until I say you are ready, you will not go anywhere near the private rooms. Do I make myself clear?”
Sara’s eyes widened.
Did he just…?
He wanted her to dance…for him?
Casey added more, to make it clearer. “Yes, Mecenna.” A sudden flare of his nostrils released the tremendous tension out of his face. “I want your first dance to be for me.”
Sara was too shocked to argue otherwise. So, he finally could come clean with his desires? Well, wonders never ceased.
“Don’t look so smug, Mecenna…because the more you push me on this, the longer that day will come for you.”
She gave her boss a huge smile. Not for what he wanted it for, but for what she would be getting out of it. She did not speak; merely nodded, backed away, and cautiously walked out the door. Once she closed the panel—paycheck in hand—Sara could hear the loud curse and tossing of a whiskey glass from his desk. The glass hit the back of the door and sounded as if it had shattered.
His temper made her smile, even more. Mr. Know-it-all, Mr. High and Mighty finally cracked, and she, the one who cracked his hardened shell. But this was a crack not likely fixable for the foreseeable future and Sara was running out of time.
Chapter Five
When a woman cracks open the shell of man, who has fought tooth and nail for any crack never to happen, odds are da
maging acid will drip from the wound. Acid that could burn deep.
The deeper it burned, the harder it was to heal.
Casey was fighting Sara tooth and nail on the deal he’d made her—one night, one dance, all for him. He’d said nothing more about it, and she did not push him—as he’d asked.
Thankfully, Sara knew when to burn her candles at both ends, and when to blow them out. Simple enough, the timing hadn’t been right.
But it was four weeks ago when the offer was made. The only time Casey would even look at her now was when he handed her a paycheck. Otherwise, it was a quick glance, an even quicker turn of the head, and definitely not much in the way of conversation. She would leave the club when her shift done. He wouldn’t stay any longer than necessary to avoid confrontation with her.
Therefore, it was a huge surprise when he suddenly walked right up to the bar and ordered a drink from her, and not one of his other bartenders.
Sara made Casey a dry scotch. Not his preference, but then he hadn’t said what he really wanted, so how was she to know. He said something stiff…and cold. Five ice cubes should have been cold enough for the man. Sara put six in the glass. She hadn’t dared comment stiff was not his pecker and cold was the degree of her patience—though this very thing on her mind for weeks.
Casey grabbed the drink from her fingers, downed it, and gave her a wry smile. He plunked the glass back onto his bar, then walked back to his office, head held high.
Sara’s eyes glued to his scrumptious backside. When he turned so swiftly, she had to check her body’s reaction to what her sordid thoughts had been. She was physically dying to see Mr. Griffen’s naked backside. She couldn’t help it that she had a huge thing for a man’s ass. The more muscle, the more interested she was, and the more her fingers pulsated with dangerous desire to touch every square inch of it until consumed by need.
Her eyes moved slowly to his. Casey pointed to her, then to his office, then to his watch. This meant, without words, get into his office—immediately.
Sara bit down on her lower lip, turned her head to her other bartender, told the woman she would be back—potentially soon—and moved toward the boss’s direction.
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