On The Ropes: Tapped Out Book 3

by Quinn, Cari

  “Then what do I have to worry about?” I tried to sound flippant, but there was a boulder sitting on my windpipe, making it hard to take a full breath.

  He didn’t answer my question. “I will be watching you.” He brushed his mouth over my ear. “Everything you do.”

  “Isn’t that a Police song?” I eased back because every impulse demanded I nestle into the safety of his arms.

  I hated that I coveted his protection so much. Why couldn’t I be strong and defiant and badass like Mia?

  Or better yet, why hadn’t I just stayed home, and left this life to the people who were meant for it? I was just a culinary student and salad preparer. I wasn’t ready to deal with mob types, if that was even what they were.

  But Giovanni was. He was part of their crew despite his obvious reservations, and I needed to understand why. Needed to understand him. Afraid of what I might learn or not, I couldn’t turn off my curiosity in his direction.

  Couldn’t turn off anything in his direction.

  “You’re going to need to act like you like me, though.” He continued as if I hadn’t spoken, his typical M.O. “No one will buy that you’re mine if you cringe anytime I move toward you. Or if I do this.” His finger trailed over my lower lip, and on cue, it quivered. He stared at it fixedly for a moment, then lifted his gaze to mine. Those intense blue-black eyes melted me like butter caramel. “Just inside those walls, tesoro. When we’re outside them, you’re free to find me as distasteful as you seemed to during dinner. Encouraged to even.”

  “Why would you encourage me to find you distasteful?” I held up a hand. “Never mind. I know the spiel. It’s for my own good to steer clear of you. Yes, Christian Grey.”

  For once, his lips quirked. “There’s a comparison I don’t get too often.”

  We walked up the crowded street hand-in-hand, and when we entered the club, he guided me to the dressing room with his big hands cupping my shoulders. Part of me wanted to shake him off, the other part wanted to burrow. Then I stepped into the room and shrugged off my coat without thinking and had the absolute joy of watching his eyes glaze and his mouth go slack.

  “Christ,” he muttered.

  “He had nothing to do with this.” Deliberately bending to look in the mirror, I whipped out my gloss and touched up my lips.

  “I’ve seen you.” This time, anger undercut his rich, melodic voice like steel under silk. “I didn’t realize it was you. You wear wigs.”

  “I do.” Demonstrating, I tugged a long, white-blond layered style off a mannequin’s head and fixed it into place. “I still need to pin it down but—”

  “This isn’t a game.” He grabbed my wrist and pulled me against his chest, speaking close to my mouth so the few other girls scattered at dressing tables around the room couldn’t hear us. “If you want to strip for some godforsaken reason, do it somewhere else. Not here. Not in this club, with these men.”

  My breath tripped and puffed out against his lips. “B-but I thought I’d be safer with you. You said—”

  “So you expect to keep doing this to me,” he said flatly. “Night after night, you expect me to watch you bare yourself for other men.”

  “It’s your own fault I’m not baring myself for you,” I tossed back, then wished I could snatch away the words when his eyes narrowed. “Or it was,” I added. “New information that has come to light has changed my…interest.”

  “Has it now?”

  I nodded, while all the while my conscience mumbled, yeah, not so much.

  Attempted murder meant he hadn’t finished the job. Though I didn’t think there was a glass half-full kind of situation when it came to homicide.

  “Good,” he said finally. “I’m glad.”

  I yanked my wrist free and turned back to the mirror. “Me too. Overjoyed. Now do you mind? I have to finish getting ready, and men aren’t allowed in this dressing room.”

  “I’ll be waiting outside.”

  “Fine.”

  Before I could return to my makeup, he pulled me against him again and slid his hand up the back of my thigh. Then he blatantly cupped my ass under my dress. “Fucking thong,” he growled. “I’m buying you a ten-pack of granny panties.”

  “They don’t go with this outfit.”

  “I don’t want you topless.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t want to go home with empty pockets. It’s a topless club, Gio.” I glanced down at my rack and shrugged. It took a lot for me to act blasé about any part of this job after what we’d been through. “They’re just tits.”

  “They’re so far from just anything, I could wash your mouth out with soap for even daring to think that.”

  I blinked up at him and found he’d rendered me speechless.

  First time for everything.

  “You do what you have to do.” He brushed a quick, hard kiss over my forehead. “And so will I.”

  Then he was gone.

  “Whoa, intense.” Lydia, one of the other dancers, whistled.

  I nodded. Yep. That about summed up Gio in a nutshell.

  “And seriously fuckin’ hot.”

  That too.

  Fifteen minutes later, I stepped outside to find my shadow waiting. With just one glimpse into his tense face, I was thrown back to that night last spring that started all of this. The night I’d so foolishly followed him here and hung around while he did his best to chase me away.

  Even now, he still hadn’t quite managed that feat. I was either the very embodiment of tenacity or pathetically dumb.

  “How long do you dance?”

  “Two shifts.” I fell into step beside him. “About forty-five minutes each. In between, sometimes I serve drinks and food if I’m needed.”

  “And flirt with the clientele.”

  We stopped walking beside the steps to my cage, and I had to grip the railing to keep from losing my balance. All of a sudden, the walls were pressing in on me.

  “Hey, hey. Tesoro. Look at me.”

  I looked because I wasn’t strong enough not to.

  “You don’t have to do this unless you want to.” He cupped my cheek. “We can leave right now.”

  “I promised Nancy I’d cover for her.” God, I hated sounding so unsure.

  He exhaled. “Fine. But I’m going to be right down here if you need me.”

  Swallowing hard, I nodded and climbed the first couple of steps. Then I glanced over my shoulder. He stood at the base of the stairs, watching me as he’d promised to do.

  “This is going to be weird. Dancing for you. I mean, dancing while I know you’re in the audience…” I trailed off, my face going hot.

  He climbed up a step, all he needed to be taller than me once again. “I’ve been in the audience before while you danced.” His gaze dropped to my chest and his voice lowered. “I’ve seen how you move. I just didn’t realize it was you.”

  I lifted my chin. “Now you do.”

  “Now I do.” He trailed his fingers over the inside of my wrist before he stepped down and melted into the noisy crowd.

  I faced the cage in front of me and tried to remember the fun I’d had dancing high above the clientele. Part of them, but separate. Close, but untouchable.

  I didn’t feel safe like that anymore. Now I knew all too well how very touchable I was, if someone wanted to try.

  You can do this. One more night, for Nancy, then you don’t have to come back if you don’t want to.

  Almost immediately, my mind lodged a protest.

  But then you’ll never find out what’s going on with Gio. And you’ve been curious since the start.

  Curious pussycat, that was me.

  Gattina.

  I shook off the sound of Marco’s voice in my head and opened the cage door. He wasn’t going to intrude here. This was only about me, and the music, and the money I would make that would help my education. Tonight, I’d have to cut Nancy into a share of the tips along with the bouncers on duty as I always did, but I would still do well. I’d make sure of
it.

  The instant the door clanged shut and the pink-and-purple spotlights swung my way, I went into autopilot. I plastered my hands to the back wall of the cage and swung my hips, rotating them in slow circles that pantomimed hard, dirty sex. My halter dress barely covered my ass, and it didn’t take more than a little bending over to show off my hot pink G-string. Gripping my knees, I shook my ass with the music, getting into it, losing myself in the primal beat that echoed up through the floor and into my body. Electrifying me.

  Here, I couldn’t—wouldn’t—be scared. All I could do was let the music take me, as it had so many times before.

  Soon, I was so hot from dancing like a maniac in that tiny cage that taking off my dress was almost a relief. Because the dress was backless, I hadn’t worn a bra, and as soon as the material slid away, the catcalls turned up to an earsplitting level. I played up to them, gripping the bars of the cage, rocking my hips, teasingly waving my toes through the bars as men shoved money in as fast as they could. Aware all the while that Gio was out there, watching me grind against the bars and rub my nipples until they rose in tight little peaks.

  I hadn’t been sure if I’d be able to do this again after last week. But dancing fed something dark and depraved inside me, a beast that wouldn’t be tamed. It was easy, deceptively so, to pretend again that I wasn’t in danger. This was just fun. Maybe not innocent fun, but not harmful either.

  Even in the midst of that fun, I felt Gio’s eyes on my body, mapping it like he’d mapped it with his broad, calloused hands. That knowledge spurred me on, made me go further than I usually did. When I ran my hands up the insides of my thighs, I didn’t stop outside my panties. I slipped the tips of my fingers inside and pretended to touch myself.

  And felt my clit pulse as my hands grew slick from more than just sweat.

  Safety meant so many different things at different times. Tonight, it meant going wild and knowing he would be there to catch me no matter what. As much as I wanted to rail against his overprotectiveness, I loved it too.

  In some small way, I mattered to him. Just as he mattered to me.

  My first set was almost over when I heard Marco’s laughter. I blinked the sweat out of my eyes and scanned the swarms of people dancing underneath the cage, but it was impossible to make out faces for more than a second with the spotlights swinging everywhere.

  That smooth, dark chuckle was in my head now, growing louder and louder, blocking out the music to the point that I had to grip the cage bars to keep from going to my knees.

  I started choking, trapped in the dark with no air. And then the spotlights swung away from my side of the club, signaling the end of my set, and I stumbled out of the door and down the steps, barely remembering to snag my dress on the way.

  Somehow I managed to pull it over my head before I reached the bottom of the stairs and encountered the grasping hands that always came too close and moved too fast. Normally, I playfully batted them away. Tonight, they grabbed for me like seaweed out of the deep, dark ocean, threatening to pull me down beneath the surface.

  Where I would drown.

  I’d just reached the hallway leading to the dressing room when a strong hand wrapped around my upper arm and pulled me to a halt. “Tesoro, wait. Are you okay?”

  My eyes closed in reaction to that nickname I so loved, but I kept moving. He tried to hold me still. Nothing could.

  I took a detour and aimed for the ladies’ room instead of the dressing room and shoved my way inside. I knew he was right behind me, but I couldn’t stop to talk. Couldn’t talk, period. My throat had swollen shut from panic.

  Once I was inside a stall, I sagged against the wall and covered my face with my hands.

  Breathe. Just breathe. You’re fine. You’re okay.

  A knock sounded on the door and I startled, slamming my elbow into the toilet paper dispenser and crying out.

  The knocking grew more frantic. “Carly, dammit, open this door. Let me in there.”

  Gio. Just Gio.

  A hysterical laugh tried to bubble up as I pictured him cramming himself into that tiny stall with me. How did people have sex in bathroom stalls, anyway? Their partners must not be freaking bull-sized like Gio. No way he’d be able to fit in there with me and actually be able to…move.

  “I’m okay,” I said around the mixture of tears and laughter wedged in my chest.

  “You aren’t. Let me in.”

  “This is the ladies’ room.”

  “Do you think I care?” he growled. “You’re hurting and I need to—”

  “What?” I pressed my forehead to the flimsy metal door that separated us. “What can you do?”

  He released a short, frustrated breath. “Hold you. I can fucking hold you.”

  The tears I’d battled back sprung forth now, clouding my vision. Oh, God, I wanted that so much. Not just to be held in general, but to be held by him. That irrepressible wish had caused me to do so many insane, desperate things. Like following him to the club. Like dancing there. I’d just wanted to be noticed, to be loved.

  I’d gotten noticed all right, but not quite in the way I’d intended.

  “I’ll be out in a minute. I have to take care of business.” I prayed he couldn’t hear the quaver in my voice.

  “You have to pee, so what? I’ll close my eyes. Turn my back.”

  “Gio, please. Give me a couple minutes on my own. Okay?”

  Just then a couple of women came in and started screeching. Guess they weren’t down with having a big, tattooed, male MMA fighter in their girly space.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m going.” Gio sighed heavily and leaned on the door, curling his fingers over the top. Even they were tattooed with symbols. How had I never noticed before? “Look, I’m going right back to my table. You know where it is. Just down the hall.”

  His table with them, his mob cronies. Oh, sure, hard to forget that.

  “I know where.”

  “As soon as you leave here, come right to my table. Or I’ll come find you.” More screeching. “Yes, I’m leaving. Now.”

  The door shut behind him a second later, and the two harpies started giggling as if they hadn’t just been pissed.

  “Did you see dat ass? Bitable.”

  I rolled my eyes and grabbed a sheaf of toilet paper to dab my eyes. Every female under the age of eighty seemed to find Gio desirable. Not that I could blame them.

  After the bitable ass chicks had finished up and left, I left the stall and went to the sinks to view the damage. My eyes were puffy, my face blotchy. My wig was still on—I used good pins—but barely. I hadn’t exactly been careful when I pulled my dress back over my head.

  I washed my face and fixed my hair and makeup, then smoothed out the wrinkles in my dress. I wasn’t at the peak of my game, not by a long shot, but at least no one would throw me out of the club.

  One set down, one to go.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I headed out of the bathroom and down the hall to Gio’s table. I’d have to see Marco and the others again soon enough, so I might as well do it while Gio was there in case things got hairy. Whatever happened, I would handle it.

  Twenty feet from Gio’s usual table, I came to a halt. Marco and his other smirking pals were gathered around the round booth, drinking expensive alcohol and laughing heartily at their stupid inside jokes, but that wasn’t what made my mouth fall open and my boots stop clicking.

  Gio had a girl on his lap. A beautiful one, with long sable hair and tits that nearly spilled out of her top and knocked over his martini glass.

  He wasn’t doing anything with her except, you know, sitting with her on his lap. And smiling at her while he schmoozed with the men who’d insisted he have his way with me for their amusement.

  Something he’d been so outraged about just a short time ago and seemed to have absolutely no issue with right now.

  Eventually, my feet started moving toward the table again. Naturally, Marco noticed me first. He rose and smiled as he gestured for me
to have a seat at his side. “Carl…otta,” he finished slowly enough to make it obvious that wasn’t my real name. “Please join us.” He said it more like a demand than a question.

  “I’m working,” I said stiffly.

  “Oh, yes, I know. I saw you. So lovely.” He ran his thumb along the corner of his mouth as he lowered his focus to my boots. “Nice to see you brought some sturdier footwear this evening. We can’t have our dancers missing shifts for petty reasons.”

  I balled my hands into fists at my sides. Petty fucking reasons? I was no Mia Anderson, but I was ready to do some cold-cocking of my own.

  Not that I was given a chance.

  Gio reached out and snagged my hand, tugging me onto his other leg. There wasn’t quite enough room on his lap for two of us, and I wasn’t into ménages. But when I tried to shove him away, he pinched my hip, hard, and caught my gaze.

  “Wait,” he mouthed.

  I turned my face away, unwilling to play his game. But I still wasn’t getting off his lap, because it was safer there than anywhere near Marco.

  One of the men from the other night grinned. “Look at you, gumba. Two for the price of one.”

  “They’re priceless, Z.” Gio laughed, but even I could hear how hollow it sounded.

  That didn’t mean I’d tolerate his bullshit. I was in the bathroom for five minutes, and he had a girl on his lap? Really? And he expected me to pretend I cared about him? Right now, all I wanted was to rub his face in the dirt.

  A short while later, Marco headed to the dance floor with his arms around a pair of blonds, and the guy from the other night that Gio had called Z started flirting with an all-too-willing waitress.

  Perfect time to make my escape.

  I climbed off Gio’s lap and beelined for the bar. I needed a drink. They weren’t the best about carding at the club, and the bartender on duty was a friend. He’d slip me a Rum Runner if I asked him nicely and flashed him a little boob.

  “Hey, Josh.” I wedged my way in at the end of the bar and wiggled my fingers.

  “Carlotta. You vision.” He grinned and strolled over. “What can I get you? You in the mood for a virgin—”

  “Aw, c’mon now. We both know I’m not into virgin anything.”