by ANDREA SMITH
“I’m almost sure that the last time I was in here, I was able to get a private dance from one of the girls,” he continued, eyeballing me still.
“That may be so, Harry,” I replied, “I’m sure Garnet, Ruby, Jade, or Pearl would be happy to provide that for you. I, personally, don’t offer that service.”
“Why’s that?”
Relentless prick aren’t you?
“I just don’t,” I replied, not bothering to mask my irritation at this point.
“I’ll certainly compensate you generously, Diamond. Perhaps you’ll reconsider?”
His tongue flicked over his lips again; his eyes were boring into mine. He was a determined son-of-a-bitch, I gave him that.
“Look, Harry,” I said, smiling, “it’s been fun chatting with you, but I do have to get changed for my next number, so if you’ll excuse me, please.”
His hand found my arm as I started to get up from the chair. He grasped it tightly, forcing me to gasp as I turned to face his angry eyes.
Uh . . . got bouncers?
I tried to tug my arm from his grasp. The son-of-a-bitch was stronger than he looked.
“Listen,” he hissed, his voice having lost its softness…
“No, you listen, old man. Take your fucking paws off of her and do it now. I believe the lady has declined your invitation.” The voice had a steely edge to it. It had come from behind me.
I turned to see who had come up to the table. I gazed up into the intense blue eyes of one of the bikers. He was tall and muscular, and his thick, dark hair hit just below the collar of his leather jacket. His face was rugged, yet young. He was gorgeous.
I felt Harry’s hand drop from my arm. I pulled it back to my side, instantly aware of those magnificent blue eyes on me, taking a long, leisurely look, as if he was checking for damage. I felt my face flush.
“Are you alright?”
I started to answer when Vince, one of the bouncers, came up to the table.
“Is he causing a problem with you, Diamond?” he asked, nodding his head toward the biker.
I quickly looked up into those smoldering blue eyes and saw his mouth twitch into a slow smile.
God he’s smokin’ hot . . . God I sound like my daughter now.
“Actually no, Vince. He was assisting me with a customer who didn’t understand that I don’t give private dances.”
Vince looked over at Harry, immediately sensing a good paying customer.
“So, are you clear on that now, sir?”
Harry nodded, giving all of us a frown. Vince turned his attention back to the biker.
“Look, dude, we don’t need you butting into our business here. That’s what I do. It’s my job to work with the customers and provide clarification, got it?”
The biker didn’t bat an eye at Vince.
“It looks to me like you were a little late on this one, Ace. Your customer there had his hands on the girl. Someone needed to step up to the plate here.”
I could see that Vince was now totally pissed off at being taken to task by this biker. I needed to resolve the issue before it became a battle.
“Hey, I appreciate your help, Mr.…. . .”
“Slate,” he said, his eyes locking with mine, “just call me Slate.”
“Thank you, Slate,” I said huskily, my heart skipping a beat.
“Any time, Diamond,” he replied, giving me a sexy smile.
He turned, going back to his group. I watched as he sauntered away, totally mesmerized by his powerful presence. That was the only way that I could describe it. There was a sense of power he exuded, and it was sexy, damn sexy.
“Don’t go there, Diamond,” Vince cautioned. “Bikers are bad news, babe.”
chapter 7
The bus pulled over at my usual stop at the Park and Drive lot. The attendant was on duty until midnight, which gave me a sense of security. He waved as I walked past his station and went to my parking spot.
This is where I parked my car on the nights I worked at Jewels. There was no way I was parking my Mercedes in the club lot, not to mention putting myself in a position to explain why I drove a Mercedes to begin with and then worked as a pole-dancer. It was much easier this way.
I’d changed into my street clothes, leaving my hair and make-up intact until I got home. I had my wig case in the back seat.
Hopefully, I could get into the bathroom off of the main hall and wash the makeup off before I faced Jack, provided he was still awake. He accepted my excuse that this was a girls’ night out with Becky and another mutual friend of ours, Annie. He hadn’t seemed to give it much thought, one way or the other.
I had my routine down pat at the club. I parked my car downtown, then took a bus to the club, and caught the last one incoming at 11:15 p.m. One of the bouncers always walked me out. The bus stop was on the corner, and he waited until I was safely aboard. None of my co-workers knew much about me, with the exception of Janine. I didn’t have to worry about her. She was simply pleased that I wasn’t a twenty-something scatter-brain, as she put it.
My mind drifted back to Slate for perhaps the hundredth time this evening. I shivered thinking of the way his eyes had skimmed over me with an almost appreciative look. My God! What was I thinking? He was probably younger than me, maybe still in his twenties. I needed to get over it. Those days of getting butterflies by fantasizing about bad-boy sex were over.
Hell, for me they’d never begun. Maybe this was all about my lost youth. I quashed it from my mind for the time being.
Luckily, Jack was in bed when I returned home. I showered downstairs and got into a comfortable pair of jammies, curled up on the couch with the remote, and fell asleep. For some reason, I didn’t want to sleep next to Jack.
I was up the following morning to the sound of Jack banging around in the kitchen. I heard him mumbling something, which clued me in that he wasn’t a happy camper at the moment.
I went up to the kitchen from the family room where I’d slept. There was a guest suite right next to it. I’d been tempted to start sleeping in there, just to see if Jack noticed.
“Well,” he said with a hint of irritation in his voice, “it appears that my wife did, in fact, make it home last night. I was beginning to think I’d have to file a missing persons report with the local authorities.”
“Were you worried? That’s new.”
His head snapped up quickly to look at me. He hadn’t expected that I’d get flippant. I actually hadn’t intended for it to come out so sarcastically.
“Actually, no,” he said, his tone every bit as sarcastic as mine had been. “I couldn’t imagine what kind of trouble you could have possibly gotten into with Becky or Annie.”
He gave a slight smirk and continued filling the coffeemaker with water. “What’s for breakfast?”
I walked over to the fridge and opened the door. Thank God we had some eggs. I hadn’t done much grocery shopping over the past couple of weeks.
“Scrambled eggs and toast sound okay?”
“I suppose it’ll have to be, seeing that it looks as if you haven’t been shopping in a while. What are you doing with your time these days, Sammie, besides working out and going to the tanning salon by the looks of it?”
“I’m not tanning. It’s a spray tan that eventually wears off.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“I guess there isn’t one, Jack. I just thought it kind of looked nice. It’s just a healthy bit of color. I don’t think the technician overdid it.”
“Let me make my point, Sammie, since you have failed to make yours. I’m busting my ass working for your father’s company to provide you with this home and a lot of extras. I don’t think it’s too much to expect that when I’m home the laundry is caught up, and there is food in the house. I had to run a load of towels through the wash again because you failed to put them in the dryer in a timely fashion. There was a mildew odor to them when I went
to use one after my shower last night. I have four shirts that need ironing, and right now, I’d appreciate some breakfast. Those are your responsibilities and always have been. Do you understand?”
“Yep,” I grumbled, turning away from him.
He hauled me back to face him. My eyes widened and I swallowed nervously. This was new territory for me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made Jack angry. I’d simply never given him reason before, since my activities had always been oriented to seeing to his and Lindsey’s needs, without delay or error.
“I’m not finished yet. I’ll be traveling extensively the next four to five weeks. I’ll be home by Christmas, but I have to do training presentations to the marketing groups at four of our sales facilities in order to compete for R & D money. You will need to step up to the plate and start handling the bill paying activities. I’ve just got too many other things on my mind.”
I’ll bet.
“Sure,” I replied. “We can go over them before you leave again so that I can take over. Not a problem.”
“Okay, then,” he said, releasing my arm. “I’ll have my breakfast upstairs in the study when it’s ready.”
I mentally flipped him off as he turned and went towards the stair case and then immediately felt bad about it. Jack was right. I hadn’t been fulfilling my domestic obligations to him since Lindsey had left for college. I made a mental note to try harder on that front as I started preparing his breakfast.
By the end of the day on Saturday, I had all of the laundry caught up. Jack’s shirts were ironed and hung up in his closet. The fridge and cupboards were well-stocked. I had a beautiful roast in the oven for dinner. I was going to please Jack, come hell or high water. I’d set the dining room table with good china and linens, and lit candles. I poured each of us a glass of fine merlot wine.
We ate dinner mostly in silence. Jack was still a bit perturbed with me. I asked questions about how the distribution center groundbreaking had gone, shared with him my most recent conversations with Lindsey, and told him that I’d been working out a lot at the gym, which, in essence, was sort of true. I’d decided there was no way in hell I’d ever to tell him about my job. That’s all.
Finally, towards the end of the meal and three glasses of wine later, Jack seemed to ease up and become more cordial.
I cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher while he got comfortable in the family room with another glass of wine. Maybe Jack would finally be in the mood . . . for once.
I went upstairs to shower. I’d enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine at dinner. It was enough to make me just slightly giddy and bold. I decided that I was going to do exactly what Vonda had suggested. I was going to blow dry my hair, put some make-up and sexy lingerie on, and dance provocatively for my husband. Granted, we didn’t have a pole from floor to ceiling in our family room, but I would make do with some props of my own.
After I showered and dried my hair, I found a black lacy bustier with red trim and a pair of black lacy bikini panties. I put on a black garter belt and black fishnet hose. I’d purchased these items specifically for the bedroom, hoping one day I would have need of them. That day had come.
I carefully made my face up, not nearly as drastically as Margo did, but it still took away that innocent, housewife look. I piled my hair up into a ponytail and slipped my feet into some four-inch spiked heels. I was ready.
I saw right away that Jack had switched to bourbon when I descended the staircase to the family room. He had his sleeves rolled up, taking a sip from a glass with bourbon and ice in it. He liked his bourbon straight. He did a double-take when he saw me. I took the remote and found a music channel that I used during the week when I practiced. The tunes were just right for erotic dancing. I watched as Jack studied me moving with the music. I danced over to him provocatively, allowing him ample view of my breasts that were bulging over the tight bustier.
I hovered over him, taking my knee and expertly spreading his legs. I then lowered myself in front of him and allowed my fingers to play against his chest and groin area to the music. I saw his face darken; the rage was unmistakable.
I froze in confusion. I thought my moves had been pretty damn good, seductive yet tasteful. That was what I was going for with my husband. It’d been months.
“What in the hell are you doing, Samantha?”
“I, uh, I just--”
“You just what? Wanted to come down here made up like a whore and strip for me?”
“I wasn’t going to strip. I uh, thought… . . .”
“Thought what? You thought this would get me in the mood, is that it?”
“Well, I mean it has been months for us. I thought… . . .”
“The hell with what you thought, Samantha. I’m fucking sick and tired of you whining about not getting enough cock.”
He was pissed - totally and royally pissed. I’d never seen him so angry before.
“If you want to act like a whore, by God, I’ll treat you like one.”
Before I knew what was happening, Jack threw his drink down and grabbed me, wrenching me to the floor. Suddenly, I was feeling a tad terrified. I mean, for the first time ever, I was afraid for my well-being. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
I tried to twist away from his grasp once he’d me pinned on the floor, but his strength far exceeded mine. He landed a hand firmly across my cheek by my left eye. I saw stars for a moment, and then I simply relaxed. I realized that the more I fought him, the more determined and rough he became.
He had my arms pinned down at my sides as he roughly ripped my lacy undergarments off of me. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly. This was something I could not fathom. Jack had never been a tender lover, but he’d never been a violent lover, up to this point.
“There whore, you’re naked now. So, since you went to great lengths tonight to let me know what you’re so determined to have, how about if I give it to you, huh?”
I tried again to squirm out from under him, trying like hell to bring my knee to his groin, but it wasn’t happening. He quickly spread my legs open with his hands and raised himself up over me.
“No, Jack. Please… . . .”
His erection plunged into me with a vengeance. I shrieked in pain.
“Oh, but this is what you wanted, isn’t it Samantha? The whore in you wanted this and now you have it.”
He continued to thrust himself in and out of me unmercifully, grunting like the pig that he was. I felt like I was going to split in half.
My mind was reeling. I was silently praying that I got out of this in one piece. Was it the alcohol that had triggered this? Or maybe he just hated me. All I knew was that this had never happened before. I won’t lie; he’d never been a soft or tender person.
But this?
This was pure violence being unleashed upon me, and it wasn’t about sex even. This was about pure and simple control. What in the hell had I done to make him feel as if he’d lost control?
I didn’t have long to wonder as I finally felt him come. He moaned Susan’s name as he emptied himself into me.
Oh. My God.
He then quickly pulled himself out and off of me. He didn’t look me in the eye as I lay there in shock. The pain was gone, the numbness had taken over. He zipped his fly up and sat back down on the sofa. He picked the remote up and changed to a different channel.
“You probably need to get some sleep, Sammie. Go on to bed. I’ll be up a little later.”
I picked myself up off of the floor, totally naked, totally exposed. It wasn’t as if I had to hide my nakedness from him because his attention had been diverted to the television. I had been dismissed.
I hurried out of the room, seeking refuge once again in our suite. I got into the shower and scrubbed myself clean of his anger, his abuse. My skin was flushed pink by the time I got out.
I quickly dressed in my conservative underwear and pajamas and crept underneath the sheets o
f our bed. I curled up into a ball and eventually fell asleep. I felt like a total piece of shit.
chapter 8
I spent Sunday trying to avoid Jack, most of it spent in the bathroom, trying to cover up the shiner I had around my left eye. It was bruised and tender, turning dark shades of purple and black by the hour. I hoped like hell that it disappeared before I worked again on Tuesday.
Jack never mentioned once what had transpired the night before. He acted no differently than usual.
He sat me down in the afternoon to show me how he handled the bill payments on line. Jack was extremely organized with his file folders, Excel files, and logging payments in with confirmation numbers provided by the bank, once remittance was scheduled. He was meticulous and expected no less out of me, now that this household task had been relinquished to me.
He packed his suitcase and his garment bag late in the afternoon. Giving me a peck on the cheek, he was off to the airport. He told me he would be calling to check in. No mention of anything else. No apology. No explanation - as it there could possibly be one.
I phoned Becky and chatted for a while, trying to take my mind off of the obvious. I didn’t dare mention what had happened between Jack and me, because she would’ve gone off about it and yelled at me for not reporting it to the police or getting the fuck out immediately, both of which were sane reactions. I needed to think this through on my own, to handle it in whatever way was best for me. I hadn’t been up against anything like this before.
Tuesday finally came, and I was in the chair while Margo was doing her best with applying a heavy concealer around my left eye. She was being gentle, which told me that this wasn’t the first shiner she had needed to conceal for one of the girls.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked cautiously, as she gently dabbed make-up over the concealer.
“Not really,” I replied with a shrug. “It’s no big deal.”
“It’s always a big deal, sweetie, but I respect your right to privacy, so I won’t push. Hopefully, your perspiration won’t wash it off.”
