Smoldered

by Rachel Blaufeld

  We had sped off toward the glitz and glamour of the Strip with her snuggled tight against my back, her tits pressing into my leather jacket, her thighs clenched around mine, and I’d gotten exactly what I wanted that day.

  Natalie came to work for me.

  UNFORTUNATELY, BEFORE I could think any more about that day and everything that had happened since then, or come up with a solution to my own personal problems and Sienna’s looming issues, a little bottle of lavender oil was waved under my nose, alerting me to the end of the massage and snapping me back to reality.

  I stood up with my back to my naked friend on the other table and slipped my robe on, leaving the room so she could have some privacy. Outside the treatment room, the facial tech down the hall was giving me the look, the one that said, What room are you staying in? And can I come by later?

  I thought back to the last time I slept with someone other than Natalie. Too long, but sadly, I didn’t want the young tech. I craved Natalie, and she was being a royal bitch. We were never exclusive, at her insistence. In the beginning I enjoyed the novelty of the friends-with-benefits thing, but it was getting old.

  Natalie doesn’t want anything more with me, and I need to get that through my thick skull and move on. I should cut ties altogether, but not before I get her what she needs—child support.

  Just as I was having second thoughts about the technician, Sienna walked out of the massage room, rosy-cheeked with imprint lines on her face from the headrest. She appeared to be calmer than when we arrived, and I hoped she was ready to talk about her stalker and whatever was going on with that customer she’d been chatting with.

  That was wishful thinking because Sienna was only interested in curling up in her robe in our suite and ordering room service.

  Lap Dances to Building Forts

  Natalie

  IT WAS after three o’clock in the morning, and I’d just wrapped up with some guys from Dallas. After a round of drinks on the main floor of the club, we took the party to the back, where the guys were subjected to Petey’s pat downs and extra-hard questioning before striking a deal to keep me for the rest of the evening. Just me. The club was busy, and with Petey occupied, I would have a little wiggle room with the rules. And fewer rules meant more profit for me.

  I went lenient with the no-touching policy, allowing the well-dressed men to savor their time with me. Their hands roamed over my ass, along my side cleavage, and down my thighs.

  A blond-haired, blue-eyed businessman in a dark suit held a rum and coke in one hand while his other stroked my inner thigh as I straddled him. I trained my eyes on his, pretending he rocked my world while I leaned forward and brushed my chest lightly against him. My nipples, now hardened little buds, rubbed along the silk of his shirt. I bent forward a little more, resting some of my weight on his thick thighs—certain he worked out with a trainer his wife arranged for him—and let my hot breath linger on his ear¸ darting my tongue out ever so slightly, perhaps accidentally grazing the lobe. He moaned and rocked his hips up toward my heat.

  I simply shook my head and waggled my finger at him, teasingly calling him a bad boy, and continued to rub up against him like a cat in heat without him moving another inch.

  When I finished, he stuffed a hundred-dollar bill in my thong. And the other sheep followed right behind him.

  I knew either Mike, Billy, or another of Asher’s army was watching on the video feed, and I may have intentionally laid it on a little heavy because of that. I was my own woman, and no one could stop me from earning a living. I could handle myself in the back rooms, even after an altercation with one horny married man who wanted to make his long-gone college-days fantasies come true.

  When the private party came to a close, I headed straight to my dressing room to count my tips. Of course, Petey followed to hand over my cut from the suits, chasing me down as fast as he could, wanting to check in on my feelings. It had been a good night, and all I wanted to do was change, count my share, and go home. If I hurried, I could get two or three hours of sleep and take Quinn to school.

  “See, Petey, all ends well. You happy? Now you can text Asher and report that I behaved like a good girl and you took care of me, or whatever bull you want to feed him. Good night,” I said as I dismissed him.

  He didn’t follow me for once. The little prick yelled after me as I hightailed it away from him, “Don’t blame me, Nat! It’s not fair. You need to take a good long look at the whole picture.”

  I shrugged and kept moving. Whatever. I forced myself not to care. Yeah, Asher and I had a lot of good times under our belt. And I probably cared for him more than I should, but I needed to put that aside.

  As I hit the back door freshly changed into street clothes, Simon, the club’s town car driver, offered to drive me home and come back to get me the next day for work. He usually only did this for Sienna, but she was away and he was allowed to do as he wished. I used to be a little envious of the gorgeous blonde everyone seemed to instantly fall in love with, but then I realized Sienna was just like the rest of us. Hiding from someone or something. If she needed that type of attention and TLC, so be it. I didn’t.

  Asher had a borderline sick obsession with her, but anything that took the pressure off me was a welcome diversion in my mind. At least, that was what I told myself daily.

  Not to mention, the faux vixen with the virgin eyes brought a lot of lap dances and private room invites my way. Who cared if she was a little spoiled when it came to being chauffeured around and saving herself for only the stage.

  She made me money.

  Smiling at Simon, I simply said, “No thanks,” and headed over to my little cherry-red coupe. It was one of my first purchases after Asher had convinced me to switch from the Leop to the Electric Tunnel. It was safe and sleek but also reliable, and with my pay increase, I could afford it.

  I realized on that day long ago over lunch at Feralina’s, Asher was never going to give up if I didn’t agree to leave the Leop. The stubborn prick even threatened to call the authorities on his competition. I didn’t put it past him to make up lies; Asher could be ruthless when he wanted something.

  So I ended up begging, “Don’t do that, Ash. My friends will be out of work, and no one at the Leop can afford that. I’ll come over to the Tunnel and dance for you. Okay? Please don’t make trouble.”

  That was it. That was all it took. One idle threat and I was Nataleigh Dallas, the new girl at the Electric Tunnel.

  Looking back, going to work for Asher was the easy part. It was everything that came after that was hard. Or rather, harder.

  I turned the key in the ignition, shifted into gear, and pulled out of my spot, my thoughts racing back to the day when it all became so much more difficult.

  I’d been dancing at the Tunnel for six months. I was reluctant to admit it, but I liked it. A lot. I made great cash tips, the bouncers took good care of their girls, there was nothing remotely sketchy happening in any of the VIP rooms, and I was never asked to go home with a customer.

  Pressing hard on the clutch, I down-shifted, taking the ride home slowly as I decompressed, losing myself in my mind and sifting through old memories.

  Bittersweet ones.

  Like the day when everything changed for the worse…

  A HUGE bachelor party had just finished. I’d made a ton of cold, hard cash, and I’d been both amped and aggravated beyond control. It was Friday, and my mom had been set to keep an almost five-year-old Quinn for their weekly sleepover so I could get a little rest in the morning. Except I had known there was no way I would be going to sleep when I got home, because I’d been fuming mad.

  I had almost a grand in cash in my pocket, and I’d known right away Asher hadn’t taken his usual cut. Why he was torturing me like that, I hadn’t a clue. A grand! Asher was the owner of the place; he should just take his share and stop treating me differently from the other girls. After sitting at the bar and downing a shot, I’d stomped up the spiral stairs to his newly built, sp
acious second-floor office.

  When I knocked, he yelled, “It better be important.”

  Not caring that he wanted to be left alone, I shoved the door open, walked in, and slammed it shut. “I don’t care that you don’t want to be bothered but, Ash, you can’t give me a grand! I know what the tally was for the party tonight, and with your cut, my take should be closer to five or six hundred. What are you doing?”

  The smug idiot just looked up and smiled at me. “Hey, Nat. You’re a welcome surprise. Never a disruption. But I have to say, I got no clue what you’re talking about. Pretty sure Mike dealt with the money tonight, and I guarantee what he gave you was correct, little doll.”

  At this, I slammed my hand onto his desk for effect. “Will you stop patronizing me, and while you’re at it, stop calling me ‘little doll.’”

  Asher stood up from his desk while I was talking and made his way over to me. Reminding me of our confrontation in the back room of the Leop, he tucked his finger gently under my chin and lifted my gaze to meet his.

  “Natalie, I’ve called you ‘little doll’ since you were eight or so and came over with ice and bandages when I fell off that old motorbike. I wasn’t supposed to be tearing through the ’hood, and I remember you watching in horror and screaming for me to stop. But I never was a good listener and I rode on, laying that piece of shit down, banging my arm up, and burning my leg on the pipe. I was thirteen and stubborn as hell back then, refused to admit anything hurt. So, no, I will not stop calling you ‘little doll,’ and I will definitely not be questioned over my payment terms at my own club.” He chuckled. “I’m even more stubborn as a grown man than when I was a teenager.”

  I had no answer, distracted by the fact the air grew unbelievably electrically charged around us, or maybe that was just me? Sparks fizzled and popped in my body, my skin prickled just looking at him, and my heart started to burn up in flames from his possessive, authoritative tone.

  The smart choice would be to leave, go home, take a cold shower, and go to bed. Instead I threw gas on an already burning fire.

  With my hand on my hip, my head cocked to the side, I said in my most sultry voice, “Well, Asher, if you haven’t noticed, I’m not ‘little’ anymore and I’m pretty sure that ‘doll’ is the last word most men would use to describe me.”

  With my seductive words out in the open, Asher’s eyes sparked and flashed.

  With need? Want? Desire? Worst-case scenario, anger? I had no clue.

  They smoldered like two iridescent silver clouds of smoke billowing up from a five-alarm fire, and they were directed right at me, pulling me in when they should have been signaling to get out.

  After all, no one runs into a burning building.

  I couldn’t see the flame, but I sure as hell felt it. I should have extinguished it. Instead, like a fool, I fanned it.

  The man, now definitely not the boy I knew way back when, closed every inch of space between us and spoke firmly. “Nat, believe me, it doesn’t go unnoticed that you’re no longer a young girl, nor are you a ‘doll’ in the usual sense of the word, but you will always be my ‘little doll.’ Now, if we’re done discussing my cute-as-fuck nickname for you, I’m going to respond to the challenge I believe you laid out in front of me. Are you offering yourself up to me? Do you want me, beautiful?”

  He moved even closer, which I didn’t think was possible, but I felt his readiness to the challenge against my stomach when he leaned in and ran his hand down the length of my hair. A ripple of excitement shot through me. I hadn’t been that charged since…ever, and I wanted to savor the moment. It was one thing to pretend to be someone’s sexual fantasy for a night, a week, or whatever, but quite another to conjure up my own wants.

  And Asher all soft and loving was something I had wanted for a very long time. Like forever.

  “I do,” I breathed out.

  Asher’s mouth landed on mine as he took my lips in a rough, heady kiss with absolutely no mercy. He pulled my long hair back to gain access to my neck and ran his teeth and tongue up and down my collarbone before he made his way back up to my mouth. He kissed and toyed with my mouth, making way for his tongue to enter and do the most delicious things as it tangled with mine.

  I had to stop it all for a moment and clear up one item up before we completely lost ourselves in each other. So even though I didn’t want to, I pulled away and added, “But with no strings attached. This is purely physical, Ash.”

  The last thing I felt before being transported to pure and absolute bliss was the tiny charm of my necklace fluttering against my chest, softly moving with my heartbeat, reminding me of my reason for breathing. Quinn. My choice was solidified. No. Strings. Attached.

  The problem was that when this man ran his hand through his thick, unruly blond waves falling in his face, pushing them out of the way to clear the view for his silver eyes, I had always wanted to melt into him. I’d wanted to bury myself, my whole being, into his soul, swirl us together, become one and never, ever separate.

  But we had a history, and mixing the past and present would be a very bad idea. Knowing this, I’d settled for a workplace affair. It would be a lawsuit waiting to happen in any other industry, but this was Vegas.

  I was a stripper, he was my boss, and no one had cared.

  DRAWN BACK to the present as I traveled home, I wondered whether Asher had heard me correctly back then, because after we did it on the couch in his office that one fateful night, we’d been fucking ever since. On the desk, chair, floor, every inch of the couch, and all over the luxury bathroom in the corner of his office.

  With Asher now swearing off anything illegal, we were each other’s drug of choice. Inhaling, touching, and pleasuring each other every time I would allow it for the last few years.

  Sometimes I would intentionally hold out for long periods of time—more for my sake than anything else. I knew Asher enjoyed other women during those times, but despite the separation and knowing this, my self-imposed boundaries always pulled him closer to me rather than pushing him further away.

  Soon enough, when I ending up moving to another state, physical distance would serve as the ultimate, much-needed, and permanent separation.

  I continued to drive, listening to the soft vibe of some alternative station on the radio, tracing the quiet, dark roads to the small suburban neighborhood where Quinn and I lived in a tiny fourplex. As I parked my car, taking in my place in the stillness of the early hours of the morning, I looked toward the two top units, one of which I rented. As luck would have it, two college students rented the one next door.

  The band singing was running from someone or somebody after them, running as fast as they could. Like I needed to run.

  Go-go-go-go.

  When I did leave town, I would miss my neighbors. What had started as them helping me wean off my mom’s help had become so much more. I paid Trish and Lynx to take turns spending the night when I worked. They made good money and could study, hang out on social media, or sleep after Quinn went to bed at nine p.m. It was an easy gig.

  We were our own little family with our own routine. Sort of.

  As I stood in my designated parking spot, grabbed my bag, and prepared to head upstairs and relieve Trish, I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad. I was in a good routine, surrounded by decent people, but I just had to make the move. I wasn’t completely innocent in the choices I’d made years ago, and unfortunately I felt it all coming to a head.

  I climbed the open-air staircase in the cool night air to my rental. It wasn’t much, but it was mine. I provided this for Quinn all on my own, and I was proud. It was a perfect safe haven for my boy. I had my reasons for separation of work and family, and had held firm on those. Which was exactly how Asher got me to finally agree to go to his place—even though I swore I wouldn’t—after several years of screwing around in his private office.

  I’d now been there twice in total, and I couldn’t help but fantasize about never leaving. I should have stuck to my gun
s about not going home with him, but I didn’t. And now I had the memory of long sand-colored granite counters in a gourmet kitchen, marble bathrooms, and plush, sumptuous carpet under my toes etched in my mind.

  What would it be like if it were ours?

  I pulled myself out of my ridiculous daydreaming and opened my door to find a sleeping Trish on the couch and Quinn out cold in a fort in the middle of the living space. I tiptoed over and pulled a blanket over my sitter, then covered my little baby, who was quickly becoming a tween. There was no sense in waking either of them.

  I threw my purse in the corner by the tiny dining table and undressed as I walked toward my room, dropping my clothes in the hamper before pulling an old T-shirt over my head and falling into bed.

  It didn’t take long for me to drift off thinking about him.

  My hand made its way inside my panties. I ran one finger along my wet core, smoothing down the bare folds, stopping to push inside before drawing back out, bringing my own moisture to my most sensitive spot. It pulsed and throbbed, angry and wanting more, not one bit satisfied with my own fingers down there.

  My body ached for his rough touch and large hands, calloused and hardened from years of riding and working hard. My manicured ones, soft from rubbing baby oil on my legs nightly, were no replacement for Asher’s coarse ones.

  I added a second finger, but my vagina was a traitor, screaming for a sensation only one man could leave in his wake.

  In desperation for some release—or punishment, depending on how one looked at it—I reached into my nightstand and pulled out my vibrator. It was a tiny, powerful little thing, humming in the dark night. I kept the covers up over me, buffering the steady hum from the two bodies sleeping outside in the living area, and ran the vibrating tip over my clit, pressing it down, creating a little pain and friction. When I closed my eyes, images of Asher—both then and now—ran through my mind. Memories of his mouth on me while I was laid out in his office on the sofa mixed with wishful fantasies for the future on a continuous loop until I reached the peak.