Club Thrive: Deception (The Club Thrive Series Book 3)

by Alison Mello

  “I promise you. We will all be fine. Zane is going too.” I take a deep breath, trying to keep control. “Listen, will you feel better if I text you updates?” I nod my head. “Good, now let’s get you inside.” He rests his hand at the small of my back, sending a shiver up my spine. I rest my head on his shoulder and he kisses me while we wait for someone to open the door. I can’t believe I’m becoming attached to him after only a couple of weeks. I never believed in love at first sight type of stuff, and I still don’t think I do, but I guess I believe in the power of connection because ours is strong. It was like once his lips touched mine we were bonded. The way he makes me feel physically is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I know he’ll protect me and keep me safe, and after what I’ve been through, I need that. I only stopped looking over my shoulder from my situation with Blade a short time ago, and now I’m doing it again with Noah.

  Shane opens the door. “Is everything all right?” He looks concerned.

  “Yeah, I’m just worried about you guys. Be careful tonight, okay?”

  Shane gives me a hug. “Trust me, I wouldn’t dream of getting hurt. Your sister would kill me.” A giggle escapes me and I slap him playfully in the arm. “Get to work. Kelly needs help getting the bar ready because last night’s crew didn’t stock.” I let out a sigh and run off to help her get things together.

  ***

  Slade

  I stick my hand out to shake hands with Shane. He pats me on the back and we stroll off to his office. “I told Zane we’d meet him at the club by ten.” I take a seat across from Shane’s desk.

  “That’s fine. How are things going with you two?”

  I shrug. “Good. Noah has been sending her a ton of text messages and it’s starting to get on her nerves.” I tell him how he showed up at the gym and begged for another chance. “She shut him down and her boss walked her out. He promised to ban him if he harasses her there again.”

  “She’s been through enough. We need to figure out what Higgins has on Noah, if anything, and get this shut down. The girls deserve to live in peace.”

  I shrug. “I’m with you, man.”

  He stands from his desk. “Good. Let’s get this club open and get out of here.” We walk to the front of the club, where Jonah is meeting with the bouncers. He’s giving them instructions on what to do if something goes down while we’re out of the club.

  “I’ve hired the best team in all of LA. I expect you to handle this place like the professionals you are. We will only be gone a short time, and during that time, Kelly’s in charge.” Kelly waves her hand and slips her earwig into place. “I want an earwig check right now. Tonight is not the time for any errors.” Everyone goes around the room checking in with Kelly including the bartenders and cocktail waitresses. There’s pounding on the front door, that’ll be Cole. One of the guys pushes the door open and lets him in. “You should all know Cole from seeing him around. He was on the protection detail for Katie as well as Miranda. He’s going to help out tonight. He’ll be in Shane’s office monitoring the cameras for any suspicious activity. He will be connected to the radios as well and you can use him for backup.” Jonah shakes hands with Cole.

  “Does anyone have any questions?” Shane steps into the center of the room. “You all know the deal and why this going down tonight. Keep this club safe.” Shane’s tone is serious and full of concern.

  A few of the guys say, “We got this,” letting Shane know they have his back.

  “Good, get this place open.” Shane sticks his hand out to Cole. “How’s it going, man?”

  “It’s going.”

  “Come on. I’ll get you set up in the back. I already have an earwig back there for you, and I’ll show you how to move the cameras around.” I shake my boy’s hand and the three of us walk to the back of his office. He has Cole take a seat at his desk while he stands behind him, showing him the controls.

  When Shane is confident that Cole knows what he’s doing, we take off for Vixen. Shane and I are riding in my car and Jonah is following behind me. Like last time, I park on the side street where Zane is meeting us. We walk straight up to the door and I give my name. The guy at the door looks at a clipboard and then his watch. “You can head in, but you have thirty minutes before the VIP room becomes yours.”

  “No problem. Thanks, man.” He shakes my hand and we all stroll in. We find a small table in the back of the club that has four seats.

  A waitress comes over, she winks at Shane. “What can I get you fellas?” She shows us her full smile.

  “Can we get four beers please? Something on tap.”

  “Sam Adams?” she questions.

  “That’s fine.”

  “I’ll be back with your beers.” She strolls off and we sit back, checking out the club. When she returns a few minutes later, she places the four beers on the table. “Shall I start you a tab?”

  “No thanks. We have a VIP room shortly, so we’ll be heading in there.”

  “Makes me wish I was dancing tonight and not serving.” She winks again and walks away.

  “Shane, I believe that girl wants in your pants.” Jonah busts his balls and we all start to laugh.

  Shane shakes his head. “Yeah, well, my pants are spoken for, and I’m not about to fuck up my marriage for her.”

  “Who’s dancing for us tonight?” Jonah leans in to ask over the music.

  “We have two hours in the back room. I asked them to mix it up. We’ll have four girls rotate through. This place prides themselves on having a girl for everyone. They have big girls, small girls, Asian girls—you name it, they have it.” I glance down at my watch and note that our room should be ready soon.

  The show in front of us comes to an end and the guys are whistling and catcalling from the side of the stage. A luscious girl with dark hair struts off the stage. It goes dark and a new song starts to play. Suddenly a light kicks on the center of the stage and a thin, blonde girl is sitting in a split with her stomach to the floor. She starts her routine and Zane starts gawking at the girl. I mean, he’s seriously almost drooling over the woman. That’s when our waitress comes over and tells me our room is ready. We all stand to follow her to the back of the club. That’s when I spot Noah. I tap Zane and nod in his direction. He smiles and we continue on our way into the back of the club. The waitress shuts the door, telling us our server will be right in to take our order. “Listen, he has no idea what I look like. I’m going to go back out there and see if I can figure out what he’s up to. You guys stay here and find out what extras we can get from them.”

  We all nod and Zane disappears from the room. The three of us take a seat on the sofa that’s set up directly in front of the stage and wait for our first dancer to come in. The music starts to play and a thin girl with pin straight blonde hair comes walking in wearing sexy platform heels, a thong, and red pasties on her nips. Nothing else. “Well, I guess she’s not stripping tonight.” The guys laugh. She has not one thing left to remove except maybe her shoes. She starts to dance on the stage, working the pole like a pro. Our waitress comes in and asks if we like what we see. “We do, but I heard there was a special menu for the VIP guests.”

  She gives me a cocky smile. “You did, did you?”

  “Yeah, and I paid a lot of money for this room. I’d like to see the special menu…we’d like to have some fun.” I stare into her eyes, letting her know I know there’s more to offer, and when I don’t break, she pulls a small menu from her pocket and hands it over. “Can you get us another round of Sam Adams? When you get back, we’ll be ready to order.”

  She pauses for a moment but does as I ask. The show on the stage has kept going despite the fact we’re not even paying attention to her. When we look down at the menu, there are a variety of services ranging from prostitution to drugs. You can order everything from pot to Ecstasy, cocaine and heroin. I look at the guys. “Shall we order a blow job?” They laugh. “I guarantee that’s not a shot.”

  Shane snaps a picture of t
he menu with his phone and we decide to go easy and order some Ecstasy. It’s inexpensive and won’t draw too much attention to us. The waitress returns with our beers. “We’ll start with four hits of EX please.”

  She nods her head, takes the menu, and pulls four hits out of her pocket. “Here you go, fellas. Enjoy the show. I’ll be back to check on you soon.” She shakes her ass as she walks out of the room.

  We all sit back on the couch and enjoy the remainder of this show, leaving our hits on the table. Not one of us plans on taking this shit, but we need to wait until the chick on stage is out of the room to hide them. Shane leans in close enough to whisper, “What the fuck could Noah have to do with this shit?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “Who the fuck knows? Hopefully, Zane is finding out.” Just as our girl on stage is finishing up, Zane comes back into the room.

  “What did you find out?” Shane asks as Zane takes the seat next to him.

  “What’s that?” I scoop up the hits with a tissue and toss them into my pocket.

  “EX. It was on the specialty menu. I’m going to turn them in to Cooper tomorrow at our family dinner.”

  Zane nods. “Well, I found him, but I almost got busted, so we have to be careful the rest of the night.”

  “What happened?” Jonah asks.

  “He’s selling Narcan to Higgins.” I saw him hand some over to him, and Higgins handed him a wad of cash. I just wish I could have recorded it, but like I said, I was nearly busted.” Zane sips his beer.

  “Must be for overdoses.” Shane shakes his head. The next girl comes onto the stage. This girl is a little bigger, she has some nice curves and has long, brown curly hair. She’s pretty sexy and her confidence makes her even hotter. Too bad she’s got nothing on my Kara. Her music starts and we again sit back to enjoy the show. This girl is actually wearing clothes that she slowly strips off as she’s dancing around the stage. She starts looking nervous. We look at each other and then back to the stage. Something’s not right, and we can’t figure out what it is, but we continue to watch. Zane whistles at her to see if she’s losing the confidence I thought she had because we’re just watching and not trying to touch her. She walks toward the front of the stage and trips, falling to the floor. She gasps and a look of fear comes over her. We all jump up and run to the stage, which is only a few steps away.

  “Are you okay?” Zane helps her up.

  “Yes, I’m so sorry. Please don’t tell my boss.” She panics.

  “We won’t say anything,” Zane assures her.

  “Thank you. I’m new here and I’ve been trying to get a gig in here because you make more money. The guys typically have money so they tip better. My boss warned me I better not blow it and I did.” She looks sad.

  “I’ll tell you what. Give me your name and I’ll put in a good word.” I shoot her a smile.

  “My real name is Shelly but they make me go by Sapphire. They say Shelly’s not sexy enough for the club.” She stands. “I need to get back to work. Thanks, guys.” She finishes her routine and leaves the room.

  “We didn’t tip either of the girls,” Jonah realizes.

  “Part of the VIP experience is being able to tip at the end of the night. I’ll get a slip and I write down how much we want to give each girl. They add it to my final bill and tip the girls out.”

  The remainder of our time goes quickly. The waitress brought us another round of beers during the third show, and when the final girl finished her show, she came in with the slip that I needed to sign to tip the girls. I took a picture of it and the waitress gave me a funny look. “Don’t want to forget how much is going on my card.” I wink at her. She smiles and walks us out of the room. At that point we call it a night and head back to close down Thrive.

  As soon as we’re back at the club, we gather in Shane’s office. “I have to check on things, you guys update Logan.” Jonah walks out to make sure everything’s running smoothly and Shane picks up the phone to call Logan.

  “This is Logan,” he answers on speaker phone.

  “Hey, it’s us.” Shane leans back in his chair.

  “What did you guys find out?”

  We go into all the details of what we discovered. He asks us to call Cooper about the EX tonight and turn it over. He’s concerned about it being evidence and us holding onto it. We agree to call him as soon as we hang up and let him determine if he wants to come get it.

  I call him from my cell phone, and as I thought, because a cop didn’t collect the drugs, it can’t be used as evidence, but he’s coming to pick it up anyway. He doesn’t want us to get into trouble for having it. He’s going to run some tests to see if they can come up with anything that will lead him to the dealer.

  When he arrives at the club, everyone is busy closing it down. I sit and fill him in on everything we discovered and hand over the EX to him. “I’m willing to bet he’s committing fraud as well. I’m sure he’s not handing over all the tip money to his girls.”

  “It’s funny you say that, because I took a picture of how much I tipped them. There’s one girl there who is afraid of him. She slipped up on stage and begged us not to tell on her. I’m willing to bet she’ll flip if we need her to.” I pull out the picture of the slip I filled out.

  Shane comes back to his office. “We’re closed now. You can join us out here if you want.” Shane shakes Cooper’s hand. “How’s it going, Dad?” They hug it out and then we walk to the front of the club, where everyone is sitting around.

  Chapter 9

  Slade

  “Slade, wake up.” Kara’s voice is soft as she licks the shell of my ear. I stretch in bed, my cock already rock hard. Her teeth clamp down on my earlobe. I groan and roll over, placing my leg over hers and rolling my cock into her hip.

  “Good morning, sexy.”

  She wraps her fingers around my cock, squeezing gently. “Good morning, handsome. I’m so glad you’re ready for me, because this is exactly what I want.” Her hand caresses it slowly.

  “I’m not sure you’re ready yet.” I stare into her darkened eyes. They are filled with lust.

  “Slade we’ve been seeing each other for weeks now. You’ve made me wait long enough. I want you inside me and I want it now.” Her full lips are pouty.

  My brows shoot up at her demand. Don’t get me wrong, I want her too. I’ve been dreaming of being buried in her warm, wet pussy, but after everything she’s been through I didn’t want to rush her. “Are you sure? You’re worth the wait.”

  She tightens her grip around my cock and starts taking longer strokes. “Please, take me. I’m yours.”

  I lower my lips, brushing them against hers, licking at her opening. Our tongues meet and it becomes a needy, passionate kiss. I slip my hand under her tank top, squeezing her breast. She moans into my mouth. “If you don’t stop stroking my cock, I’m going to come all over your stomach.” She giggles and bites her lip. Lifting her shirt, I lower my lips to her nipple, swirling my tongue around it. It pebbles and I suck it into my mouth. I kiss across her valley to her other breast, paying it equal attention. I scrape my teeth over her already hard nipple, causing her to hiss. The sound shoots straight to my dick, causing it to twitch. Making my way down over her ribs, I kiss, suck, and bite until I’m at her bellybutton. I dip my tongue to play with the ring she has lying there. It’s a bar with a heart charm hanging from the end. “You changed your ring.”

  I look up at her. “I did. I bought this one because it reminded me of you.” My brows furrow, I’m puzzled. “You are so sweet and have a heart of gold.” She smiles. “I’m glad you waited for me.” I go back to playing with her belly button before kissing my way down to her mound. I inhale her sweet scent, spread her folds, and lap up her delicious juices. Her hips jerk slightly as I devour her clit, sucking it into my mouth and rolling my tongue over it. I look up to see her eyes are closed and she’s biting on that full bottom lip of hers. I slip two fingers deep inside her, curling them up to hit that special spot. She moans my name an
d rolls her hips as she slips over the edge. Her walls are squeezing my fingers and I’m sucking on her clit. She’s screams out as she rides out the waves of pleasure that are taking over her body. Removing my soaking wet fingers, I climb up her body and glide them across her lips.

  She sticks out her tongue to lick them, but I stop her. “Suck my fingers.” She smiles and licks up one side, wrapping her lips around the tip and sucking both my fingers into her mouth.

  “Mmmm,” she hums, her eyes hooded. She’s sucking off every last drop and it’s hot as fuck.

  Pulling my fingers from her mouth, I reach over to my nightstand, pulling out a condom. I rip the package open with my teeth, and sheath my cock with it. She’s lying there with a huge grin on her face. I rub the tip of my cock through her folds and then slowly work my full length inside her. She’s so tight, but she’s wet and warm, it’s heavenly. I have to leave myself seated inside her or I’m going to lose it before I even get started. I press my lips to her, kissing her hard. When our tongues meet I can taste her arousal on her tongue and it’s fucking delicious. I roll my hips slowly, moving my cock deep inside of her. Her teeth clamp down on her lip and she rolls her hips, meeting my thrusts. She feels so damn good there’s no way I’m going to last. She wraps her legs around my hips as I bury myself deeper and deeper each time. I want so bad to lose control with her, but I can’t, not for our first time.

  “Slade.” She pants. Her legs tighten around my waist, her pussy clenches around my cock, squeezing it and sending me over the edge along with her.

  I press my forehead to hers and a kiss to her lips. “I need to ditch this condom, be right back.” I slide out of her, grabbing the condom and tying off the end before I toss it in the trash. I climb back into bed and curl up next to her.