by Megan Ziese
Two Hours Later
“Aren’t they beautiful?” Sera gushed, holding both of her babies in her arms.
“Yes, they are. They’re so amazing,” he admitted.
“But we still haven’t agreed on a name for this little angel,” he said, gently caressing his little girl’s cheek while she slept.
“How did you mother come up with your name?”
“It’s funny that you mention that right after calling her a little angel. My mother called me her little angel the whole time she was pregnant with me and finally decided that’s what she would name me. Sera is actually short for Seraphim.”
“She was right about that, you know.”
“Hmm?”
“You are an angel.”
He grabbed his son, Nigel the third, and laid him gently in the baby bed a nurse had brought in.
He then grabbed his daughter, still unnamed and laid her down gently beside her brother. He admired them for a minute before turning back to Sera.
“Scoot over.”
She scooted over in the hospital bed.
He lay down beside her in the bed, trying to be careful and not hurt her because she was still very tender from the delivery.
He gently pushed some stray hair out of her face, kissing her tenderly on the temple.
She smiled up at him, thinking it couldn’t get any better than this.
“So, I was thinking. Since there’s enough room in this hospital bed for two, we should probably get started on making some brothers and sisters for Nigel and his sister.”
She laughed and playfully batted at him, although she was as weak as a newborn kitten.
“Don’t you think we’ll have our hands full for a while?”
“Are you telling me no woman?” he asked, raising a questionable eyebrow at her.
“Never.”
The End
Read an excerpt from Exposed, also available from NCP.
EXPOSED
By
Megan Ziese
Chapter One
Keira Johnson, aka Sexx, took one last look in the mirror, shifting her red halter top a little more. The D.J. was going to call her name any minute. Even after a week of dancing at the club, she still wasn’t over her stage nerves. She supposed for the most part that, more than worrying about strangers ogling her, she’d been nervous that one day her boss might discover that she’d taken on a second job working nights at Cheaters.
She had worked at the law firm of Douglas and Tremaine for almost six months before she’d finally concluded that one job just wasn’t going to pay the bills. If she was ever going to get out from under her college debts, she was going to have to try something drastic.
Deciding to work nights as an exotic dancer was pretty drastic, but then she’d considered long and hard before she’d finally concluded it was her best option. Nothing else would bring in enough money to get her debts off of her back nearly as quickly, and she didn’t think she had the stamina to hold down two jobs for very long. She didn’t think it would even have occurred to her to check out the exotic dance scene except that she’d discovered pretty soon after she’d started working for the firm that her boss, Devin Tremaine, entertained his male clients at a strip joint fairly regularly.
As far as she’d been able to discover, though, Devin Tremaine always took his clients to the strip club down the street, the Purple Pony. She’d been as casual as she could possibly be when she’d asked his personal secretary, Sarah, on their lunch break one day if he always frequented that establishment. Sarah had given her a strange look, which had given her the uneasy feeling that, maybe, she hadn’t been as subtle as she’d thought, but had assured her that Mr. Tremaine always went to the Purple Pony.
It was for that reason Kiera had chosen Cheaters, even though the Purple Pony seemed to be more popular, catering to a more upscale clientele that probably meant it would also have paid better. Far better, she’d thought, to take a little longer to shed those debts that had been keeping her awake at night than risk the chance of running into her boss and losing the job she expected to make a career out of. Sarah had been Mr. Tremaine’s personal secretary since they’d started the law firm, and she knew him better than anyone else. If she said he never went to Cheaters, Kiera was sure she could count on the information being reliable.
Her own, more limited, knowledge of Mr. Tremaine supported that. Since she’d started working at the law firm, Keira had noticed many things about her entirely too handsome boss. Not to say he was OCD, but he was definitely a creature of habit and always did things the same way. He kept his blonde hair short and impeccably neat, parted just off the side, smoothed straight despite its tendency to curl—not a hair out of place—and it never budged, just like him. He never relented on office policy. He never arrived late, never socialized internally. His clothing and demeanor were always immaculate, perfect. And he expected all the qualities and practices he exhibited to be followed to the letter by his employees, all of them, no matter their job at the company.
It was no surprise to her to learn from many of the female employees that the straight-laced, extremely cold and serious Mr. Tremaine had never dated anyone in the law firm. She had heard horror stories of women who thought they could work their way up the social ladder by engaging in a relationship with him. It hadn’t taken long for them to be shown the door.
Following office policy hadn’t been a problem for Keira but being able to get by with the salary they’d started her off on was another matter. Her college loans and the cost of living in a big city were bearing down on her. She had recently been forced to choose between eating and paying rent—and she didn’t like those kinds of choices. She knew that something had to give, and it wouldn’t be a promotion at work. She hadn’t worked there long enough to expect anything of the sort. The only solution was a second job, which the law firm had expressly forbid. But she didn’t have a choice in the matter. And the only job she could get with flexible hours at night that could offset her loans was a job as a stripper. They paid cash, she worked under a stage name, and she didn’t have to claim the income. She had only taken the job as a temporary fix anyway, hoping that in another six months she would get a promotion and she’d be able to quit the second job.
“Let’s give a round of applause for China. And now introducing . . . Sexx!” D.J. Mike announced on the microphone.
That was her cue. By that time, Keira had taken her place. At the announcement, she stepped out onto the stage, passing China on the way. Dazzled by the spotlights and, thankfully, unable to really see the audience, Keira claimed the stage, using the strut she’d been taught as she slunk with a provocative sway of her hips across the smooth surface. Grabbing the steel pole in the middle of the stage once she reached it, she began to twirl around it sinuously, taking care not to loose her footing. The six inch heels she’d bought for the job were dangerous.
She turned her back to one side of the stage, dipping low as she slid her hands down the pole, using her legs to shake her ass.
The men behind her cheered, waving dollars.
She crouched down and bounced her ass a few times to the beat of the music before turning and dropping to her knees to crawl on the stage in front of the men, keeping her gazed focused on where she was going and her mind on maintaining the sensual movement. She’d discovered it helped to ‘tune’ out her audience as much as possible.
Grabbing the garter on her thighs as she passed them, the men began to insert their money, using the opportunity for a quick feel.
Keira had only made it around half of the stage before the next song in her set came on. She used the pole to get up and turned her ass to the other side of the stage as she tried to seductively slide out of her leather hipster shorts. Turning around, leaning back against the pole for support, she slipped the knot at the neck of her halter and then the one just behind her back. She held the cups over her breasts for a moment before she whipped it away by the strings, twirled it a couple of times
to set her breasts to jiggling in a circular motion, and then tossed the halter toward the back of the stage. She slid down the pole then, dropping to her knees, and then crawled in front of the men. Coming up on her knees, she cupped her breasts in front of them, massaging them, playfully jiggling her breasts before sliding a hand down her hip to play with the ties on her string bottoms. When the appreciative catcalls reached a fever pitch from her teasing, she came up on her knees, sidling closer to the edge of the stage to offer her garter for more tips. Allowing her eyes to drift half closed as if she was unbearably excited by them and the feel of her own body, she continued to move with the music, skimming her hands along her torso from breasts to hips and back again to draw the men’s gazes to her smooth skin.
Even focused as she was on undulating her body sinuously, on pretending to be caught up in a sexual haze as she lifted and stroked her breasts, Keira noticed the large hand that snaked out and tucked a twenty dollar bill in her garter, stroking lightly along her thigh. A thrill went through her since she rarely saw anything bigger than a five.
Dropping to her hands and knees directly in front of the big tipper, she shook her breasts almost in his face, lifting them to him in offering.
The sensual, teasing smile on her lips died as she met the man’s gaze over the top of her breasts. Recognition washed over her in a cold wave, freezing her as still as a statue. Her mouth dropped open in shock. She didn’t hear the men beside him whooping and hollering for more. She didn’t hear the music resonating throughout the bar. All she could hear was the frantic beating of her heart. And all she could see was . . . her boss, Mr. Devin Tremaine.
Chapter Two
Abruptly, she elicited a sharp gasp of surprise. Scrambling to get up on her six inch heels, Kiera dashed to the rear of the stage, ducked behind the curtains, and raced to the dressing room to hide, her clothes forgotten, the rest of the customers at the stage forgotten.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” she chanted, like a mantra, dropping weakly onto the bench at her dressing table.
“Sexx. What are you doing?” Lacy asked, her voice eloquent of shocked disbelief. “You didn’t finish your set!”
Keira ignored the skinny blonde girl.
“You have to finish! The boss’ll be furious.”
“You have no idea,” Keira muttered, her heart still hammering in her chest almost painfully. Tears welled behind her eyes as the shock finally wore off enough for her to wrap her mind around what had just happened and worse, to begin to imagine the repercussions. This was it. She was fired. All those years at college and now she was going to be fired from her first job, and she had only been there for six months! What was she going to say? Douglas and Tremaine was one of the most prestigious law firms in the country. She was fucked. She would never be able to get another job at a law firm. Fuck!
A big meaty man in a black tank top, the bouncer Mike, burst into the dressing room. He looked around until her spotted her.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Sexx? Get your ass back out there on stage … now! Before we have a fucking riot on our hands!”
Still upset about what had just happened, all Keira could do was stutter. “I . . . I . . . can’t,” she managed.
“You damn well will. Get your ass out there or you’re fired,” he shot back angrily without bothering to ask why she felt like she couldn’t go back out there.
Probably, because he obviously didn’t give a fuck!
Dismayed as she was, it dawned on Kiera pretty forcefully that she couldn’t afford to lose both jobs on the same night. Grudgingly, stiff with nerves, she skated back out onto the stage, almost groaning when she realized they’d restarted the damned set and she had an entire song to make it through.
Cringing inwardly, trying her best to focus on the music and move fluidly through her number, she focused on keeping her back to Devin Tremaine—or where he’d been sitting before, in any case. For once, the fact that the stage lights made it almost impossible for her to clearly see the faces of her audience didn’t particularly make her happy.
She was too unnerved by the possibility of coming face to face with her boss again—soon to be ex-boss—to shake off the sense of awkwardness that had gripped her, and certainly too unnerved to move very close to the edge of the stage to collect tips.
Instead, she focused on a pole dance, sliding up and down the pole, gyrating to the music and trying not to cringe at the bounce and sway of her breasts in counter to every move. When the song neared the end, she pranced with more haste than grace around the perimeter of the stage to collect whatever tips the men could hastily stuff into her garter and then, with relief, shot off the stage again.
Shady poked her head in the dressing room door almost before Keira’s ass had settled on her bench again. “There’s a guy out there that wants a lap dance.”
Keira blinked rapidly at her, trying to focus, trying to calm herself by breathing normally. “Who is it?” she asked, a little out of breath. She didn’t really feel up to lap dancing. All she wanted to do was crawl in a big black hole. She wanted to hide in the dressing room the rest of the night and only go on stage when she had to.
“I don’t know his name. He’s not a regular. He looks like he has money though,” Shady said, leaving the room before Keira could ask her more.
Keira gaped at the closed door as a horrible thought popped into her mind.
Shit! Could it be? Was it Mr. Tremaine? Surely it couldn’t be.
He took his clients to watch the strippers. She seriously doubted he paid them any attention at all—let alone consorted with them. It just didn’t fit anything she knew about him.
It did seem to fit his character that he counted on the strippers distracting his clients.
Taking several deep, fortifying breaths, Keira tried to relax. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. He didn’t do that sort of thing. She said that now, but then him even being in the club was out of character. He should be at the club down the street. Why was he here?
Trying to convince herself that the man asking for her couldn’t possibly be Mr. Tremaine, she rifled through her dance bag and found another halter top to put on, this one black, and another pair of black faux leather short-shorts to put on. It only took her a minute to don the skimpy outfit before heading out of the dressing room door. Making her way into the main area of the club, she headed straight for the bar, trying not to look in the direction of the stage where she had seen her boss. Maybe he wouldn’t notice her leaving the dressing room? Hell, if she was doing some wishful thinking, she might as well hope he hadn’t recognized her at all. After all, the only thing he’d seen exposed at work had been her face.
Maybe he’d been too focused on the tits slapping his cheeks to notice the face attached to them, she thought a little hopefully?
She approached the first man that was alone at the bar.
“Buy me a drink.” It wasn’t a request.
Thankfully, the man didn’t balk at her demand. He turned around and waved the bartender over.
“I’ll have sex on the beach,” she told the bartender. Minutes later, he set the drink in front of her. Keira turned it up and drank the whole thing as fast as she could. She wasn’t a drinker, but tonight was different. Her world had been turned upside down. Tonight, she needed it. She turned to thank the man that had bought her drink, giving him a kiss on his shiny shaved head.
She turned to leave and ran into a brick wall. At least, it seemed like a brick wall at first. Stunned for several seconds, she opened her eyes to find a tailored suit. She swallowed hard past a knot of worry that had suddenly formed in her now dry throat. As she swept the ‘wall’ with her gaze, she found a hard chiseled chin, a fierce set of humorless lips, a straight imperious nose, and the coldest blue eyes she’d every seen outside of the office staring back at her, sizing her up, taking her apart even now. Suddenly, she felt very small and insecure standing there before him. What an idiot she had been! She should have just cowered i
n the dressing room all night. But she had been so certain that she could work and ignore him. After all, it was a sizable club. But, she had been wrong. Or, he had sought her out.
“Sexx is it?” he asked, his voice cold, without emotion.
That did it. He was purposefully digging in the open wound. “Yes, it’s Sexx,” she said tightly, her defenses up now, knowing full well that he knew that was how they had introduced her on stage. He was blatantly taunting her!
The prick!
Grasping her arm, he forcefully led her to a darkened corner, away from most of the customers, while Keira struggled with the urge to make things worse by creating a scene. She didn’t particularly want the bouncers coming down on them, however, so she kept pace with him the best she could and tried to pretend she wanted to go with him. He released her, to her relief, once they reached the table that seemed to be his objective, although she’d more than half feared he meant to drag her outside for a confrontation. Sprawling in the chair he’d pulled out, he dragged a money clip from one front pocket of his dress pants, peeled a twenty off of it, and laid the bill on the table without a word. His gaze flickered over her as he shoved the money clip into his pocket again, a frown furrowing his blonde brow, his jaw clenching so tightly a muscle in his jaw ticked.
Keira gawked at him, dragged her gaze from his face to the twenty, and then looked at him again. She didn’t know what to think.
It dawned on her, though, that her fairy godmother was sprinkling shit tonight. Every wish was denied.
Obviously, the forlorn hope that it couldn’t possibly have been him that had asked for the lap dance had been wrong. It was as if he was demanding a dance.
What she couldn’t figure out was why. He sure as hell wasn’t wearing the vacuous look of the men who generally paid for a lap dance. He wasn’t intoxicated—either with booze or lust.
She had a bad feeling she was going to be swept up in a very unpleasant scene if she turned and stalked off, especially after the stunt she’d already pulled on stage earlier. Well, she wasn’t going to refuse his money tonight. She knew damn good and well that he was going to fire her in the morning. She would need that money to pay the rent, which was due in a week.
