Soldier's Women

by Megan Ziese

  Fuck it! She’d danced for her dinner plenty by now.

  She reached for the money. He grabbed her wrist before she could grasp it.

  “Dance first,” he said in a stern voice.

  Irritated further, Keira straightened, glaring at him until the next song started, tapping the toe of one shoe, biting her bottom lip to keep from giving him a good tongue lashing. She didn’t care if she looked like a petulant child. Right now, she wasn’t in the office. She was at a damn titty bar. She could act any way she damned well pleased, but she wasn’t going to cuss him out before she got that twenty from him.

  It might be all she got in the way of ‘severance’ pay.

  The next song started, and she pulled up a chair from beside them, turning her back to him as she placed the back of the chair to her. She bent over, resting her arms and her upper body weight on the chair, bouncing her ass up in down to the rhythm of the music, shaking it from side to side, her ass cheeks jiggling frantically with each thrust of her hips, each turn of her legs. She had turned away from him so that she didn’t have to look at him, but the more she danced the more she thought about his reaction. He was always so stony, even when he had insisted on a dance. She was curious to see if it was affecting him at all. As the next song began, she pushed the chair back where she had gotten it and began to undress, slowly.

  She used her fingertips to push her shorts lower and lower, swaying in front of him seductively. She pushed them down until they fell to the floor.

  He didn’t take his gaze away from hers.

  That further irritated her, but she managed to keep the expression on her face neutral. What the hell had he even asked for a dance for if he wasn’t going to look? It wasn’t that she wanted so much for him to look at her with desire, but, maybe, in a perverse way she did. Maybe she wanted to see that he felt something besides disdain? Maybe she wanted to break down that cold exterior, that haughty attitude he carried with him like a shield?

  She pulled her halter top off quickly, her breasts bouncing up and down as the fabric that was holding them was ripped away. She watched him carefully and noticed that he glanced briefly at her breasts. Feeling a small sense of triumph, she moved closer to him, placing a knee on his upper thigh, undulating her hips toward him, caressing the skin of her inner thigh before tracing the outline of her string thongs, watching his face the entire time. She leaned closer still, one hand on the wall behind him for support, the other cupping one breast as she brought it mere breaths from his face. She molded it in her hand, pinching the nipple, licking it with her tongue. She saw him shudder slightly at that. Not knowing whether that was a shudder of pleasure or not, she became more emboldened still, desperately needing now to make him feel something. She moved in closer, setting her other knee on his other thigh. Bending so that the rest of her body was not touching him but very close, she brushed a stray lock of blonde hair away from his ear, tracing the folds of his ear with her finger, breathing hard in his ear as she lightly scraped her nails on the flesh behind his ear, down his throat to his collar bone.

  Another almost imperceptible shudder went through him.

  Keira almost shouted in her triumph. She was giddy with the power of it. She had broken through his icy shell. He might fire her in the morning, but at least she knew she had gotten to him, even if on a small level.

  The song ended, and she got off of his lap, standing before him as stonily as she could manage, waiting for him to make the next move.

  He grabbed the twenty from the table and looked her straight in the eye as he grabbed her leg, pulling her closer until her breasts were almost in his mouth.

  A shock, like electricity, went straight through Keira at his touch, almost sending her to the floor if not for the hold he had on her leg.

  He didn’t say anything, he just kept looking at her with his penetrating blue eyes as he pulled her garter away from her leg with his other hand, sliding the twenty in.

  Keira stepped away from him after he had put it in. She turned away and headed straight for the dressing room, not daring to turn around to see if he was watching her. She knew he was. She could feel his gaze searing her exposed flesh.

  It was twenty minutes later when she was called to go on stage again. With great reluctance she went on stage, but when she got there and scanned the crowd, she didn’t see Mr. Tremaine anywhere. She tried to tell herself that she was relieved.

  Chapter Three

  The next day, Keira dutifully went to work. She couldn’t just not go to work, even if she was going to have to get a face to face lecture and dismissal. She was a big girl. She could handle it. At least, that’s what she told herself. Outside, she was trying to maintain a look of indifference. Inside, she was a quivering mess.

  She had only been at work for about ten minutes before seeing Mr. Tremaine. She had just walked into the break room to make herself a stiff cup of coffee, needing it because of her late night working at the club. Just as she began to pour coffee into her cup, he walked into the room. Not realizing it, she overfilled her cup, burning her fingers. Thankfully, the coffee machine had a built in area to catch spills or it would have gone all over the floor. She was still trying to wrestle with her embarrassment for burning herself because she had been staring at him, when he left the room. Confused, she walked over to the door and watched him walk down the corridor as if he hadn’t seen her.

  That was highly improbable. They had been the only ones in the break room. And yet, he acted as if she hadn’t even been there. Maybe he just didn’t want to confront her about last night yet? Maybe he was waiting for something? But what? The partner? He didn’t need his partner to fire her.

  The more she thought about it, the more she worried. And as she fretted, the hours in the work day seemed to last forever. Every time someone came to her desk, she steeled herself, expecting to see Mr. Tremaine’s stern face demanding her presence in his office. By the end of the day, she was a complete wreck, and he still hadn’t called her to his office. She was more confused than she had ever been before. Why hadn’t he reprimanded her? Why hadn’t she been dismissed? How could he just ignore her after last night? If their only encounter had been the one when she was on stage, she might’ve overlooked what had happened, convinced herself that he hadn’t gotten a good look at her face. But she couldn’t deny the fact that he had asked, no, demanded a lap dance from her. He had hardly glanced away from her face. There was no way he could have not known it was her. It was like he was taunting her.

  It was a hell of a lot more unnerving than simply calling her into his office and coldly dismissing her would’ve been.

  * * * *

  After work, Keira drove home and made a quick job of getting ready for the club. She was still going over her current situation as she entered the dressing room at Cheaters. Maybe he had blackmail in mind? Maybe he wanted something else from her? She couldn’t imagine what, though. She didn’t have money, assets, connections. He had never acted as if he desired her. Truthfully, she’d felt like the invisible woman at work. The fact that he’d barely acknowledged her half-naked body in front of him the night before certainly didn’t indicate that he’d just been hiding his interest before.

  So what were the reasons behind his behavior?

  The only way to find out would be to ask him, and she just didn’t think she was up to that. Maybe he was going to fire her tomorrow. Maybe he was just going to leave her hanging until he’d had the chance to replace her? She couldn’t be sure of anything now. The one thing she was sure of was that this whole situation was making her a nervous wreck.

  Brought abruptly back from her thoughts from the sounds emerging from the other side of the curtains, Keira took a few calming breaths to try to prepare herself for her number.

  “Let’s give a round of applause for Shady,” the D.J. announced. “Now, put your hands together for Sexx.”

  Keira bit her lip as she made her way to the curtains that separated the dressing room from the stage. She took
a few deep breaths. She was fine. Nothing had happened. She could worry about tomorrow and getting fired when it happened. Tonight, she had to concentrate on making the rent. She couldn’t let her worries interfere with work.

  As she stepped past Shady and onto the stage, however, her gaze automatically moved to where she’d met up with her boss the night before. A jolt shot through her as she made eye contact with Mr. Tremaine. He was sitting in the same spot where he’d been the night before.

  Keira’s breath caught in her throat. She missed a step but kept on going, trying to remain calm, or at least present an exterior of calm.

  She worked the stage just as she always did, except she pointedly stayed away from the part where her boss was sitting. When her two songs were over, she left the stage and went to the dressing room.

  China met her just as she stepped past the curtains.

  “There’s a guy waiting for a dance from you.”

  She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t have to.

  Keira had a strong feeling she knew who it was.