Trashy

by Cambria Hebert

  If it wasn’t about the vodka, I had no idea. I knew I was doing a good job here. He couldn’t possibly have any complaints.

  He watched me for long moments, his eyes following my movements as I brushed. The air was thick in the small office. I could feel his stare, and I tried desperately not to look back, but it was hard. My eyes automatically wanted to look at him, but I was afraid to. I was afraid he would see what I really felt about him in this moment. I was wet, cold, and wearing his jacket. I felt vulnerable and needed a few moments to gather myself.

  The vodka needs to hurry the hell up.

  When my hair was tangle free, I set the brush in my lap and pulled the damp strands up into a topknot on the crown of my head. I secured it with a hair band from the handle of my brush. When I had nothing left to distract myself, I glanced up at him.

  “Your lip still has blood on it,” he murmured, like the sight of it bothered him. I ducked my head and dabbed at the sore spot.

  When I was done, I lifted my head. “Better?”

  He didn’t say a word. Instead, he got up and came around the desk, sliding himself between the furniture and me. He crouched down in front of my chair, gently taking the towel from my clutches, and lifted a corner of it to my mouth. Adam was tender as he swiped at the place I had chewed raw. The area stung mildly, but I ignored it as I watched him.

  All his attention was directed at that one spot. He concentrated on it as if it were some important test. When he was satisfied, the towel fell from his hand and into my lap. But he didn’t pull away. Instead, he brought up the pad of his thumb to softly caress the area, trailing his fingers far past the hurt and across my jaw.

  “I don’t like seeing you bleed,” he whispered.

  “It’s no big deal,” I whispered back.

  His hand fell away from my face, and I felt the absence of his touch profoundly. I shivered lightly, and Adam pulled the lapels of his jacket around me just a little bit tighter. His hands lingered in the folds of the fabric. I could feel the heat of them even through the jacket.

  Nameless emotion sizzled, crackling through the silence and making me feel buzzed. Maybe the vodka was working after all. Adam wasn’t much of a toucher; he usually kept within the bounds of his personal space, very few times venturing out of it.

  He was a very controlled man, like he lived by some unspoken personal code. One of his rules was he didn’t date his dancers. Ever. And that little reminder was like ice water tossed on the flames he ignited just by being so close.

  The tenderness he was showing me right now was just like the tenderness he showed a couple months ago, when he held me in his lap. When his words were soft and meant only for my ears. That night had been horrible. I should never want to think about it.

  But I thought about it all the time.

  Mostly in the dark of the night when I was lying in bed alone and all I could do was remember.

  One night our place was broken into. I was attacked, scared out of my mind. The guy ran off when Harlow showed up, but it didn’t really ease my fear. I’d been afraid at the time it was Craig. We knew now it wasn’t.

  Adam showed up that night. Like he somehow knew I needed him. Just the feel of his arms around me was enough to erase the worst parts of that night and replace them with longing thoughts of him. He spent that night on my couch. I slept better just knowing he was there.

  I must have looked now like I looked that night. Maybe it was the reason he was so close.

  “You know you can talk to me, right?” he asked, low.

  I nodded. I couldn’t really, though. My problems weren’t his problems. My bad choices weren’t his responsibility. And besides, he already knew more than enough about the kind of relationship I’d let myself become involved in. It was embarrassing enough without talking about it more.

  “You aren’t going to.” He said the words like they tasted foul. Momentarily, his hands tightened on the lapels of his jacket before he released them and stood.

  “There’s nothing to say,” I replied.

  “I’m opening a new club,” he said, abruptly changing the subject. That softness buried deep within him went back where he kept it, and his normal façade came out.

  “Congratulations,” I said. “Where?”

  “The other end of Myrtle Beach.” He sat in his chair. “Mad Hatter II, it will be just like this place.”

  “I’m sure it will be very successful,” I said, and I meant it. Adam was a good businessman. He knew how to bring in business and how to keep it. I had no doubt this place made him a lot of money.

  “I’m going to be spending a lot of time at the new club in the next couple months, getting it open, training the staff, and making sure it runs as smooth as this place.”

  “Okay,” I said, not sure why he was telling me all this.

  “I need someone to manage this place while I’m doing that. I don’t want business here to suffer because I’m not always around like I am now.”

  A little part of me was let down at the prospect of not seeing him every night I was here. Without really even trying, he’d become a constant in my life. Even if I only saw him from across the room on busy nights or from the pole on the stage, I liked knowing he was around.

  And now he would be around less.

  “Roxie,” he said, calling me back to the conversation.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. “Yeah?”

  “I want you to manage this place when I’m not here.”

  “Me!” I shrieked.

  “Yeah.” His lip curled up like he was amused. “You.”

  I was shocked to say the least. Never in a million years would I think he was going to offer me something like this. “I’m just a stripper,” I said.

  “You are not,” he growled. His angry tone made me look up. He was scowling at me darkly. “Sometimes I wonder how the hell you even ended up here,” he muttered to himself, but I still heard him.

  The words caused a pang of something close to embarrassment to flash through my center. Here wasn’t where I thought I’d be. Not in a million years.

  “Insulting me isn’t going to make me want the job,” I snapped.

  “It was a compliment,” he snapped back.

  I laughed.

  “Fuck,” he muttered and scrubbed a hand over his face. “You know this place inside and out. You’ve been here longer than any of the other girls, you know how to handle the crowd, the bar, and I know damn well there’s a big brain beneath all that,” he said, motioning toward my body.

  A big brain? Did he seriously just say that?

  “I don’t hear your customers complaining about all this,” I said, motioning to myself.

  He slapped his palm on the desktop, making a loud smacking sound. I jumped like a weenie. “Dammit, Roxie,” he rumbled. “Quit acting like I’m insulting you.”

  I stared at him in stony silence.

  He blew out a breath. “I meant you’re the whole package. Looks and brains.”

  I wanted to tease him further. A million comebacks danced on my tongue. But I held them back. His cheekbones were turning pink, and I found it extremely charming that he was trying so hard to compliment me yet still failing so miserably.

  “Thank you, Adam,” I said, muffling a smile.

  He grunted.

  “Can I still dance?” I asked. “If I take your offer?”

  “No,” he said darkly.

  It caught me off guard. I didn’t expect such a stark denial.

  “Well, why not?”

  “Because you’re going to be busy managing.”

  I sighed. As much as I loved the idea of not stripping anymore and taking on a better job here, I couldn’t. “I can’t.”

  “What the hell do you mean you can’t?” he bellowed.

  “I need the money.” No other profession made me as much as stripping. It seemed a little ironic that the thing I wanted away from was the thing I had to hold on to just to get away.

  I think I just confused myself.<
br />
  “The job comes with a raise. A good one,” Adam said, breaking into my confusion.

  A raise was enticing; it made it even harder to say no. Even still, it likely didn’t pay as much as I would make on the pole.

  I started to shake my head, but a stubborn look crossed his face and he held up his hand. “You’re fired.”

  “What!” I yelled and burst out of my chair. The towel and brush fell onto the tile floor with a clatter. “You can’t fire me!”

  “The hell I can’t!” he argued, also jumping to his feet.

  “Oh yeah!” I said. “On what grounds?”

  “You’re a pain in my ass!” he yelled.

  “Well, you’re a pain in mine!” I yelled back. I gave a huff and crossed my arms. “You can’t fire me because I’m a pain in the ass.” I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue.

  “How about drinking on the job?” he said quietly.

  Shit. He saw.

  I sank down in the chair. “I need this job, Adam.”

  “Fucking A,” Adam swore. His cursing was laced with regret, and he pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “I’m trying to give you a better job.”

  “You think I like stripping?” I asked. “You think I don’t wanna take your offer?”

  “Then why don’t you?” He came around the desk again to stare down at me.

  “It’s my ticket out.”

  “Your ticket out of what?” he asked. I could tell he was slightly surprised.

  “Forget it,” I muttered and stood.

  Adam snatched my hand and pulled me around, into his personal space. He sat on the edge of his desk and pulled me between his knees.

  I could feel the heat of his thighs against my hips.

  His personal space was very… personal. Very delicious.

  “Your ticket out of what, Rox?” he asked again.

  I looked up into his molten eyes. “Out of this life. To something better. To college.”

  He rubbed his thumb across my knuckles as he listened to my words. “College, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “What you wanna study?”

  I glanced away. I don’t know why I felt so embarrassed around him. Adam let go of my hand and put his fingers beneath my chin, lifting my face so he could look at me.

  “I want to be a nurse,” I said.

  “Well, that beautiful face of yours sure would distract people from pain.”

  My breath caught because of his closeness, because of the sincerity in his tone. “That was a pretty good compliment.” I smiled.

  “Why were you taking shots behind the bar tonight?” he asked, low, his tone gentle and non-accusatory.

  “It was only one.” I corrected. I lifted a shoulder. “Bad day.”

  “You know I’m not gonna fire you.” His thumb was back to stroking just below my lower lip.

  I nodded. I knew.

  “Five hundred a night.” He tossed the number out there like it was change.

  I caught my breath. That was a lot for a management position. Yeah, I might make a little more a week dancing, especially on busy nights, but if I worked six nights a week, that would be three grand.

  “How many nights?” I asked.

  “As many as you want.” He dropped his hand, and I swear for a moment I thought he was going to curl his palm around my hip. My body anticipated it, so when his hand returned to his lap, I was starkly disappointed.

  “Okay.” I agreed. It was good money, and I wouldn’t have to take off my clothes anymore.

  “Yeah?” He grinned, lopsided and boyish. My heart totally melted.

  I nodded. “Like you gave me a choice,” I teased.

  “Hey.” He caught me around the elbow, drawing my attention. “You always have a choice with me. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, soft. “I know.” And I did. He might have threatened to fire me to get his way, but if I really didn’t want the job, he wouldn’t have turned me out.

  I started to take off his jacket. I was warm and mostly dry by that point. He shook his head. “Leave it.”

  “But it’s yours.”

  “You can use it as an umbrella tonight on the way to your car.”

  I didn’t point out it might not be raining later. The idea of having something of his was just entirely too enticing.

  “So when do I start?” I asked, leaving the jacket on.

  “Now.”

  “But I’m on the schedule to dance tonight.”

  He shrugged.

  “Me not dancing tonight would be bad business, and you know it.” I pointed out.

  A muscle in the side of his jaw ticked. “Fine, but get the girls to cover the rest of the week. Tonight’s your last night on the stage.”

  “Okay,” I said, grabbing up my stuff to go in the back and change. I needed to make all I could tonight.

  He didn’t say anything else as I left his office, but I felt his eyes follow me as I went. I didn’t think about his stare because I was too busy thinking about his actions. Why all of the sudden did it seem Adam didn’t want me to dance anymore?

  6

  Adam

  I couldn’t decide what was harder to look at: Roxie looking shaken and soaking wet with blood on her face, or Roxie being engulfed by my jacket.

  Both sights were practically impossible to see, for very different reasons.

  When she rushed into the Mad Hatter tonight, my eyes went right to her. I always knew when Roxie was around. I felt her before I ever saw her. It didn’t matter if we were in the same room or not, her presence was never lost on me.

  It wasn’t every night she came in looking like she’d fallen out of a boat in the middle the sea. Her hair was wet and tangled, her clothes saturated and plastered to her lithe frame, and her shoes were soaked through.

  At first I thought it might be kind of cute, until she went for the vodka. Roxie didn’t drink on the job; she was the most professional stripper I’d ever had in this club. So when she retrieved the vodka and downed it without a second thought, I knew something was wrong.

  And then I saw the blood on her lip.

  It made me pissed and suspicious. I knew her ex was a loser, and my stomach tightened to think maybe he’d gotten hold of her again. But I knew better. I knew Roxie wasn’t back with him. I paid attention to her, more than she realized.

  And yeah, maybe I checked with Harlow every once in a while.

  I wished there was more I could do, but if she insisted it was only an accident, I would take her at her word.

  For now.

  As soon as I banked the raging protective instincts she always brought out in me, I noticed how see-through her saturated dress was. I noticed the hard pebbles in the middle of her fucking perfect tits. How was a man supposed to keep control of the brain in his head and in his pants when she was walking around looking like that?

  The misery in her eyes was my control. She was clearly having a rough night, and she was freezing. Covering her up with my coat would not only save my cock from embarrassing me, but also give her some comfort.

  Too bad she looked just as sexy drowning in my clothes as she did standing there wet.

  Beautiful women were part of my job. Mostly naked, gyrating women were something I saw every single night in this club. In my twenty-five years, I’d seen a lot of hot bodies and sexy females. Hell, I’d been married to four of them.

  But it didn’t matter because not one of those women knew how to hold my attention.

  Except Roxie.

  From the minute I first saw her walk into the Mad Hatter looking for a job, I knew there was something different about her. Something that no other woman I’d met had.

  I still didn’t know exactly what that something was, and it didn’t matter. Even unidentified, she still completely captivated me.

  But I didn’t date my dancers. Ever.

  And at the time, I had been married to wife number two. Then three. Then four.

  I�
��d known she’d had a boyfriend, but never gave him much thought, until the whispers started going around backstage. Whispers that eventually trickled into my office.

  Roxie was getting knocked around.

  Roxie was under some controlling asshole’s thumb.

  I’d asked her about it once, a long, long time ago. She laughed it off and asked me if I believed everything I heard in a bar.

  I should have known she was lying.

  For over a year, she was getting beaten right under my nose. Just the knowledge, the thought, of that made me so angry it actually scared me. It was the kind of rage that could lead to murder.

  I still didn’t know how bad it was. I never felt like I could ask. I felt like it was crossing a line that had been drawn in the sand.

  It had taken everything inside me tonight to keep from pulling her against me and kissing every last drop of blood off her lip. I’d imagined way more times than I could count what it would be like to reach up under her clothes, across the silky smooth-looking skin on the back of her thigh, and feel her tremble beneath my touch. Next time she trembled in my arms, it wouldn’t be because she was scared.

  One day it was going to happen.

  One day soon.

  The opening of my second club was the perfect excuse to get her off the stage. If I had to listen to one more catcall or see one more leer in her direction from the drunks in this bar, I was going to do something I’d regret.

  The thought of anyone looking at her, of putting his hands on her, made me crazy.

  This is exactly why I didn’t date my dancers.

  But I wasn’t dating Roxie.

  Apparently, that didn’t matter.

  After tonight, she’d be done with that stage. She’d be clothed and sitting in this office and doing a damn good job of managing this club. I’d meant what I said; she was more than a pretty face. She would run this place almost as good as I did.

  And more importantly, she would be safe here. I already saw to that with the restraining order. If her ex even stepped into this parking lot, I’d see his ass in jail. Months ago, he came in here looking for a fight with Roxie. Well, he got one.

  Just not with her.

  With me.

  I made sure that fucker threw the first punch. Then I pounded him in the ground and slapped a restraining order on him so he couldn’t come near this property.