TORRID HEARTS
Samantha Lucas
EROTIC ROMANCE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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TORRID HEARTS
Copyright © 2007 by Samantha Lucas
ISBN: 1-933563-07-9
First E-book Publication: September 2007
Cover design by Jinger Heaston
All cover art and logo copyright © 2007 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
TORRID HEARTS
SAMANTHA LUCAS
Copyright © 2007
Chapter 1
LIVE NUDE GIRLS!
A sick, dry laugh clawed up Drago’s throat. A naked girl would not satisfy his needs. The last three had each been more trouble than they’d been worth combined and yet something about the pink-bedecked, mostly neon establishment pulled at him, though he couldn’t say why, he still paid the outrageous door fee and made his way inside.
God-awful music blared while strobe lights threatened to blind him. He really didn’t see what men found attractive about strippers. A strip-tease, in his mind, should be about seduction. It should leave the man wanting, leave the woman wet and needing. It should be erotic, sensual and mutually satisfying.
And it should be done in private.
He grudgingly moved to the bar and took a spot. In a place like this, women were coarse and young—though immature might be the more appropriate, albeit less kind way of putting it—flaunting their bodies just out of reach with a you-need-me-far-more-than-I need-you vibe rolling off them. He got the impression he was supposed to bow to their unquestionable dominance. Quite frankly, he wasn’t interested in dominance. He was interested in shared pleasure. If he wanted to see a woman strip—and more than a few were willing to oblige him—it would be in private, with the wicked promise of things to come thick in the air.
“What’ll you have?”
“Bourbon, straight up. Top shelf.”
He searched the crowd, wondering again what about this place called to him. He could neither quite catch nor chase away the elusive feeling that had moved down his spine and lingered still. If he had been a romantic—and he most certainly was not—he would have said it was quite like a siren’s song luring poor fools to their deaths. The left side of his mouth kicked up at the thought. One thing he knew with certainty, no one could call Drago Castenoff a fool.
Accepting the liquor, he barely had the glass to his lips when the music changed. A strange chill ran over his neck, forcing him to look at the stage. He instantly caught the petite shadow as it slipped onto the stage and though he couldn’t see her features, the air still locked down in his lungs until his chest hurt.
Mindlessly, he moved from the bar amongst the animal throngs toward the stage. The rise of music coincided with the blue and purple lights flooding the stage. He’d been around enough stage productions not to get taken in by smoke and mirrors, but still … her sexy, feminine possession of the stage had him rock hard and breathless. He’d gone hard so fast it made him dizzy, but nothing would cause him to tear his gaze from this woman.
* * * *
Sarah slowly let her mind slip into the seduction as the crowd cheered and called for her. She stripped twice a night and for just under five minutes, took control of that stage. She didn’t dance for titillation or shock factor. She did it because she could. Because—for those nine to ten minutes, anyway—she felt sexy as hell, completely empowered, desirable and wanted.
Hidden behind the costumes and the wigs, her hips rotated, her pussy held suggestively just out of reach. She didn’t understand the mechanics of the strip, she simply touched her body the way she dreamed of a man doing and for four and a half minutes, twice a night, she allowed herself to be a girl who hadn’t learned through experience after experience that she had no use for men and didn’t trust a single one of them.
One man reached out to touch her ankle, but the big-ass bouncer grabbed him back before he could take hold. Unlike the other strippers, she never allowed them to slip money into her panties or between her breasts; she never let them touch her. Truth be told, she couldn’t stand to be touched by any of them. Never again would any man touch her without her permission.
Her mind flashed back to being twelve years old when her mother had been too sick to protect her from the lecherous glances and occasional touches of the man they were living with. She briefly thought of all the other men, after her mother died and she’d gone to foster care. Men who’d touched her as if they’d had the right to do so.
She shook her head to expunge the memories. What mattered was now and if any of these men wanted to tip her, they could throw it on the stage. More than enough did so she wasn’t worried about it. She smiled at the over-zealous fan—a sweet, tempting smile. She slid her finger over her bottom lip, and then licked the length of it. A second later there was a fifty at her feet.
Once the second skirt fell to the floor, it was time for the bra. It was the only moment she felt the hesitation trying to grab her. Even though she enjoyed what she did, enjoyed being sexual without having sex, there was still that shy—nobody notice me—six-year old buried deep within her that hated it.
She covered herself with her arms, removing the bra with her back to the animals slobbering at her feet. Sarah smiled as she heard groans and yells above the music. She turned to them and—for only the tiniest fraction of a moment—froze dead. Breath locked in her lungs, and her body no longer responded to her cues. Nothing existed within her—except for the silver eyes of a god standing at the edge of the stage, gripping it with such force she wondered if his fingers were still getting blood.
All she could hear was her own heart thumping in her ears. He stared at her as if he could see her. Not her body, not her smile, not her illusion, but her. For just that tiny fraction of a moment, she allowed it. Allowed him in and let their souls mesh in a way she’d never felt before. She slid her hands slowly, deliberately over her breasts, revealing them only for him, though she knew others watched. Then she began circling her nipples and looked on with satisfaction as his throat convulsed while he swallowed hard.
She met his silver gaze with one of her own as she stalked towards him, a wild huntress, unafraid. Here in these spotlights she ruled, she took charge of her stage and no one ever toppled her from that position of dominance.
At least she usually did, but the closer she got to him the less in charge she felt. Less huntress and much more hunted. Dark hair pulled straight off his face and held back in a band at the base of his neck, a quick sparkle near his face revealed a diamond earring, a hint of a mustache and goatee framed his mouth. The look in his eyes spoke so intensely of knowledge and secrets and power that it almost frightened her.
So wickedly beautiful he could have been the son of Satan himself, he was a living, breathing, walking temptatio
n. He held her trapped and helpless within his gravitational pull.
She caught her breath and tried to regain her façade as she splayed on the floor in front of him, rolling to her back, looking up at him, his silver eyes on fire and trying to scorch her. He hadn’t looked away one second, and as she lay there looking up into his eyes, her hand making a trail from her throat to the juncture between her thighs, she blocked out every other man in the room.
Tonight she danced for him and only for him.
She crawled on her knees, close enough to touch him, but didn’t dare. She only looked, still unable to break that indefinable connection between them—that thing buzzing in the air that said she belonged to him. God help her, she wanted to belong to him. Then the unthinkable happened.
He reached for her and she let him.
His fingers barely brushed her cheek before the bouncer had his arm locked behind his back, but that light touch seared all the way to her soul.
She had no idea how long they held eye contact for after that, but once she snapped out of the trance she finished her strip, and then sought the solitude and safety of back stage. She slid her arms in the sleeves of the satin robe, tied the sash then pressed her back as flat against the wall as she could get it. Hiding in the shadows while half naked girls fluttered all around as if nothing in the world had changed, she couldn’t breathe. She tried to get over the swamping emotion before it engulfed her but she felt very much like a dolphin caught in a fisherman’s net. She wasn’t supposed to be there and she couldn’t find a way out.
She accepted the fact that at twenty-four, she was very young in years, but in life experience she felt about a zillion. Still, nothing had prepared her for this.
For that man.
It was all his damn fault; she rationalized that he obviously exuded some extra pheromone or something that drove women to either throw their clothes at his feet, or throw themselves from the nearest cliff.
The fact that her clothes were currently very near his feet was in no way reflective of her choice in this matter, however.
This man would destroy her. There would be no survival after him; she just knew it. Up until this moment, she’d believed her walls impenetrable.
Apparently not.
She dropped her face into her hands.
I have to go out front.
As part of the routine, she worked the floor for one hour after each performance. She hated it, but not even she could get around the rules. She pulled the robe’s sash tighter, feeling a bit hysterical.
As if this bit of satin will protect you.
God, Fort Knox wouldn’t protect her from that man. The only question now was what to do about it.
* * * *
Drago threw back his bourbon the second the bartender handed it to him. His silvery gaze took in the crowd—mostly men—surrounding him. Some were drunk, some rowdy, always the few cloistered in the corner, probably with their cocks in their hands. He shuddered at the distasteful thought. Then something he’d not expected to see in this foray into adult entertainment caught his eye, something that amused him greatly. Women.
He smiled at an obviously lively group of women, two of them smoking cigars, all of them drinking and immensely enjoying the entertainment. Women never ceased to amaze him. Sadly, they also never ceased to confound or infuriate him, either.
Unfortunately the only ones he’d ever been seriously interested in were women who were neither afraid of, nor in awe of, men.
In essence, any woman who had very little use for him, seeing as he’d been raised by a primarily chauvinistic father who’d taught his only child that women were naught but the best toys God created.
Thank that same God, Drago had figured out a few truths about women on his own in his thirty-seven years. Truths that had allowed him to navigate the waters of sex and love relatively unscathed. But buried deep inside him, just far enough below the surface that most didn’t see it—though not far enough that he didn’t feel it—was a very primal caveman. A part of him just waited to burst forth, subdue some poor woman and drag her back to his cave by her hair to have his way with her and keep her for all eternity.
He lived in a private hell, balancing that caveman’s need with his own fear of it. Knowing with all certainty that if he ever unleashed it, truly freed it, it would never go back. And knowing no woman worth her bra-burning salt would have him that way. Where did that leave him exactly?
Alone you fool, that’s where.
Taking a long moment of letting that certainty burn his soul along with the liquor burning a trail from his throat to his gut, he let the sensation nearly encompass him.
“Fucking hell, I’m tired.”
Bone-weary tired.
Tired of playing games. Tired of being alone. Tired of women who shared his bed but nothing more. The problem was he could see no way to fix it.
He envied people who found that elusive happily ever after. Craved it for himself, but because of the man his father had made him, a weird combination of gallant womanizer and chauvinistic white knight, he’d come to the conclusion there was no way to find happiness in a world of women who had their own jobs, their own money and their own toys to satisfy all their needs.
“Damn it!”
The flat of his palm slapped against the hard, cold marble drawing more than one gaze in his direction but he ignored them.
Caveman that he was, he wanted to be needed and if there was one woman he could almost guarantee wouldn’t need him, it was his little stripper who’d so boldly torn her clothes from her body, taunted him, nearly had him coming in his pants, then left him to slowly incinerate from the fire she’d lit, but had no intentions of satisfying.
“Don’t take it too hard. That one’s special. They all try and touch, but none of them can. The bouncers are real protective of our Phoenix.”
Drago’s heart skipped a beat and he did a double take on the bartender, sure he hadn’t just heard what he thought. It was simply a trick of his blood-deprived brain.
“Phoenix?”
He held his glass up for another. When it was put in front of him, he let it sit. He waited.
“Her stage name, The Phoenix.”
Drago narrowed his eyes. How could he have missed that? Maintaining his stony exterior through sheer strength of will alone, he casually asked, “Aren’t most strippers named Lola or Roxy or something?”
The bartender wiped the bar in front of him with an exceptionally clean rag. Drago watched the rhythmic movements with a cool façade while he was near ready to haul the bartender over the bar and force out every last drop of information the man had.
“Not that one. Like I said, she’s special. Got the boss wrapped around her finger, too.”
Drago let the bourbon burn a trail down his throat.
So it’s like that.
Really, what had he expected? That she’d been waiting for him? The harsh laughter burst forth without warning, attesting to the fact that he was less in control of his emotions than he’d ever been in his life. Truthfully, that was exactly what he’d expected. She was his. The same as he recognized he was hers.
She had to have recognized the truth of the matter. The true elemental nature of their spirits coalescing.
Hadn’t she recognized it?
He pushed the glass aside and paced. Another round of women took the stage and the hollering and laughter resumed. After The Phoenix left the stage, every person in the place had been rendered mute for nearly a full minute. No longer able to sit still, he paced to a back wall, pondering again her professional name.
The Phoenix.
No doubt she was likening herself to the Arabian version, the bird that rises from the ashes. A bird so unique that only one at a time could exist. A bird so delicate that she ate only dew and never crushed anything she touched. He wondered, however, if she’d ever heard of the Chinese version, the Fenghuang.
His mind whirred with the possibilities as he recalled the legend he’d known his ent
ire life. Though there are similarities in the habits of the birds, the Fenghuang represented the Confucian virtues of loyalty, honesty, decorum and justice. The Fenghuang symbolized the union of yin and yang. It appears in peaceful and prosperous times, but hides when trouble is near.
Of all the legend, the part that had always intrigued him the most, and the part that had him reeling now…
The Fenghuang is representative of the Chinese empress—while the dragon represents her emperor.
In his study, over the fireplace, hung a painting of a Fenghuang lying with a dragon. The first time he’d seen it, it touched him so deeply he simply couldn’t resist. Being named after a dragon, Drago had long felt a certain bond with those creatures of lore and fantasy and on many a night he still sat in awe of that painting, a bourbon in one hand, a book in the other. A book more than likely he wasn’t reading because the portrait had captured his imagination far more than the author’s story had.
In ancient China, the birds are often found in the decorations for weddings or Royal family alongside dragons because the Chinese considered the dragon and phoenix symbolic of blissful relations between husband and wife. Drago had been searching for his Fenghuang on some level as long as he could remember.
A slow seductive smile of victory spread across his lips.
The dragon has finally found his phoenix.
And in a strip club, of all places. He wanted to laugh at the strange sense of irony fate had, but held back, his mind beginning to wrestle with the only question left.
What do I plan on doing about it?
Chapter 2
Sarah stood at the back of the room, surveying her prey. Over the next hour, she had about a half dozen lap dances to give—less if she could get a group of guys talking, instead. Her routine never varied, every night she picked who. There was no way she’d ever give such an opportunity for intimacy to just anybody.
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