by Dia Cole
“Right,” Lee said, looking like she was trying hard not to smile. “Speaking of, I should probably go see what she’s up to.” With that, she turned and walked over to the blond.
I gave Syd a look. “They’re best friends, numbnuts.”
“So,” Syd said in that unapologetic way of hers. “Let me look at you.” She ran her gaze up and down my body nodding in approval at my silver-studded bikini top, leather corset, wraparound skirt, black thong, and thigh-high stiletto boots. “Oh Vana, you’re gonna blow his mind tonight!”
“Blow whose mind?”
Instead of answering, she handed me my long leather trench coat and whip. “You’re on in five, girl.”
I looked up at the clock over the vanity mirrors. Shit! I’d taken too long getting ready. I needed to get backstage ASAP. Damn, it’d been so long since I’d danced, what if I screwed up my timing? My stomach contracted into a tight ball.
Syd must’ve seen the anxiety in my eyes because she added, “Stripping is like riding a cock, girl, you never forget how.” She slapped my ass and sashayed over to where Jess was sitting. “Did I say you could borrow my body glitter, skank?”
Hightailing it out of the dressing room before the claws came out, I belted my coat and took my place behind the curtain backstage. The eighties hair metal song playing at earsplitting volume throughout the club ended and the DJ announced the ending of Amber’s set and the beginning of mine.
A couple moments later, a gorgeous, dark-skinned woman stepped through the curtain clutching a large bag filled with cash in one hand and her discarded lingerie with the other. She grinned at me. “Full house tonight. Big spenders!”
“Sweet!” I returned Amber’s smile. I’d always liked the girl although she didn’t exactly fit in with the rest of us. She’d started dancing as part of her anthropology fieldwork and had stayed on. The thousands of dollars she’d earned here a night probably paid a hell of a lot more than her postdoc.
The familiar beat of a techno song started playing on the speakers out front. That’s my cue. “See you later,” I called out to Amber. Then taking a deep breath through my nose and out through my mouth, I stalked through the curtains.
The spotlight was blinding. Giving my eyes time to adjust, I moved to the middle of the stage and cracked my whip ringmaster style. The shouts and cheers were deafening. Amber hadn’t been exaggerating about the place being packed. I’d forgotten what it was like to be the center of so much male attention. It was intoxicating. I unbelted my trench coat and flung it off. Men hooted and threw wads of dollar bills on the stage.
Moving sinuously to the pounding music, I scanned the crowd, finding a large group of men in suits among the usual mix of regulars and college students. All the men watched me with excited interest, except for one. One gorgeous man seated in the front row watched me with shock in his golden eyes.
Holy hell. Nathan? What’s he doing here? I froze in panic. He wasn’t supposed to find out about my dancing. Shit. There’d be no going back from this.
Nathan shook his head as if he was having trouble reconciling this version of me with the Vana he knew.
Damn it. Tears clogged my throat. So much for a fresh start. So much for hoping there could ever be something between us. He’ll never want me now.
The crowd grew restless. Men began to catcall.
“Strip!”
“Take off your top!”
“I wanna see some tits!”
Realizing that I’d been standing there like a frightened newbie, I started moving to the music on autopilot. I must’ve danced to this song a thousand times. Setting down my whip, I ran to the pole and flung myself around it. With moves I’d practiced for years, I inverted myself and did several spins. The press of the cool metal against my inner thigh brought my muscle memories back online. On my fourth twirl, I caught Nathan’s gaze again.
He clocked my movements with ravenous intensity. Sweat dotted his forehead and his breathing looked ragged.
Wait. He likes what he sees. A feminine thrill ran through me, followed by a pulse of desire. He hasn’t seen anything yet. Keeping my gaze locked on his, I worked the pole like a lover using every seductive technique I’d learned in my six years of dancing. The music poured through me as I moved up and down and around the pole.
Not for a moment did Nathan take his eyes off me. The molten heat of his gaze ignited a slow burn between my legs.
Never had I been so turned on dancing before. I began to caress myself the way I did when I was alone in my room at night thinking of Nathan.
The men in the audience responded with shouts and cheers, but only one man mattered.
Nathan licked his lips and gripped the side of his table as if it was a lifeline.
His obvious desire ratcheted mine up higher and higher. Moaning, I slowly stripped off my clothes. First the skirt. Then my top. By that point, the rest of the men were in a frenzy. I picked up my whip, gripped it between my teeth, and crawled down the center of the stage through a hailstorm of dollar bills. I didn’t bother stopping to gather them nor did I pause near the VIPs waving twenties at me. Instead, I undulated to the very edge of the stage drawn to Nathan like lightning to a metal rod.
His eyes glittered almost with an otherworldly light as I stopped in front of him.
Several of the businessmen tried to rush over. Nathan yelled at them to get back to their seats and they did. Of course they did. Even here Nathan exerted his control over everyone. Everyone but me.
My body screamed for his. “I want you,” I mouthed. Moving the whip over my breasts with one hand, I pinched my erect nipples with the other.
He let out an audible groan. “Stop,” he said in a husky voice. “Please stop.”
Ignoring his plea, I slipped the handle of the whip between my legs and rubbed my clit with it. “I wish this was your cock,” I moaned. Pleasure streaked through me, hot and wild. A violent orgasm built inside me fueled by Nathan’s intense response and the excited shouts of the surrounding men. My back bowed, my thighs shook.
The sound of a record scratch cut through the cheering. My music suddenly stopped.
“Ahem. Give it up for Mistress Robin. She’s something, isn’t she, guys?” Max’s voice sliced through the fog of desire in my mind. My boss stood in the DJ booth giving me a WTF look. “Saddle up, gentlemen, because Miss Dixie is riding in next.”
My face heated as I realized I’d gone over the line. Way over the line. My God, I’d pretty much masturbated onstage. Shame and humiliation tore through me as I quickly balled up my skirt and top, along with the hundreds of bills littering the floor, into my trench coat and bolted offstage.
I ran so fast I nearly took out Jess as she prepared to go out.
Her green eyes flashed. “Watch where you’re going, bitch.”
Before I could respond, her attention was snared by something behind me.
I spun around in time to see a tall man with silver-streaked hair storming toward us.
What the? “Natha—”
With a growl, Nathan hauled me into his arms, backed me into the closest wall, and claimed my mouth in a soul-searing kiss.
20
Nathan
Nothing in my life had prepared me for seeing Vana onstage. My shock in seeing her had given way to a burning desperation to have her. She was every erotic fantasy I’d ever had brought to life. Her lush beauty and seductive movements destroyed all my carefully laid plans.
As she locked on my gaze, the percussive beat of the music and the cheering of the human males faded away. The world was reduced to just the two of us. In that moment, I knew she danced for me and me alone. Every one of my muscles tensed with anticipation as she rotated around the metal pole. Up and down and around she moved with a dizzying speed that showcased the incredible strength and power of her beautiful body. Then she began caressing herself… Fuck. Seeing her hands roam the curves of her breasts and thighs had me groaning out loud.
When she began stripping off her
clothing, the wolf inside me clawed to the surface. For the first time, I was thankful for the silver cuffs that kept my beast in check. Without them, the primal need to savage every other male in the room would’ve overwhelmed me. She’s mine. “Mine!” I wanted to roar to those annoying fuckers.
The sight of her full breasts topped off by dusky nipples just straining for my lips burned away every rational thought in my head. Then she’d crawled in front of me and rubbed herself with the whip. Damn. The heady scent of her desire triggered the most primitive part of me. The part that wanted to leap on her, tear off what little clothes she had, and bury myself balls deep inside her. Instead, I’d clung to the tiniest shred of self-control and clenched the table in front of me with such force, it’d begun to splinter. Then I’d done the one thing I’d never done in my life. I begged for her to stop.
But she wasn’t going to. I could see it in the glaze of her half-mast eyes. She was going to bring herself to climax here. In front of everyone. I can’t let that happen. When she comes it’s going to be in the privacy of my house, where only I will hear her cries.
Half a second from storming the stage and hauling her into my arms, the music had abruptly stopped.
Vana’s face reddened as she’d looked over at the bald man speaking into the microphone and then she’d rushed offstage.
I had no conscious thought of following her, but the next thing I knew I’d knocked aside the table and bounded onto the stage. Blood pounded in my ears as I rushed through the curtains. Then she was in my arms, my mouth pressed against hers, her breasts crushed against my chest. Dollar bills exploded around us like confetti, but I didn’t give a shit. All I cared about was touching her. Tasting her.
My hands took on a life of their own, roaming every inch of her body. Caressing her breasts, plucking her nipples, pulling aside her thong. “I can’t fight this anymore,” I groaned. “I need you, Vana.”
As I slid down the length of her body, I gripped her ass cheeks, holding her upright.
Vana moaned my name and spread her legs.
The need to taste her overwhelmed me, but before I could bury my face in her core, someone slapped me on my back.
Growling, I twisted my head around to find Sydney standing behind me, two large muscular human males flanking her.
The purple-haired female was wearing that Cheshire cat grin again. “As much as I’m enjoying watching this, the bouncers want you two to take it outside.”
Stiffening, Vana looked over my shoulder. “Oh crap,” she panted, the heat slowly leaking from her gaze.
I didn’t want the flame to burn out, but neither did I want to put on a show for these humans.
“Where’s the quickest exit?” I demanded.
“Right there,” Sydney said, pointing at a door down some stairs to our left.
“My money,” Vana cried, looking at the dollar bills that covered the floor by our feet. She slid out of my grip and bent down to pick the bills up.
“Leave it,” I growled. If she wanted money, I’d give her money. More dollar bills than she could count in a lifetime. I grabbed her arm and pulled her up. “We’re leaving, now.” With my hand under her elbow, I ushered her out the back door.
Sydney called out, “Don’t worry, Vana, I’ll get your money. You go get some Daddy Warbucks.”
Those words seemed to strip away Vana’s tension. “Where are we going?” she asked as we stepped outside into an alley that reeked of urine.
“Home,” I said, realizing my mistake at once. We’d neglected to grab the rest of Vana’s clothing and she wore nothing but her tiny thong, corset, and sexy black boots. “Here, wear this.” I tore off my shirt and wrapped it around her body. No one ever needed to see her naked again. No one but me.
Vana looked at me with huge eyes as I led her out the alley, to the parking lot, and into my car.
Once she was belted in, I hit the gas. The BMW engine roared as I drove as fast as possible back to the foothills.
“Slow down,” she said, as I blew through a light. “We can’t have sex if we’re dead.”
I let out the tense breath I was holding and looked over at her. She was so beautiful. My shirt gaped open around her giving me a tantalizing view of her bare breasts. Her sparkly bare breasts. How I wanted to lick and suck all that body glitter off.
As if reading my mind, Vana traced her fingers around her nipples. “So I guess by your reaction, you enjoyed the show?”
I shifted gears. “You’re never dancing for other males again, okay?”
She let out a husky laugh that kicked my pulse into overdrive, “I can’t promise that. You see, I just got fired from my last job and I need money.”
“Vana, I—”
She interrupted me. “Since I don’t work for you anymore, I guess I don’t have to behave appropriately.” She boldly slid her hand into my lap and ran it up my thigh.
I jumped as she wrapped her fingers around my cock. My flaccid cock.
Vana snatched her hand back and looked at me with too many questions in her large brown eyes.
The realization that I couldn’t mate her hit me like a bucket of ice water. No matter how my mind, body, and soul screamed at me to make Vana mine, I wouldn’t be able to take her while wearing the silver cuffs.
Damnation. I gripped the steering wheel in frustration. Despite the sad state of my cock, arousal pounded through my body with razor-sharp intensity.
“Brother? Is everything okay?” Ty asked, the telepathic sound of his voice calming me down.
Ty! Yes. The solution came to me so clearly I let out a choked laugh. Ignoring, Vana’s confused look, I said, “Ty, I need you to do me a favor.”
“Anything,” he replied without hesitation.
“I need you to mate Vana for me.” Experiencing Vana through my friend wasn’t ideal, but it was something and at this point I needed to hear her pleasured cries and feel her unraveling underneath me.
His silence was deafening.
“Ty?”
“No,” he said softly into my mind.
“No?” I asked incredulous. “What the hell, brother? For months you’ve been begging me to let you touch her and now that I suggest this, you say no.”
“I-I care for her,” he finally confessed.
And there it was. The secret he’d been keeping from me. The reason he’d locked me out of his head. He’s in love with her too. The truth slammed into me like a mace to the skull. If it was any other male, human or Lykos, I’d beat him bloody for daring to covet my female, but this was Ty, who was like a brother to me. Ty, who’d suffered through decades of Tasha’s abuse with me. Ty, who’d risked his life to save mine on too many occasions to count. Ty, who lived in the shadows and allowed no one other than Mira and me to get close to him. Until I forced Vana on him.
My chest ached as I confronted the gut-wrenching truth that I had no one but myself to blame. Selfishly, I’d made him spend time with Vana so I could share vicariously in their dates. Of course he’d fallen for her. I looked over at the beautiful female. How could he not?
“Don’t worry, brother. She doesn’t reciprocate my feelings,” Ty said with a hint of bitterness.
I wanted to hang my head. Of course she didn’t because I’d forced him to wipe her mind of every one of their encounters. Even worse, I’d made him pledge not to use mind control on her again so she’d never remember him.
I felt like the biggest jackass on the planet. I didn’t know what else to say other than, “I’m sorry, brother.”
My emotions were in conflict as I pulled the vehicle in front of my house. The frantic need to physically claim Vana had been washed away by guilt and confusion. How can I be with this female when I know Ty loves her? There was only one right answer here. I have to step away and allow Ty to be with her. My inner wolf howled in anguish at the thought.
Vana reached over and grabbed my hand. “What’s wrong?”
“I—”
Ty’s voice in my head cut me off. “Brin
g her to your bedroom, brother. We’ll mate her… together.”
Surprised by Ty’s proposal, I asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yes. If this is the only way I can have her, so be it.”
Uncertainty wasn’t a familiar feeling, but at that moment I was filled with it. Would us all being together be the ultimate solution, or would it make more of a mess of things? There’s only one way to find out. Filled with resolve, I leaned over the center console and gave Vana a heated kiss. Just before I lost my senses completely, I jumped out of the car and escorted her straight to my bedroom.
As soon as we got through the door, she wrapped her arms around my neck. “You don’t know how long I’ve dreamed of this.”
“I can imagine,” I said, my breath growing ragged. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you walk into the playroom to meet Mira for the first time.”
She laughed. “You were watching me then, weren’t you?”
“Female, I was always watching.”
She started to say something, but then let out a startled sound.
I twisted around to see Ty walking out of my bathroom along with a cloud of steam. It looked as if the Alpha male had taken a quick shower. All he wore was a towel wrapped around his hips. I expected to feel a stab of jealousy as she stared at all his muscles on display, but instead I felt the thrill of excitement and mounting anticipation. Will she want to do this?
“Hello, Havana,” he said in a deep voice. His expression softened and his eyes lightened as he looked at her. I’d never seen him look at a female that way.
“Hi.” Vana’s eyes went from him to me. I could see her trying to put the pieces together and coming to the wrong conclusion. “Are you two together?”
I shook my head. “No, not like that. But we often share females. I-I enjoy watching.” The confession felt dirty coming from my lips. “Would you be up for having a threesome?” I held my breath, waiting for her response.
Her luminous dark eyes widened and she moistened her lips. “You mean, right now?”
I nodded.
“But I’ve only ever met that guy once.” She motioned over at Ty.
