Tightwad (Caldwell Brothers Book 2)

by Colleen Charles

  Bailey grimaces with sympathy and love. I’m so lucky to have a friend like her in a city where everything can turn fake in an instant. But Bailey and I have been home girls since we were roommates at UNLV. We’re tight.

  “I know,” she says, taking a dainty sip of her fresh Cosmo.

  After about an hour of dancing, sweating, and flirting with every hot guy in the vicinity, I sink down into the comfy booth again.

  “I’m ready for another cocktail.” Thankfully, a server passes by at that exact moment, and I grab him by the elbow. Vodka’s just not doing it for me tonight. I need more of my old friend, Gin.

  The server gives me a wry grin. “Did you need something, miss?”

  “Another gin and tonic,” I say, shoving my empty glass into his hand. “And make it a double this time.”

  Thoughts of Dante have become a jumbled mess inside my alcohol infected brain. Maybe one more will eradicate him for good, and I can go back to celebrating my well-deserved success.

  “Taryn,” Bailey says. “Maybe you should slow down. You know how you get on your third drink. Not drunk but definitely tipsy.”

  I glare at her, shooting the messenger. She’s right, but I don’t give a shit because I can take a cab home. There are more cabs in Vegas than tourists. The only thing that matters is the negativity fading away.

  “No,” I say with a little too much force. To the server, I turn and bat my lashes. “Pretty please. Just one more.”

  The server nods and scurries off into the crowd. With a sigh, I lean back against the purple leather booth, slumping into a ball of misery.

  “It’s not that bad, Tarynwreck,” Bailey says, reverting to my college nickname. “You’re doing so well, girlfriend. You should be able to move past this.”

  I roll my eyes, not wanting to believe her. I’m indulging in a little willful self-hatred, and as my bestie, she can damn well get on board the pity train.

  “You don’t get it,” I say, flaring my nostrils because I’m thinking about him again when all I want is for Dante’s visage to disappear in a poof of gin and perspiration. “Twenty percent is completely outrageous. That will make it impossible for me to turn a profit. I’m right back where I started…and this time, I’ll be lucky if I can actually stay in business. Profit margins in luxury fashion just aren’t that high, and he knows it. Besides, I’m lucky enough to be on the Promenade, and that comes with a price, too. Overhead mean anything to you?”

  “I’m sure it’ll be okay. After all, what legal claim does he have to your money?”

  I heave a dramatic sigh worthy of Meryl Streep. The server brings my drink, and I knock half of it back with a gulp. Nothing happens. I don’t even stop to consider that they pour light in these expensive clubs to increase their margin. The mixture sloshes around in my stomach, and I haven’t even touched the trendy pulled pork nachos arranged artfully in front of me.

  I know I should eat something and slow down with the alcohol. When I get tipsy, I tend to make rash decisions. But right now, I don’t care. The club thumps and pulses with restless energy, and I can’t stand thinking about work anymore.

  “Strict Nécessaire is the most important thing in the world to me,” I say, shaking my head as if she didn’t already know. Bailey’s been by my side through it all. She gives me a sympathetic look. I reach forward and grab her hand.

  She squeezes mine in sisterly solidarity. “It’s really not that bad. Look, why don’t we call my dad’s lawyer in the morning and ask if he can help?”

  I tapped my lip with my finger, but before I can answer, Bailey’s phone rings. As she listens to whoever is on the other line, her eyes grow huge. “I’ll be right there.”

  She hangs up and gives me an exasperated look as she grabs her purse. “A water pipe broke in my building, and I have to get back and deal.”

  I stand up, too. “Do you need help?”

  She’s already shaking her head. “I don’t think so, but I don’t want you to stay out by yourself.”

  I didn’t want to stay out by myself either, so I nod. “You go, and I’ll catch a cab after I use the restroom.”

  She doesn’t look convinced. “You promise?”

  Pulling her into a hug, I assure her. “Promise. Go before things get worse and call me if you need me.”

  She buzzes my cheek with a kiss and takes off.

  Grabbing my clutch, I head to the ladies’ room, pleased that the VIP lounge has no line. Feeling like a rock star, I pee and use the fancy hand soap, giving myself a squirt of the lotion for good measure. Looking for my phone to call a cab, I panic when I realize it’s gone. Retracing my steps to our table, I heave out a relieved breath to find it on my seat. Snatching it up, my attention is drawn to the fresh gin and tonic on the table.

  Screw it.

  Sitting down, I toss back half the drink in one gulp. Just this one, I silently promise Bailey and down the rest. I really should leave, but when the server asks if I want another, I tell him to make it a double.

  As I sip, I laugh bitterly at nobody in particular. “If Dante’s going to clamp my ovaries into a vise grip, I might as well go back to dancing for him.” Climbing to my feet, I wobble only a little and inhale. Time to stop worrying and thinking. I think too damn much. Time to start feeling. And dancing.

  Right the hell now.

  The world whirls around me as I spot my desired destination. It’s looming above me, calling to me with its shiny siren’s song. I climb onto the booth and onto a small patch of elevated floor. The surface is polished black – mirrored just enough for patrons to look down and see the dancer’s thong-covered ass. There’s a metal cage, the perfect size for one dancer. Hydraulics can move the platform up and down.

  I sway a little but manage to grab the bars of the cage and keep myself upright. Climbing inside, I start doing a messy burlesque number I know by heart from my dancing days, closing my eyes and whirling my body around to the fast dance music. The motions don’t really match the music, but I don’t care. I’ve always felt free while dancing, and right now there’s nothing I want more than a clear head.

  If Dante Giovanetti thinks I’m only good as a dancer, well, we’ll give him some dancing. I’ll give everyone so damn much dancing they won’t even know what hit them.

  I switch into a lazy, sexy Rumba, swaying my shoulders and dipping down low with each step and kick of my feet. The cage confines the steps, but I keep going anyway, spinning and twirling until the alcohol makes me feel as powerful as a goddess. When I look down, I notice that the straps of my black cocktail dress are dangerously close to causing a wardrobe malfunction.

  A crowd of jeering men gathers at my feet.

  “Take it off, baby. You’ve got great tits. Let me see your nipples.”

  I glance down at the designer dress I purchased the last time I went to New York for fashion week. It boasts a crisscross style over my ample chest, lifting it to the sky. All I’d have to do is reach up and untie it at the neck to give these guys an eyeful since I decided to go braless. I want to. Instead, I snake a hand up my thigh, taking my already short hem with it until just a peek of my black lace thong is in view.

  “Yeah! If you’re gonna dance, you might as well get naked!” The throng of young hotties pant and salivate, their eyes flashing with lust and danger. Must be some bachelor party or something.

  “Strip! Strip! Strip! Strip!”

  Ignorant meatheads, I think as I continue dancing. They wouldn’t know the difference between a trained professional dancer and a stripper if it hit them right between the eyes. But if they want a show, I’ll give them one. I flash a big smile and burst into song, perfectly mimicking Top 40 vocals…sans auto-tune.

  Like a black cloud raining on my parade, a large security officer appears at the edge of the platform.

  “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to step down from the cage,” he thunders. “Come on. Get down here. Don’t make me come up and get you.”

  I ignore him and keep dancing
, swirling and twirling around until my world spins with the freedom of movement. My platform high heel catches on the bars of the cage, and I burst into laughter as I soar through the air, eventually crashing down on the metal bars. I know it should hurt, but I can’t feel anything. My booze-soaked brain is giving me the stamina of a superheroine.

  The security guard opens the door to the cage and grabs a fistful of my hair. I try to kick and bite, but he’s much stronger, and I’m soon on the floor with his meaty hands painfully gripping my arm.

  “Hey, I can take her home.”

  I squint and narrow my eyes. Three handsome guys with very all-American looks step closer. They turn into five, then slowly morph into one person. My arm throbs from my meeting with the cage bars, but I can’t shake the feeling that somehow, I know him.

  “She’s yours,” the guard says, obviously glad to be rid of me. He hands me to the handsome guy. “You know her?”

  “Yes. That’s my girlfriend.”

  The guard narrows his eyes as he stares at the guy’s identification, then thrusts me into the strong arms of the hot stranger. “Mr. C., see that your girlfriend never does this again.”

  Chapter Three

  Reagan

  Taryn’s hot little body presses against mine before I can even get her out of the club. My cock’s twitched so many times, my pants are tented. But she isn’t looking at my crotch, she’s staring at my neck. Her hands are snuggled against my side, and I’d give anything to grab one of them and force it south of the border. After helping her into the town car, I order Nixon’s driver, Cruz, to keep driving and not stop until he hears from me. As long as she’s here, against me, I’m not letting go.

  I can’t believe it’s her. After all this time, Taryn Mitchell.

  The star of every wet dream I’ve had since college.

  I remember the first time I saw her outside Chad Lawrence’s Kappa Sigma kegger, freshman year. After loping up to the front door, all the breath had been sucked from my lungs. An angel stood on the rickety front porch with a beer in one hand and my heart in the other. Her chestnut hair flowing around her shoulders like a pool of spun silk. I’d stopped right in front of her, struck speechless. She’d laughed and walked right by me as though I didn’t exist.

  The rejection felt like a punch.

  She’d been the star of every illicit fantasy from that moment forward. No one in NYC can even hold a candle to Taryn. Vegas does something to girls, turning them into sex on a stick. Like they don’t understand or own their inherent sexuality until they’ve lived in Sin City a few years. She’s barely changed since college. Her hair is different – she’s now got a crisp stick-straight style with perfectly trimmed edges. And while I’m not exactly a fashion plate to the extent of my brother Nixon, I can tell the silk dress tightly hugging her body had to be expensive. Her green eyes are the same as ever, and there’s not a wrinkle in sight on her tanned face.

  The perfect globes of her tits are pushed up so high I could lean down and lick them. I inhale and scrub a hand down my face. This woman’s going to be the death of me. I haven’t seen her in years, and she’s already got me tied up in knots.

  “You’re sexy,” Taryn says, snuggling in even deeper. Please don’t pass out. Not until I can taste you and you can remember it. In spite of my baser thoughts, I pride myself on being a classy gentleman. No woman’s ever been unsafe under my protection, no matter how much I want to split her wide open. “You’re taking me home, right?”

  In a way, this transports me right back to college. With the traumatic death of both my parents and standing in the shadow of my larger than life brother, I’d had a hard time finding my way. Back then, I didn’t have much experience with girls. Whenever a hot chick flirted with me, I’d seize up and stutter.

  I can’t even list how many times I’ve turned down a drunk girl’s advances, only to be called a pussy in the morning by my buddies. It’s enough to make me sick. Just because I’d never take advantage of a girl doesn’t make me any less of a man. And the worst part, it isn’t just the men who’ve called me out. I still remember the night I carried an inebriated sorority girl all the way back to her house. She propositioned me, and I turned her down on the excuse that she was too wasted to know what she really wanted. In the morning, I called her and asked for a date.

  She turned me down. “You’re just…a nice guy, Reagan,” she said, a mixture of pity and disgust in her voice. “I need like, an alpha, you know? Someone who would just grab me, hold me down, and fuck my brains out. No dinner necessary.”

  Oh, the joy of the angsty college years. But this is now. A lifetime of success and experience later and being a good-looking contract lawyer in NYC means my fair share of hot, wet pussy. Looking down at Taryn’s limp figure against my torso, I feel grateful that I happened to spot her rise from the crowd like a dancing angel soaring above the heads of the Velvet patrons. Of course, gyrating for drunk idiots isn’t how I expected to ever see her again. I thought I’d never see her again. Not without actually walking into her women’s clothing store like some kind of love-crazed stalker.

  I noticed my golden opportunity when I saw her dancing inside that cage. A lot of the men hanging around Velvet would willfully take advantage and crow about it in the morning. And while I have no idea why Taryn went off the rails, I have a feeling it’s not because of anything good. Sometimes, Nixon mentions her in passing, and my ears always perk up. She’s a work-a-holic, which is why my brother admires the hell out of her. This type of behavior just isn’t her style.

  After about an hour of driving and a short nap, her head snaps up. I gaze into her brilliant green eyes and see nothing but sober, coherent Taryn staring back at me. I grab a bottle of water from the town car’s built-in cooler and screw off the cap for her. She thanks me with her gaze and brings the bottle to her full lips. As she drinks, I imagine those lips wrapped around my cock, sucking me dry. Thank God, the tent in my pants went down once we hit the I15. But with her lips pouting and her throat swallowing, it’s going to be a struggle to keep the lust at bay.

  “So much for my tipsy girl routine,” she says, staring at me. It’s like she’s trying to size me up for something.

  “Feeling better?” I already miss her heated skin against my dress shirt.

  “Yeah,” she says, sitting back in the seat, her hair falling all over the leather headrest. While her eyes are closed, I catch another glimpse of her tits and imagine pulling the top of her dress down with one solid yank. “Nothing like a nap to clear your head. I feel like I’ve been hit by a semi. Was I really doing a cage dance?”

  “You were. I came at the tail end of your show.”

  “Show?” She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “I should know better. Nothing good ever happens when I have a date with gin. So, mystery savior, where are you from?”

  She really doesn’t remember me. “New York.”

  Her gaze falls from my eyes to my lips, then farther south, and I tingle every single place her eyes touch. This woman’s going to make me crawl right out of my skin if she keeps it up. I should tell Nixon to fuck himself, get on a plane, and hightail it back to safety before something horrible happens. Like I fall for Taryn Mitchell.

  Again.

  Even though I live in NYC, Vegas is still home. So why are the neon lights already closing in on me? When Nix called and asked me to come help him out with this super douche, Dante Giovanetti, I had to respond. Nixon and Dante own rival casinos, and while Nixon’s always done well through hard work and determination, I know for a fact Dante has dirty money on his hands…if not blood.

  “Hmm…It’s been years since I’ve been there,” she says. “I sometimes go for fashion week, but I’ve always wanted to see Broadway. When I was a little girl, I used to dance, and every little dancing girl has dreams of the lights on Broadway.”

  “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” I say as she hands me the empty water bottle. “You have to pay exorbitant amounts of money for tickets months i
n advance. Sometimes, shows are sold out for years, or you can only get SRO tickets. Such a pain in the ass. Besides, Vegas has world-class entertainment. Why would you ever want to leave?”

  Do you ever want to leave?

  She shrugs. “You’re probably right,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “Still want to go to a Broadway play someday.”

  I open the window between me and Nixon’s driver. “Hey, Cruz. Can you take us to…?” I shoot Taryn a glance.

  “30211 Vine Street,” she finishes.

  “Okay,” he says. “Should be there in about a half hour.”

  “Have we just been driving around?” she asks as if I’m up to something nefarious.

  “I thought you might want to sober up before you go home to your husband.”

  “I live alone.”

  Thank you, God.

  “Well, I guess not really alone. If you count my cat, Liza.”

  “Like as in Liza Minelli?”

  She flushes and casts her eyes downward. “Didn’t I just reveal my secret Broadway fantasies? The least you could do is pretend you didn’t hear me admit that I’m a crazy cat lady before I’ve even turned thirty.”

  I dig her sense of humor. I dig everything about her, and I have since the first moment I saw her. I have secret fantasies, too. But now’s not the time to reveal them.

  “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” She knits her brows together. “You look familiar. I know you’re not from Vegas, but have you been here before? Have we met?”

  I force a shrug, not wanting to spoil the moment by bringing her back to college and the times she didn’t even notice me. Didn’t want me. Her blazing eyes tell a different tale, and she wants me now. Taryn lifts her arms and stretches, raising her slender limbs toward the ceiling and arching her lovely back. She’s still staring at me. For once, instead of feeling self-conscious, it makes me feel cocky and proud. She can’t take her eyes off me, I realize. She’s hot for me.

  I’ve got no reason to doubt her attraction – I take pretty good care of myself – but somehow, it feels better than I ever could have imagined.