by Bonnie Vanak
“Stop being such a baby,” Gabriel admonished. “I’ve seen worse wounds on children at the playground.”
“And what were you doing observing children at the playground?” Dante put in.
“Wolf-sitting,” Alexander said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “The only job he does well.”
“It was human sitting for Kelly’s little girl,” Gabriel countered, growling.
Alexander and Gabriel reached across the table and mock punched each other. The camaraderie endeared them to me. In spite of my embarrassment over the tampon incident and my sadness about my parents, I laughed.
Dante gestured to his friends and they ceased. “What’s so funny?” he asked.
“All of you.” I pointed to him, and his friends. “I have visions of all three of you coming home after defending your territory from the Brown brothers, fighting in wolfskin. And then shifting back and Gabriel asks, ‘Okay, forget the First Aid kit. Who has a tampon? I have to go to the playground and I look like, gosh, a werewolf.”
Alexander’s full mouth quirked, while Gabriel belted out a hearty laugh. Dante didn’t react. He watched the other two.
The alpha leaned close, scrutinizing me. “Peyton, do you remember the drunk werewolf I escorted out of the club?”
I nodded. “Thanks again for doing that.”
“He wasn’t angling for a fight,” Dante said. “He wanted to have sex. He told me he wanted to have sex with you, but he changed his mind.”
I felt myself flush. “Oh. I could tell by his aura he wanted sex, but with me?”
“Some human women think sex with shifters is debasing,” Gabriel observed.
“Or sex with several shifters at once,” Alexander added.
Dante’s gaze never left my face. “Do you?”
I gave a nervous laugh. “Maybe. It could be fun, with the right shifters. But not that shifter.”
Dante gave me a mysterious smile. “Interesting.”
What did that mean?
“I have to get to work,” I babbled. “Much fun as this is, and how I’d love to talk more, I have to rush. Anything I can send back for you before I start?”
Headshakes. Dante removed a slim cell phone from his tuxedo jacket and punched a button.
“Norman. Peyton is late due to me. Give her full pay for tonight.” Without waiting for an answer, the alpha thumbed off his cell.
Not waiting, I murmured thanks and hurried into the back. What power. One simple command and Dante probably had the werepython shaking in his scaly skin.
How I wished I had that power.
2
In the dressing room, three of the strippers sat before the mirror, doing last minute touch ups before the show started. Tonight was a limited venue because of the auction. The strippers were supposed to warm up the audience for the auction.
The three were all shifters, and owed no allegiance to any pack. Most pack alphas would never allow their females to strip for other shifters.
“Sorry I’m late,” I told them. “I did scan the lounge and no troublemakers in sight though.”
“Not with this crowd, hon. Private invitation only for the auction. They may be horny, but they’re not looking for a fight. Only for sex tonight.” Kelly, whose little girl had been baby-sat by Gabriel, patted powder on her nose. “Is Dante here with his betas?”
Jealousy curled through me. Kelly was a werewolf and the same as the trio.
“Saw them.” I kept my voice casual.
Kelly released a dreamy sigh. “That pack is the nicest, sexiest bunch of wolves I’ve ever met. Gabriel has been a lifesaver, babysitting for Karen when I can’t find anyone else. He may look like a bad ass, but he loves kids. And Dante, forget it. That alpha knows how to fuck.”
More tendrils of curiosity and jealousy curled through me. “What’s he like in bed?”
Kelly capped her lipstick. Her gaze met mine in the mirror. “I’ve only had him once, before you started working here, but he’s amazing. I think I blacked out, he gave me so many orgasms. All that energy and dominance.”
She leaned forward and lowered her voice in a conspiratorial whisper. “Male alphas like Dante, the ones who have alpha in their DNA, are especially endowed for sex. They have this protrusion on their cocks used for breeding, but wow, when they use it during sex on your G-spot… no wonder I blacked out. I swear I think I died and went to sex heaven.”
With a happy sigh, she leaned back.
Stephanie, a blonde who was a favorite with both the staff and customers for her sweetness, applied more mascara to eyelashes already thick with it. Steph was another werewolf, but quieter and shyer than Kelly. “I like the other one, Alex. Alex is so quiet and sweet. I hear he reads his lovers poetry before he makes love.”
She gave a delicate shudder. “I like Guy, the bouncer as well, but he scares me a little because he’s so strong and intense.”
“Gabriel doesn’t read. I’ve heard he’d into games though.” Carmen grinned, showing off her capped teeth. A panther shifter, she had the sex drive of a tomcat. “He enjoys tying down his lovers.”
A tingle rushed through me. I’d heard all about the sexual prowess of club patrons many times here in the dressing room. The Crossroads allowed sex with the girls, long as it was discreet and kept to the champagne rooms in the back. Norm took a 10 percent cap off the fee.
“Dante, Alex, and Gabriel. Hard to choose between one of them.” Kelly gave a final pat to her hair.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if you had all three?” I murmured.
Kelly laughed. “Be careful what you wish for, Peyton.”
I paused in changing into my plain black trousers and white starched shirt, complete with red satin vest. Norm let me wear the outfit because I blended into the background and kept the customers focus on the strippers. “I don’t wish anymore. Wishes never come true. But a girl can have a fantasy or two, right?”
“Or three,” Stephanie chimed in.
We all laughed, but my laughter felt forced. I was still a virgin at 23 and though I wasn’t saving myself for anything or anyone, I had desires. I was simply inexperienced, not dead.
Just dead broke.
“Are any of you offering yourselves for the auction?” I asked.
Three headshakes. “Not with that crowd,” Stephanie murmured. “I strip because the money is good, but sex with the wild ones is too dangerous. Some shifters like it rough.”
“I like it rough, but Norm’s rule is that once you put yourself on the auction block, you can’t come back here to work as a stripper. He says it ruins the mysterious allure for the shifters. They like to think they’re the only one who had sex with you, even if it’s not true, and if they see you stripping, they can get possessive and jealous.” Carmen shrugged. “I like my job and I have too much to lose.”
“Lose what?”
Her gaze widened. “Health insurance. What else?”
“It’s not worth it to have sex for one night, I guess.” I pulled my long hair back into a ponytail. Better, but still not good enough.
Shifters adored long hair on women. They thought it was sexy.
“What kind of sex do you like, Peyton?”
This from Kelly, I should have known that the most experienced and savvy of the strippers would ask.
“I don’t have time to date,” I muttered.
Carmen’s brown turned contact lens blue eyes widened. “You’re one of them!”
“One of what?”
“A virgin.” Carmen whistled. “I don’t think I’ve known a virgin since I was in middle school.”
“Elementary,” Kelly interjected.
“I’m not a freak.” I pulled the collar of my shirt close together and buttoned it. Norm didn’t like it that way, but tonight I felt especially exposed.
“Are you a lesbian?” Kelly looked fascinated, as if I suddenly confessed I was an alien from Mars.
“No. I just haven’t dated much or found a guy worth doing it with.” This was embarra
ssing. Too proud to admit I didn’t want to get involved because I wanted something like what my folks had – a lifetime’s worth of love. Mom had confessed to me that Dad was her first, and then they married.
An old-fashioned marriage, with a deep love that would have lasted a long time if they hadn’t died in that car wreck four years ago.
“A virgin working in a sex and strip club,” Carmen said, kicking back in her chair and placing her stiletto heels on the table.
“Gentlemen’s club,” I corrected.
“Oh they’re gentlemen all right, until you get them in bed and then they are all ferocious beasts who want to pound you into sexual oblivion.” Kelly winked at Stephanie and Carmen.
I swallowed hard. “You’re joking.”
“Never have your first time with an alpha shifter, my dear.” Kelly pushed back from the dressing table. “A rugged, fierce alpha like Dante could tear an innocent apart. The first time is painful enough.”
“Wait until the second time.” Carmen winked at me.
As they drifted out of the dressing room, Stephanie lingered. I liked Stephanie. She was single, like me, and stripped because of the money, not because she thrived on the male adulation, like Kelly and Carmen.
Stephanie touched my arm. “Don’t mind them, honey,” she said. “They’re jealous because you have something they lack.”
A hymen, I almost blurted out. “Debt,” I offered.
“Class. You’re real and natural and not fake. Not a square inch on you, and males gravitate to that after they tire of the champagne and cosmetics and lights. At the end of the day, they want a real female to go home to, to snuggle in bed with and make babies, not a doll like we are.”
She sounded sad and resigned. I went and put my arms around her, wanting to give her reassurance. Stripping was a hard way to make a living.
“You’re not a doll,” I blurted out. “You’re a real person, Stephanie. Don’t ever degrade yourself.”
A sad smile. “I do this to pay my bills. I can’t go home again, Peyton.”
After a brief hug back, she hurried away, out of the bright lights of the tiny dressing room into the lower lights and grinding music in the lounge.
I looked at myself in the mirror, the small, almost delicate features not now marred by chalky makeup. The long ash brown hair curling at the ends, spilling past my shoulders mid-way to my waist. Not unattractive, but not striking and beautiful, either.
You have nothing to worry about. There are dozens of wealthy, powerful shifters out there and no one wants you. You can safely stay anonymous.
And poor.
Not like Kelly, who sometimes brought home $2,000 a night or more. Even Stephanie, shorter and less curvaceous, never walked out of Crossroads with less than $1,500 in her pocket.
Or G-string.
No one wanted me, the chubby waitress desperate to pay off a shady loan, an obscure human psi who could read shifter auras. The males in the club were too busy ogling the busty, slim strippers who made them howl for more, and aroused them.
For sex, nothing more. Especially for the werewolves.
Weres always mated within their own species. Propagation of the bloodlines, and all that. They could mate with humans, but few did. Psi humans like me were more desirable, for it meant the offspring would carry the stronger werewolf gene and become shifters. Especially when the psi human had two psi parents.
But who would want a Plain Jane like me?
3
The next hour sped by quickly at Crossroads. Drinks flowed like water after a spring snow melt. I kept busy hustling, filling orders from the bar while two guys from the kitchen ran food orders.
This clientele tonight had a different vibe. Most Fridays, customers wanted a meal, liquor and to stare at the girls gyrating on stage. Maybe a few would get cranked up and aroused, and slip Norm five Benjamins to steal away to the Champagne Room with one of the girls for a quick bout of sex disguised as lap dancing.
But most just wanted to see the show, and then go home to their packs or families. Dinners at Crossroads were gourmet, with prime beef Norm bought fresh off local ranches. Some males came for the food instead of the show.
Not tonight. These males were hungry for something else. Beneath the refined, sophisticated silk dinner jackets beat the pure animal instinct of males on the hunt.
You could dress up the werewolf, but not take him out of the wild, especially when it came to sex.
In the kitchen, I grabbed my water bottle and took a long swig. I glanced at Guy, who sat at the counter, sawing away at a steak with a lethal-looking pocket knife.
“Why is Norm holding an auction for sex? How can he get away with it?”
Guy gave a laconic shrug. “He has local influence and the Council of Shifters lets him get away with.”
Said council governed any shifter activity, letting human law enforcement focus on humans.
“So, who in their right mind would auction their body for sex?” I set the water bottle down on the stainless steel counter. “Those shifters in the crowd, they are restless and some of their auras are flashing lava red.”
Hot lava red meant a shifter was not merely ready for sex, but wanted it now. When weres showed this in their aura, watch out. No gentle lovemaking for them, it was all animal sex and sometimes (I’d read) biting their partner on the neck.
Along with delivering a few orgasms, too. Even the most impatient shifter was mindful of pleasuring his lady partner.
Guy finished chewing and swallowed. “The males want something different. A sex auction is like bidding on a horse. Competition is fierce and part of the fun, and the female takes home enough money so she doesn’t have to work for the rest of the year. The four of the women who are being auctioned tonight are prostitutes who charge $5,000 a night. Norm expects bids to soar close to six figures.”
Six figures for one night of sex? I couldn’t imagine.
I toyed with the bottle, thinking about that long, thoughtful look Dante gave me and what Kelly had hinted about sex with Dante. The idea of Dante bidding on a female sent that jealousy twisting through me again.
“Guy, is it true that male alpha werewolves, the ones with alpha genes in their DNA, have a special, ah, ability during sex and they have a tickler on their, um, penis?”
He coughed, nearly choking on his bite of steak. “Peyton, what the hell? A tickler?”
“Well, whatever you call it.” I tried to keep my voice indifferent, but it did no good because Guy started to laugh.
“Sweetie, if you’re going to entertain the thought of sex with a werewolf, for heaven’s sake, don’t call it a tickler. You’ll offend every alpha from here to New York.”
“Well, details, details. What do they call it?”
“A cock.”
Rolling my eyes as he guffawed, I folded my arms. “Guy, seriously.”
“No one calls it anything, but alphas refer to it as the basiare. From the Latin word to kiss.” Guy laughed again. “Alphas say it kisses the womb and accelerates impregnation. Of course they brag it also stimulates the female into wanting more sex, too.”
I had a mental image of Dante’s well-endowed cock with that basiare and how much stimulation he could provide. There it went again, that clenching need low in my belly.
What the hell was wrong with me? Sex was off limits. I could not afford involvement.
I chugged more cold water. Weres had terrific sense of smell, and I didn’t want Guy thinking I got all aroused over an alpha’s cock. Part of my disguise was bored indifference in a club where ennui was never a problem.
Too late. His nostrils flared. Aw damn. I flushed. “It’s interesting,” I muttered as an excuse. “But I have to get back to work.”
Back into the lounge I scurried, eyes focused on the crowd. Grinding to a halt, I stared.
The bright lights were gone from the stage. Stephanie, the last stripper, had completed her act only ten minutes ago. Low lighting in the lounge showed the faces of all the
shifters, and their auras flashed crimson red.
The entire crowd was cranked up, aroused and ready for action. Backing off, I slowly retreated. I fought the urge to turn my back and flee.
Never run away from a shifter. Not only can they smell fear, but it triggers their instinct to chase prey.
My butt hit the swinging door and I backed into the kitchen, finally turning.
Guy was gone. The entire kitchen staff was gone as well.
Where the hell was everyone? I couldn’t go back into the lounge and start searching. I felt like prey facing a pack of wolves, only these wolves didn’t want food.
The very air throbbed with anticipation and sexual need, as if the males inside the lounge scented it with musk and their own fragrance to entice females into their beds. I fought the compulsion to go back into the lounge and inhale. Damn. This never happened before.
Then again, I’d never worked a shift during the yearly sex auction.
My nipples hardened and my female parts pulsed with pure need. If I had been aroused before imagining Dante’s cock and his special endowment, I was overheated now.
I ran my hands over my uniform, suddenly far too tight and restrictive. One whiff of that air and I wanted to rip off my clothing and dance naked for the males.
Dance until one of them, or several of them, threw me down on the floor and ravished me like a pirate did to a maiden.
As if compelled by an outside force, I opened the swinging door and entered the lounge once more. Wreathed by the shaft of bright light streaming from the kitchen door, I stood near the entrance.
Fifty male heads turned in my direction. Fifty sets of eyes, some reflecting green in the light, stared at me.
As if they were hunting and I was dinner.
Nostrils flared. Murmurs began. Where the hell was Norm? The girls? And Guy?
“Whoa.” I staggered back into the kitchen again, fighting my own instincts, holding my hands out in front for protection.
Why had the entire staff left? And why was I alone? Was this some kind of cruel joke?
What about the auction? Was there even going to be an auction?
