Due South (The Compass series Book 5)

by Tamsen Parker

  It’s then I see the neon pink papers posted around the room. On the walls, above the bar, at the sides of the stage.

  Amateur Night, they say. Come dance for us. $100 prize to the best dancer.

  The girls who’ve been on the stage so far are clearly pros, wearing costumes built for stripping and looking comfortable circling and caressing the poles as they work. They’re attractive but look bored. As if this isn’t fun for them at all. Which I suppose by definition it’s not; it’s their job. While I like my work and find satisfaction in it, I wouldn’t call it fun.

  But to be one of those women with all that attention on you, all those men eyeing you hungrily, admiring your body and lusting after you for the way you move… I start to feel that familiar tightening in my pelvis and the growing wetness. Would they look at me like that? Is it wrong I want them to? Would Evans? God I’d love to have him drooling at one of the chairs below the stage, not being able to take his eyes off of me. It would feel so powerful. So exciting. So sexy.

  Would he like it too? He’s never been anything but encouraging of anything I’ve wanted. Never made me feel anything but desired and sexy no matter what I’ve asked for, no matter what’s gotten me off. I can’t believe this would be any different.

  So after I’ve eaten a few more wings and sucked the sauce from my fingers, and then daintily swiped my mouth with one of the Wet-Naps, I excuse myself. Evans probably thinks I’m going to the ladies’ but I’ve got something else up my sleeve. Not for long, though.

  *

  Lucy

  A couple of minutes later, I’m standing backstage, tugging at my pencil skirt, short of breath because this is a stupid idea. Not that any of the bleary-eyed men sitting close to the stage know me and could make trouble, but…what would Pastor Elijah say? What would my mother say? I know my daddy would about have a heart attack. And what if I’m wrong about Evans? What if he doesn’t think this is fun and sexy and instead thinks it’s slutty-in-a-bad-way?

  The thing is, though…this is only supposed to be for the week. That’s what we’ve agreed to. A little fun to take the edge off and then it will be over. Because neither of us wants to be out of our jobs and especially not for something so stupid as sex. No matter how good that sex might be. And now that I know why Evans needs this job, I don’t want to be the harlot who gets him fired from his good job he supports his family with.

  That’s one of those names that has stuck with me: harlot. Harlot, slut, siren, Jezebel. I’ve tried and tried to wipe them from my mind, but they still stick and it makes me mad. What on God’s green earth does how I have sex and who I do it with have to do with how good of a person I am? Lucky for me, Evans doesn’t seem to see the two as mutually exclusive. I can be nice Lucy and also Lucy who has sex in the office.

  It’s going to be over in a couple of days, so what does it matter if he makes a face or walks out? It would curdle my stomach and make me want to sink into the floor, more than any time India’s yelled at me. But by the time I’m seriously thinking better of it, I hear a weak smattering of applause and a nearly nude woman hustles between the curtains, clutching her discarded costume to her chest and muttering, “Good luck with that crowd, honey. They’re like corpses tonight.”

  Great. I’m going to take off my clothes and dance for a bunch of guys who might as well be dead.

  But I’m braver than that, more confident. Right? Over the past several days, Evans has made me feel good about my body, about my sexuality. It’s only filthy in the most delicious, desirable way, and he’s always respected me in the morning. He likes it when I bring out that part of me that likes to play. Bolder, braver, sexier Lucy. The girl who got off by imagining people were watching her get debauched on a beach. I could be that same girl here, only to the nth degree. Even if I bomb, I hope this will make him smile, wipe that hopeless, crushed look off his handsome face.

  When they say my stage name—Ginger Snap because I couldn’t think of anything better on the spot—I take a deep breath and walk out. I asked for a song that’s been on the radio lately, and as the first bars start to play, I let my hips sway to the beat, the tight skirt I have on emphasizing my curves. The drums and the guitar play straight into my bones. Maybe Pastor Elijah had been right about that, in his own Footloose-inspired way. Music can be very sexual. And as the music thickens with the vocals and more instruments, it starts to take me over, making my movements bolder, more emphatically, aggressively sensual. This is what I was hoping for. To let something else take the weight of this responsibility off my shoulders for a while.

  I reach for the pole and stroke it up and down in my closed fist, pretending I’m stroking off Evans, remembering how much he likes it when I touch him. How incoherent I can make him with something as simple as an awkward blowjob.

  It’s bright up here on the stage and I can’t quite see him, but I know where he is in the space, so I look toward him, hoping he’s looking at me with desire as I run my index finger over the center of my lips and then take the tip into my mouth and suck before putting that hand on the pole and swinging around it. This is fun. And also hot. Like, I’m-going-to-start-sweating hot. I feel as if I’m a steak getting seared under these lights. No wonder the girls take their clothes off. I let go of the pole after my spin and press my back against it, sliding down while twisting my knees and untying the bow at my neck.

  Someone wolf-whistles, and while I don’t like it when I pass by construction sites, it seems okay and even welcome. I want their approval. I want their desire. I want them to covet me, find me attractive, wish to ravish me because I am irresistible. I want them to want me, and I want to hear them do it. I’d like to hear Evans, but I don’t think he’d do that because he’d be worried about being disrespectful. It wouldn’t be, not here, and I’d know, because it’s a special kind of game, but I like that he might not dare because he doesn’t want to hurt me.

  I work buttons of my shirt open while I continue to move up against the pole, and my body feels alive, on fire with power and sex. When I get down to my underwear, I hope they won’t have disintegrated by how wet I’m going to be. Thinking about everyone watching me…

  I use the pole to drop back into a dip and shake my hair out of the loosely pinned bun it’s been in all day. It practically reaches the floor and drifts around my shoulder as I snap back up and wrap a leg around the steel before sliding and twisting down the pole. I don’t know if that particular move was at all sexy, but the audience seems to like it.

  Audience. There are people watching me, viewing my body as nothing but a sexual object. It should feel demeaning, but it doesn’t. I like it and it’s turning me on. The only way to make it better would be if I were rubbing myself against Evans and the hardness in his pants no one gets to know about except me. Oh, is that man finely made.

  I pretend the pole is him, as hard, and now as warm from the heat of my body. Taking off my shirt, I drop it to the floor, and there are more sounds of eager approval from the audience. I close my eyes against the lights and hoist a knee to wrap my leg around the pole, my skirt inching up my thigh because it’s too tight to do otherwise. Which means they can see my garter clips, my stockings. I picture Evans in the back of the room, trying so hard to be cool but probably failing because this is too much for him. The lingerie I wear for myself because it’s retro and makes me feel sexy and works under the clothes I favor has come in handy this past week.

  Sliding a hand from my ankle to my thigh, I tease at the tight strap, snap it against my skin, my mouth forming a breathy O when I do. It was just a little sting and I don’t think I’d like more, but the sensation…everything is heightened.

  I undo the clip, struggling, but no one seems to care when I come to a stand and roll down first one stocking and then the other, stepping out of my shoes for only a moment before replacing them because you’ve got to wear shoes when you’re working a stripper pole, right?

  The thought makes me flush, and the real world comes slamming back into this
fantasy come to life. I’m in a seedy strip club, humping a pole for strangers. I nearly have to leave. But there’s not much left to the song and I let the excitement overpower the doubt, unhooking my skirt and teasing it over the top of my garter belt before letting it drop.

  And then I’m loving on the pole again, spinning giddily and bending my knees until my butt nearly hits the floor, sliding back up with the hard metal between my breasts. The cheers are louder now, and though they’re encouraging me to “Take it off! Take it all off!” I can’t. Not for them. Not right now. I like the idea, but to actually do it—too much.

  For the last beats of the song, I strut to the front of the stage and take a fucking bow. Because I’m proud. I’m proud of owning a desire of mine. I’m proud of being desired by these men. It’s shallow, but it feels good and after not being able to claim that as something I’d wanted for so long because having a body that wants pleasure is a sin, it feels important. Not a spring break lark—not that I ever had a spring break—but it means something more than that to me.

  The announcer says something, but I can’t hear because I’m grabbing my clothes off the floor and running off the stage. After I’ve managed to drag my clothes back on, the manager’s trying to talk to me, but I can’t hear anything. All I want to do now is be with Evans. My heart’s racing and the panic is cresting because what did I do?

  As I’m stumbling out the stage door, someone catches me up and I almost scream. But I can tell by the feel of the hands gripping my biceps, the smell of the man standing so close to me, the concerned softness of the words that follow—it’s Evans. “Lucy? Are you okay?”

  “Get me out of here, please.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‡

  December 23rd

  Evans

  That I can do.

  I tuck Lucy under my arm and steer her out, giving a back-off glare to any guy who looks as though he might approach her. It’s not like I can call her mine forever, or even much beyond tomorrow, but in the too-early hours of this morning, I can protect her from unwanted attention and do what she’s asked.

  I’m not sure what’s wrong because she looked so goddamn sexy and brilliant and happy up there. Like she was having the time of her life, as if she was celebrating herself and jeez, was that the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Well, that’s actually a stiff competition. And all of those moments have happened with Lucy.

  Who needs my blood to stop rushing into my dick and go back to my brain so I can take care of her.

  I guide her out to the car and help her into the passenger side, hustling to get behind the wheel because I don’t want to leave her alone for even a second. When I slide in, she’s looking at her hands, shaking her head.

  “Lucy, talk to me. Are you okay?”

  She looks up, her brown eyes pleading. “Was that disgusting?”

  “Was it—” Disgusting? How can she even… “—God, no, Lucy. That was…it was freaking awesome is what it was.”

  “You weren’t appalled that I took my clothes off in front of all those guys?”

  “No. I was a little worried, but only because some of them looked like they wanted to eat you alive. But other than that, I was, uh, really…” Hard. Hard and throbbing, aching with want, my craving for her thrumming through my veins. But despite what we’ve done with each other, I don’t know if she’d be cool with the idea of me getting a raging hard-on while she danced, especially now she seems to regret it. But I can’t not tell her—besides, what if that’s exactly what she needs to hear? “I was really turned on. You were so sexy, and it was unbelievably hot how confident and badass you were up there.”

  She sniffs, and I want to offer her a tissue or go old school with a handkerchief, but all I have on hand are some crumpled fast food napkins from my glove box. So that’s what she dabs her eyes with and then blows her nose into. She’s even cute when she blows her nose, though it sounds like an unhappy goose.

  “So you liked it?”

  “To the extent that it will feature heavily in my jerkoff fantasies for the rest of my life, yes.” That provokes a giggle and I’m glad. “Is that all you were worried about? Me? Because you shouldn’t be.”

  Her mouth wrenches to the side, and I know in that moment it’s not about me. At least, not all about me. Which is great. I’d hate to think I’d made Lucy believe I could ever be disgusted by something she wanted, that made her feel sexy and alive. I am the president of the Lucy-Should-Always-Feel-Good Club.

  “Not just that. It’s…” She’s quiet for a moment, and I let her be. I understand wanting to be careful about what comes out of my mouth. “I grew up in one of those conservative, religious towns. Even though I’m 1,700 miles away, I still…I still hear it in my head. The attitudes about how women should be. How we should dress so we wouldn’t lead good men into temptation. How we should act if we really wanted to spread the word of the Lord.”

  My stomach lurches, because even though I’ve never had any experience with religious institutions in general, and Judaism as a whole tends to be pretty sex-positive, I can imagine what that would’ve been like. Especially for a good girl like Lucy who always wants to do the right thing.

  “That was messed up. And I hated them for making me feel that way, as if I should be ashamed of my body and my desires. That I was dirty for wanting attention and pleasure. I’ve talked myself out of a lot of it, but it’s wedged pretty deep in there, you know?”

  I nod, because yeah, I know. I know what it’s like to feel damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Just plain damned. And the two of us—we try to make people happy, try to do the right thing, but when we get crapped on anyhow, why should we?

  I want to tell her something too, that’s private and squishy and make her feel less vulnerable. Or at least that we’re at approximately the same level of squishiness. I don’t want her all alone, crawling around like a hermit crab outside a shell. So I make the confession, something that could turn her off as surely as she thought she’d done me. But I want to do it in a way that’s going to make her feel good, that won’t raise any question in her head about whether or not I’m okay with what happened. So I rustle up that guy, the one who’s got balls the size of a bull’s and who’s cocky enough to believe anything he could possibly enjoy must be okay.

  “Actually, I kind of liked that those other guys were there.”

  She blinks those verging-on-hazel, kind eyes, and they seem to plead with me: Tell me more, Evans. Make me feel good about this.

  “The watching, you know, is…fun—” and by fun, I mean drop-dead sexy “—but knowing all those men wanted you because you were so freaking hot, and I’d had you. Made you come so hard you shook in my arms, made you cry out while I fucked you. And if anyone was going to be leaving this place to strip the rest of you and be inside you, it was going to be me. That got me so hard I almost couldn’t bear it, Luce. I wanted to go up on stage and have you right there. While they all watched. While they all wanted you. Do you like that idea, Lucy?”

  By the way her pupils are practically blown out and she runs her tongue absently over her upper lip, I’d know, but she says it anyway: “Yes.”

  An idea sparks in my brain, and it electrifies the rest of me. It’s dangerous and oh, god, so gloriously dirty and I don’t know if Lucy will go for it, but it’s worth a shot. “Night’s not over.”

  Her pretty mouth drops open, but before she can argue with me, I lay a finger over her lips. “We’re not going to go back inside, but this is a perfectly good parking lot. Not too many lights. We’re in a corner near a brick wall. You’re going to lay down on the backseat with your ass at the edge so I can eat you. I want to taste you, Lucy, and after you’ve come, I’m going to fuck you. Right in this car, right in this parking lot. And if one of those guys walks by, well, all the better.”

  She’s still looking at me, her eyes impossibly wide, and I don’t want to draw my finger away from her lips because what if she says no? What if she gets mad at me
? What if I’ve gone too far? What if—

  Oh. She’s snaked her tongue out to lick my finger and then draws it into her mouth, laving it. The way she sucks on me, it reminds me of how she’d sucked on my cock and I’m epically hard right away. Like, wondering-who-thought-pants-were-a-good-idea hard. My eyes close almost against my will, but it’s as though all my power has been directed to not coming from Lucy tonguing my finger. Because I’m not fifteen, and I promised Lucy a good fuck, so that’s what she’s going to get.

  Lucy draws off my finger with an audible pop I’m lucky doesn’t make me spurt like a bottle of freshly cracked champagne.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  *

  Lucy

  My heart’s racing, but now it’s not just the creepy beat of anxiety. Nope. Now there’s definitely some excitement and the pulsing of arousal. How does he do that, make me so turned on with words? And where does he even get this stuff?

  In everyday life, Evans isn’t the smoothest operator. Nor would I want him to be, because if he were…well, I’d probably be too intimidated to talk with him and joke around. As things are, his awkwardness makes me like him more, but I love this sex whisperer part of him too, like he can read my mind and knows what to say not only to make me feel better, but get me so wet between my legs I hope there’s not a spot on his car upholstery when he finally drags me into the backseat and has his way with me.

  Speaking of, he’s practically falling out of the driver’s seat and there’s a softer beat of my heart. In the aftermath of our restroom rendezvous, I’d tried to scrub the word love from my brain, convinced it was just a stain of lust and hormones and adrenaline that had made me stupid and impulsive and not the down-to-earth farm girl who’s far too practical to fall in love with someone she’s only fucked a few times.

  But the more time I spend with him, the more I think I may have been right. I have some real…affection for Evans, which isn’t something I say about a whole lot of people. And if we weren’t who we are, and if we didn’t have the responsibilities and expectations and everything we do, we might actually be kinda perfect together. But it’s not worth getting bogged down by wishful thinking.