by Kayn, Debra
God, she was so screwed.
Chapter Nine
The soothing sound of rushing water over the rocks in the river filled the car through the opened windows. Emmett stood outside the 'Cuda now that the rain had taken a break. For the first time in days, he felt like he could sleep. Except, sleep was the last thing on his mind.
The beautiful woman with her feet propped up on his side-view mirror with the passenger seat tilted back a fraction to gaze out at the cloud-darkened sky kept him alert and hard. The pulsing need coursing through his body to find out how she kissed, how she touched, how she moved against his body kept him close to her.
She'd called tonight a date.
He never dated.
He hooked up with women when he needed sex.
With Nova, he had no idea what she wanted from him. She hadn't touched him, except to put money in his hand. Her questions to him remained generic, nothing personal. She even kept her voice real and matter of fact, not flirty or irritatingly fake.
He decided to push her a little more out of her comfort zone and moved to the inside of the open car door facing her.
Her gaze lowered to his face and she smiled. "The sky is the biggest canvas in the world. If only I could touch it, I'd never run out of room. I could paint every idea that came into my head."
"What would you paint?" He laid his arm over the frame of the door, crossed his ankles, and leaned back.
"I don't know." Her eyes glowed under the moonlight. "It's been a long time since I've been inspired to pick up a can of spray paint."
He found the statement odd coming from a woman in her mid-twenties. An activity that fulfilled teenagers' weekends, painting graffiti across the town was a phase his friends went through before they discovered cars, girls, and chugging beer. Far as he knew, none of them ever continued once they reached eighteen years old.
"What got you into spraying the sides of buildings?" Emmett thrummed his thumb against the car.
"Attention." She laughed softly, which belied her usual hard assertiveness toward him. "From a boy."
He chuckled. "Isn't that how the story always goes."
"Since the beginning of time." She lifted her feet off his door, swiveled, and perched on the side of the seat and put her shoes on the ground. "Bad boys with all their delicious meanness and loner status always break little girls' hearts."
"Including yours?"
Her lower lip swelled, and she nodded. "Cried for at least an hour."
"An hour? Damn, you must've been heartbroken." He whistled softly, amused at the retelling of the teenaged Nova.
"It took that long for another boy to notice the tears running down my face and comfort me." She shrugged on a laugh. "Not all boys are bad."
"Do you believe that?"
"I'm twenty-six years old. I've learned a lot about boys...men."
He squatted down in front of her, bracing his elbows on his knees. She was too far away from him to have a conversation about her past.
Full of secrets and intrigue, he wanted to know more.
"What about me?" He tilted his head. "Did I blow it with you tonight when I accused you of bringing trouble around to the trailer park?"
She waved her hand between them. "Already forgotten."
"Then I still have a chance?"
She stilled. "A chance at what?"
He rocked forward on the balls of his feet, slipped his hand behind her neck, and brought her forward. "This."
Nova's body became weightless under his hand, giving him permission. He captured her lips and held her in place. The extra beat of his heart. The pulse in his balls. The closeness with her was enough for tonight.
He pulled his mouth away slowly. Everything about her remained a mystery. Her taste. Her tongue. Her response. He only wanted to find out if what he felt going on between them was real.
"You can't do that again," she whispered, pushing against the hold he had on her neck.
He let her go and stood. Except, he stayed in the path of her exiting the car and took his position against the door again. "I don't think either of us can make that kind of decision right now."
"You have no say in if we kiss or not."
"Sure, I do."
"No." She stood, forcing herself into his space between the open door of the 'Cuda. "You don't."
She sidestepped away from him and walked over to the strip of river rocks at the edge of the water. He followed, keeping his distance, and stood an arm's length away from her.
"It was a good kiss," said Emmett. "You've got to admit there's something between us. You were curious, too."
She glanced at him and shook her head. "That wasn't even a real kiss."
"Then what was it?"
She stuck her hands in her back pockets. "We pressed our closed mouths together. I get more action putting on lipstick."
He ran his tongue along his bottom lip. Yeah, she wore lipstick.
"You know what I think?" He picked up a rock and tossed it into the river. "I think you have three months of vacation time, and we're going to see more of each other."
"You're wrong." She let her head fall back and looked up at the sky. "You've taken this whole night and ran with it."
"You asked me out." He turned to her.
"Right," she mumbled and faced him. "You can take me back to the inn now. I'm sure the people who are in the room next to mine have fallen asleep."
"You're sure?"
"Absolutely." She nodded. "I think I made a mistake. When I asked you out for coffee and company, I did so because I felt bad about what happened earlier at Shayla and Nick's house and thought I'd try to fix things between us, seeing as how you live next door to my cousins."
Emmett slipped his fingers into her hand. "The mistake wasn't yours. I didn't understand why you'd be sneaking money to Shayla, and I was looking out for my friends."
"I know they can't afford to make tacos or at least I wanted to help offset the cost of the extra groceries after inviting myself over for dinner. I didn't want Nick to know, because he has pride—rightly so, about supporting his sister and making payments to own the trailer. He'd never let me pitch in when it comes to helping out, not when I'm not living under his roof." She looked down at their clasped hands, squeezed, and let go.
He grimaced, finally understanding the problem he'd created tonight when he interrogated Nova in front of her family. "Damn."
"It's fine. I'll talk to Nick and smooth everything over. I'm proud of him and what he's done since I left home. I haven't told him how much I admire what he's accomplished since coming to Federal, so once we talk, everything will be okay." She rubbed the chill out of her arms.
No wonder Nick looked pissed, and Shayla aimed her anger at him. He'd stepped over the line as a guest in their home. He'd insulted a man. Something he'd never do to a friend. He'd talk to Nick tomorrow.
"Okay, let's get you back to your room." He looped his arm around her shoulders.
Three steps toward the car, Nova looked at him. "You need to take your arm off me."
"Let it rest, Nova-girl. You don't always have to be on the defensive." He tugged her closer.
She fell silent and walked beside him. He left his arm around her. Happy at what he'd learned about her tonight, he wasn't going to let her retreat away from him. She mentioned she'd be around for three months, and he wanted that time to get to know her better.
He wanted to discover what she eluded to and refused to tell him.
Chapter Ten
"Faster." The customer, Brad, reached up to grab Nova's hips.
"Don't touch." Nova stopped moving atop the customer. "Quiet."
Lust filled Brad's brown eyes at the reprimand. She forced him to wait and gathered her hair over her shoulder, running her fingers through the tangled strands, and pushed up with her legs and then let herself down. She gyrated on the customer's cock with precision.
Slow.
Torment.
For.
The.
Customer.
Brad had requested she take control of the twenty-minute session and act disinterested. She had no trouble doing both because there was no pleasure for her in the work. Redundant, boring, and predictable.
The men only came to her, because they wanted to step away from their job, their wife, their position in society and have someone take care of them for a change.
They had no desire for pretty words, soft touches, and foreplay, and she had the rules set by the bordello and used them to her advantage. She yawned without making a sound. A prostitute's only job was to provide a hole for a man to stroke his itch. Pleasure had nothing to do with sex and had everything to do with letting go of a part of yourself that society tells you to keep secret.
Whether letting go allows a person to relax or strengthens them or gives them a path to escape down, she had no idea. She only enjoyed the money she made, the rest of what she did for a living bored her and had become a chore over the years.
She stifled another yawn. Her lack of sleep finally caught up with her.
She leaned forward, keeping her breasts from touching the customer, and braced her hands on the bed. His time almost up, he needed to come. And, she needed to make sure that happened.
Digging her toes into the rug on top of the bed, she lifted, plunged, ground her pelvis against him. The rough jean material covering his thighs chafed the inside of her knees.
"Now. Give it to me." She moaned in her sexiest voice with a hint of anger, and then almost laughed when Brad's eyes shut tight and his upper body convulsed with his orgasm.
Once he exhaled his captured breath, she lifted herself off him and walked over to the dresser to put on her robe. Tying the belt around her waist, she turned around. The less time she had the customer at her back, out of her view, the better. While she'd had a few occasions when men snuck up on her when she least expected it, most of the customers held to the rules.
"There's a wastebasket by the door for the condom." She smiled to put him at ease. "Any tip is appreciated and can be placed inside the box on the way out."
Some of the ladies in the Network never mentioned tips to the customers and relied on the generous spirit of the individual. Not her. Men would walk out of the room with the fly of their pants open if they weren't reminded to zip up.
Her madam's knock came right on time and the door opened to escort the customer to the back door. Nova planted her hands on her hips and grinned behind Brad's back at Tiff. After her weekly doctor appointment in the morning, she had two days off.
Tiff shut the door quietly behind her. Nova hurried over to the small wooden box she kept on the gold painted shelf beside the door and removed the cash Brad had placed inside.
"Yes." She waved the fifty-dollar bill in the air and hurried to the dresser where she kept a locked portable safe in the bottom drawer underneath a fleece blanket and an electronic handheld Sudoku game.
A profitable day, she'd received three-hundred dollars in tips from seven customers tonight on top of the sixty percent she'd receive from the bordello for services rendered. She locked the safe. Every day, she grew closer to having enough money to buy a house.
A house fully paid for that nobody could repossess or kick her out of for missing a payment. She turned on her phone and went to the bathroom to shower. Soon, she'd search every real estate listing until she found the perfect house with a big yard and no neighbors, no dogs, no gunshots, no gossip, no fighting.
Shampoo trailed down her forehead. She closed her eyes and held her head under the spray of the water. The happiness she couldn’t contain bubbled out, and she hummed.
She'd purposely kept her plan from Shayla because she wasn't sure how her employment at Red Light would pan out. If the tips and her earnings continued at the pace of what she'd made the last two weeks, she could walk away from the Network for the next phase in her life after six long years of working her ass off.
Shayla would freak over the news. Nova rinsed the soap off her body, shut off the water, and wrapped a towel around herself. One thing was clear since coming to Federal. She wanted to live close enough to her cousins to visit. Family meant everything to her, a painful lesson she'd learned having not seen either one of them in the last three years.
"Hey, girl. Hurry and open up," shouted Tawny from outside Nova's room
She walked out of the bathroom, across the floor, and opened her door. Tawny pushed her farther into the room.
"What's going on?" asked Nova, hitching the towel higher over her breasts.
"Sh." Tawny stepped over to the dresser and threw a shirt at Nova. "Get dressed. The sheriff is downstairs. I snuck out on the balcony for a cigarette after the last customer left and saw the cop car, then the sheriff walked toward the back of the building. I swear I heard the door bang shut. He's inside, Nova."
"Shit." Nova dropped the towel and scurried into her clothes.
Tawny returned to her side. "Here's your shoes."
"Is he coming upstairs?" Nova lifted her knee and shoved her foot in the sneaker. "Have you seen the others? Tiff? Jeremy?"
"Jeremy rode away about a half hour ago when I was with my last customer, or I think he did. I heard a motorcycle while I was fucking." Tawny caught her lip between her teeth and murmured, "Oh, God. I came straight to your room. I don't know where Marci is or the other girls."
Nova grabbed Tawny by the upper arms. "Calm down. We need to find Tiff. I'm not running out of here without knowing if she's in trouble."
Upon orientation the first day of arrival at Red Light, Tiff had set up a cover story in case the women were caught in a compromising position and questioned by the authorities. As far as the community knew, the upstairs of the Sterling Building was used to board women seeking sanctuary from abusive relationships. A similar story was carried over to every bordello she'd worked at over the years.
"I'm going out and letting the others know what's going on," said Nova.
"No. You can't." Tawny grabbed her arm. "I have a record."
"What?" Nova shook her head. "How? The Network does a background check on all of us."
Tawny groaned. "The records are sealed. I was seventeen years old and working on the street corner. If I'm arrested and they take my fingerprints, law enforcement has the right to open those records, especially if I'm caught for prostitution."
"They're not going to catch you. Stay in this room. I'll go by myself and come back when I know something." Nova slipped out of the room and ran down the hallway to the kitchen, hoping to find someone who could tell her what was going on.
She glanced inside the room and turned to leave when Marci called her name. She stepped inside and breathed in relief at the sight of Tiff's assistant and the other ladies clustered in the corner of the room by the sink.
"Tawny spotted the sheriff downstairs," said Nova, rushing the words out.
Marci carried a pizza to the table. "It's okay. Tiff will be here soon to fill you in on what is going on. But for now, relax and eat. The sheriff is no threat."
"Are you kidding?" Nova shoved her fingers in her hair and groaned when they tangled in her wet strands. "There's no way I'm going to sit here shoving pizza in my face while I get arrested."
Nova turned and stormed out of the room, almost running into Tawny and Tiff. She gazed behind the two women looking for a uniformed-badge-wearing-man or suited FBI agent. Maybe a swat team in black.
"Tiff says everything is okay." Tawny wound her hair into a loose bun and put a rubber band in her hair. "The sheriff knows about us. Like, really knows we're prostitutes and protects us. Isn't that wild? I've never heard of such a thing and the Network never said a word to me."
"Yeah," muttered Nova, studying Tiff. "Me neither."
"Let's go sit down. I'll tell everyone at once, and answer any questions you have." Tiff held out her arm, motioning both women to go inside the room. "After you."
Nova sat down hard in the closest chair. Her dream was over. The stash of cash she had in her room w
ould be collected as evidence. The money in her bank account seized. She'd be wearing a jumper in a women's prison fighting off lesbians and smuggling in mascara to keep from having to fight every day.
The pizza in front of her turned her stomach. She couldn't get arrested. Not now. Not when she had every reason to want her freedom away from the Network and give up prostituting for a living.
"All right, everyone." Tiff stood behind the chair to Nova's left. "I'm sorry if any of you were scared over the news that the sheriff came for a visit. Sheriff Colby protects Red Light and knows about what I run inside the building. Federal is a small community, a poor town with a history of bordellos back before it was illegal. I'm not the only woman who has opened this building to prostitution in the last one hundred years."
"How do you know you can trust someone who has sworn to uphold the law?" Nova bent the edge of the paper plate. "Sorry, but you may trust someone from the sheriff's office, but I don't."
"I do because he's been protecting me for fifteen years." Tiff's eyes softened. "I also have the Moroad Motorcycle Club at my disposal. I can guarantee the building, you ladies, my business, is protected twenty-four/seven."
Nova gnashed her teeth. She'd proven the security in the building was beatable. At least from the inside. She only gave credit to Tiff for the outside. The alarm system would keep them safe from burglars if that were her only concern. But, the Feds and law enforcement wouldn't stop because an alarm went off or a security company was called.
"Is the whole sheriff's department aware of what we're doing here?" asked Tawny.
Tiff shook her head. "Only the sheriff. It's a small department with only two deputies and a handful of reserve policemen."
"Are we expected to have sex with the sheriff, cause that crosses a hard line for me?" Tara's mouth curled. "I couldn't do that. No way. It'd be like asking to go to prison for life."
"No. Sheriff Colby isn't allowed to use the services we provide at Red Light, nor would he want to." Tiff pointed to the pizza. "Please, ladies. Eat up. In a few minutes, Silver Girls will open downstairs, and all of you are on your own for the night."
