Always Ready

by Joanne Rock

  The girl on the northernmost platform gyrated with what looked like a python wrapped around her and surrounded by candles and torches. Two of the other professionals used poles in a more traditional, stripper-style approach. The fourth woman had been greased up and painted with some kind of shiny blue substance. The only areas that maintained the traditional flesh color were her breasts and her shaved cooch.

  “Condom?” a feminine voice asked over his shoulder.

  He turned at the same time Lacey did, and a thin redhead with an unnaturally huge rack carried a tray full of prophylactics and a few small sex toys like an oldtime cigarette girl. She wore a short skirt and a low-cut blouse in the French-maid style except that the outfit was pink and black.

  “Do these really work?” Lacey reached right into the tray and came up with a seriously studded cock ring. The package promised the wearer could bring his partner to orgasm within five minutes or less…among other things.

  The girl grinned and kept her eyes on Damon.

  “If your partner knows how to wear one they do.”

  Lacey huffed an incensed sort of sound as she tossed the toy back onto the tray.

  “I asked you a legitimate question and it wasn’t to flirt with my man.” She narrowed her eyes at the redhead and gave her an eat-shit-and-die stare. “You just lost yourself a sale.”

  The other woman frowned.

  “Suit yourself. I wouldn’t buy any toys if I had a partner like this one at the controls.” She winked at him before turning on her heel, boobs bouncing. “Enjoy yourselves.”

  Damon turned back to Lacey in time to see a waiter carry a tray full of phallus-shaped glasses toward a table of noisy women nearby. He didn’t know how many more sex references one man could handle, but he had a good idea he wouldn’t last long at In the Flesh at this rate.

  “The nerve of some people,” Lacey muttered, her gaze following the milky white drinks the waiter doled out to the lady patrons.

  “You held your own,” Damon assured her, still surprised and, yeah, sort of stoked that Lacey had referred to him as “my man.”

  Not that he was ready to delve into any kind of relationship. He’d seen too many military affairs go up in flames—his own included—to try to navigate that particular land mine again. Besides, Lacey had made it clear she didn’t see the potential for long-term compatibility. She was as surprised they’d connected as he was.

  “Yes, but I chased off someone who could have been a good source for the blog column I need to write about this place.” She turned away from the dance floor to study the slightly more sedate crowd in the upper gallery. “Who am I going to hit up for a quickie interview now? The guy in the corner trying to chat up the hot blonde who won’t look at him? Or the fake lesbians mauling each other against the bar in an effort to attract men?”

  Damon couldn’t help it. His head whipped around at that one. Too bad he didn’t see any such thing near the bar. Lacey laughed. “Got ya.”

  Keyed up from the atmosphere and from the sight of Lacey in her tiny miniskirt and miles of bare legs, Damon reached for her and pulled her to him. “Are you sure you want to tease a man whose restraint is being tested every second tonight?”

  He was tense from watching out for her, tense from keeping a lock on a hunger for her that kept growing no matter how he tried to ignore it.

  “You wanted to come with me,” she reminded him, her high, small breasts pressing against his chest with each rapid breath she took.

  He tunneled his hand a scant inch under her tank top to feel a hint of bare skin at her back. Warm and silky.

  “And I want to come with you more every second we spend here. Let’s go somewhere more private now that you’ve seen this place.” He hadn’t intended to flirt with her, let alone make obvious come-ons when he was supposed to be here to protect her. To make sure Castine hadn’t set a trap for her.

  But with Castine’s drug shipment due in this week and his last confirmed sighting a three-hour drive away, Damon relaxed his guard long enough to touch her. Castine hadn’t gotten this far in his illegal business by ignoring the details when big transactions were under way. He’d be a fool to spend time chasing Lacey around when he had a multi-million-dollar delivery to oversee.

  Besides, there was something undeniably sensual about Lacey, some spark of latent adventurousness beneath her uptight, workaholic tendencies.

  As a man who’d buried himself in his job to the detriment of one relationship after another, he couldn’t help but identify with her dedication to her work. Admire her grit and belief even if he didn’t buy in to the whole matchmaking thing himself. Watching her scientific brain trying to analyze the defining social characteristics of singles in this over-the-top scene only gave him one more reason to be fascinated by her.

  And that, coupled with a physical attraction unlike anything he’d ever experienced, was making it damn hard for him to keep his hands off her.

  IT SEEMED Little Miss Traditional Girl wasn’t as pure and reserved as she once pretended.

  Nick Castine sat in a back room at In the Flesh, watching Lacey Sutherland via a two-way mirror. The club had all kinds of back rooms, from private places for a lap dance to modified hotel-style rooms that could be rented by the hour. Nick had used both of them in the past, but tonight he’d simply wanted a place to observe Lacey without G.I. Joe spotting him. He’d already arranged for her date to be intercepted and Lacey to be brought back here to him. Their car was being staked out even now so they couldn’t slip away without him knowing.

  Nick couldn’t really afford the time away from his current operation. His biggest shipment ever was due for arriving just south of the Gulf and he needed to be available to make sure the load was properly divided into a variety of smaller vessels for easier penetration through an ever-tightening Coast Guard presence. But Lacey Sutherland’s calling him a lowlife in Café Rosita’s was a tale that had spread to some of the key players in his organization. He needed to avenge her blatant put-down. And he would make damn sure his vengeance went further than just banging her in a club back room.

  So here he was. Watching the unsuspecting woman while she allowed her new boyfriend—one Lieutenant Damon Craig, if his informants could be trusted—to touch her like they were already lovers. The man’s hands slipped under her clothing when he thought no one watched. And far from squirming away, Lacey practically quivered at the touch. Even from Nick’s vantage point, he could see her rapt attention on the Coastie, her eyes never leaving his for long.

  “Excuse me.” Some butt-kissing club staffer interrupted his thoughts, her scanty outfit marking her as one of the so-called concierge people. Nick knew they filled other roles, as well, since this one had personally lifted her skirt for him on two occasions. “We seem to be all out of the pills you wanted, Mr. Castine. Is there anything else I can get for you?”

  She shifted her hips suggestively, as if the offer of her body would make up for the club owner’s carelessness with the stash Nick had supplied him. They had a longstanding deal to help one another out, supply each other’s addictions where possible.

  But this was inexcusable. The amount of drugs he fed this place kept patrons buying drinks and paying ridiculous cover charges at this rat hole of a bar. And the Special K was his drug of choice for this kind of thing. No sex tricks from a woman he’d already had before would take the place of what he needed from Lacey.

  “Fine,” Nick tossed off as agreeably as possible, unwilling to let his frustrations show. “Give her the alternative. But you can let your boss know I’m not happy with how he’s managing the supply. Understand?”

  He was wired. Tense. Pissed. A deadly combination if these people couldn’t provide him with better service. He would have to use the Rohypnol tonight, and that irritated the hell out of him. There were subtle differences in the drugs, and Nick had experienced more intriguing results with Ketamine. Special K didn’t just wipe out the memory of the sex act afterward, it also added a level of pl
easure during sex by diminishing the ability to fight back. Nick enjoyed watching women struggle with that, the forced submissiveness a cherished component of the act for him.

  His plan-B drug didn’t give his partners as much clarity. Or fear.

  “Actually, Mr. Castine, we appear to be out of that, too, unless you have a personal stock?” The girl folded her arms across her barely clad breasts, her flirting finished now that she saw Nick didn’t want her tonight. She delivered her shitty news with zero understanding of what it meant to him.

  The stupid chick acted as if the bankrupt cupboard shelves were no big deal, while Nick silently seethed with the need to have Lacey.

  “Personal stock?” Rage spun up inside him so fast he didn’t have a chance of holding it back. Rising from his chair, he realized the girl was finally getting a clue that she’d crossed a line.

  Good. He let his fist fly, unable to call it back into a more appropriate open-handed slap. After all, this was a chick and not some steely jawed South American drug maker.

  As he watched the girl hit the opposite wall, her slender body propelled by just one punch, Nick realized he needed to ease up. Not that he gave a shit what the club owner thought. But he couldn’t afford to leave a trail the way he had once before. He’d worked his ass off to be sure no one pressed charges last time.

  He had to get himself under control.

  “Listen to me, sweetheart.” He held out his hand and helped the girl up while she clutched the side of her face. At least there was no blood. “Go give the bitch whatever we have. I don’t care if it’s strychnine or a double shot of Jack Daniels. But I damn well came for the show. Do you understand me?”

  The girl whimpered something that might have been a yes before she managed to say, “I’ll give her the X. I know he’s got some of that left over.”

  “Fine.” Nick ushered the girl toward the door, stuffing a fifty in her bra for her trouble. “Get it in her next drink for me, and I’ll take good care of you next time I come in.”

  Returning his attention to the two-way mirror, Nick kept his focus on Lacey. She swung her hips in a teasing, delectable dance. And while a shot of Ecstasy wasn’t going to make her as pliable as he would like, it could easily ratchet up her need to unbearable levels. When a woman wanted sex that badly, there was no telling what lengths she might go to in order to have it.

  Especially when her he-man bodyguard would very shortly be…indisposed. Unable to protect her, let alone provide what she wanted most. Nick had done some preliminary checking into Damon Craig’s background and discovered a few interesting facts—connections Nick could leverage to be sure Craig was distracted tonight.

  Just the thought of it sent a wave of calm through him, soothing the frayed edges of his hunger. Lacey might be one of many, many women he’d sought in the last few months, but the matchmaker compelled him. Perhaps because she’d gotten away from him so easily the first time. But also because of her job. She specialized in putting men and women together and, to a certain extent, so did he.

  He wanted to know all about what drew women to men. What made them eager to shed their panties. Lacey had to understand those dynamics to be in her business and he wanted her to share her secrets with him, to help him in finding one woman after another to satisfy the beast in him that could never be appeased with just one.

  Besides, seeing how sexually open she was tonight after she’d given him the cold shoulder on their date was an issue he wanted to address with her. She’d made herself out to be someone traditional, someone who wanted to be romanced. But she’d relinquished those values for the guy with the hand up her blouse right now, that was for damn sure.

  She’d changed her tune in a hurry for the U.S. military man, and that made Nick feel cheated.

  No woman teased him and got away with it.

  Chapter 7

  LACEY’S BID FOR RESTRAINT with Damon was all but forgotten inside the walls of the sex club.

  Even if leather clothes and studded toys weren’t her thing, she couldn’t help the flash of arousal at being around people who gave sex so much prominence in their lives. The club practically oozed the pheromones of people whose urges were close to the surface. People who took the physical aspect of sex damn seriously.

  All of which only enhanced her desire to peel off Damon’s clothes and crawl around a bed with him. Especially when he grabbed her by the waist and told her he wanted to go somewhere private.

  Pass the smelling salts, please. This man would have her in a dead faint if he kept this up.

  “I don’t think—” She cleared her throat that had gone bone-dry. “That is, I can’t go anywhere with you until I finish up here.” Although she had the feeling if she walked out the door with him right now he would have her hurtling toward release seconds after they found a private place.

  But no matter how much she wanted him, her work came first. Her job had been there for her in the past when she’d needed to rebuild her self-confidence. It had bolstered her through her mother’s unwillingness to recognize what creeps she married, her sister’s competitiveness and her own insecurities that she’d worked hard to shake. Her work would be there for her when this sexy hunk of a man disappeared from her life next week. So she wouldn’t ignore it now.

  “How can I help?” He skimmed his hand along the waistband of her skirt, never dipping beneath it, his fingers tracing small circles along her spine. “I want us to get out of here as fast as humanly possible. I don’t see any direct threats, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this place.”

  He peered around the perimeter, and she wondered if he still thought Nick Castine had followed her here. Unfortunately her job made her work public enough that she couldn’t hide from every creep whose match didn’t work out. She’d learned a long time ago you couldn’t dig a hole and hide in it when life scared the crap out of you. As long as she was smart and cautious, she wouldn’t ever live in the shadows again.

  “I need some informal interviews.” She reached in her purse. “I’m happy to buy free drinks for anyone willing to speak—”

  He held up a hand to halt her words.

  “Keep it. I don’t think I’ll have any trouble rounding up people to talk to you.” His jaw twitched restlessly with the sentiment. “You want to find a spot to sit down, and I’ll start sending sexual deviants your way?”

  Nodding, she hoped she could discover something meaningful from these interviews while under the influence of a sex drive humming along at hyperspeed.

  “I’ll sit right here, but if you could go easy on the deviants and steer more normal, relatable people in my direction, I’d appreciate it.” She needed to write something edgy for her dating blog, but not so out there that her readers wouldn’t relate.

  What readers? a small voice in the back of her brain asked. Her visitor hits had been dropping for months.

  Snagging a chair at a table two men and a woman had just vacated, Lacey watched the curvy brunette walk away with an adoring-looking stud on each arm. Curious how a woman handled two men when Lacey could hardly manage one. Well, she could imagine handling the sex. It was the idea of morning-after conversation with not one but two guys ready to do the can’t-commit dash that stymied her.

  A man’s whistle interrupted her musings and she turned to see Damon watching her, a dark scowl on his face.

  “Don’t tell me the relationship guru is interested in a three-way.” He stood not two feet from her, but his voice turned the heads of at least a half-dozen people nearby.

  Embarrassment crawled over her skin in a heated flush.

  But damn it, why should she be embarrassed? She wasn’t the one walking around a club in nipple rings and assless chaps.

  “Oh, please. Like it’s never crossed your mind before?” She withdrew a pad of paper and a fountain pen from her purse and did her best to appear unfazed.

  His scowl deepened as more than a few club-goers appeared interested in the conversation. A couple of girls and a nearby guy leaned
closer to hear.

  An opportunity she could hardly pass up, considering her need for blog material.

  “Would you like to have a seat?” Lacey offered, waving her paper at them to prevent misunderstandings. “I’m doing an article on the local singles’ scene if you have time for a couple of questions.”

  The guy dropped into the metal chair so fast you’d think he was carrying magnets in his back pocket. The girls followed suit, putting their fruity-looking drinks on the table before lowering themselves more slowly into the other chairs.

  And—how flipping perfect—Lacey realized they were twins. Not like her and Laura with more differences than similarities. These two were identical.

  Damon stepped closer, leaning down to eye level with her before she could begin.

  “I hope you know I work alone.” He spoke to her, but he made damn sure the guy seated across the table from her heard every word.

  The unmistakable sexual heat in his eyes sizzled through her skin. The raw potency of his claim made her itchy to leave with him and see what kind of followthrough he’d deliver on those words.

  “Then I hope you’re willing to pull a double shift, Lieutenant.”

  DAMON HAD TO GET out of there.

  He breathed in the night air near the back door of the club, his eyes never leaving Lacey where she still sat at the same table, interviewing people about their dating preferences.

  At first he’d just been overheated by the whole three-way conversation. After her teasing words, he wanted to take her away from the club and have her underneath him to wipe out any thought from her head of any other guy.