‘I’m not sure if it’s Layla I’m worried about or Mom.’
‘Mom? Why would you worry about her?’
‘Layla likes to speak her mind and she doesn’t pull her punches.’
Blaser’s lips quirked. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yeah,’ Ruger said, taking a deep breath and picking at the label on his bottle. ‘She just opens her mouth and lets out the sass, and she’s not shy about telling someone when they’re out of line. She voices her opinion about what Jansen’s doing and she calls me out on my behaviour too, like she has the right to comment on our lives.
‘Last night, we were in this motel, and she gave me grief because I made a stupid joke about porn. I mean, come on, it was a joke, and it’s not like she doesn’t have enough sass to go around. The girl is really quick-witted and makes fun of me, but I don’t think she likes it when I give it back to her and—‘
Lifting his focus from the bar, Ruger was surprised to see Blaser rubbing a hand over his mouth, doing a terrible job of hiding his amusement. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Ruger asked.
‘Nothing,’ Blaser said, quickly clearing his face. ‘I guess you’ll have to stay with Mom while this is going on too.’
‘Stay with Mom? No way, I couldn’t move back in there.’
‘Mom’s is always your first stop when you come home,’ Blaser said. ‘She loves nothing more than spoiling her baby. And now that she knows that Colt and I have women of our own to keep us in line, she doesn’t have to worry about us.’
‘Where is Bri?’ Ruger asked, scanning the room.
‘She’s at Ivy’s,’ Blaser said, resting his hands on the bar again. ‘Bri was looking after the garage while Ivy was away, so she said she was going there to bring Ivy up to speed. I think it’s an excuse to drink wine and make fun of guys, or whatever women do, but I’m just happy to see her smiling.’
‘She would have sympathy for me.’
‘Sympathy is going to be hard for you to find on this one,’ Blaser said. ‘All you have to do is stay at home for a couple of weeks. It’s really not a big deal.’
‘Easy for you to say, you’re not the one being subjected to it.’
‘Subjected to what? Mom’s cooking? You love it and she’ll do all your laundry, turn down your bed, draw you a bath, whatever the hell you want, because she loves taking care of you. You afraid of looking like a momma’s boy in front of Layla?’
‘No, I told her I love Mom, I’m not ashamed of that.’
‘So if Mom isn’t the problem…’ Blaser said, leaving his question hanging in the air.
‘What?’ Ruger asked, sitting straighter. ‘I don’t have a problem with Dad.’
‘Which leaves one other person who’s currently in the house,’ Blaser said.
Glancing behind Blaser, Ruger nodded to show his brother that there were two waitresses waiting for Blaser’s attention. When he noted them, Blaser left the family corner to go and deal with the orders.
Ruger guessed that Blaser was implying that he’d have a problem with Layla, but he couldn’t figure that one out. He was great with women. They loved his easy manner and his jokes. It didn’t hurt that he wasn’t hideous to look at either. He hadn’t met a woman who he couldn’t flirt into submission, not that he took advantage of women, but he found it easy to ingratiate himself with them.
‘Hey, baby.’
Destiny strutted over. Holding her arms wide, she draped one over his shoulders and the other around his chest. She was such a pixie of a woman that she almost couldn’t reach the breadth of him to link her fingers, so she hung them around his neck, pushing her breasts into his arm and pressing a loud kiss to his cheekbone.
‘Hey, Destiny,’ he said, tipping his head back to finish off his beer.
‘Why so blue?’ she asked, laying her head on his shoulder. ‘You’ve been over here all night with that scowl on your face.’
‘I’m not scowling,’ he said.
Crystal rounded him to enter the bar and she spun around to examine his expression. ‘Yes you are,’ Crystal said. She dropped her elbows to the bar and propped her chin on the heels of her hands. ‘You want a private dance?’
‘I’ll volunteer,’ Destiny said, rubbing her nose back and forth on his ear. ‘Will that put a smile on your face?’
‘I’m smiling,’ he said, forcing himself to do just that. ‘See.’
‘It’s a girl,’ Crystal said to Destiny. ‘Any guy who’s that determined not to let it show, can only be smarting over a girl. Anyone we know?’
‘Oh, you hooking up?’ Destiny straightened, but kept one arm around his shoulders. The other hand went to her cleavage. ‘My heart is breaking.’
He might have worried about Destiny’s statement after what he’d heard at the house tonight about others’ opinions on his relationship with the stripper. But Destiny was wearing a smile as wide as her face, so she obviously wasn’t being serious.
Crystal laughed and leaned over the bar to rest a hand on his shoulder. ‘You Warner boys never will let one have something that the others don’t, will ya?’
‘What does that mean?’ Ruger asked.
‘Colt is getting married, and Blaser has Bri,’ Crystal said. ‘You’re not going to be far behind.’
His laugh loosened his shoulders. ‘Not me, sweetheart. I’m avoiding that particular abattoir.’
‘Poor thing,’ Crystal said to Destiny.
‘Denial,’ Destiny said to Crystal’s nod.
‘Why should I tie myself down when I have such a delectable buffet to sample right here?’ he said, looping an arm around Destiny. ‘There’s plenty of me to keep all you ladies happy. I care about all of you. I’m not a one woman man.’
‘You’re not allowed to sample the women in here,’ Crystal said. ‘Colt’s rule, remember?’
‘Hey, both my brothers hooked up with women who were waitresses in here.’
‘Man’s got a point,’ Destiny said.
‘So you ladies get in line and I’ll show you how much love there is to go around.’
‘Room three is free,’ Crystal said to Destiny who took Ruger’s hand.
He hadn’t exactly meant to imply that he wanted a private dance. But it wouldn’t be the first time he’d auditioned a girl who ended up working here; although he had never slept with any of the Risqué girls.
Rising from the stool, he figured it couldn’t hurt to let Destiny strut her stuff. But before he turned around, he caught a glimpse of a familiar form coming in the main entrance on the other side of the bar.
‘Fuck,’ he whispered, crouching to get a better view of the woman who was suddenly lit in a bright pink flare from the stage. ‘Rain check, sweetheart.’ Ducking to kiss Destiny’s cheek, he put a hand to her waist and pushed her into the bar so he could get past her.
Twisting and weaving through men and employees, Ruger got to the opposite side of the bar to meet the woman wearing the dress she’d had on to meet with the Potter guy.
‘Layla,’ he said in a stern tone that he didn’t recognise as his. Wondering how his father’s voice got into his throat, Ruger’s hand went up to curl around the front of his neck. Layla spun around and her glittering eyes were pleased with themselves, which only made his brows clamp down. ‘I told you to stay at home.’
Grabbing her arm, he hauled her to the wall behind the last booth in the row. ‘Yeah,’ she said, clutching her purse to her hip. ‘Then I remembered, you’re not my father, my brother, or my parole officer, so you have no right to try and dictate my movements.’
‘No right? I’m the guy keeping you safe, and that gives me plenty of rights over you.’
‘Does it?’ she asked, tilting her head. ‘I haven’t seen any danger yet. In fact, if my brother hadn’t verified your story I’d be starting to think that you were keeping me around for another reason.’
‘What kind of reason?’ he asked.
Noticing that his grip was still around her arm, he dropped it to his side. His body was
cloaking hers from the rest of the room, and with the booth to his left, he could angle his body to keep her exactly where he wanted her to be, so the physical contact was unnecessary, touching her was an indulgence.
Her dark hair was swooped to one side and held in place with a clasp that sparkled when the light from the stage cast over them. It was hypnotising, but he didn’t remember packing that with the rest of her things. The swathes of glossy hair reflected the light too and he was reminded of the first time he’d seen her in the flesh. He’d been parked outside her apartment complex for over an hour and the Miami heat had been making him sticky.
But the clack of heels on metal brought him out of his funk in that car, because when he looked up all he’d seen were long, tanned legs, making him momentarily forget the reason why he was there in Miami. He hadn’t bothered to look at the face that belonged to the legs that were hurrying down the external stairs of the apartment building he’d been staking out. The sandals with the skinny heel accentuated the sculpted calf and the svelte thighs he could see under a short, see-through skirt that gave him a clear view of the outline of the rest of those thighs.
‘Hey!’ Layla said and smacked his chest, bringing him out of that memory.
For a few seconds on that stifling day, he’d considered pursuing those legs, but then he’d caught sight of the face attached to them and it was the same one that was pouting up at him now. ‘What?’
‘Move aside, I want to get a drink,’ Layla said.
‘I told you that you couldn’t use your cards.’
‘I have cash in my purse,’ she said.
‘Which you should ration because we don’t know how long it will have to last you. Do you think that booze is the best way to spend your sparse funds?’
‘Drew will get money to me if he has to,’ she said. Opening her fist, which was still on his chest, she pushed her palm into his pectoral muscle. ‘Will you please move aside?’
He had no good reason not to move, not now that she was here. With Blaser and security, it was actually easier to keep her safe here than it was to leave her unprotected at his mother’s.
Doing as she asked, he side-stepped and she wiped away her glare to replace it with a warm smile that bared no resemblance to the harsh, judgemental woman he’d accused her of being. Full of confidence, she sashayed over to the bar, and more than a few of the patrons took their eyes away from the dancers on stage to watch this clothed woman make her way to the bar.
He hated that he was visited by anger at the sight of these men ogling the same legs he could be accused of ogling himself. She went to the bar and slapped a hand onto it, meaning anyone in proximity who hadn’t been looking at her was. She didn’t mind though, Ruger wasn’t sure she realised what she’d done by arriving in the way that she did. She was focused on Blaser who left the order he was filling to cross to her.
Starting toward the bar, he reached Layla’s side in time to hear Blaser laughing at something she had said. ‘Bet you’re glad Bri’s not here now,’ Ruger said and Blaser’s laugh faltered to a frown.
‘What?’ Blaser asked.
‘Nothing,’ Ruger mumbled. He’d been about to berate his brother for flirting with a woman in spite of the girlfriend he had waiting at home.
Blaser and Bri weren’t jealous because they only had eyes for each other. That was the reason Bri could help Blaser run a club full of half-naked women without ever complaining or being insecure. Blaser didn’t notice any other woman when Bri was in the room and no amount of flesh would distract him from his love for Bri.
Ruger knew that and he didn’t really think that Blaser was making a play for Layla, but his instinct to get between her and another man was overwhelming. So much so that he hadn’t recognised that he was going to do something about it until he’d already spoken.
‘Someone missed dinner,’ Layla said to Blaser in explanation of Ruger’s behaviour. Leaning back to put an arm around him, she patted his stomach and pouted at Blaser. ‘If Ruger hadn’t been in such a rush to ditch me then he might have enjoyed his momma’s leftovers. But he was in too much of a hurry to come out and play here.’
‘Playing sounds like Ruger all right,’ Blaser said. ‘But my baby brother has never been accused of being in any kind of a hurry before.’
‘Ah, you’re Blaser,’ Layla said, holding a hand across the bar, Blaser shook it in introduction. ‘I should’ve known. I’m Layla.’
‘I’d figured that out,’ Blaser said, giving her back her hand.
‘Has Ruger been talking about me?’
Blaser’s mouth opened and he inhaled in prelude to speech. Worried about what his brother would say, Ruger was quick to shut him up before he started.
‘Just get the girl her drink, will you?’ Ruger said. Not appreciating the smirk on Blaser’s face as he withdrew to fill Layla’s order, Ruger pulled up a stool beside hers. ‘You could have raided my mother’s liquor cabinet if you had a habit you haven’t clued me in about.’
‘I don’t have a habit,’ she said, closing her hands over her purse on the bar. Blaser brought her drink and she nodded in thanks.
She was too busy trying to catch the straw with her tongue to notice the look he and Blaser exchanged before Blaser went back to filling his waitresses’ orders. ‘So why did you come?’ Ruger asked. ‘Why here? You could’ve gone to any bar in the city.’
‘Because Lyssa and Suzette said this was sort of a family hang out, for the younger generations at least. Your mom says she’s never been here.’
‘Not while it’s open, no,’ Ruger said, regretting leaving Layla alone with such a wealth of information and women who enjoyed sharing it. ‘You told her you were coming here?’
‘Lyssa dropped me off after she took Suzette home. Colt got his man, so he’s waiting at home for Lyssa. She was eager to get there for the baby making, I guess. Is Colt hot too?’
‘He’s Blaser’s twin,’ Ruger said. ‘They’re not identical, but we all have the same kind of look about us.’ Though Ruger had a couple of extra inches of height on his brothers. ‘You said “too.” You think I’m hot, honey?’
‘I think your brother is,’ she said, widening her smile around that small black straw. Twisting to face him, she held her glass in one hand and the straw between her fingers with the other. ‘This place isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.’
‘It’s not seedy. There are no drugs on the premises and the women make a wad of tips, which they keep. Blaser makes enough in drinks and door admission that he covers his overhead.’
‘They didn’t charge me admission,’ she said.
‘You’re a woman.’
‘I’m glad that they noticed. So can anyone dance here?’
‘You are not getting up to dance,’ he said. It was possible that she’d already raided the liquor cabinet at his mother’s house if she was considering twirling with the pole herself.
‘Not me,’ she said, putting down her glass and taking his hand. ‘Will you dance with me?’
‘Oh no, not a chance,’ he said. She bounced back when she leapt off her stool and tried to make for the centre of the room. He remained on the stool and was happy to wrap their joined hands around to his back, forcing her to stand against him. ‘We’re not dancing.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s not that kind of place.’
Turning her head, she checked out as much of the room as she could see. ‘I see other people dancing.’
‘Other women, you see other women dancing, and they’re on stage or on tables. This isn’t a nightclub. Have you ever been to a strip joint before?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Why would I go to a strip joint?’
‘Look,’ he said. Spinning her around, he shifted in his stool and brought her into the vee of his thighs. With his head dipped, he rested his cheek in her hair to talk into her ear. ‘The women dance on stage, they dance on the tables, and if a guy pays enough, they’ll dance in one of the private rooms over there.’ He pointed to
the door, which led to the private rooms, then flattened his hand on her abdomen. ‘The men watch. Some toss money onto the stage, some tuck it into a G-string, but do you see any of the men dancing?’
Her hair tickled him and caught on his stubble as she scrutinised the club. ‘No, and they all look…’
‘They’re happy to be watching the women dance, not a single complaint, and no man is itching to get up and join in. The point is to enjoy the view, not partake in the spectacle.’
‘Isn’t that sort of boring for the rest of us?’
‘Does anyone in here look bored?’ There were the usual grumpy men in the room, some of whom didn’t look particularly exuberant, but no one looked bored.
‘No.’
‘This isn’t a nightclub, if you want to go to a nightclub—‘
‘You’ll take me?’ she asked, flipping around so he found himself nose to nose with her.
‘If our road trip is anything to go by then what you’re looking for is a karaoke bar, and you’re not going to find me in one of those any time soon,’ he said. ‘You don’t have the money to spend either.’
‘You know, you keep reminding me that I’m nearly penniless and you keep reminding me that you’re the one who is supposed to be looking after me. Doesn’t that make you responsible for bank rolling me too? Given that you’re telling me I can’t access my own bank accounts.’
‘I only pay women who provide me with a service,’ he said.
‘You pay for company. Ah, right, that makes a lot of sense.’
‘I don’t pay for sex,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘And I didn’t say that,’ she said, her glossed lips tilted closer. ‘I said you pay for company. I imagine with your personality type it’s difficult to find people who will volunteer to be your friend.’
‘You ain’t no picnic yourself, honey,’ he said, struggling to find a purpose for his hands that didn’t involve touching her. ‘I don’t see a line of friends and lovers forming to take care of you in your time of need.’
Her frisky disposition sagged and although she tried to disguise her hurt, he saw it spread throughout her self-conscious form. ‘Well, aren’t you a delight,’ she said, backing off, she snatched her purse from the bar and made for the door.
Game Of Risk (Risqué #3) Page 7