by M. S. Parker
I rubbed my forehead, feeling a pounding headache that had nothing to do with alcohol.
“Why, oh, why would I think this was a good idea?” I muttered.
“Because we were drunk and stupid, and you were pissed off.” Astra looked over at Kaleb. “You were pissed off about something too. I don’t know what because you wouldn’t say. But you loosened up a bit, and we all got to laughing and having a good time.”
Kaleb raised an eyebrow. “A good time still doesn't equal getting married.”
“I…” I grimaced and then looked at Astra before meeting Kaleb’s eyes again. “My dad is a senator. Silas Van Allan from Philadelphia. He’s planning on running for president, and my mom…well, she’s already mentally redecorating the White House. They’ve got ideas for how their lives will be, and they’re doing everything they can to make sure I do everything I can to help expedite his career and improve his image.”
“Come on, they can’t be all that bad,” he said, crooking a smile at me.
My belly flipped at the sight of it. A dimple, one that deepened into a wider groove as his smile grew, caused my heart to stutter a few beats. Dimples. That smile. That accent. Well, if I was going to go and marry a stranger, I sure as hell picked a hot one.
Then my brain locked in on what he said.
“Oh, they’re worse.” Heaving out a sigh, I looked over toward the window, not seeing anything around me but the life they were trying to force me into. “They hate my job, hate the things I enjoy. Sometimes I think they only had me because they thought about all the photo ops I’d present them with. That and everybody knows that a family man is much more trustworthy.”
Rolling my eyes, I managed to smile at him.
“And that’s it. Somehow my shitty mood translated into hey, let’s do something stupid. We’re in Vegas, after all. Right, Kaleb?” I hesitated before asking, “It is Kaleb?”
He gave me a short nod, still looking distracted. He pulled out his phone again, checked it.
“Look, this job…I’ll call you a cab, pay for it. We can discuss this again later?” I hated how much he was stressing over this job. And I could tell he was. He’d only checked his phone like…oh, ten times in the past five minutes.
“No such luck, Piety.” His accent gave my name a sharper sound, but I liked it. His smile was sharp too, full of edges that might cut. “The bus I needed to catch was leaving the city. They’re gone by now.”
“Oh.” My belly dropped a little more, and I rubbed my temple. “Okay, I’ll find some other way to get you where you need to go. We’ll rent a car or something. Just what is it you do?”
“I’m with Flames Down Under.” He said it calmly, staring me straight in the face, but there was a daring glint in his eye.
I couldn’t understand why. That meant nothing to me. “And just what is Flames Down Under?”
“Oh…oh!” Astra squealed and started to laugh, clapping. “This is perfect. Piety, it’s perfect. Really!”
She laughed even harder, all but bent over now.
“What’s so funny?” I glared at her while Kaleb moved over to the window and stared outside. Probably searching for his bus.
“Flames Down Under. Honey, he’s a stripper! Flames Down Under is kinda…well, they are almost like the Chippendales, but from Australia…and way hotter, if you ask me.”
Oh, shit.
My face went hot, and I shoved upright, glaring at Astra. “You think this is funny? My dad is going to freak. Dammit, Astra, stop laughing! I married a stripper! My parents are going to kill me!”
4
Piety
The second the words left my mouth, I wanted to take them back.
Appalled at myself, I looked over at him and said, “I’m so sorry. I mean, not that I really…it’s just…”
“It’s fine.” He made an absent, clearly distracted motion with his hand, his gaze once more returning to the window, his jaw locked tight.
“I really am sorry. I imagine you work pretty damn hard and I–”
“It’s fine,” he said, his accent doing nothing to soften the word, and this time, he looked at me. His jaw was tight, but there was something about the way his eyes met mine that made me think he had other things on his mind besides my unintended insult.
“Are you…um…well…I know you’re worried about the job, but I swear, I’ll get you wherever you need to be.”
He shook his head, his expression pinched. “I need that fucking job. I need the money. It’s…never mind.”
Something flashed in his pale eyes, a mix of fury and helplessness, and my belly twisted into a hundred ugly little knots. Something was going on. I didn’t know what it was, but I had a feeling it was bad. And I wanted to help him. Stranger, husband, it didn't matter. No one deserved to look like that.
“Hey!” Astra clapped her hands, drawing our attention to her. “I’ve got an idea. Kaleb, this could really help you out.”
The look in her eyes was sly, and her smile had that devious slant to it that I knew all too well. Shit.
I almost told her I didn’t want to hear it, but sometimes her ideas did have merit. Still, I was more than a little suspicious as I studied her. She was practically rubbing her hands together in glee, she looked so pleased with herself, and that was never good.
“Just what is this…idea?” I asked warily.
“Hire him.” Astra moved a little closer, standing between us like a referee as she looked from me to him.
Kaleb and I stared at each other blankly.
“Hire me?”
“Hire him?”
We spoke at the same time, and the inanity of it left us both smiling awkwardly at each other. He gestured to me, and I cocked an eyebrow at my best friend. “Don’t take this wrong, Astra, but I’m not exactly the sort of woman who wants her own personal exotic dancer.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She rolled her eyes. “But for the record – you’re nuts. Why wouldn’t you want your own private exotic dancer?”
“Just because you want your own personal pool boy, your own masseuse, a personal shopper, your own driver…”
I rolled my eyes at her, although I was teasing. She had none of those things. She joked about it, but while we’d both been born with the proverbial silver spoon, neither of us liked being waited on or catered to non-stop. Each of us had a personal assistant, but that was simply because we couldn’t keep things straight thanks to everything our parents were constantly expecting us to keep up with.
“Look, this has all been fun, but I need to figure out how to get to my gig,” Kaleb interjected.
“We’ve already figured that out.” Astra folded her arms across her chest, looking determined. “Just at least hear me out. If you don't want to do it, I’ll rent a car and chase down the bus myself.” She waggled her eyebrows. “I wouldn’t mind seeing Flames Down Under all up close and personal.”
“But–”
“Five minutes!” She moved, placing herself in front of the door, spreading her hands against it. She tossed in a bright smile and then looked at me. “Trust me, PS. It’s way better than just uploading the video to YouTube. You can prove to your parents that you’re done letting them dictate your life. And we can help Kaleb out since we went and screwed up his job.”
“As fascinating as this is, whatever you’re planning, I don’t think you can pay me what I’d be making with Flames,” Kaleb said, looking more and more pissed off by the minute. “I’m the new boy and I’m still learning, but I made fifteen hundred dollars last week – American – and that doesn’t include the tips.”
I didn’t blame him for being pissed. Fifteen hundred dollars was a decent amount of money to a lot of people. Except I could do better. I didn't know what pushed me to say anything, but to my surprise, I was the one to speak before Astra could pipe in. “I can pay more than that.”
He swung his head around, a startled expression on his face.
“I can.” I lifted a shoulder. “Grante
d, I don’t know just what Astra has in mind, but I can pay more than fifteen hundred a week. My assistant makes almost that.”
He started to say something else, but he stopped abruptly, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter how much your assistant makes, unless you plan on hiring me to take her place. Look, I really need to be going.”
“Just listen.” Astra placed herself between him and the door. “Just listen to me for five minutes, and within the next half hour, Piety will pay you fifteen hundred, and we’ll make sure you get a ride to wherever your bus is heading if you decide you don’t want to do things my way.”
That caught him off guard.
Me too.
I mean, it wasn’t like I couldn’t afford it, but it was irritating when other people got free and loose with my money. From behind him, I gave Astra a dark look, then wiped it off my face before I moved to sit down on the couch.
“It’s a fair deal,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “After all, we messed things up. We can at least rectify the situation.”
“Absolutely.”
Kaleb looked from me to her and then back. Then he shook his head. “The two of you are insane. You know that, right?”
5
Kaleb
Insane.
It didn’t even come close.
And I wasn’t any better.
Hands braced against the shower wall, I stared down at the floor. Water dripped into my face and eyes, ran down my cheekbones and chin, then along my nose before falling to my feet.
Water pounded into me from five different angles, the pressure so high, I almost felt like I was getting a top rate massage.
There was one thing to be said for this set-up so far – the shower was top-notch.
I could stay in here for another week.
Or at least another hour or so. If I could do that, maybe things would start making sense.
Somehow between last night and now, I’d gotten married to one of the most elegant, beautiful women I’d ever met. Not to mention, she was funny and determined. And that was just from the little bit of time I'd spent with her.
And her shower…
Groaning, I angled my back so that one of the jets hit it full on, pounding away stress that felt like it had been building for years.
I needed to make some phone calls. I had to call my boss for one. Even though the bus had already left, I owed it to him – and the rest of the guys – to let them know I wouldn’t be in. Not today, not any other day in the near future.
I felt like a piece of shit leaving them hanging, but even if I could get to the next tour stop, the bottom line was that Piety was offering more money. A heck of a lot more money. Once I’d heard her friend out, Piety had disappeared, and in less than twenty minutes, she’d returned with cash as promised.
But it hadn’t been fifteen hundred.
It was two thousand, and she said if I helped her out, she’d pay me five times that.
Ten grand. The exact amount I needed.
While she was gone, I’d looked her up on my phone. It wasn’t hard to find information about her. She was indeed a senator’s daughter and a bit of a do-gooder. Her parents looked like they had a pair of matching sticks shoved up their asses. If they were as bad as she was letting on…
But even as doubt formed in my mind, I pushed it away. My parents were gone. It was hard to think about doing something just to piss them off although I knew I’d done it a time or two. This, well this was a bit more extreme than anything I could've thought up. Still...
Shoving away from the wall, I reached for the shampoo. I couldn’t stay in here forever, as much as I was tempted. Even the toiletries smelled like money and the scent hit me hard. It reminded me of how her hair smelled.
Just that tease was enough to have my prick going hard, and I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut. I didn’t need to be thinking about how damn sexy she was.
It can’t hurt…you’re married.
I ignored the taunting voice and focused on scrubbing my hair.
Piety and I were not married – not really. Whatever bogus marriage that had been performed between us was a sham, one that would be annulled once Piety had done whatever she needed to do to convince her parents to leave her alone.
Moving under the spray, I rinsed my hair, still trying to pretend I wasn’t acutely aware of how it seemed like the scent of her surrounded me. She smelled so damn good.
Don’t think about it.
Hard not to though. She smelled good, felt good. I bet she tasted even better.
I was already doing a cockstand, and with a vicious swear, I turned the water to cold as I finished scrubbing up. I was shivering by the time I climbed out of the shower, but at least I wasn’t about to walk out of there looking like I was ready to jump…Piety.
My wife had come to mind first.
“Focus, Kaleb.”
Eyes closed, I pushed aside thoughts of the tempting Piety Van Allan and thought about what I needed to get done. Get my stuff from the hotel, call my boss, check in. It didn’t really seem like all that much, but I still felt like the world was spinning around me.
“One thing at a time.”
Once I was dressed, I reached for my phone and leaned against the marble countertop, staring at the shower stall in front of me.
I’d call my boss – or should I say former boss – first.
He would be pissed off, probably argumentative. And still, it was the easier call.
Another stab of guilt rose up, but I grabbed it and throttled it, shoving it deep inside a dark closet. I excelled at that. Guilt had been my best friend for a while now – a very one-sided friendship. He visited me daily, and I ignored him, pretending the little shit didn’t exist and everything was fine.
On the other side of the bathroom door, I heard a bright, happy spate of laughter. That would be Astra. It suited her, that wild laugh, the name. Piety’s laugh was calmer, more subtle. No reason for such a smooth, easy sound to hit me right in the gut, but it did.
Looking around the bathroom, I figured I had as much privacy now as I was going to get, so I dialed the number and waited.
“You tell me one good reason I shouldn’t fire your ass,” Jim Romo snapped, his smoke-roughened voice harsher than normal. He paused, taking yet another drag of his cigarette. Cancer would bypass his mean ass, looking for more fertile ground. “Come on, I’m waiting.”
“I can’t,” I said calmly. There was no point in beating around the bush and leaving him hanging. “Something’s come up, and it will be pretty much impossible for me to keep the job.”
There was a faint pause, followed by a not so faint explosion. “What in the hell do you mean you’re quitting? This is the thanks I get after giving you this gig?” He paused to suck in a breath. “You ungrateful piece of shit. You had no talent, no skill, but I took you on anyway. Now you’re leaving me hanging.”
“I’m sorry.” Reaching up, I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I can’t say anything more than that. I didn’t plan to leave you hanging, but there’s nothing I can do. Something’s come up.”
I wasn’t about to tell him the truth. I was already coming off like an ass. I didn’t need to make it worse by telling him it'd been a bad combination of alcohol and a woman.
“Fine,” he bit off. “You do whatever the hell you want, pretty boy. But don’t think you can come back. I’m done with you.”
The phone went dead. Lowering it, I closed my eyes. That had gone about as well as I'd expected, and I'd deserved every bit of it. Still, it was nothing compared to what I had to do next.
Eying the phone narrowly, I picked it up and swallowed the bile that had been rising up my throat ever since I woke up – and not all of it because of the hangover.
“Just get it over with,” I muttered to myself.
I dialed the number and waited. One ring. Two. Three.
It went to voicemail, and I gritted my teeth, swearing silently as her voice came on the line.
“This
is Camry. You know the drill!”
I didn’t bother leaving a message.
She hadn’t called back the last few times I’d left one, and I didn't really have anything new to say.
A wild hoot of laughter came from beyond the door, drawing my attention to the women waiting in the main part of the suite. Despite myself, I was drawn to the levity between the two of them. Drawn to her. I’d like to hear her laugh, and maybe see her smile again – not that caustic one that had flashed across her face when she spoke about her parents.
I wanted to see a real smile.
And damn what I would've given to have met her under different circumstances. Shoving away from the counter, I moved to the door and opened it. Time to face the music...
Silence fell, the conversation between them falling to a complete stop.
Two gorgeous women looked over at me, and I had another fleeting thought about how crazy my life had become. Not just in the past twelve hours, but in the past few weeks, the past few months.
A year ago, it had been almost boring. I surfed. I went swimming. I worked at the shop. A nice, boring routine.
That was it.
Now, I was staring at a woman I had somehow married, and I decided this was about as awkward as it had been the first time I’d gone out on stage. Well, maybe not quite that bad. But it was damn close.
“So…” I shoved my hands into the front pockets of my worn, faded jeans. “What do we do now?”
Piety got to her feet, her wide, sexy mouth curled into a smile that made me wish I could remember anything from last night. “Today, we’re going to have fun.”
“Fun?” I repeated. Running my tongue across my teeth, I debated whether or not I should say anything, but then I decided what the hell. “You’ve already paid me two thousand dollars. You’re paying me another eight–”