We squeezed through the throng of bar patrons, the music moving their feet and rocking their bodies. I let the beat move through me, loosening up my limbs and filling me with energy.
A lanky guy with shaggy, sandy blonde hair hopped off his stool when he saw us approach the high-top table where he sat. I assumed this was Marco. Zara attempted to make introductions, but even shouting, it was hard to hear anything this close to the stage where the DJ worked his magic.
We all managed to squeeze stools in around the table, facing the dancefloor, which was packed with bodies pressed right up to the stage. With one bar directly at our backs, it took no time at all to procure drinks from the handsome bartender pouring them.
“You all having a good time tonight?” he asked in that Tennessee accent as he slid my Jack and Coke in front of me.
I may have leaned in a little more than was necessary, pasting a flirtatious smile on my lips. He was cute. “The night’s just getting started, so we’ll see.” I gave him a wink as I lifted my drink to my lips.
The corners of his curled. “I can see that you’re trouble. Your boyfriend better keep an eye on you.” He flicked his gaze over my shoulder and I followed it to Luke, who already had a bottle in his hand and sat sideways on his stool, his attention split between a conversation Kellen and Shae were having with Marco and Zara and my interaction with the bartender.
With an evil grin, I leaned in closer. “He doesn’t mind sharing.”
The bartender chuckled low and shook his head. “Somehow, I don’t believe you at all.”
“Why not?”
“Because, no man in his right mind would share you. Least of all that one.” He jerked his head at Luke, and when I glanced over my shoulder, his eyes were now fixed solely on me, probably wondering what we were saying about him.
I turned back to Mr. Handsome behind the bar. “I’m screwing with you. He’s not even my boyfriend.”
“Good to know.” A slight sexy grin played with his mouth.
I smiled coyly around the edge of my glass.
“Let me know if you need anything else.”
“I will,” I told him and spun around with my drink in my hand to rejoin my friends.
“What was that?” Luke leaned in.
I shrugged. “Nothing. Bartender thought you were my boyfriend so I tried to convince him we were a couple of swingers looking to play, but he didn’t buy it.”
He snorted a laugh. “No?”
“Yeah. Said there’s no way any man, least of all you, would share me.” I laughed again, but the humor left Luke’s face.
“He’s right,” he dropped his voice to a sexy growl and his eyes narrowed darkly. “I wouldn’t share, baby doll.” He winked and the corner of his mouth turned up in a half smirk.
He better watch himself. I’d leave him so damn wanting, he’d have to take care of himself in the shower tonight or suffer the worst case of blue balls known to man.
“I think we need to go dance.” I placed my drink down on the table and took Shae’s hand, not giving her a choice but to follow me.
My body found the rhythm as we eased ourselves into the mass of bodies, remaining close the edge rather than be swallowed by the crowd. My eyes drifted back to where we’d left the guys standing with our new friends.
My gaze collided with Luke’s and I let my hips lead my body in a more sultry dance. He wasn’t smirking now, but he didn’t look away. After all, he was still a man and I knew how to capture and keep a man’s attention. A few subtle moves were all it took for the look on his face to change completely from amused to something else.
I let it drive me. The familiar rush it gave me was heady. Heat and lust swirled within me and I used it all, keeping my toes on just this side of the line. These were the times when we pushed each other the furthest. We might even straddle that line occasionally, but it was all in fun and I never had to worry about him taking it too far for the same reason he could get away with his sexy comments and indecent looks. We were safe targets to blow off a little steam without thinking it was more than that, without letting it become more than that.
I took the hunger I saw in his eyes and channeled it back to him. I let my body do the talking and I had him. The satisfaction I felt was immense even though this craving inside me had nothing to do with him.
I knew from experience it would only last as long as the song did, but like a junkie I was addicted to the rush. The control. The sway I held for a few minutes. But it was an illusion. Not real. Just like a junkie that thinks they control their habit, when really the habit controls them. That was me, and tonight Luke was giving me the fix I needed. It’d been too long since I’d felt this.
In the back of my mind was the worry that I’d never really be able to leave my old life behind. That the real reason I’d grown so bored lately with the guys who pursued me was because I missed this feeling. I missed being up on that stage, missed knowing I owned every man in the room, that I could literally make them beg and yet only give them what I wanted to. In that relationship, I held all the power. I didn’t get that on a normal date, or by hooking up with nice guys who didn’t know what I was about. The men who came into The Orchid, they knew the score. They craved what I could do to them.
I needed that and at the same time hated it. I never wanted to go back, but didn’t know how else to deal with these twisted needs.
Shit, I was fucked in the head and that’s why I was doing this. Luke was the only one who understood me, understood what this was for me, and gave it to me, let me use him in this way without risking our friendship. I just didn’t know what he got out of it, and worried that eventually I might take it too far without the club to unleash this thing inside me I didn’t even understand.
Six
Luke
Present
She was sex incarnate, the very embodiment of lust.
The worst part was she knew it. She knew how to use her body like a weapon, to tempt and manipulate. I was well aware of what game she was playing with me, and still I could do nothing but stare, transfixed.
And then she beckoned me with one little crook of her finger. I told myself to stay put, but my brain was not in control. My feet followed different orders, my heart thudding in time to the beat, pumping all the blood in my body south. I set my beer down on the table and Kellen thumped me on the shoulder.
“Good luck, man.” Even he knew that I was playing with fire when she was like this, but I could see in her eyes that she needed this.
“You gonna leave your girl out there?” I asked him.
“No. No I’m not.”
We both made our way toward the girls. The closer I got to Ci, the stronger the pull was, like gravity was dragging me to her. Her hips moved and I needed to put my hands on them. She tipped her head back and all the long blonde hair cascaded everywhere. I needed to breathe her in. Her hair. Her skin.
I needed to feel her pressed against me, every lush curve. She could see it and she got off on my need. She cast her enchantment, and lured men in like the siren that she was. I’d seen it time and time again at the club. Men that convinced themselves they were in love with her. Men that would show up night after night for a taste of what she gave them, for the illusion that they could have her, that she loved them back.
How many times had my guys had to drag those poor saps out of the club and ban them because they couldn’t handle the truth. Strong, powerful, wealthy men who she made weak because the truth was the girl they all saw, the girl swaying in front of me with the sultry eyes and come get me grin, wasn’t real. That wasn’t the real Ci. She’d never let anyone touch the real her. It took me a long time to understand this side of her that enjoyed seeing men break, when it was so at odds with the girl who appeared carefree and light-hearted most of the time.
The grin on her lips spread a little wider when I was within her reach. She flattened her palms against my chest and slid them up to my shoulders. I set my hands on her waist and let them drift down
to her hips, loving the feel of her in my hands. Her body was like a conduit for the music. It rolled through her and into me.
She spun around and pressed her back to my front, raising one hand up and hooking it around my neck. I held her hips and tried to calm the raging lust that made me want to do something stupid, like pull her hair to the side and run my lips all over her neck and shoulder to taste her, but this wasn’t about me. It was about her, and I would give her this and let her work it out of her system.
She rolled her hips and ground her ass against the erection in my jeans that was very real. Fuck, did she know what she was doing? Stupid question. She knew exactly what she was doing. And now I knew how the damn pole felt when she worked it. She used my body like I was her prop. Song after song.
She grabbed my hands and slid them to her stomach as she swayed and rolled her hips. She shoved them higher up her ribcage and I forgot about the music and other people around us entirely.
I snaked one hand up between her breasts to the column of her throat. She tipped her head back against my chest, eyes closed, cheeks flushed. I gently curled my fingers around the base of her throat. Her lips parted slightly and I wanted nothing more than to claim them with my own. I bent my head, grazing my nose over her hair and breathed her in. She smelled of citrus and something almost spicy. She was damn mouthwatering and it would have been all too easy to forget reality for a few minutes and give in to my body’s commands.
Then she slowly ground her ass against my erection again as her eyes opened, finding mine. What I saw in them stopped everything for me. It was like she was high, no longer even aware of what we were doing she was so lost to it. Fuck, this was too far. We didn’t usually let ourselves get this carried away, but I’d seen the itch building under her skin over the last few weeks. An itch she could no longer scratch at the club.
I loosened my hand around her neck and then slowly pulled it away altogether, releasing her. She spun around, a hazy, confused look on her face. She really was high or drunk on whatever this was for her.
I shook my head and leaned in to whisper in her ear, “You win. Now I need another drink, and a cold shower you little vixen.” I hoped by making the mood light and teasing again it would bring her down.
It took a second, but then she seemed to snap out of it, and when she did, for a second she appeared almost embarrassed, but quickly hid it. She shrugged, stepped back, and started swaying her hips again, raising her arms in the air and rocking her body, but she was more subdued. Her eyes found something or someone over my shoulder and the sexy grin returned to her lips. One glance confirmed she’d found a new toy.
The bartender was watching her like he’d give anything to be off the clock at that moment. I actually felt sympathy for the guy. As long as she was making someone want her, Ci didn’t care who she had on the hook. Maybe it should have bothered me, but I knew it wasn’t personal. It never was with her. Not sex anyway.
Leaving her there, I returned to my beer and our new friends. I kept my back to the dance floor while attempting to carry a conversation with Marco and Zara over the music.
They were telling me about another place up the street when Kellen and Shae slid onto the stool next to me. Ci wasn’t with them. She wasn’t difficult to find though. A quick look over my shoulder and that damn red dress was the first thing my eyes zeroed in on. Next were the hands all over it. They belonged to some douchebag in a pair of shiny cowboy boots and a black Stetson, both of which he probably picked up at one of the shops we’d passed on our walk to the bar. His whole look was too contrived. His back pockets were bedazzled for fuck’s sake.
His hands were sliding up and down the sides of her body and she allowed it. Anyone else watching would think she was into him, but I recognized the mask she wore. It shouldn’t have pleased me that at least when it was me she was working up, she didn’t have to pretend to want me back, but it did. I don’t think I would be able to take it if she was faking with me too. The male ego really was a fragile thing I guess, which is why I knew that if she took it too far with this guy, he wouldn’t be happy when he found out she had no intention of following through.
I turned to Kellen. “I’m ready to get out of here, you guys?”
Kellen left it to Shae, who simply nodded and shouted. “Let me grab Ci.”
That would probably go over much better than me dragging her away from the dude. Less chance of him losing his cool. It was a dangerous game Ci played.
“We can show you the other place we told you about,” Zara offered.
I watched Shae work her way to Ci and say something in her ear. With a nod, Ci pulled away from the handsy douche-cowboy without so much as a, thanks for the dance. He looked more than a little sorry to see her go, but at least he didn’t get aggressive.
I didn’t wait for them, and started making my way to the door. The air wasn’t much cooler outside but it was fresher, and away from the music I was able to clear my head. I was still feeling our dance and if she kept this up, it would be a long night.
She was under my skin more than usual and it was making it harder and harder to deny myself the thing I wanted to take, even though I knew it would wreck fucking everything. It was a special kind of hell wanting to have sex with your best friend, but it was the side effect of helping her release some of whatever it was that ate her up inside, and also of the fact that she was just drop dead fucking gorgeous.
“Where to, next?” Shae and Cici appeared, arm in arm, the rest of the group in tow.
“That way, on the next block.” Zara pointed up the street. “Honky Tonk Central.”
The six of us worked our way up the block to the bar that was actually three bars; a different one on each of the three levels. Marco and Zara led us all the way to the top.
Four guys with instruments were entertaining the crowd with old school Garth Brooks. They weren’t half bad even if it wasn’t my taste. Now play me some even older school Cash, Hank, or Haggard and it would be a different story.
We found an empty table and got a few beers on the way from the friendly waitress making rounds through the room. Ci of course had to go make friends with the guy behind the bar. He didn’t know what was about to hit him. There would be no reigning her in. Ci was in rare form tonight, and even when she wasn’t looking for trouble, she always made an impression.
Dude was going to go home tonight and I knew he’d be seeing only one thing when he closed those eyes. I would know. Too many times at the end of the night I’d let the fantasy in my head go further than I should. I knew I needed to put a stop to it, that it wasn’t good for either one of us, but I didn’t know how. It was my dirty little secret.
I just wished I knew the whys of what drover her, but from day one she’d been a puzzle I couldn’t figure out. That’s how she wanted it. I should have known she was trouble from the first instant she stepped inside the club asking for a job.
Some days I wished I’d just told her no.
But it was that look in her eye, the one that told me she wouldn’t have even set foot inside the place if she’d felt she had another option. She was a twenty-year-old kid who belonged at a frat party, or better yet, in her dorm studying. Not in a gentlemen’s club.
But I could see that she was troubled, desperate, and determined.
Cecilia Rhoades had a past. She had secrets, and whatever they were, they brought her to me. I’d made it my responsibility to look after her, to take care of her in a way I didn’t with the other girls, but most days I asked myself if I’d helped her at all, or I had turned her into this? She wasn’t the same girl, and yet I could still see that girl in there. The one hiding behind the face she put on for the world.
I’d agreed to come on this trip for more than one reason. Not only because I’d do anything that girl asked, because somehow between giving her the job and now, she’d gone from employee to friend to good friend and drinking buddy, poker buddy, surfing buddy–although she sucked at surfing, but still I taught her–to b
est friend. We’d had rocky moments as we figured out how two people that were attracted to each other could be friends, but shit, now just about every part of my life involved her. She was at my place with the rest of the guys on fight nights. We had a standing date for every Marvel movie released in the next ten years. She had a key to my place, that is if she hadn’t mailed it to my mother.
She gave me business advice, hell even dating advice, not that I’d required it much over the years. Mostly it just went like, “She’s a gold digger after your money,” and she’d be right and I’d quit seeing the girl. And any relationship that didn’t end for those reasons, usually ended because I’d rather spend my weekends grabbing a cold one at the sports bar with Ci than suffer through an evening of fine dining and shallow conversation just to get whatever woman I was seeing back to my place for what promised to be much less satisfying than the fantasies my best friend inspired. See how that could create problems in a relationship? Also see why I couldn’t fuck up the good thing I had with Ci by making it about sex? We almost went there once and I figured out it would be the quickest way to lose her from my life.
That was not an option. It just wasn’t, and so here we were.
I hoped on this trip I’d finally find out what she’d been running from six years ago when I met her. I thought insight into her past would tell me why she ended up at my club and why she didn’t like to let anyone get too close.
Seven
Celia
Six years ago
February
I slid my finger through the seal, tearing open the envelope, already knowing I didn’t want to read what the letter inside said. I had a pretty good idea. It was from the school. Second semester’s tuition was due. In fact, it was due over a month ago. I’d given them a small payment to hold them off, but I guessed they wanted the rest of their money. Imagine that. Greedy bastards.
A quick scan of the letter confirmed that I either got them their money or I was out on my ass. There was a number for me to call to set up a payment plan, but it wouldn’t do me any good, seeing as the few hours a week I helped out in the library barely covered my books and put gas in my car. My bank account was depressingly low. The library job wasn’t going to cut it, but what else would work with my course schedule and pay me enough to cover tuition?
Anywhere With You Page 5