by Sam Crescent
“Not at all. I’m just keeping her company.”
Jacob stared at her for several seconds before turning toward Tamsin. “You, young lady, should be in bed.”
Tamsin folded her arms, glaring at him. “Everyone down there is having fun.”
“I’m not having fun,” Lou said.
“What?” Tamsin and Jacob both asked at the same time.
“It’s not all fun. Sometimes adults have to have parties for no reason but it’s expected of them. What were you doing before you came sat here?”
“Reading.”
“I’d love to be reading right now. A nice big mug of cocoa, there’s nothing better is there?”
“No, there’s not,” Tamsin said.
“You better get to bed before Mom and Dad catch you.”
Tamsin stuck her tongue out at her brother, giggling as she did. “It was nice to meet you, Lou.”
“You, too.”
She was surprised when the young girl threw her arms around her shoulders, holding onto her. “Thank you.”
In the next second Tamsin was gone, and Lou was alone with Jacob.
Getting to her feet, Lou made her way back downstairs, but he stopped her by placing his hand in front of her.
“We’ve not been introduced,” he said.
She didn’t like the way he put his arm out to stop her, nor did she like how he took a step toward her.
“Louisa Moore,” she said, holding her hand out, taking a step away from him. “I know who you are.”
“Ah, my reputation precedes me.”
She frowned. “My brother showed me your picture a few years back. That’s how I know of you.”
He made to reach out, and Lou flinched away from his touch. She had heard a lot of bad shit about Jacob, and she didn’t even want to be alone with him.
Chapter Three
She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Jacob reached out to touch her but she flinched away from him, and in that moment, he knew that she didn’t have a clue what was going on with him. From the moment he’d caught sight of her in the main room where the party was held, he’d followed her.
When he caught sight of her with his sister, he’d not been able to move. He’d been concerned for his sister as she wasn’t supposed to be visible to the party members, and then he’d waited, listening to her talk. Was there a time when she was sitting on the stairs wishing she was downstairs?
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Then why were you going to touch me?”
Lou was such a feisty woman, and nervous as hell. He wondered if she even knew it. “I was just going to tuck your hair behind your ear, Lou,” he said, holding his hand up to show that he meant her no harm.
She quickly tucked her hair behind her ear. “My name is Louisa.”
“I just heard you call yourself Lou with me my sister.”
“I said my friends called me Lou. You’re not a friend.”
“Are you trying to be a bitch?”
“It comes naturally.” She placed her hand on her hip, and he loved it. Jacob loved her attitude.
“So, you’re Riley’s twin.”
“The one you didn’t get to beat up.”
“He held his own in the fight.”
“Can I please get past?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not at all. I’m intrigued by you.”
She growled, stamping her foot. “You can’t keep me here.”
“I want to take you out on a date.”
“No.”
Jacob chuckled. She was the first woman who had ever turned him down.
“Do you know how many women there would be who’d love for me to take them out?”
“Then take them out. Go and ask them. I’m not going on a date with you.”
He was about to say something else, but Riley interrupted them. “I’m heading out, sis. Do you want a ride?”
“Yes.” She pushed past him before he had a chance to respond and keep her with him a few moments longer. Fuck, that one touch and he wanted more. He was fucking addicted to her already. Jacob wondered if this was what his father had gone through when he found his mother. It wasn’t fun. It was a fucking nightmare. He watched her walk away from him without even a glance back.
Lou had felt nothing, and he was going to think of her as Lou, and not Louisa.
Riley placed his hand at her back, and if they were not brother and sister he’d have fucking killed the bastard for touching what belonged to him. He followed the twins out of the house, and they only stopped so that Riley could say goodbye to their parents. Lou looked everywhere else.
Only when he was sure that she was okay did he go in search of his parents. He found them both out in the garden staring up at the stars.
“He made it, baby, I told you he would.”
“No more, Maddox. No more fighting.”
“I can’t stop the boys from fighting, but Tamsin won’t go through it.”
His mother chuckled. “I don’t know. The way Tamsin is, she’ll demand that she gets a chance to fight.”
“Not happening.”
“You’re not going to stop her from falling in love.”
Maddox chuckled. “I’ll try.”
“Mom. Dad,” he said, gaining their attention.
They both turned to him.
“What is it?” Charlotte asked.
“I’ve found my woman.”
Jacob watched as his parents smiled and moved toward him. “That’s awesome news. Congratulations,” Maddox said.
He looked toward his mother. “She doesn’t have a clue how I feel. Did you? Did you know how you felt about Dad?”
His parents shared a look, a private look that made him crazier than anything.
“Who is it?” his father asked.
“Louisa Moore.”
His mother winced. “That’s going to be a problem.”
“Why? What’s wrong with her?”
“It’s not her that’s the problem. Her parents are the problem. They’re going to try to wrangle for a part within the family,” Charlotte said. “And they’re not the kind of people we want associated with us.”
“You were willing to let Riley fight my brother.”
“Riley was the only one willing to make the call. His parents didn’t have a clue when we called to arrange the fight,” Maddox said. “I’ve heard the twins are a good pair, but their older brothers are petty criminals. Their parents are not much better.”
“I can’t control the way I feel about her. I was only close to her, and I needed to touch her, to be with her.” He couldn’t even begin to describe the way his feelings were consuming him. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. The need to follow her, to hold her was so strong, and no woman had ever made him want to do this. Sure, he liked to fuck women, and he’d screwed plenty of women in his time, but none of them had ever held him like this.
Lou hadn’t even wanted him, yet he’d felt this consuming desire to claim her.
None of it made any sense to him. He didn’t like it, not one bit.
“That’s how it is.”
“Lou had no idea. She knew who I was, but there was no feeling in her eyes or anything.” He’d always assumed that his woman would feel the same as he did, yet that was turning out not to be the case.
“I never once said your woman would even realize you existed,” Maddox said.
“I think I better handle this one,” Charlotte said.
“I better go and have a chat with our son’s future parents-in-law. Seriously? The Moores?”
“Yes.”
His father walked away, shaking his head.
Charlotte chuckled. “Don’t mind him. He’ll get over it, or he’ll keep moaning about it until he realizes that you don’t have a choice.”
“He knows I don’t have a choice.”
“He’s a man, Jacob.”
“How the hell does that work?”
His mother shrugged. “
He’s a man and he’s a pain in the ass, but I love him.”
Running fingers through his hair, he tried to bring some focus on what the hell was going on in his life. Jacob was used to fucking women, and forgetting them. He wasn’t used to these feelings.
“Were you in love with Dad the first moment you saw him?”
“No.”
“You ended up pregnant with me young.”
Charlotte smiled, and he was surprised to see the blush staining her cheeks. “I was pregnant very young with you, Jacob, but that doesn’t mean I fell in love with your father.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
She glared at him. “Do not take the tone with me. I’m still your mother.”
“I always assumed you and Dad were totally in love with each other.”
“Me running away with you and Abel, that didn’t ring any bells? Or maybe the lack of smiling photographs that we have. It took a long time for me to accept who your father was and is, and the fact that I fell in love with him over time.”
“What happened?”
“When your father and I first met, I had just turned eighteen. I was young, and naive. I didn’t have a clue who he was when he approached me in a bar over thirty-five years ago. My friends knew who he was, and they couldn’t believe that I snagged this hot guy. I was the chubby girl of the group, but Maddox, he didn’t look at any other woman.” Charlotte smiled. “I’d never been with a guy, and most of the time they passed me by because of my weight. They didn’t want a fat girl.”
Even now, Jacob wanted to go back and hurt those bastards for hurting his mother. He was very protective of his mother, sister, and all of his brothers. Jacob had certainly gotten into a lot of fights to finish the beat down that his brothers were getting.
“Anyway, that night, Maddox treated me like a princess. He bought me drinks, dinner, and we danced. We danced long into the night, and yeah, it was magical, but I also knew it wasn’t going to last. When we went back to his place, we did the business that meant we could have you.” Charlotte sighed. “I didn’t know I was going to get pregnant, so I snuck out the next morning. I didn’t see Maddox for three months until he discovered me coming out of an adoption agency.”
This was all news to him.
“Adoption? You were going to give me up?”
“At first, yes. It was a different world back then, and I discovered I was pregnant, and I didn’t have a clue how to get in touch with Maddox. My friends wouldn’t tell me who he was, and so, I felt I had no choice. I was coming out of the adoption agency because I decided I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t give up my baby. Even before I gave birth to you, Jacob, I loved you.”
“What happened?” The revelations tonight were scaring the shit out of him. He always assumed that when he found the woman destined to be his, she’d feel the same way, and now his parents were telling him differently.
“I discovered who Maddox was, what the Denton name meant, and that I was now about to become his wife. I didn’t really have a say in what was going on, and I was afraid. I was pregnant with a man I had one amazing night with, and after that, it felt like I was living a nightmare. Maddox, he was always sweet and charming, but it was hard. That man I found sweet and charming dealt with women, drugs, guns, crime, all of it. I was just a small town girl who wanted to become a nurse, to help people. Maddox, he was the very opposite of the person I was. The biggest problem was when he was away, it was easy to remember who he was. When he was near, I forgot. Not once did he change, or raise a hand to me, or even get angry with me.” Charlotte’s eyes were wet with tears. “I just couldn’t handle it.”
“What made you fall in love with him?”
“Time. It took time, and a lot of chocolate, kids, and time.”
“Time?”
“Yeah, time.”
“How much time?” he asked.
“There’s not a limit on love, honey.” His mother tapped his cheek. “You’ve just got to give it time.”
That was not an answer he wanted.
****
“Your brother did good last night I heard,” Ben, the barman at the strip club, said.
“Yeah, he did. Got banged around as well.”
“Landon is a tough guy. All the Denton men are tough guys.”
Lou stared at Ben. He’d asked her out a couple of times, and she had declined as nicely as she could. They were friends, and he was currently dating one of the strippers. She didn’t know how that was going to go, but he never acted jealous when the girl was dancing. People and relationships were completely strange to her.
“Wow, I didn’t even know you knew a Denton,” she said.
“Everyone knows who they are. They’re the biggest crime family in the world.”
“Great. Crime family and you sound totally in awe of them.”
Ben sighed. “You don’t understand at all. The Dentons are dangerous yet fair. They’re completely crazy, and people always underestimate them as a family at first.”
“Why?”
“Something about the men being head over heels in love. Their enemies seem to think that being in love is in some way a huge sin. It’s not.”
She rolled her eyes as he gazed down her body, landing on her breasts. Part of working in a strip club meant her tits were pressed together, and on show. Fortunately, she’d been allowed to wear pants, but they were the kind that pinched in at the waist giving her an hourglass figure even if her ass and stomach were well rounded. She was never going on a diet again. She probably should, but that wasn’t going to happen today.
“My eyes are up here,” she said.
“Can’t blame a guy for loving a nice pair of tits. What would it take to have yours swinging in front of my face as you ride my cock?” He reached over, stroking a finger down her arm.
“It’s never going to happen, sweetie.” She took hold of his hand, moving it back to his space. “Let’s not get grabby.”
Ben sighed. “Baby, you hurt me.”
“You’ll get over it.”
She watched as he finished her order, placing drinks on her serving tray.
“The Dentons come in every now and again. Not often but when they do, the women go crazy. They’re great tippers, and they’re great for business. Frank is friends with them, and so they stop by every now and again.”
In the last year that she had been there, they hadn’t. “I’ve never seen them.”
“You’ve not been working the nights they have. The women though, they tend to need the next day off to recuperate.”
“Why?”
Ben chuckled. “They’re known for fucking women until they’re sore.”
“In the club?”
“Yep, wherever they go, and there’s always a party with them. They tip well, and they have fun while they do it. Enjoy.”
She took the tray, annoyed that he’d made her more curious than anything. “When was the last time they were here?”
“You called in sick about two months ago, and that’s when they came in last.”
Lou remembered. She’d been so sick, and it had been hard for her to get out of the bathroom with vomiting. In the end she’d had to call Riley to come and help. She asked her mother, but she hadn’t wanted anything to do with her, so the only person left was her brother. Lou avoided her other brothers as they would only try to steal the stuff she’d managed to get over the years.
All her life it had been her and Riley.
Taking the tray, she delivered the order to the table of businessmen, making sure she didn’t cut their view of the woman on stage. She didn’t know who it was today, a new starter or something. The woman didn’t look older than nineteen but her tits were huge, and she was doing everything in her power to show the men how damn dirty she could be.
This kind of club also allowed the women to put on little sex shows if they wanted. There were even rooms in the back for the girls to make a little extra on the side. Frank had even given her a key. Whatever they made
in the back had to be given to him, and he’d split the money. She’d handed him the key straight back, telling him not a chance in hell.
For some reason, Frank had said he liked her spirit, and he needed a woman who was determined to stay on the straight and narrow. Whatever that meant. Either way, she was never going to a back room, and she had seen most of the strippers use it to make extra cash.
There was one girl, Susan, who had a little girl, and had told her that it was the easiest way in the world to make money. There was no thought to it. All she had to do was do some moaning and groaning to make sure the man was happy with his performance. Half of the time she was thinking about what to do for her kid the next day.
Once she was done, Lou moved away and gritted her teeth as one of the guys touched her ass.
She hated it when they thought they could grab her. Moving around the busy room, she worked for another twenty minutes supplying drinks and serving up some finger foods. When no one wanted her, she moved away, and stood in the corner, keeping an eye on the room.
“I thought you were going to beat the shit out of that man,” Frank said.
Lou turned surprised to see that her boss was sitting at the end of the bar, watching her. “Do you want me to get you a drink?”
“Not at all, sugar. Ben fixed me up, but I wanted to come out and see the action.” He nodded toward the girl on stage.
“I don’t know her name.”
“Trixie, she says, but I doubt that’s her real name. Women think they can stay anonymous by changing their name. They can’t change how they look.”
“That they can’t.”
“Come and sit with me.”
Placing her serving tray on the counter, she took a seat, looking out at the room. “This is a good angle. You can see everything.” She pushed some hair off her face and turned back to him.
“Like I saw that guy grabbing your ass.”
She chuckled. “I figured you wouldn’t want the lawsuit if I was to hit him with my serving tray.”
“True, it would piss me off, but then I’d get a thrill out of seeing a woman beat the shit out of him.”
Laughing along with him, she declined the offer of a drink. In an environment like this, she had to keep her focus on.