HOT SEAL Redemption: HOT SEAL Team - Book 5

by Lynn Raye Harris

  Alexei ignored everyone, heading for the dressing room where he paused outside the door for several moments while he worked to calm down. Then he knocked on the door. It jerked open in his face. A black woman he hadn’t seen before stood there, looking pissed. She was gorgeous, with silky dark skin, tawny eyes, and a sneer that said she could eat him for breakfast if she so desired. Any other time and he’d let her just to see how it felt.

  “What do you want, pretty boy?”

  “Bailey.”

  “Ain’t no Bailey in here. Go away.”

  “Honey then.”

  The woman looked over her shoulder. “You want to see anyone, Honey?”

  “Let him in, Shasta,” Bailey said, and the woman swung the door wide.

  Bailey was sitting on a chair, a robe wrapped around her body, her fingernails tapping on the arm of the chair. A couple of other women were there too, but they glanced at each other and at Shasta. The three of them gathered up their things and then strolled past him and into the hall. Shasta was the last one and she stopped, her tawny gaze eating into his as she walked a pointed nail up his chest and tapped it beneath his chin.

  “Don’t you go punching anything else, lover boy. Especially not Honey.”

  Alexei blinked. What the fuck? “I’m not going to hit her.”

  “Good.” Shasta looked over her shoulder at Bailey, who still hadn’t moved. “You okay being alone with this guy?”

  “Yes. Thanks, Shasta.”

  “You got it, girl.”

  The women left and Alexei stood in the door for a moment before closing it behind him and walking over to her. Her makeup was still perfect, though beads of sweat stood out on her brow and her cheeks. “You okay, Bailey?”

  “Yes. I’m fine.” She blew out a breath. “You shouldn’t have done that, Alexei. Brian and Chris would have handled it.”

  “That guy was about to grab you.”

  “I know. And he wouldn’t have gotten there. The guys really do handle it. They throw those douches out too.” She closed her eyes and laid her head back on the chair. “God, I wish I was a drinker. I could use a shot right about now.”

  Alexei sank onto a knee so he could meet her gaze better when she opened her eyes again. “Look, I’m sorry. But I wasn’t going to let him touch you, Bailey. Nobody has the right to do that without your permission.”

  Her eyes opened. She gave him a soft smile. “Deke is probably angry—but truthfully? I’m not. It’s about time someone beat the hell out of one of these assholes.”

  Alexei blinked. Not what he’d expected. “Wait a second—you don’t mind that I dislocated that guy’s shoulder and punched his friends out?”

  “Nope. The girls don’t either, by the way. They’re just being protective of me. But it can’t happen like that again. Guys getting beat up on a regular basis could affect revenue. We can’t have that. But tonight? Oh yeah, those fuckers deserved it. They’ve been harassing the girls, especially in the VIP room, but not quite enough to get kicked out. Just enough to get by with a warning here and there.”

  “I thought you said the bouncers were pretty good about protecting you.”

  “They are—but what a woman considers harassment and what a guy considers harassment are two different things. Especially in a place like this. Innuendo is harmless, according to them. Besides, shouldn’t we expect that kind of talk considering we take our clothes off for money?”

  He was about to be so pissed off he couldn’t see straight. Which was going some because he’d already been so pissed tonight he couldn’t think straight. Hell, what was happening to him? He was usually way cooler than this.

  He stood. Folded his arms over his chest. His knuckles ached, but he didn’t mind. Bailey’s gaze went to the skinned spots where he’d landed a blow against some guy’s teeth.

  “I doubt those douchebags will be harassing anyone else anytime soon,” he told her.

  “Certainly not at the Pink Palace.” She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. He focused on her mouth, on the pretty red bow in her top lip. He hadn’t tasted her yet. He wanted to. “I have two more sets tonight. Do you think you can refrain from beating up the customers?”

  Alexei started. “Two more sets? You’re going back out there after that?”

  She frowned at him. “Of course I’m going back out there. The rent doesn’t pay itself. Neither does college tuition. And neither will Ana’s pediatrician visits if you aren’t her father.”

  “No,” he said, his voice hard. He didn’t want this for her. He didn’t want her going back out there. Taking off her clothes and baring her breasts again. He couldn’t deal with it. With men ogling her and lusting over her, jerking off later to fantasies of her and that jeweled whip.

  Like you will?

  Shut up.

  Her eyebrows lowered over her amber gaze. “Wait a minute—are you telling me I can’t do my job?”

  Okay, so he’d stepped in it now. But the thought of her out there again. Fuck no. “Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you. Get your shit together, Bailey. We’re going home.”

  “Home? Whose home? I don’t have a home right now, thanks to some asshole threatening me.” She rose from the chair, her slender body vibrating with anger. Her face was splotchy red, and the color dipped down into her cleavage, which he could see in the gap of her robe. “You aren’t telling me what to do, jackass. I need to work, and you’re only here to find out who that guy was and what he knows about Kayla. If we leave, how the hell are you going to find him? He’s coming here. Not to your place. Not prancing down Main Street with a sign proclaiming him The Dude You’re Looking For. We have to be here to find him, and I need to work to afford to live!”

  His teeth were going to crack if he ground them any harder. “I’ll float you a loan. You can stay with me. I’ll find him another way. Trust me.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. Her eyes blazed. “Trust you? Trust you with everything I have when I barely know you?” She shook her head, hair flying. “No. No, I can’t do that. I can’t take that chance.”

  Frustration hammered through him. There was something else too. Something that was a lot like, well, possessiveness. He didn’t want anyone looking at her in that getup. Didn’t want those dudes jacking off to fantasies about her. He wanted to do that— Wait, no, he didn’t want to jack off to fantasies. He wanted to fuck her good and long and make her feel pleasure like she’d never had before. He wanted to make her scream.

  “We can find another way, Bailey. You don’t have to go out there again.”

  She reared back. Blinked. “Why does it matter to you? I’ve been doing this damned job for a year now. I could do it in my sleep—hell, I think I sometimes do. It’s not real, Alexei. I strip for money, but it’s not me. It’s Honey Payne. She’s not me.”

  He took a step closer to her, anger boiling in his veins. Her scent wrapped around him. There was sweat and powder and whatever body wash she’d used in his shower. She smelled good. Intoxicating. He reached for her. Dragged her into him, his hands wrapped around her upper arms.

  She felt good pressed against him, her body soft and warm, her curves apparent beneath the robe. Her palms flattened against his chest, her head tilting up, her smoky eyes searching his with confusion and maybe even wonder. If she’d acted scared or affronted in any way, he’d have let her go.

  But she didn’t. She stayed.

  “It’s you I’m worried about,” he growled. “Bailey Jones. I don’t want you going back out there. I don’t want those guys looking at you. Jerking off thinking about you.”

  She smiled softly. Smoothed her palms over his chest and up his shoulders. Then she cupped his cheeks, her hands soft. He wanted to turn his face into one, press a kiss to a palm. It wasn’t like him, and he didn’t.

  “That’s sweet, Alexei. I appreciate it more than you know. But I have to go out there or I lose my job. Strippers are contractors. We don’t get benefits like paid time off or sick leave. If we don�
��t work, we don’t get paid. I can’t afford that right now. Not unless you can find me a new job that pays $70K a year right away. Or maybe you can marry me instead and make me your dependent. Then Ana and I won’t have to worry about a thing.”

  She chuckled at what must have been horror on his face. The m-word did that to him. Hell, any word to do with commitment and relationships did that to him. Which meant she knew where the line in the sand was, and she’d just pushed him past it. To prove a point.

  “Yes, I know how it works when you marry a military guy. And no, I wasn’t serious.” She patted his cheek, stood on tiptoe, and placed a very chaste kiss on his mouth. He barely had time to react or he would have gone in with tongue and kissed the hell out of her.

  In spite of the m-word.

  She was too quick, however. She took a step back and yanked the ties of her robe. “I need to dress for the next show. If you could close the door behind you, please.”

  Chapter 13

  Bailey made it through two more sets in spite of being distracted by Alexei’s brooding gaze. She could feel him watching, could feel his gaze boring into her. Tracing the lines of her body. She could feel it like a touch.

  He’d dragged her against him and she’d melted like wax. She shouldn’t have let it happen, but she had. Because she knew if she’d protested, he’d have let her go. But of course she hadn’t. She’d stood in his arms like she belonged there.

  Except that she didn’t and she never would. Alexei had made it clear that he wasn’t into relationships, and if she let him into her bed, that’s exactly what she’d want. Because, damn him, no matter how he protested and growled, he was a decent guy. He’d bought baby things for Ana. He called her pip-squeak and sang songs to her in Russian when he was rocking her to sleep. He was gentle with the baby, honorable, and she knew now that he could sweep through a room and take down six guys with his bare hands without breaking a sweat.

  She thanked her lucky stars there were no more gropes that night. She didn’t need Alexei doing the commando routine again. None of them did, because the customers would flee, and that wasn’t good for business.

  She didn’t know what had passed between him and Deke, but it must have been something because he didn’t even react to the catcalls and whistles. Or the guy who yelled for her to come down there and suck his dick while she spanked him with her crop.

  She almost snorted, pondering how she was supposed to do both those activities at once, but mostly she ignored it and moved on. By the end of the evening, she’d made about five hundred dollars. Not bad for a Wednesday. And not bad considering she hadn’t performed any lap dances tonight. She’d figured Alexei didn’t need to witness any of those after the incident earlier. She also wasn’t in the right head space to disconnect herself enough to do any this evening. They weren’t the most fun part of the job, but they were often the most profitable, which was why all the girls did them.

  Alexei held the door for her while she climbed into his truck. He went around to the other side and started it up. They sat there in silence for a long minute. She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

  “You want to stop and get something to eat?” he finally asked.

  “Something from the drive-through is good. I don’t want to go inside.”

  “Anywhere in particular?”

  She appreciated that he didn’t ask her why she didn’t want to go inside a restaurant. He understood. Or maybe he didn’t, but he wasn’t going to grill her about it. “Chicken sandwich and fries. Doesn’t matter where.”

  “Copy.”

  “What?”

  He glanced at her, looking dark and serious, and yeah, delicious. “Military speak. Means I heard and understood.”

  He didn’t say anything else and she didn’t either. He took them through a McDonald’s drive-through, ordered, and when she handed him a twenty, he looked at it for far too long before he spoke. “I got it.”

  Her emotions were too near the surface tonight. “Afraid you’ll get dirty?”

  “Not sure where those things have been,” he said as he pulled up to the window and took cash from his pocket.

  Oh, that was rich. Asshole. Just when she’d been killing herself thinking about what a good guy he was and how much she wanted him but couldn’t have him. “I’ll have you know that one came from my purse, not from tonight.”

  He shrugged in a way that said he wasn’t in the least bit sorry. “My bad.”

  “Yeah, your bad.” Okay, so it had been a long night and tensions were high. She could ignore him or she could be pissed. She chose to ignore him.

  He got the food from the next window, handed her the bag and their drinks, and drove back to his house. Bailey munched fries as they glided through the streets.

  “You said you’ve been doing that job for a year?” he asked moodily.

  “Yeah, just about.”

  “How much longer, Bailey?”

  “Being judgy, Alexei?”

  “No. I seriously want to know. Because if you have to take care of Ana, how can you maintain the schedule?”

  She’d been wondering that herself. “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “It was always supposed to be temporary. But what is temporary? I thought a couple of years maybe. Get enough money to go to college, transition into being a waitress or a receptionist or something. But it’s easy money in a way. Easier than waitressing. You get abuse in a waitress job too—and the tips aren’t nearly as good.”

  “You like showing your tits like that?”

  She stiffened. And then she shook her head. “Wow. Really? Fucking wow. You pretend to be so enlightened and nice—nobody can touch you without your permission,” she mimicked. Fresh fury swirled hard in her belly, churning up the fries she’d just eaten. So much for ignoring him. “You beat a man up for presuming I’m a cheap whore, but then you treat me like one with a comment like that. What the fuck, Alexei?”

  His knuckles whitened on the wheel. His nostrils flared. Handsome asshole. Jerk with an awesome body who made her feel safe. Dickhead she wanted to slap.

  “You’re right,” he finally said. “I’m sorry.”

  He was giving her whiplash with that reply. She hadn’t expected an apology. She’d expected a typically caveman answer of some sort.

  “Damn right I’m right.”

  He shoved a hand through his hair. Squeezed the wheel again. “I didn’t like seeing you up there like that. Seeing those men leer at you like you were a piece of meat. And I couldn’t help but think that if you weren’t standing there with that gorgeous body on display, none of it would be happening.”

  She didn’t know what to say. And then she did. Because he didn’t understand. She reached over and put her hand on his arm. The zip of electricity in her fingertips wasn’t a surprise anymore. But it was still thrilling.

  “It would still happen, Alexei. That’s what men do. Doesn’t matter if you’re covered from neck to toes, they’ll still find a way to leer and marginalize you with a comment.”

  He glanced at her, anger sparking in his gaze. “Not all men.”

  She leaned back on her seat again. Ate a fry. “I know. But enough of them that I’ve come to expect it. It’s what being a woman is all about. Watching out for yourself, always wondering if some guy means you harm. Thinking about where you’re safe and when you’re safe. Clothes, or lack of, don’t make you safe. A man who’d abuse you because you’re scantily clad would do it even if you were fully clothed if he was given the chance.”

  “You’re pissing me off at my gender right now.”

  “Am I? Sorry. Just telling the truth. But if you don’t take anything else away from this conversation, take the fact that my current profession has nothing to do with the assholish behavior of those men tonight. That’s who they are. The men who come in and have a good time, enjoy the show, and tip well even though they might leer and whistle? They’re just being men. I can appreciate the difference.”

  “I hear you,
babe—but you aren’t going to make me feel any better about the fact you’re standing there with that magnificent rack on display.”

  He thought she had a magnificent rack? Now why did that make her blush like a virgin all of a sudden? She knew she had nice boobs, firm and perky, but no one had ever called them magnificent.

  “It’s the job, sailor man.” She’d heard Deke call him a sailor, so she figured it was the correct term. “And no job is perfect.”

  “No, definitely not.”

  They pulled into his driveway and he shut off the truck. She didn’t wait for him to come around and open her door, but he made it in time to take her gym bag. She followed him to the front door. He inserted the key and opened it, but he didn’t let her go in first. He always went first, blocking her body with his until he deemed it was safe. She didn’t understand it, but she didn’t complain.

  Bailey went over and dropped the food on the coffee table. “Do you mind if we eat here, or do you prefer the dining table?”

  They’d sat in front of the TV with food a few times the past couple of days, but she still asked.

  “It’s fine.”

  She flopped onto the sofa and rummaged through the bag, finding her sandwich and the rest of her fries. Alexei put her drink down and she took a sip.

  “I’m so tired I could crash right here,” she said as she unwrapped the sandwich. “But I’m keyed up too.”

  He sat beside her and grabbed his food. “I get that. Happens to me too.”

  She peered at him thoughtfully. Was this an awkward truce, or was he going to mention the club again? Before he got the chance, maybe it was time she took charge of the conversation for a while.

  “What precisely do you do in the Navy SEALs?” She had a good idea what some of it was after tonight. It involved lightning-fast maneuvers and people who screamed bloody murder.

  “Stuff.”

  She laughed. “That’s what they show on those nighttime SEAL dramas—stuff.”