Stripped Bounty

by Dorothy F. Shaw

  She nodded. “Grab me ice?”

  “Yep.” Badger walked away, making a beeline for the back hall. He needed to get his shit tight, and do it fast. It appeared Rosie wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Neither was he. Getting a hard-on for a pole jockey who may or may not be oh so much more than just a pole jockey made it real fucking hard to stay focused. Distracted was dangerous. People got hurt when there wasn’t focus. Badger couldn’t afford that. Neither could Deuce or his cabaret.

  When Badger got to the ice machine, he realized he’d forgotten the ice buckets. “Goddammit!”

  “Looking for these, boss?”

  Badger glanced over his shoulder. Rig, one of his bouncers, was standing there, goofy ass look on his face, bucket dangling from each hand. Badger blew out an exasperated breath. “Apparently.”

  Rig stepped forward and opened the lid of the machine. “I got you, boss. All good.”

  “Thanks.” Badger clapped him on his back and left him to it. Rig was one of his new guys. Country boy moved there from Arkansas. Fuck if Badger knew what the hell his name meant, but whatever. The kid showed on time, was polite and built like a fucking Mack truck. Then again, the name Rig fit the dude perfectly.

  About to enter the office and find some paperwork to bury his face in, Badger stopped short when he heard Evie’s voice. Hell no. Nope. Not going in there because the last thing he needed, on top of his already agitated state of mind, was Evie talking about Rosie some more.

  Badger glanced up one end of the hall to the other. Sonofabitch, he had nowhere to go. It wasn’t like he could leave. Fuck me! Badger leaned his back against the wall, covered his face with his hands and let out a loud groan. Get a goddamn grip, chump!

  “Badger? Are you okay?”

  He froze. Oh, fuck. Fuuuuck! Fuck me!

  Rosie moved down the hall, her dress hanging over her arm and a wad of cash in her palm, toward Badger. He looked like someone had just kicked his dog. Not that she could see his face or anything, because he had covered it with both hands. “Badger? Did you hear me?”

  He dropped his hands but didn’t look at her, just stared straight ahead at the wall across from him. “Yep.”

  Clipped answers and one- or two-word sentences was all she’d ever gotten out of him. He was so damn aloof all the time, she really had no idea what his deal was. Rosie shifted the dress and money as she got closer to him. “You sure? I mean, I don’t mean to pry, but you look upset.”

  In the next moment, Evie appeared from the office. “I thought I heard someone out here.” She looked to Rosie with a smile. “You need something, honey?”

  Badger let out a grunt, and ran a palm down his face. Rosie frowned, looking at him. “I’m fine, Evie. Thank you.”

  “Oh! The new dress! Did it work out okay?”

  Rosie focused on her and smiled. “It did, yes. Thanks again for the sewing.”

  “Anytime, honey. Don’t even mention it.” She smiled, waving her hand at Rosie. “Badger, isn’t it neat all the different and sexy little dresses Rosie wears on stage? I never thought a dancer could work in them, but our Rosie, she does it. Just perfect.”

  Badger cut his eyes to Rosie and she swore she felt the disapproval in his expression straight to her toes. “Sure is.”

  A shiver sped down her spine at the gravelly tone in his voice and her skin got warm. As always, the affect of his good looks rocked her to her core. In addition to being really fucking good looking, he was also really fucking intimidating. That, and he was perpetually in a bad mood. And no matter how often she smiled or tried to be sweet to him over the past month since starting at the bar, he always looked at her like she disgusted him.

  His gaze stayed on her, assessing, condemning…judging. Hello, uncomfortable? Feeling a bit raw and exposed, Rosie fidgeted with the dress then tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear before wrapping her arms around her waist. “I wouldn’t go that far, Evie. It really just takes a little thought to figure out what’ll work and what won’t.”

  “Oh, phooey, let me tell you, honey. I’ve been in this business for a lot of years. The girls are sweet, but not many of them ‘think’ much like you do. I still don’t know what the hell you’re climbing a pole for. But I’ll be damned if Deuce or me is ready to let you go should you decide to up and come to your senses.” She cocked a hip to the side as a grin tugged at the corners of her lips. “Besides, Badger would miss you.”

  Badger’s head snapped in Evie’s direction so fast, Rosie swore she heard his neck crack. “Seriously, Evie?” He let out an exasperated sigh.

  Holy crap! Hello, uncomfortable on steroids? Rosie bit her bottom lip and shifted her weight to one foot. Could she just turn around and run? God, short of him actually telling her how much she disgusted him, the moment could not get any worse.

  Evie let out a giggle. “Come on, Badger. Don’t be such a hardass. You’d miss her, even if you won’t admit it.” She winked, turned around, stepped back into the office, and closed the door.

  Badger was still staring at the spot Evie no longer stood. The silence stretched and Rosie started to wonder how it was she was going to make an unnoticed exit. In a desperate attempt at emotional self-preservation, she shoved aside her mortification and shored up her emotional walls.

  So what if he didn’t like her. Not everyone in the world liked one another. It shouldn’t bug her, but it did. More than she’d ever admit. Rosie took a breath and a step back. “It’s okay. Evie was just being nice. Glad you’re okay. And sorry if I intruded.”

  He looked back to her, a different expression in his eyes now. One she hadn’t the first clue how to read. He blinked, paused a moment or two and then nodded. And Rosie took that as her cue to get moving. She turned but got no more than two steps away.

  “I’m fine, Rosie. Thanks for asking.”

  With her breath held, Rosie glanced over her shoulder. His eyes appeared softer, almost sad. Maybe a little confused, too. It was hard to tell. Either way, she wasn’t going to spend any time trying to figure it out. He was a brick wall she didn’t need to bang herself against. With her nerves still jumping beneath her skin, she forced a smile “Anytime.”

  He nodded, pushed off the wall, and strode past her. The scent of his cologne mixed with a trace of cigarettes and leather wafted into her lungs. Rosie pressed a hand to the wall to steady herself, trying for all she was worth to gain control over her body’s response to him while at the same time being tormented by the sight of his beyond perfect ass.

  For fuck’s sake, he was just too much. Tall, dark, and dangerous. Plus, deadly sexy with a masculine scent to die for. With her feet rooted to the floor, she watched as Badger continued down the hall and disappeared into the club.

  She’d never been with a man like him. Not that she’d been with many men in her life—she and Joey had been together since just after high school. Her husband had been tall, but slender, not at all what someone would call a big guy. Though he was definitely good looking and she’d always been attracted to him. She loved him, a lot at one time, but sadly, that had faded over the years into more of a platonic kind of love.

  But Badger? Christ, Badger inspired a whole other level of what being attracted to a man felt like. Rosie had certainly danced for plenty of guys that looked like Badger, and in the last couple years, served drinks to them. So it wasn’t like she’d been under a rock. She’d just never paid much attention before. She couldn’t help but pay attention now.

  But regardless of how attractive she found him, Rosie was damn sure he didn’t think the same of her.

  The fucked-up thing was, Rosie had heard all about him from Evie. Stuff she probably could’ve gone her whole life not knowing. For example, apparently he didn’t date the strippers. Like ever. Which was probably why he didn’t like Rosie.

  Also, Badger was a former patch holder in one of the local motorcycle clubs. According to Evie, he was a really ambitious guy and rose pretty quickly in the ranks. Now he was a bounty hunter, which
Rosie thought was pretty fucking cool, though she didn’t express that to Evie.

  In addition, he ran all the security at Deuce’s, which was also pretty cool. He’d been working for Evie and her husband for the last fifteen years. That part had made Rosie’s heart swoon just a little bit—knowing that such a hard man could be so loyal.

  Oh…and he was single.

  Ideas and feelings Rosie had no business entertaining had swirled in her mind and tummy regarding his dating status, but she refused to pay them mind, give them light or let them out of the closet. Hell. No.

  It did not matter if Badger was available, because Rosie was a stripper. Actually, none of anything she knew about him mattered, and frankly she had no idea why Evie had filled her in on all the Badger deets. But she had.

  Rosie shook herself from the thoughts and got her feet moving toward the dressing room. She had at least four more sets to do that night and if no other girls showed she might get more, plus lap dances were putting her over the top and making rent real easy to cover. She was getting back on her feet and she was doing it all by herself.

  Rosie sure as hell didn’t need tall, dark, and dangerous getting in her way. No matter if he was loyal and happened to be single.

  Ugh. Badger was a distraction. And the last thing Rosie needed was a distraction. But damn, the scent of him still lingered in her nostrils as she laid out the costume for her next set. Distracted was apparently going to be her best friend that night, whether she wanted it to be or not.

  Chapter Five

  Badger stood in the far back corner of the bar, near the head of the stage, watching the crowd. It was Halloween and damn near every customer was in costume. Lots of masks, some gruesome, some playful. Someone had a full toothbrush costume on—finding a seat for that moron had been interesting. Every inch of the bar was covered in the standard holiday decorations of bats, cobwebs, and pumpkin lights. Badger had come in early, Evie’s orders, to help decorate…which of course meant his boys had all been in early, too. After all their hard work, the Halloween party appeared to be in full swing. Badger ran his palm along his jaw. He was fucking exhausted.

  The majority of the dancers were wearing the typical stripper Halloween costumes: Bunny ears with a puffy tail, devil horns with devil’s tail or a halo—minus the wings, because a lap dance with wings could be a problem. He hadn’t seen Rosie yet, so her costume was still a mystery. Though he had to admit, only to himself of course, he was curious. A few of the guys had started calling out bets regarding what she might pick. Naughty nurse, school teacher or librarian were in the running. One even said Cat Woman.

  Badger disagreed with them all, though he didn’t so much as make a peep while they speculated. He knew better. She wouldn’t pick something so predictable. Rosie would be in something no one would expect. It would be different, and every guy in the house would be drooling at her feet.

  Except him.

  He wouldn’t drool, not visibly anyway. But he’d watch. Not only because that’s what he was paid to do, but because that’s what he always did when it came to her, even when he tried like hell not to. It was unavoidable and confusing as fuck, so he’d given up forcing himself to not watch, nearly a month ago.

  There was just something so…well, just unique about Rosie. He couldn’t help but watch her. Maybe it was those pretty yet sad brown eyes and the mystery behind them. Or the care she took with each of her dance sets, the outfits and dresses, her moves…fuck him, her moves. Every bit of it was enough to make a sane man lose his ever-loving mind to lust and intrigue.

  But whatever it was, whichever thing, didn’t matter. She was just different, and all that different made him want things he shouldn’t want and wouldn’t take. So instead of touching her, Badger watched her. He watched when she danced onstage but didn’t watch when she was on a customer’s lap because the sight of that made him want to crack a motherfucker’s skull open.

  Outside of that, he avoided her like the fucking black plague.

  “Ladies and less than gentlemen, let me hear you make some noise for the best Halloween bash in the valley!” Rick’s voice boomed over the sound system and the crowd went nuts. “Are you ready for your favorite dancer?”

  The crowd cheered again and Badger shifted his weight, settling with both feet braced apart, arms crossed. She was coming, and he knew it. Not because Rick had just called out what had become her standard intro, but by the way the knot curled tight in his gut and his skin itched.

  “I can’t hear you.” Rick paused and the crowd got louder. “Come on, Phoenix, you better make our girl feel welcome. You’ve been waiting for her. Let me hear you now. Shout your love for Ariannaaaa!”

  As the customers yelled out, calling her name, whistles sounding from several people, the lights dimmed…and then the crowd went quiet. The first words of Hozier’s “Take Me To Church” cut the silence and Badger watched as the two small spotlights came up and—

  Badger’s breath caught in his throat.

  She stood just past the up-stage pole, shrouded in a hooded white cloak. Two black silk drapes hung from the handles on the old spinner wheel, mounted in the ceiling center stage. No one used that thing anymore—except Rosie. The young breed of strippers were more or less happy to play on the poles rather than mess with the spinner.

  It seemed tonight, Rosie had something different planned for it.

  He watched as she danced, keeping her body hidden under the cloak. She glided between each pole downstage, her movements loose, yet deliberate and definitely titillating. As she grabbed hold of a pole with both hands, she swung herself around, the cloak flaring out behind her as she twisted her body, and somehow managed to not get tangled. Half the time Badger thought he was going to have a fucking heart attack watching her. But she never faltered. Not once.

  Rosie dropped down and walked back to center stage. As the song ended, the lights dimmed again, and Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love,” the slow version, began. In the shadow, Badger saw the cloak drop to the ground but couldn’t make out what she wore beneath it. He tracked her movement and saw the silk drapes hanging from the spinner sway. The lights came up, slowly, in time with the beat, and Badger’s eyes went wide.

  Clad in a second skin—a red and nearly transparent body suit—Rosie had both scarves gripped in her hands and began climbing upward, using her legs and feet as leverage to propel herself upward. When she’d risen at least three feet in the air, she somehow hooked an ankle, pulled the silk fabric tight over her thighs and suspended herself sideways.

  Badger stood frozen, arms still crossed over his broad chest. He didn’t want to blink, didn’t want to miss a moment of this display. Rosie went through a series of what he could only call aerial acrobatics, the kind of shit he’d only seen on YouTube or in Vegas. She wasn’t Cirque du Soleil, but she was pretty fucking amazing nonetheless. Splits, flips, and spins. Amazing. Un-fucking-believable.

  They’d throw money tonight for her. She was going to bring the rain—an old saying in the business. There wasn’t a doubt in Badger’s mind. Hell, even he’d give up his hard-earned pay for what he was playing witness to at that moment.

  Then it happened, just as he’d predicted, dollar bills flitted through the air, covering the stage below her. Hundreds of them as the crowd went absolutely insane while Rosie spun, her body parallel to the stage and wrapped in black silk.

  She unrolled herself as the song ended, and Blue October’s “Hate Me” began. Rosie stood center stage again, and slowly, peeled off the top half of her body suit, and then the bra top, baring her breasts. She moved to one pole and executed another intricate move, then as she strutted to the other, she unpeeled the bottom half of the bodysuit, revealing a red G-string.

  Badger’s mouth went dry and he ran his palm over his jaw and then the back of his neck. Her dark nipples were fully erect as she again, mounted a pole, hooked it with the back of one leg, and with a swing, arched her body in a perfect arc around it, one arm extended in front of her.
Spinning, spinning, spinning…as money flew around her.

  She was fucking beautiful.

  Not an angel or a devil, but something in between.

  Pure temptation.

  As Rosie’s third song neared the end, signaling the end of her set, she closed her eyes and let the motion of her body spinning on the pole take her away—if only for a few seconds. She knew she’d made a killing.

  Rosie remembered the first time customers had thrown money at her. The sound of those bills flying through the air—like nothing she’d ever heard in her life. She was just a kid, barely twenty years old, dancing at an upscale gentleman’s club in Danbury, Connecticut. There was a lot of money to be made there, and the older strippers who had been on the scene too long had taught her how to make it. Now she was the old one on the scene, but it didn’t matter, right?

  At thirty-six, Rosie wasn’t necessarily old, but on the scene, she definitely was. Old or not, she was leading the parade. And it was fucking raining money…

  Rosie slid down the pole and spun away. The dramatic ending of the song came over the sound system as Rosie walked along the edges of the stage, pausing as customers stuffed bills in the sides of her G-string. She blew them all kisses, nodding, winking, and smiling at many of the regulars that were there for her. Just for her.

  It was crazy, but it felt good. Really good to be wanted or sought after. Appreciated even. Though it was a fucked-up way to earn that admiration, she’d take it. Not like she had anyone special, or anyone at all really, to shower her with praise or compliments. Women wanted to feel that admiration, even if they didn’t need it. They all deserved it.

  Speaking of admiration, she’d seen Badger standing beside the head of the stage during her set. He’d watched her the whole time. She wasn’t surprised, because the behavior wasn’t new. It’d become something that went on whenever he was on shift now.