Two to Tango (Erotic Romance)

by Strong, Mimi

  “Can I touch your neck?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “Just try to choke me. I bet you can’t.”

  I slipped my hands around his neck, above his collar. It was like hugging a horse.

  “You’re a dancer?” he asked, his dark brown eyes fixed on mine.

  I giggled. “Just for tonight. Is there a pole? The show’s much better if there’s a pole.”

  “Why don’t you dance for us? Don’t wear yourself out. Save something for later, and come talk to me.”

  I still had my hands wrapped around his neck. My fingers are long, but they had no chance of connecting around all that muscle. How could a human being be so large?

  Amy grabbed my elbow and hauled me away, apologizing to the man and saying she needed me urgently.

  I stumbled away from him, following her over to the edge of the mezzanine, by the railing.

  “Stay focused,” she said. “And stay away from those guys. They’re all gangsters.”

  “I thought he was a football player.”

  “Did he say he was a football player?”

  “No.”

  “Pull it together. You’re too high. I’m going to put you in a cab and send you home.”

  I stomped my foot, pretending to throw a tantrum. “You said we’d have fun tonight. And I need the tips.”

  She slapped me on the cheek. “Smarten up. You can have fun, or you can make money. What’s it going to be?”

  “Money.”

  “Then let’s get up on that stage together, and see if you remember how it’s done.”

  “Muscle memory,” I replied.

  “You’re slurring your words. I can’t understand a thing you’re saying. Keep your mouth shut up there.”

  I mimed zipping my mouth shut, then I followed Amy over to the makeshift stage, a group of folding tables pushed together, next to a brass pole.

  I kicked off my shoes and stepped up to the pole.

  It was bolted down, safe enough.

  I scanned the crowd of guys, in suits and club clothes. The minute I touched the pole, they weren’t even people anymore. They were just a mass of energy in clothes, with cash in pockets—cash I would draw from them, one kick at a time.

  Closing my eyes, I drew into myself, like smoke from a cigarette in a film running in reverse. High and low and dangerous.

  I rolled my head back, then forward, my hair flopping forward. I could feel each follicle, the tug of each hair.

  Soon, though, I would feel nothing.

  Chapter 17

  Charlie

  The guys guarding the upper floor wouldn’t let us through the ropes.

  Duncan, usually the one to laugh off any tense situation, looked twitchy. “C’mon, Charlie. We’ll just hang out downstairs. If she’s here, she’ll come through.”

  The tall guy glared down at me, looking like he’d be only too happy to kick my ass if I gave him a reason. I could have taken him in a fair fight, but there were two of them, and my senses told me these guys didn’t put much stock in honor, or a fair fight.

  “My girlfriend is here,” I said, not backing down.

  “Fella, nobody’s girlfriend is here.” He poked his finger at my chest. “There’s girls up here, but they ain’t nobody’s girlfriends.”

  “Her name is Skye. She’s got long, brown hair. She’s tall, and she’s here with a girl in red. Short, blond hair, cut really short. I saw them up here.”

  The other security guy stepped up and joined the wall of testosterone blocking our entrance. “Sounds like the one who flashed you, boss.”

  The tall guy grinned. “Yeah, real nice girls, your girlfriends. You don’t remember me, do you?”

  I took another look at his face, which did seem familiar. Where did I know him from?

  The tall guy said to his buddy, “This here is Mr. Country Club. Mr. Punch-Your-Timecard.”

  “This asshole?”

  I held my hands up. “Hey, man, we all have our jobs.”

  In a flash, I remembered who the tall guy was. Morgan Porter. He worked at The Cedars as a cook, until we figured out he was supplying half the rich kids there with every kind of drug they wanted and a few they didn’t.

  “No hard feelings,” I said. “Clearly you landed on your feet.”

  “Turn around and walk away, rich boy. Keep on walking. Tell your stepmom Morgan says hello.”

  My fist threw itself at his face. I connected, the shock of the impact shuddering through my arm, followed by searing pain, from my face, as he struck me back. I stumbled backward down the steps, my lost footing being the only thing saving me from a worse beating.

  Duncan pulled my arm over his shoulders and we sailed together back down the stairs, away from the guys.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he yelled, dragging me back into the lineup for the bar.

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose. It wasn’t broken, but Morgan had hit me, hard. My upper lip was wet, and I wiped blood onto my hand and stared down at the streak of red on my palm.

  Duncan pulled a cloth handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to my nose. “Hold that there. We’ll get some ice,” he said, calm and cool again. “I’ll get a light beer, because I’m watching my calories, and we’ll get you something with ice, and you’ll calm the fuck down. I’m on probation, remember? I can’t be getting into bar fights.”

  “Sorry. I just… I don’t know. That was Morgan Porter.”

  “I know. I recognized him before you did.”

  “Probably because you were one of his regular customers.”

  “No comment.”

  “Hey, since when do you carry around handkerchiefs?”

  “I don’t. Those are your stepmom’s panties.”

  I pulled the bundle of dark cloth away from my nose. It was a square cloth of fabric, definitely a handkerchief.

  “You fucking asshole.”

  “Yeah, just kidding,” Duncan said, laughing. “Besides, everybody knows your stepmom doesn’t wear panties.”

  “At least my stepmom didn’t offer her son’s best friend a hand job.”

  “You should have taken her up on it, man.” Loud enough for everyone around us to hear, Duncan said, “Everybody knows my stepmom gives the best hand jobs.”

  Some girls standing in line in front of us turned around to stare at Duncan.

  “You sick fuck,” I said.

  He grinned at the girls. “My stepmother always says she’s worried about you getting a sunburn, but pretty soon that lotion’s getting everywhere.” He tilted his chin up jerkily, gesturing at the quiet, blushing girl in the group. “How about you, sweetheart? You wear sunscreen? Wanna come by my pool tomorrow and let me rub it on your back?”

  Her friend, the one chomping away open-mouthed on a giant wad of pink chewing gum, said, “You have a pool? Really? Are you, like, rich or something?”

  Duncan said, “I’m not rich, but my dad is. You’d like him. Come on over and I’ll introduce you. Maybe you can be my new stepmommy. Just a tip: he likes it when you cup the balls.”

  The girl wrinkled her nose in disgust and pulled her friends with her, out of the line for the bar.

  “Why do you always do that?” I asked Duncan. “You could get so many girls, but you always do something to piss them off.”

  He shrugged. “I guess that’s what I like to do. If one of them sticks around, she might be a keeper.”

  “Any girl who did that would have no self-respect.”

  “We’ll see.” We had advanced to the bar, thanks to driving away the girls in front of us. Duncan ordered two bottles of beer, two shots of rye, and a glass of ice.

  “I don’t like rye,” I said.

  “And I don’t like jizz in my eye, but I’ll drink it.” He handed me the shot and clinked his plastic cup to mine. “Jizz in the eye,” he said.

  I followed up with, “Beats two in the pie,” and drank the shot, following quickly by the beer chaser.

  Grimacing, he said, “I don’t think t
hey’re serving premium liquor at this establishment. How’s your head?”

  “Haven’t had any complaints.”

  “That’s because you always cup the balls. Hold that ice on your nose or you’ll have a shiner tomorrow.”

  With one eye on the stairs, I rolled the ice cubes from the glass into the handkerchief and held it to the bridge of my nose.

  Some other friends of ours—mostly associates of Duncan’s—called us over to a table they were at. I didn’t know the guys that well, but one of them had brought a girl. A pretty girl. She had dark hair and big eyes, and she looked like the type of girl who spent more evenings reading books than going to illegal warehouse parties.

  The guys introduced her as Stacy, a cousin who’d just moved to town.

  “Stacy, have you been up to the top floor here?” I asked.

  Frowning, she stared up at the ice on my forehead, and my red, swollen knuckles.

  “I’d never go up there,” she said.

  “You couldn’t get through security either, huh?”

  She stepped closer and leaned up on her tiptoes to speak into my ear. “The girls up there are working girls. Strippers and hookers.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  She blinked at me, her big eyes glistening. Stacy’s skin was so smooth, like a baby’s. How old was she? And how old was I, thinking a question like that?

  “There’s a stripper pole up there,” she said. “They said I could go up and dance for the owner of the building and his friends, if I wanted.”

  “That sounds fun. Let’s go up there. I’ll go as your bodyguard.”

  She swatted me on the chest with her tiny, soft-looking hand. “You’re so bad. I probably shouldn’t be talking to you.”

  “Is that your type, Stacy? You like bad boys?”

  “Kinda.” She bit her fingertip suggestively.

  I pulled her a few steps away from the group so we could speak privately.

  “Listen, you seem like a sweet kid. I think I know your cousin. Did he ask you to hold anything for him, in your purse?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Your cousin’s a drug dealer. If the cops bust in here tonight, I want you to dump the contents of your purse and kick it away from yourself.”

  She gave me a wary look. “Okay.”

  “I’ve done you a favor, so now do you think you could do me a favor? There’s a friend of mine up there on the top level, and I need to talk to her.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I won’t take my clothes off, or do anything.”

  “Just get me up there, and you can turn around and do whatever you want.”

  She gave me another flirtatious look. “If I do, will you dance with me? Like, if your girlfriend doesn’t want to have anything to do with you?”

  I agreed to Stacy’s demands and leaned over to tell Duncan what I was going to do. Meanwhile, her cousin took something from her purse and went to talk to some other people.

  Duncan didn’t think I’d be able to get in past Morgan, even with the girl, so he insisted on coming along.

  We walked up the stairs again, the three of us.

  When we got to the top, the tall guy, Morgan, shook his head at me. “No way,” he said.

  Duncan clapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, bro. I’ll find her for you.”

  Clutching her purse, one leg trembling, Stacy said hesitantly, “I’m here to dance?”

  “Fresh meat.” Morgan grinned.

  “I’m new,” she said, twirling her hair. “These guys are my security, and they go with me.”

  “You can take one,” he said. “That one.” He pointed to Duncan.

  Duncan mouthed to me to calm down, then he proceeded up the stairs past security with Stacy.

  I took a few steps down and waited on a landing, a good distance from Morgan, just in case my fist got any more ideas about punching people.

  ~

  Ten minutes later, the music abruptly stopped.

  A dozen uniformed police officers stood near the entrance, instructing people to calmly stay where they were. Someone screamed. And then the lights went out.

  The warehouse had no emergency lighting, and no clearly-marked fire exits. I heard glass breaking, and more screaming.

  A few people were using their phones as flashlights, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I rushed up the stairs, past the dumbstruck security, and into a panicked crowd.

  “Charlie!”

  Duncan grabbed my shoulder.

  I asked him, “Where’s the girl? Stacy?”

  He grinned. “Dumping her purse over the railing, if she’s smart. She showed me what she was holding, and I told her what my lawyer told me about the cops. They let you think you’re getting away, but then they search you just outside the exits.”

  “Nice fucking crowd you run with, Duncan.”

  “They’re old friends. I know I should get new friends, but it’s hard to make new friends.”

  People kept shoving past us, in a panic to get out. Some power came back on, but just the strobe lights.

  “Fuck, it’s like a zombie attack up in here,” Duncan said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I did a visual sweep of the area, my eyes stopping on a girl curled up in a ball on the floor.

  “Somebody’s hurt over there,” I said.

  “Probably some drugged-out hooker. Stacy was right. All the girls up here were working.”

  I pushed past him and ran to the girl. Her dress was pushed up, and I thought I recognized her legs.

  “Skye?”

  She moaned and slowly turned her head to look up at me.

  “Go away,” she said.

  “Are you hurt?”

  She turned her face down to the dirty floor and covered her head with a folded arm.

  “I’m not leaving you,” I yelled over the noise of everyone panicking. I pulled her dress back down and scooped one arm under her legs, the other around her back. “Just yell if something’s broken.”

  She didn’t yell, but her head flopped to the side, like she was on the verge of passing out.

  The strobe lights disoriented me.

  Duncan saw what I was doing and got in front of me, clearing a path.

  “Broken glass,” he called back. “Watch your step.”

  Skye wrapped her arms around my neck and clung to me.

  “Charlie?”

  “Yes, it’s me, Charlie. I know you don’t need me to rescue you, and that you’re doing just fine on your own, but do me a favor and let me carry you out the door, so the cops don’t hassle us. Can you do me that favor?”

  She whispered near my ear, her words slurring, “I’ll do anything for you, Charlie, because you’re mine.”

  We reached the bottom of the steps, and watched as a waterfall of fine, white powder rained down from the upper level’s railing.

  Duncan whistled. “Either hold your breath, or breathe deeply, and let’s go.”

  I jogged toward the door. The police officers at the exit looked at Skye, made sure she was conscious, and waved for us to leave.

  Outside, car tires squealed as people jumped in their vehicles and left the scene in a hurry.

  Duncan looked around in alarm, his eyes wide with fright at every loud noise, including some bangs I prayed were just doors slamming or cars backfiring.

  “We’re getting too old for this shit,” he said.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Skye squirmed in my arms. “Put me down,” she demanded.

  A block away from the building, I leaned down and dropped her feet to the sidewalk. She gasped and immediately crumbled, sobbing, “My fucking knee.”

  I knelt down next to her. “Is it broken? I’ll take you to the hospital.”

  She pushed me away, making me fall back on my ass from the crouching position.

  “Just a bad knee,” she said, her hair mussed up and wild, her eyes feral.

  I wanted to kis
s her, but I just picked her up again, and carried her all the way to Duncan’s car. He helped me get her into the back seat, where she lay on her side on the seat.

  After closing the car door, Duncan turned to me. “That’s your Cinderella?”

  “Obviously she’s having a bad night.”

  “If she was up there, she’s been having more than a few bad nights.”

  “So? You said it yourself. May as well stick with your old friends, because it’s hard to make new ones.”

  “That’s not what I said. Listen, let’s drop her off somewhere, and then go hit this other party.”

  I shook my head. “Drop her off somewhere?” I clenched my right hand. My fist was having some feelings about Duncan’s face, thanks to the things he was saying.

  He held up a small, black purse. “She dropped this. I’m sure her address is inside, and I’ve deduced this because I’m basically Dr. House and Sherlock Holmes rolled up into one good-looking package. We’ll drop her off at home. Duh.” He zipped open the purse. “Got the wallet. And keys, too.”

  Chapter 18

  Skye

  My neighborhood felt ominous, spinning around me.

  Trouble. I was still in trouble.

  “You can’t come in here,” I said.

  Charlie stood on the porch of my house.

  I was drunk and high and out of my head, but I knew better than to let him come inside.

  “You can barely stand,” he said. “And you live on the top floor?”

  I reached for my driver’s license to grab it from his hand, but I missed, and my hand swung through air. I staggered forward, unable to put any weight on my hurt leg, and he caught me.

  The guy Charlie was with—a few inches shorter and more muscular, like a pit bull with shaggy hair—kicked pebbles on the sidewalk. “I guess I’ll call a cab, then?” the guy called up.

  “There’s a bus stop a block away,” Charlie said.

  The guy laughed, as though riding a bus was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

  Exasperated, Charlie said, “Either help me open the door and carry Skye up to her apartment, or fuck off.”

  The guy saluted him. “You are on your own with this one, bro. She was up there stripping. She’s trash. Can’t you tell the difference? Is your dick that stupid? Come find me when you come to your senses.”