What He Shields

by Hannah Ford

  I caught sight of something on her arms – red marks. I tried not to stare, but I couldn’t help it. There were tracks marks on her arms, faint, but there. Was Jessa into drugs? Or was she a cutter like me? Colt had made it perfectly clear there were no drugs allowed in the club, and yet this girl seemed like she was advertising that might not be the case.

  Jessa saw me looking, but instead of trying to cover her arms or move them out of my line of sight like I would have, she gave me a smirk, almost like she was enjoying the fact that I was staring at her.

  She reached over and grabbed a hair tie out of the glass jar that was sitting on the counter, moving slowly, making sure I got a good view of her arms.

  I averted my eyes as she gathered her long hair up into a ponytail and slid the tie around it.

  A second later, the lights in the room dimmed, and a slow, sexy song started, its beat pulsing through the club. “Showtime,” Jessa said, and grinned.

  ***

  Three hours later, I was so exhausted I thought I was going to drop right there in the middle of the club.

  I’d been running back and forth to the bar, fetching drinks and filling orders all night. Besides the fact that it was exhausting, it actually hadn’t been that bad. The men definitely didn’t try to hide the fact that they were ogling my body, but with what was going on up the main stage, none of them spent too much time looking at me. Sure, their eyes lingered on my tits and ass as I walked by in my short little skirt, but it was only for a quick beat. While I might have been dressed provocatively, it was all relative. And in this place, I was practically wearing a snowsuit.

  Up on stage, beautiful women, much more beautiful than I, danced and gyrated, removing their tops and showing off their gorgeous bodies. They flipped around a pole, showing off their toned legs and abs, their asses jiggling, causing the men to go crazy with appreciation.

  I was serving a round of beers to a group of men in business suits when it happened. One of them looked at me and said, “Nice ass, sweetheart. How come you’re not up there, dancing?”

  “Jesus, Neal,” one of the other guys at the table said. He shook his head and looked at me. “I’m sorry about Neal. He’s been drinking since lunch, and he’s obviously not in his right mind.”

  Neal shrugged, then turned his back to me and started talking to the guy on the other side of him.

  “No harm, no foul,” I said to his friend, shrugging. I’d made a pact with myself that I wasn’t going to get worked up over every dumb comment some drunk guy made. There were men drinking here, men celebrating, men getting horny and worked up without any kind of release. You could practically smell the testosterone pumping through the room.

  “No, he’s…” The man motioned me closer, like he wanted to tell me something in confidence. “He’s not my friend. I just work with him.” He smiled at me. “Sorry, is it weird that I felt the need to point that out? I just didn’t want you to think I’d hang out with a guy like that.”

  “No problem,” I said. “If we were all assumed to be friends with our co-workers, we’d all have a lot of explaining to do.” The words had just come out of me, my default whenever someone said something to me about friends or family. I tended to just agree with them, mostly because I had no friends or family, and so going along with whatever people said made me feel less awkward.

  He held out a twenty-dollar bill to me. “Here,” he said, looking kind of sheepish. “You know, to make up for it.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I said. “I mean, it’s not your fault.” It wasn’t necessary, but I was hoping he was going to insist. I wasn’t doing this job for the money – if Colt was going to help me find Declan, if he did find Declan, that would be worth more than all the money in the world. But the thought of making twenty dollars just for walking some beers over from the bar was kind of blowing my mind, especially when I currently had eight dollars to my name.

  “Go ahead, take it,” the guy said, pushing the bill into my hand. “It’ll make me feel better.”

  “Thanks.” I took the money and slid it into the tip cup that was sitting on my tray.

  “What’s your name?” the guy asked.

  “Olivia,” I replied, before realizing it probably wasn’t a good idea to use your real name when you worked at a strip club. Wasn’t that why all the girls here used names like Diamond and Kat?

  “Olivia,” the guy said. “That’s my sister’s name.” He gave me a smile, and suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my internal radar started going off. It wasn’t anything his tone or anything he’d done -- he sounded genuine and his smile didn’t seem fake. He was dressed in an expensive suit and had the semi-uninterested look of a guy who’d been dragged along on a work trip and didn’t necessarily even want to be spending his night in a strip club. I had no reason to think he was lying. His sister’s name probably was Olivia.

  But I’d had enough experience with predators to know how this was one of their tactics. If a man wanted you to trust him, he’d find a way to connect with you. Something unassuming and innocent, something that would make you think he wasn’t a threat. It was how abusers were able to keep their victims close. They gave you a reason to connect with them and make you think you could trust them before exploiting that trust and confusing you about whether or not what they were doing was wrong.

  “That’s nice,” I said vaguely.

  “I’m Caleb,” he said, holding his hand out.

  I took it and shook it. His grip was strong, his hand warm. Nothing about him on the surface seemed off – but my instinct was still telling me there was something more going on. It wasn’t even necessarily something nefarious. It wasn’t like I thought he was going to try to pay me to sleep with him or anything. It was just… I felt like there was more to him what I was seeing.

  “Thanks for the drinks,” he said, holding up his beer and taking a swig. “And for putting up with my friends.” He rolled his eyes and I smiled.

  “Have a good night,” I said.

  “Yeah, you too.”

  My heart was pounding as I walked away from him.

  Relax, Olivia, I told myself. You’re being crazy. Just because you have the same name as some guy’s sister doesn’t mean something shady is going on. Stop acting like a victim. Stop being so suspicious of every single person you meet.

  I got back to work and was just about to put in a special order for a bunch of frat guys when Jessa called me over to the bar. “Olivia,” she said. “You need to bring this to the VIP.” She pushed a bottle of champagne across the bar. “There’s a bachelor party back there, and they want bottle service.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Um, where’s the VIP?”

  “Straight through there,” she said, pointing to a red crushed velvet curtain with a textured square pattern imprinted into the fabric. “It’s the second door on the left. They’re waiting for you.”

  I grabbed the bottle of champagne and slipped through the curtain. At the end of the hall was a full-length wall-sized mirror, and I almost didn’t recognize myself as I walked. My breasts were pushed up, my hair loose around my shoulders. My skin looked luminous from the makeup Jessa had put on me, and my cheeks were flushed from running around the club all night. My lips were pouty with lip gloss.

  I looked pretty. Or at least, as close to pretty as I could get.

  When I got to the second door on the left, I stopped, wondering if I was supposed to knock or just walk in.

  Finally, I knocked.

  I heard a bunch of hooting and hollering coming from the room, which I guess meant the men were ready for their drinks. I turned the knob and pushed open the door.

  When I got inside, I frowned.

  It didn’t look like a bachelor party.

  At least, they didn’t look like bachelors.

  There were four men, all of them middle-aged, all of them dressed in jeans and flannel shirts. There was another bachelor party going on out in the main area of the club, and those
guys were a lot younger, and they were slightly dressed up, like they were going out for a night on the town.

  The guys in here were definitely a lot older, and dressed a lot more casually, but maybe it was a second marriage or something.

  “Hey there,” a man sitting in the corner said. He was bald, with graying hair around his temples and a pot belly.

  “Hi,” I said. Something about the way he was looking at me made me nervous. It was different than how it had been out there, talking to Caleb. That had made me think that maybe there was more to Caleb than what I’d seen. But in here, I felt like maybe I was in danger.

  I set the bottle of champagne down on the table.

  “You bring us the good shit?” one of the other men asked. He walked over to the table and picked up the bottle, studying it.

  “Yup,” I said, even though I had no idea if it was true. I knew nothing about alcohol, even less about champagne and what would be considered “good shit.”

  “So, um, if you guys don’t need anything else…”

  I turned to head out of the room, but before I could, one of the guys stepped in front of the door. “What about our dance?” he asked.

  “Your dance?” I shook my head. “Oh, no, I’m not a dancer. I’m just a cocktail waitress. I’ll go out and find the girl who’s going to be, um, performing for you.”

  I went to move by him, but he grabbed me by the shoulders, hard. “We like you,” the guy said. His meaty hand dug into my flesh. “We want you to dance for us.”

  “I’m not a dancer,” I said. “But I’ll go get you one.”

  “No,” the man said, his nails digging into me even harder. “Dance for us, girl.”

  “Yeah, dance for us, slut,” the man in the corner said. He reached into his pants and pulled out his penis, then grinned as he began stroking it.

  I tried to move out of the room, but the man who was holding me just gripped me harder. I screamed as loud as I could and bit him in the arm. But he just laughed. “I think she likes it rough,” he said, pushing me up against the door, his hands moving over my ass. “You like it rough, baby?”

  Suddenly, the door behind us went flying open, and Colt was standing there. He took in the scene, and when he realized what was going on, his eyes blazed. “What the fuck is going on in here?” he demanded.

  “Nothing,” the guy in the corner said, adjusting himself back into his pants.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” Colt said to them.

  “Aww, come on, man, we were just having some fun,” the guy who grabbed me said.

  “Get the fuck out of my club,” Colt growled, grabbing the man by the neck. He squeezed until the man gasped, then finally released him. “And don’t come back.”

  The men looked at each other, obviously deciding if they wanted to fight him on it. But they must have decided I wasn’t worth it, because they shook their heads and walked out the door.

  “Are you okay?” Colt asked, rushing over to me. He took my hands and looked me over, his gaze roaming over my body, making sure I hadn’t been harmed.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “It was no big deal.”

  “It is a big deal,” he said. “You have bruises on your arms.” His fingertips slid up my body, checking me over. “Did they hurt you?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “You came in before anything could happen. I’m fine.”

  “Wait here,” he said, turning around and heading for the door. I knew where he was going – he was going to run after those guys and do God knows what to them. I remembered what he’d done to those men on the street earlier, and I reached out and grabbed Colt’s arm, pulling him back toward me.

  “No,” I said. “Please, don’t. It’s not worth it.”

  He shook out of my grasp and took another step toward the door but then turned around. “What the hell were you doing back here anyway?”

  “Jessa sent me back here,” I said. “She told me I needed to bring those guys some champagne.”

  “Jessa sent you back here?” he repeated. He shook his head. “No. She wouldn’t have done that.”

  “She did.”

  He opened his mouth to protest again, but then he shut it. “It doesn’t matter. This is over.”

  “What’s over?”

  “This. Our arrangement.” He took my hand and led me back out through the curtain, through the club and into the hallway of back offices.

  He pulled me into the room I’d been in earlier, the room where I’d done my audition. As soon as I saw it – the pole in the middle, the big chairs set up – it came back to me. How close Colt and I had come to kissing, his lips inches from mine, his hands on my body, guiding my hips, instructing me to undress.

  “Sit down,” Colt demanded.

  I sat down in one of the big leather chairs, sinking back into the supple fabric.

  He crossed the room to a small refrigerator in a corner, pulled out a bottle of water and handed it to me. “Drink,” he instructed.

  “I’m not thirsty.”

  “Drink.”

  I took a sip.

  A second later, he took off the black sweater he was wearing and draped it over my shoulders. “We’re done,” he said. “We’re not doing this anymore.”

  “What?”

  “We’re not doing this anymore. The deal is off.”

  “The deal is off because some guys grabbed at my ass?” I shook my head. “Wow, Colt, I didn’t peg you for a quitter.”

  “A quitter?” he raged. “Are you insane? This isn’t about quitting, Olivia, this is about making sure you stay safe.”

  “I am safe!”

  “You’re not.”

  “Yeah, well, I was until Jessa decided to send me back to the wolves,” I muttered, taking another sip of my water. A rage was building up inside of me, the kind of rage that made me want to run out there and slap her in the face. It wasn’t fair. She hated me because she had a thing with Colt, and she was ruining my chance to find Declan.

  Colt shook his head. “Jessa wouldn’t have done that,” he said.

  “Whatever.”

  “We’re going home.”

  “What?”

  “We’re leaving. Me and you. I’m taking you home.”

  He left the room and returned a few moments later with my clothes and my bag. I was angry. Angry at Jessa, angry at Colt, angry at myself for thinking that maybe something was going to go my way for once, that maybe someone was going to help me.

  “No,” I said, acting like a baby and not caring. I sunk down in the chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Yes, you are. Come on.”

  “You can’t make me.” It was maybe the most ridiculous thing I’d said in my life, but I didn’t care.

  “Actually, I can,” he said. “I own this club and if you don’t get the hell out of it, I’ll call the cops and have you arrested for trespassing.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “That’s actually great, because I want to talk to the cops. I want to tell them about the girl that was here earlier, the one with a jacked up face and a chunk of her hair cut off. The one everyone is just pretending doesn’t exist, even though I saw her. And then I’ll mention the track marks on Jessa’s arms. I’m sure they’ll be interested in figuring out how she got them.”

  “Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “You are something else, you know that? Here I am, trying to be a nice guy by offering to find some asshole for you, a guy who doesn’t even give enough of a shit about you to bother giving you a phone number or an email or a fucking address before he just takes off, and now you’re giving me shit because I’m trying to keep you safe.”

  “Oh, please!” I said. “You aren’t trying to keep me safe! You’re trying to keep your club protected. And you weren’t being nice by giving me a job, you wanted something out of it. Which you still won’t tell me! So if anyone was being nice to anyone, it was me being nice to you.”

  “Please,” Colt said. “I was doing
you a favor and you know it. That audition you gave me earlier? It was pathetic.”

  “And yet you still wanted to fuck me,” I said.

  He looked taken aback for a moment, as if he couldn’t believe those words were coming out of my mouth. I could barely believe it.

  “Listen, Princess,” he said. “If I wanted to fuck you, I could have fucked you.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “Try it.”

  I was blazing mad now, so mad that I felt like there was a fireball inside of me, just waiting to explode.

  Colt crossed the room in two long strides, pushed the chair I was on back into a reclining position and pinned me down with his body. The weight of him on me sent shivers flying up my spine, and there was one second, one endless second where he paused, his lips inches from mine.

  My breath hitched in my chest, and it was like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, and Colt was holding my hand, begging me to jump with him. His eyes asked permission for just one second, not giving me a chance to change my mind.

  And then his lips were on mine.

  It was an instant explosion of heat, my body almost bursting into flames. His hands were in my hair as we kissed, his tongue slipping into my mouth. He tasted like cinnamon and alcohol, his stubble brushing against my chin as the kiss intensified.

  I grabbed for his back, pulling him into me, but he pulled away and grinned, his hand moving up my thigh, under my skirt until he slid his finger over my hip and hooked it around the fabric of my thong.

  “You taste real good, Princess,” he said kissing me again on the lips, softly this time. “I’ll bet you taste even better down here.” The thought of his mouth down there, his tongue on my pussy, his lips moving in between my legs as he kissed my center was enough to make me moan out loud.

  But he moved his hand out from under my skirt and up to the ties of my uniform. He pulled one strand of fabric, then the other, until my top was open. He slid his palm under the loosened fabric and as soon as he touched my bare skin, my nipple hardened.

  He shifted on the chair and I could feel his cock through his pants. I wanted to push into it, to feel it against me, to take him inside of me. I’d heard about girls losing their minds, having sex with guys not that long after they’d met them, and I’d never believed you could want someone that bad.