“But she hasn’t paid,” the bartender said, gripping the counter.
“I don’t give a fuck. In the cage.” Kel grinned with a wicked glint in his eyes as he continued to stare at Casey. His gaze flickered to the bartender. “Thirty minutes. And don’t tell me I only have five left, or I’ll chain you inside this trap.”
Casey’s mouth went dry, and her legs shook as she slid off the barstool.
Before she could take a step, the bartender was rounding his way past her and up to the cage.
He grumbled something about Kel being high.
Wait a minute . . . She wasn’t going to get in some cage with a drug addict, no matter how pretty and intriguing he was, and no matter how much experience she had dealing with addicts.
She sat back down.
“Get over here,” the bartender said, waving her forward. “Your time’s running out.”
Maddie’s finger dug into Casey’s back, and she prodded her off the seat. “Go! They’re calling you, and we’re waiting.” She grinned.
“Are you insane? I’m not going in there with him!” Casey crossed her arms over her chest, and a knot yanked at the top of her gut, making bile tickle at the back of her throat.
“Your friend’s money back if you get in here in the next two minutes,” Kel said, smirking.
“Oh, hell yeah!” Maddie was shoving Casey forward once more. She hissed in her ear to share all the details when she got back.
It didn’t seem to help—being pushed forward. Casey’s feet dragged, and her gut tightened so hard it was damn near impossible to breathe.
Once she made it to his edge of the room, she shifted her weight into her right foot and pushed her left hip forward, giving him a “fuck off” vibe, even though her facial expression was bland.
“Inside you go,” the bartender said, helping her in.
Kel was pacing like a wild animal, staring at her through his lashes with his head bent down.
He was studying her.
Clannnnng!
The bars shook as the door closed, and then it was locked from the outside by the bartender.
She waited for the curtains to be closed since she’d been told when a woman was given thirty minutes in the cage, it was done in privacy. The curtains remained wide open.
Fabulous. Her shame was going to be available for all to see.
“I can smell your virgin blood from here,” Kel said, his jaw twitching, making his five-o’clock shadow more noticeable.
“And you know the state of my sexuality based on what facts?” She started pacing with him, mirroring his actions.
The oddest thing happened as she swayed along—he slowed down. Not only that; he stopped. The arms that had been tensed at his sides relaxed, and his eyes went from suspicious, maybe even a little frightened, to intrigued and genuinely curious about her.
“You’ve never done anything like this before—been with a man like me,” he answered.
“Yeah, I think it’s safe to say very few women have been with a man like you, but that doesn’t make them virgins.” She snorted and stepped closer to him to see what he’d do.
“It does to me. They don’t know what it’s like . . .” His pacing resumed.
“What’s it like then? Tell me, and I’ll share it with the masses,” she teased him.
“It’s a bloody hell—it’s dangerous, dark, and it drags you into the deepest corners of sensual pleasures that you can’t ever get back out. I’m stuck—I’ll never get free.”
“Is that why you’re chained up in here? To protect yourself?”
“No.” He blinked and stopped moving. His body leaned toward her and his nostrils flared. “It’s to protect you.”
He moved over to the seat at the front corner and sat down.
There was a small wooden table next to it with some kind of bottle of lube, a few penis sleeves and a bottle of water. Her eyes roamed over his body as he sat there looking vulnerable.
It was odd how comfortable it made her to see him this way after she’d already witnessed him being unhinged, like a rabid maniac.
“I don’t need protection. I’m fine, thanks.” She kneeled down in front of him, her head level with his stomach.
“You want to touch me,” he said with a smooth, even tone.
It sent shivers through her spine, then made her thighs tingle.
“Not the way you think.” She reached out and slowly ran her hands up his jean covered thighs. They spoke of power, of brutal strength and masculinity.
“That . . . You can’t.” His voice was shaky and his eyes followed her hands.
There was nothing sexual about it. This was empathy. He was trapped in here like a scared animal, snapping at her. Her heart clenched for him.
“You’re hurting.” Her eyes were piercing in that moment, even more than her words.
He wet his bottom lip and bit it. His eyes were filled with anguish.
“It hurts more than you can know,” he whispered, leaning forward.
“I’ll make it go away,” she said, moving her hands up his sides and to his arms.
The minute she touched his shoulders, he jerked and cowered away like she was torturing him.
“Shhh . . . It’s okay. I’m going to make it better.” She feathered her fingertips across his inner arms that were trembling, but still bound at the wrists.
Her hands tickled back up to his shoulders, and she made several sweeps, noticing long gashing scars across his right pec. Three of them were lined up like a lion had raked across his chest and had swiped at him.
Over and over, she ghosted her fingertips, and he tensed and tightened with each slight brush.
His skin was chilly in some spots and burning hot in others.
Such a paradox—this man.
“That stings,” he murmured.
“It shouldn’t. It should relax you.” She kept her tone lighter than her touch.
“It’s . . . I’m not the same as you.” He grimaced.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is you need someone to be gentle.”
“Gentle burns—it destroys me.” His eyes clenched closed, and he banged the back of his head up against the bars repeatedly as she roamed her fingertips across his chest.
“Should I stop?” she asked, scooting closer.
His inner arms pinked at her touch as she moved away.
“I . . . I don’t want you to, but you should.” His jaw clenched.
“Why?” She blew across his chest hairs, leaning ever closer to his heartbeat.
She could imagine his heart flying in his chest, hammering bits of her offered kindness into his battered soul.
“Because if I touch you back, it’ll hurt you,” he said. Suddenly, without her realizing how he’d done it, his bound wrists were unattached, and he was all around her, encompassing her.
He was rubbing his cheeks and lips on her arms, her chest, and taking deep whiffs of her scent at her hair and neck.
It was the most erotic thing she’d ever experienced. She was breaking out in goose bumps across her chest and around the backs of her shoulders.
The strangest thing about it was he was careful to keep the rest of his body away from her. Only his face and hands touched, and that was it. But he moved so quickly, with a predatory attack, she had no idea where he’d strike or contact next.
She inhaled and closed her eyes, and the next thing she knew, the chair had been moved to the center of the cage, facing away from the crowd.
They booed and hollered about how unfair this was.
“Touch it—you have to,” he said, breathing really hard, and his chest damp with sweat. His hands trembled as he released his massive, swollen cock from his jeans.
When did that happen? When did he get this worked up that he appeared to have just returned from a five mile run and was harder than the bars surrounding them?
Somehow he’d moved them both and in a flash she had been flung behind the chair, facing his back, and he was seated a
gain. He grabbed her arms, circling them around him.
It was an odd angle to be in since her ass was sticking up in the air behind her as she tried to avoid touching him with her arms.
Something told her deep down inside, she could only touch him there—on his cock, and nowhere else, or it really would be bad.
“What about a sleeve?” she asked.
“Fuck—if you grab one, I won’t be held responsible for how badly I hurt you,” he said through gritted teeth.
And then her hands were entwined around the base of his shaft, his hands over hers.
He was grunting, straining up into her grip, but barely thrusting at all.
She’d given hand-jobs plenty, but this was . . . different. He was different.
Her touch was light but not timid. She was coaxing him to adjust to her hold on him, her breath on his shoulder and neck, the sound of her voice in his ear.
“I won’t hurt you—relax,” she whispered.
He was so high strung, she had no doubt he’d bend the bars, break out and wreak havoc on this place, going berserk on the ladies out there.
“I want you to have this—you need it. I can tell this is what you’re dying for,” she said so quietly, it was like a dream of a promise in the air.
“Harder—if you don’t go harder, it’ll hurt worse.” His hips jutted up as high as they could go without the rest of his body leaving the seat.
“Five minutes,” the bartender shouted.
“Fuck—hard. Tear skin, break through to me!” Kel panted through his grinding teeth.
She grabbed him as rough and tight as she could, frowning at the thought of how much pain this was probably causing him. When his body rounded forward, making her reach further, she managed to tighten her grip to keep from losing it. His chest seemed to cave in with a large, stuttering inhale and he all but collapsed with a seizing breath.
With each twist and jerk of her hands, his touch over her fists lightened, and almost turned to reverence.
He was caressing her, and she was what? Manhandling him? Abusing this poor twisted soul?
“Yes, that’s it—God, no one ever gets it, but you do, don’t you, slut?” His speech dragged like he was high.
A frisson of fear crackled through her for a moment. Would he hurt her? He was calling her names now.
How hard would it be for him to turn around and kill her with his bare hands?
Her eyes drifted to those very hands—they were calloused, hardened from some kind of harrowing life, but at the same time, they seemed the hands of a man that created, that cocooned the soft side of a woman’s heart without being asked.
“You—are so—” she inhaled deeply and licked her lips, trying to gain courage “—soft and beautiful.” She sighed and moved her lips as close to his naked shoulder as possible without touching him. “All of you, Kel.”
He shook in his seat, his hands releasing her completely as he gasped and choked on the air around him. His abs tightened, his thighs shook, and in the next breath, he was spurting all over her hands, all over his chair and it was dripping down his inner thighs.
But that wasn’t as shocking as this man, collapsing out of the chair and falling to the ground, unconscious.
Chapter 2
“Sssssuuuuhhh,” a stuttering breath ripped out of Kel.
“Hey, man, take it easy,” Max said, looming over him.
“Who’s manning the bar?” Kel asked, trying to shove himself up to sitting.
“I called in a favor from a friend. He’s taking care of it.” Max’s eyes were heavy with concern. “You okay? I was worried you might not wake up.”
“I’m fine. How’d I get back here to my bed?”
“I dragged you by your jeans, so I didn’t touch you.” Max pointed at his bare feet sticking out of a blanket.
“I covered you up. He told me not to touch your skin again, even if you were out of it, and I didn’t think you wanted your junk hanging out,” the woman with the curvy body, long auburn curly hair and cobalt blue eyes said. It took a moment, but then he remembered she was the woman who’d been inside the cage.
“Why’s she here?” Kel bit out. “She’s the reason this happened!”
“I know, but she was . . . Never mind,” Max said, slapping the edge of the bed, and then he moved toward the door. “She’s going to watch out for you. I need to get back out there before we lose all our customers. We have a large crowd tonight, and it doubled after you brought her into the cage. These women must’ve been dialing up their friends, telling them they had to get in here.”
“No one filmed it, did they?” Kel frowned.
“Nah. They signed those forms—it’s all good.” Max smacked the door opened and left.
“Are you all right? Is there something I can get you?” a sweet smooth voice to his right asked.
“I wanna be alone.”
“No.”
“What the hell, girl? I don’t know you—this is my place! I live here!”
“In the back of a seedy night club?” Her voice rose in pitch, and her eyebrows decided to camp out on her upper forehead.
“Yeah, in the back of a seedy night club. What do you care?” He shoved the blanket off; his skin was on fire.
He got up, tucked his dick back in his jeans and groaned. “You need to leave.”
“Not until the club closes. You think I’m going back out there?” She grimaced, and her neck jerked, angling her head back. “They know I jacked you off in front of them.”
“They didn’t see a damn thing,” he said, waving his hand in the air, insinuating she was being stupid.
“They saw your come drenched on my hands, on that chair and on the floor. I swear you could fill a half-gallon empty milk container. When was the last time you got off anyhow?”
“Last night,” he rasped, his voice hoarse for some reason as he lied. Why was she making him uptight? It wasn’t like this bitch knew anything about him and his life.
She was staring at him, watching him move around.
It made his gut threaten to replace his lungs, it was that knotted and unsettled in his body.
“Holy God, you came last night, and that much shit came out of you?” She shook her head. “If I hadn’t watched you do it, I would’ve thought it was a trick. Like you’d used the lube to make it look like more, or maybe even the water from the bottle on that table nearby.”
He coughed to clear his throat, but it didn’t help. “Speaking of which—be a good little bitch and go fetch me a drink. I’m thirsty.”
“You forgot to grope my tits first, you dick.” She rolled her eyes and grinned. “I’m not here to be your bitch. I’m here to make sure you’re okay.”
“I said. I’m. Fine,” he ground out.
“You’re not fine. Look at your arms. They’re bright red, and your fists are blanched white. You look like you’re about to split your purple pants, Hulk. Calm down . . . Jesus.” She motioned for him to take a seat again on his bed.
“Why are you really here? Is it your friend’s money?” He pulled the hundred dollars out of his pocket. “Here. Take it.”
He threw it at her.
It scattered on the floor. Her expression was blank.
“You expect me to take that back?”
“Yes,” he said, failing to blink.
“Well, I won’t.”
“Bitch, you need to quit snorting coke. That shit’ll mess you up every damn time.” His lopsided smirk pressed into his cheek and made his temple tight. His head tingled.
She barked a sardonic laugh. “Yeah, tell me about it. There was this one time—”
“You don’t use,” he interrupted. He could tell she was the squeaky clean type. No woman used that was this innocent looking and sounding.
“No, I don’t, but I’ve been around a lot of people who do. Now listen to my story. It’s a good one.” She grinned again.
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. “You are seriously fuc
ked up, lady. You know that, right?”
“No more so than you.” She brushed her hands across her skirt. “There was this one family I had to visit recently.”
“Oh, Jesus,” he sighed.
“Well said. I thought the same thing when I pulled up to their house surrounded by waist-high weeds, dryer than the African plains. There was a broken down truck with cobwebs all over it, busted windows in the house, barely boarded up, and there were cats all over the place.”
He yawned and stretched for a moment. “Is there a point to this? I should probably get back out there.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder, jerking it in the direction he needed to go and then went back to crossing his arms.
“Yeah, there’s a point—if you’ll just slow down and listen . . .” She rolled her eyes, then dropped them. “Anyway, I stepped up to the front door, realizing there was no way they were going to let me in.” Her eyes lifted back to his face, and she looked like she was searching for an answer there from him.
“Are you a cop or somethin’?”
She chuckled, but failed to answer his question. “I knocked on the door, and heard something crash inside. It sounded like maybe another window had busted at the back of the house—like someone was running away, thinking I was the authorities. I was able to peek over the gate in time to see a woman, half-dressed with blonde hair, slipping out the window and then booking it through the yard. She threw herself over the hurricane fencing and into the alley. I called the cops while I kept watching her. She was barefoot, but it didn’t seem to matter to her. She didn’t slow down for anything.”
“Smart woman to get away from you.” He dropped his chin a little and gave her a look like she couldn’t be serious—telling him this tedious, pointless story.
“Yes, she was, because when the police got inside a few minutes later and saw what was going on, she really was lucky. There was a man OD’ing on the floor, convulsing and choking on his own vomit.” She swallowed and her eyes softened. “There was a four-year-old kid lying on the floor next to him, not really crying, not really doing anything, but he had the oddest eyes I’ve ever seen. They were mostly gray, but there was this ring of green around the middle, and he looked at me like he knew exactly who I was . . .”
Sleeves Page 2