by Karen Rock
Her hands tightened around the wheel. She’d get to the bottom of it, and not by waiting around for daily updates from Uncle Tom, as much as she loved him.
No matter the risk, she wouldn’t run or hide ever again.
* * * *
Reese turned off her ignition and thrust open the car door. Dallas Heat’s back parking lot was dim, the streetlamps fighting the night and losing. The wind was punching around a paper bag, slamming it up against a wall, holding it there for a second before tossing it down the road again. The winds of fate. They’d shoved her around, too, lately, but she wasn’t a feeble paper bag. She’d keep pushing back.
From the corner of her eye, she thought something moved and whirled. Nothing, just the parking lot. Yet the moon’s white light and the tossing shadows turned it sinister: bare asphalt, chain-link fences, the withered stalks of a dying ivy plant and the dark looming all around. For a second, she thought she spotted a figure move over the back fence as she rounded a corner to the club’s front entrance, the top of a head bobbing out in the alleyway. When she blinked, it was gone.
Last night’s intruder?
Her father’s shooter?
Officer Bates? The violent, despicable lowlife. Did he still work this beat? Could he have shot her dad as payback for saving her years ago? It seemed unlikely, since her father vowed the scumbag never showed his face again for fear they’d press charges after all.
Still…someone shot her dad, and Officer Chuck Bates, family man, decorated cop, extorter and attempted rapist, seemed like a strong contender to top her suspect list.
The hair on the back of her neck rose. Suddenly, Dallas Heat’s entryway, and the burly bouncer guarding it, appeared miles away. She almost called out to him, but forced herself to move steadily across the pavement instead, ignoring the unshakable, prickling sense of being watched.
At last, she brushed past the line of chattering women and forced a smile at Vic.
“How are you this evening, Ms. Landon?” Their long-standing head of security clicked free the velvet rope and waved her through. “How’s Mr. Landon?”
His large head sat low on massive shoulders, his body as square and thick as a refrigerator. He’d been a TMU linebacker, she recalled, and suddenly she had the ridiculous urge to hug him.
“The same. Stable. Thanks, Vic.”
She pushed inside, shook off her dread and scanned the club for Blake, a welcome distraction from her jitters. Was he backstage or had he backed out altogether? She’d instructed Nash to show Blake the ropes, handle costuming and a stage name, and help him get over any stage fright.
Reese glanced at her cell phone again, wondering when Blake danced. Was he ready? She recalled his racy improv back in the studio this morning and her face heated. Maybe the question should be—was she ready? Better to let Nash give her the rundown on Blake’s performance while she stayed upstairs. She needed to check her dad’s bank records further and make sense of the erratic transactions.
A large group of women whooped and hollered from a round plush booth, at least seven squished against the animal print and four more perched on outside seats. Empty shot glasses littered the marble-topped table. A shirtless waiter whisked them onto his tray, nodding and smiling as one of the ladies snapped pictures of him with her cell and ordered another round.
Her life might be in shambles, Reese mused, but Dallas Heat still rocked as hard as ever. It’d be a shame when it shut down, considering what it gave to Dallas’s ladies—the chance to forget their jobs, their partners, their kids, and raise a little hell for a night. It might not be the ballet, but she’d argue to her last breath it was just as entertaining—just as much of an escape. The arts lifted you from your daily life, something her dad’s club did in spades.
Behind the bar, Bryan tossed a glass in the air, twirled, then caught it behind his back, earning him a round of applause from the besotted ladies crowding the stools. She caught his eye, and made a throat-slitting motion with her finger.
He shook his head, scratching it, and she sighed. Didn’t he know the universal signal for knock it off? Then again, pretty boys like him didn’t hear “no” often. Before she could tramp over, the room darkened and the jabbering crowd hushed.
A spotlight appeared on stage, and Nash stepped into it wearing leather pants slung low enough to show off his impressive hip ridges. Instantly, a yowling filled the room and Nash joined them, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Yeeee-oooooow!”
“Yeeee-oooooow!” The women catcalled back. A couple of the ladies in the booth stood on the seat, wriggling in excitement. The air crackled with electricity, and her heart pounded. How would Blake handle the pressure? It was one thing to face a bad guy with a gun. Another entirely to face throngs of hyped, hell-raising women wearing nothing but a G-string.
God help him.
Go upstairs, she ordered. Her feet pretended not to hear.
“Woooo!” Nash shouted again, revving up the crowd. “Yeeeahhhh!” He waved his arms and pointed at some of the louder ladies, his dimples and flashbulb smile brighter than the disco ball spinning above him.
A woman jumped on her chair, waved a fistful of cash, then toppled backward. To Reese’s relief, one of the bouncers leapt into action and helped the dazed woman to her feet. Despite the wild, chaotic feel of the club, it was a professional, well-controlled operation. Her father might skirt the law, take accounting shortcuts, but he insisted on top-notch staff and service for his customers, an ethic Reese intended on continuing in her own studio someday—hopefully with her dad by her side.
“How you feeling tonight, ladies? Come on, let me hear it one more time.” The answering roar nearly blew off the roof. No one knew how to have a good time like women out on ladies’ night. Reese could have sworn the hanging bar glasses shook. The crowd was on fire. What a time for Blake to pop his stage cherry. She pushed through the crowd toward the stairwell. He’d have to go through it without her.
“We’ve got a smokin’ hot evening, ladies, so get out your purses and raise your motherfucking cash because—” Nash paused, waiting for some of the screaming to die down. “We’re welcoming to the stage, for the very first time, the one, the only, Hot Cop!”
Reese froze and peered up at the stage. Cop?
To her shock, the curtains flung open and out stepped a police officer so authentic she had the crazy thought they’d been raided. His crisp dress blues hugged his wide chest and the hard planes of his abs. His pants outlined his muscular thighs as he stalked forward with so much swaggering authority screeching women fell all over themselves.
Reese squinted at the white-gloved dancer, disbelief shimmering through her. No freaking way. It couldn’t be Blake… But those cut hips and tight ass were undeniable. Holy shit.
He wasn’t dancing much, but his cocky stage presence made up for it. He oozed confidence as he pointed at ecstatic customers who raced to the stage and flung dollar bills. At last, his finger stopped on her and Blake rocked his hips, low to the floor, before flinging his hat her way.
She flushed, feeling light-headed. A rush of damp warmth coiled between her thighs. Guess she wasn’t immune to the club’s dancers after all, at least not the rugged, tough-guy types. Crazier still, dressed as a cop, he should be the ultimate turnoff considering her past…yet Blake in blue drew her, disarmed her, enticed her.
She snatched the cap from the air, barely holding on to it when a pack of ravenous women descended. She elbowed a lady old enough to be her grandmother and made a break for it.
At the bar, she leaned back and watched the rest of Blake’s routine, unable to leave. Heat spiraled inside of her, leaving her breathless, aroused. Forget investigating money transfers tonight, not with Hot Cop torching the stage and filling her full of taboo desires.
And an undercover detective playing a sexy officer stripper? Who would suspect it? She clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her lau
gh. It was so obvious it was brilliant. She accepted a whiskey from Bryan, her eyes on her hottest new dancer, who’d vowed to protect her and find her father’s killer, who stirred her like no other.
She slammed back her drink and held out the empty glass, eyes peeled on Blake’s mind-blowing hip thrusts. His impressive cock swelled against a scrap of material barely containing him. She fanned herself with a cocktail napkin as she imagined it—him—inside her. Filling her. Taking her hard until she screamed right here on this dance floor, backstage, in the studio….
She dragged in a ragged breath. Acting on her erotic need was out of the question. She didn’t dare let him close, but she could watch…and fantasize.
What harm could come of that?
Chapter Five
Blake lathered soap over his slick body for the third time and watched it bead and slide away. What the hell was in the dancers’ body lotion? Glitter and 5W-30? Pheromones and Pennzoil? Scrubbing hard enough to remove at least one, maybe two layers of skin, he twisted beneath Dallas Heat’s oversized rainfall showerhead. The warm deluge drummed over his scratched abs and thighs, marks left by overzealous fans. Chalk it up to an occupational hazard. His lips twitched into a smirk. Hell—it could be worse.
Last week he’d lurked in Dallas’s underbelly alongside a vicious opiate-drug ringleader. Now he worked in a high-class strip club for a gorgeous woman who occupied every one of his thoughts.
His groin tightened at the remembered heat of her gaze when she’d watched his first dance. He’d been reluctant to dance in front of strangers, worried he’d embarrass himself. Before now, his best moves were flapping imaginary chicken wings at weddings.
The moment his gaze tangled with Reese’s, however, his inhibitions fell away. The audience, the club, even the music receded, leaving only her—cheeks flushed and a wanton smile that’d rocked him with desire. His hips circled and groin thrust for her and her alone. A private dance in a crowded room. He’d wanted to turn her on, make her scream, and seduce her so hard she forgot her name—forgot everything—except the need to wrap her legs around his waist and feel him buried deep inside her.
He flipped the hot nozzle to off and faced the wet, ceramic-tiled walls. The freezing water reined in his rising libido. He prided himself on his self-control. Playing the long game was critical in undercover work, where hasty moves met with quick, deadly ends.
Yet Reese shredded his restraint, shattered his inhibitions. She turned him into the kind of person he’d vowed never to be—one governed by want instead of reason. Addicts behaved like that. People like his birth mother. Not him.
Luckily, Reese had kept to herself the past few days, minimizing his distraction. But without her revving him up, he struggled to tap into the sex machine he’d become beneath her blistering stare.
He hungered for another kind of dance with her. Alone. Yet the professional code of ethics mandated he keep his distance and focus solely on uncovering Dallas Heat’s steroids link. Like the chief said, this was Blake’s one and only chance.
He wouldn’t screw it up.
The past few days had flown by in a hail of dollar bills, female adoration, and piss-poor leads. He still needed to talk to Dixon and glean any connection between the dancer who’d questioned Reese and the attempted home invasion later the same night. The forced waiting posed a danger since the longer Landon’s shooter remained at large, the greater the risk to his daughter. He needed a break in this case. Fast.
Blake snapped off the water, wrapped a white towel around his waist, and sauntered back to the changing area.
The cloying scents of deodorant, cologne and hair products made his nose itch. Costumes hung helter-skelter on a rack at the far end of the room. Hair spray, gel, tweezers and body lotion cluttered a shelf in front of a wide mirror with three stools. A couple of the local university’s football players, who moonlighted here during their off-season, leaned against a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition poster, scrolling through their phones. Another perched on a bench and counted through clenched teeth as he curled a fifty-pound free weight.
“Whattup,” called Nash, the club’s lead dancer, who’d been showing Blake the ropes: ripping off outfits in one move, spray-tanning dos and don’ts, pre-performance workouts designed to carve out your eight-pack, and simulated, squirm-worthy sex moves.
Nash dropped from the pull-up bar in the doorway and stepped aside for Blake to pass.
“Not much, man.” Blake twirled his locker dial then jerked up the handle. It opened with a metallic clang.
“Getting the hang of everything?” Nash lifted and lowered himself in a set of one-arm chin-ups. His mammoth bicep bulged with every pull, the motion smooth and effortless.
One thing Blake had learned these past couple of days, the performers obsessed about their bodies, working out nonstop between routines to maintain top physical condition for themselves and the women. Their dedication to their careers earned his respect. Male stripping wasn’t easy, or a joke like he’d first thought.
“Can’t complain.” Blake dropped the towel, pulled on a pair of jeans and tucked his medal in his pocket
“Just have fun,” Nash advised. “Ladies feed off your energy. If you’re having a good time, so will they.”
Blake made an indiscriminate sound, somewhere between a “yes” and “guess so” that sounded more frustrated than he intended. It wasn’t like he cared if he ranked worst in the club’s lineup, but he needed to blend in better.
“Just think of it this way,” Nash said as he switched arms and ran through another round of pull-ups. “Why buy a ticket to watch a bunch of men, when sex is something they could get for free at the bar next door?”
Before Blake could answer, Nash continued, not sounding the least bit out of breath. “Above-average bodies, humor and tight choreography, that’s why. You’re creating relationships with hundreds of women a night during your performances. Women want to be romanced. They want to feel special. That’s your priority. Remember that, and you’ll satisfy them every time.”
“Nash’s so sensitive,” jibed one of the football players in a falsetto. Nash’s fierce scowl snuffed out the group’s hooting.
Did fiery, independent Reese want romance? A relationship? It wasn’t any of his business… He wanted neither of those things either. If you never let anyone close, then no one could ever hurt you…abandon you… He’d only risk his heart with someone he trusted completely, no matter how much the enigmatic Reese intrigued him.
Blake shook the unproductive thoughts away. The chief had ordered him to pursue a crime group, not a woman’s heart. Besides, his demanding career left no room for real relationships, even if he wanted one. He played too many roles to take on another identity: himself. Who would he be as a boyfriend, husband, father?
“Come by early tomorrow, and I’ll show you another routine.” Nash dropped from the bar and tossed back his black hair. “An old-school gangster shoot-out. Ever handle a gun before? It’s got to look authentic.”
“I’ll do my best.” Blake yanked his T-shirt over his head to hide his grin. “Wondered if you could help me with something else?”
“No problem.” Nash grabbed his street clothes from his locker.
“Where can I score some juice?” he asked, using a street name for steroids. “You guys have a hook-up here?”
Nash whirled and a line appeared between his brows. “I don’t do that shit.”
Blake eyed the Hercules look-alike, skeptical. The dude’s muscles had muscles.
“Who’s asking?” asked another dancer, emerging through the black curtain separating the dressing room from backstage. He carried a firefighter uniform over his shoulder and a red helmet that matched his thong.
“Nobody,” growled Nash, jaw jutting.
The dancer, Dixon, backed up a pace and threw up his hands. “Easy, man. Thought I heard someone asking for ca
ndy.”
“You selling?” Blake asked, casual, shoving his feet into beat-up sneakers.
Suddenly Nash muscled between them. “You don’t want to get involved in that shit, dude.”
Blake assessed the club’s top draw. Maybe he was clean. His outrage seemed real.
“I don’t answer to you,” Blake snarled, and Nash’s head jerked like he’d been smacked.
Regret tolled inside Blake when Nash backed off. He seemed like the kind of guy Blake might have shared a beer and caught a football game with…but Blake wasn’t Blake right now, just a ’roid-seeking dancer who needed his fix.
“Whatever, dude.” Nash snatched up his jacket and shoved through the door leading to the rear parking lot.
“Must be in a hurry to spy on more couples,” one of the players joked.
At Blake’s puzzled expression, another player chimed in. “He’s a private investigator on the side. Thinks he’s a tough guy ’cause he carries a gun.”
“Never would have guessed,” Blake mumbled, acting unimpressed, although hearing about Nash’s second job did make him respect the guy even more.
“Hey. You got some for us, too?” The college players crowded Dixon.
Blake’s eyes flashed between the students and Dixon, the steroid connection falling into place. Dancers, athletes, people seeking to push their bodies through longer, harder workouts, dabbled in the drug. Many didn’t even consider it illegal, or a hazard.
Blake grabbed his gym bag and slung it over his shoulder. “How much?”
Dixon’s close-set eyes bored into his. “One hundred.”
“For?”
“Ten milliliters.”
Blake rolled his eyes. “Do I look like an idiot?”
Dixon shrugged and pulled a couple of vials from his backpack. “You don’t like it, go to a pharmacy.”
The football players guffawed.
“Seventy-five,” Blake countered, hands in his pockets, posture relaxed, like he bargained for drugs every day…which he pretty much did, actually.