Kane (Face-Off Series Book 2)

by Jillian Quinn

  Two girls are dancing, each wrapping her body around a pole at the center of the room. While we’re not strippers, we have to do some pole work on occasion, especially for the high-end clients who book private rooms. Bouncers guard us, as if we were their property. In some ways though, we do belong to Bruno and his club.

  Donna files in behind me and playfully smacks me on the ass, pushing me closer to the stage. Even after three months of working at the club, I still get stage fright for the first few minutes until I get into my groove. But, after I’m on the stage, bar, or whatever spot Bruno has chosen for me that night, I try not to think about the people in the crowd, and I concentrate on the real reason I am stuck working here.

  Donna takes her place on the stage. I follow her lead. Bruno even had the circular platform mirrored, allowing anyone who is standing close enough to see right up our skirts. I purposely wear booty-hugging black shorts instead of the standard thong and fishnets most of the girls wear.

  Moving my hips back and forth to the music, I keep my eyes on the crowd forming in front of me, careful not to focus on anyone in particular. I made that mistake when I first started dancing. A man thought I was making eye contact to signal that I wanted him when all I was trying to do was calm my nerves and pick someone to zone in on. I had done the same thing when I was in law school, and my trick had worked every time. But the freak followed me home for a week after our strange encounter, which resulted in me having to stop by the courthouse to get a restraining order.

  Fun times.

  I’ve heard stories from the girls, some who used to strip, about men who became obsessed with them and thought they were dating just because they’d paid them for a lap dance and tipped well. Unfortunately, the same thing happens in this line of work.

  I look at the men surrounding us, standing a few feet back from the stage, thanks to our bouncers.

  “Make eye contact,” Bruno always says to us.

  So, I do, my eyes traveling around the room, never stopping on anyone in particular.

  With this job, at least I don’t have to wear a G-string, take off my clothes, or have sweaty, horny men touching me. They only stare at me with their mouths open wide, whistling and screaming, as I throw my leg around the pole. After I twirl a few times, dancing nonstop, my body and the pole are now slick with sweat. Under the heat from the lights and the steady pace we have to maintain, I practically melt into a puddle on the floor.

  I tighten my grip on the pole and hop off before I fall and embarrass myself, like when I first started out. Counting down the minutes in my head until the end of this shift, I keep going and force my body to move, already feeling my leg cramping up. I hate when that happens because it makes standing in these heels ten times harder.

  When the song changes to a more techno beat, I inch forward, in sync with the other girls, and we gyrate to the beat of the music. I took ballet, tap, and jazz lessons when I was younger. But I never thought I was any good.

  One of the girls I met while working as a lawyer at the public defender’s office told me about a club that paid well for dancing without taking off your clothes, and I was banging on Bruno’s door the next day, begging him for a job because I was so desperate for cash. The life of a public servant has zero rewards. On my measly public defender salary, I barely made enough money to pay a few bills and treat myself to a manicure once a month.

  Once our set ends, I stop for a second, sweat dripping into my eyes and down my face. With the makeup and lights blinding me, I can hardly see the faces in front of me. Blinking a few times as I step down from the platform, I grab ahold of a bouncer’s arm, and he escorts me out of the room. I’m thrilled that I have thirty minutes before I have to go back on again.

  I need the money. But I hate this job.

  Our next shift moves to the main room of the club where girls are dancing inside cages suspended from the vaulted ceiling. Bruno used to switch me with the girls who normally worked above the dance floor, but one night, I got so sick from the height that he hasn’t forced me to go up there since. Now, he wants the girls to dance on top of a long mahogany bar at the center of the club where everyone can perfectly see us as we step onto the stools and climb up onto the bar.

  I almost lose my balance when my shoe collides with something wet, causing me to glide toward one of the six poles bolted into the ceiling and fixed to the wood. On my first night as a dancer, I didn’t adjust to the black lights, and I walked into the bottom of the stage, falling onto the platform with my arms sprawled out and my legs sticking up in the air. It was beyond humiliating. I thought about quitting after that night, but Donna convinced me to stick with it, said things would get better as time went by. She was right. But that does not change how I feel about this job.

  I could have worked a different job, apart from the public defender’s office, but I wanted to make some fast cash to pay off my debts. According to my projections, it will be at least one year, if not more, before I am debt-free. My pride has to take a backseat to the mountain of bills and collection agencies hounding me on a daily basis. I am flat broke and drowning in school loans.

  “No touching!” the bouncer yells at a guy who has grabbed my leg, his sleazy hand running up the length of my calf. “I said, no touching.”

  I try to shake him off, holding on to the pole and hopping around, as the bouncer peels the guy’s fingers from my skin and grips him by his shirt.

  When the bouncer turns to manhandle him, my hand slides down the metal of the sweat-coated pole. With the slickness from spilled drinks on the bar, I fall forward after the guy releases my leg, having nothing left to keep me from tumbling to the ground. Except my body never hits the floor because strong arms have wrapped around me. The scent of musk and laundry detergent fill my nostrils as my nose crashes against the neck of the man who caught me.

  “I got you, beautiful,” he whispers into my ear, his voice deep and sensual.

  He sets me on the floor his striking green eyes luring me in. The dark tats on his muscular arms cause my heart to flutter a bit. Damn if he’s not one of the sexiest men I have laid eyes on in a long time. I was already curious about the man who saved me, but now…

  Fashioned into tiny spikes that stick up in different directions, his dark auburn hair has more brown to it than red, somehow making him even more alluring. He has a trace of stubble along his angular jaw, completing the younger, sexier Michael Fassbender look.

  My God, he’s gorgeous. Can I even use that word when talking about a man?

  “I’m sorry about that!” he yells over the music. “My friend is an asshole. Let me make it up to you. What are you drinking?”

  “I can’t, not when I’m working.”

  “After work then.”

  Before I can respond, a bouncer pulls me away from him and pushes the guy further into the crowd.

  My cue to get back to work.

  Bruno watches us from camera feeds in his office. I have no doubt, he is pissed about me taking a minute to talk to the man who spared me massive humiliation.

  You okay? Donna mouths to me as I climb onto the bar.

  I try to compose myself before getting back to our routine. With a quick nod, I continue moving to the beat of the music, falling in line with the rest of the girls on the bar with me. It’s rare for a customer to ever get close enough to us that we have cause for concern—not unless they’ve paid for a more intimate experience in the VIP room, but even that premium service only gets them within a few feet of the girls.

  Among the guys in the crowd, I spot him instantly. He’s the kind of guy who stands out. He must be in his early twenties, though he could pass as older.

  The boy who touched me must have evaded the bouncer because he’s found his way back to the group of guys surrounding my tatted savior. He chases the boy away with a wave of his hand, his mouth twisted in disgust while speaking to him, and then he steps next to a tall, dark-haired man with a scruffy beard and unkempt appearance. They do not look like fri
ends. I’m shocked someone so yummy would even hang out with guys like the troll next to him and the skeevy dude who tried to feel me up. But the two guys to his left, the ones with beautiful women dangling on their arms, are even better-looking, similar in height, and just as well built.

  Despite my rule of not focusing on anyone too long, I cannot take my eyes off him. And, once he leans into his unattractive friend to talk to him, our eyes meet at the same time, and I forget I’m supposed to be moving to the beat and following a routine. My body does what it wants, repeating the sequences from memory. He stares so hard, so intense, that, if the lights weren’t so damn hot already, I’d melt under his gaze.

  He sifts through the crowd and steps in front of the bar to order, his eyes never leaving mine. After the bartender hands him a drink, he licks his lips at me and takes a sip from his glass. Lost in him, I don’t even realize the song has ended until Donna taps me on the shoulder, snapping me out of my trance.

  “C’mon, Liv. Get your ass in gear.”

  Ending our staring contest, I turn around, giving him a nice view of my ass in my barely there outfit, and I hop down from the bar. I look over my shoulder at him one last time before I follow behind Donna. He smiles and raises his glass at me, and I grin like an idiot.

  I walk into the dressing room with Donna at my side, the other girls ahead of us.

  Donna pats me on the back and pulls me closer. “That was a close call, huh? He had his hand wrapped pretty tightly around your leg.”

  “I didn’t even have time to react before the bouncer threw him out.”

  “You should’ve kicked him in the face for getting so close.” She tilts her head back and laughs. “That would’ve taught that bastard a lesson for touching the goods.”

  Taking a seat in front of my dressing table, I sigh. “I’m fine. It’s not like I haven’t had dudes try to touch me before. Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

  Donna sits beside me, pressing down on the corner of her eye to hold her fake lashes in place. “At least you start your new job on Monday. You won’t need this place soon enough.” She turns to me and frowns. “I’ll miss you when you are a hotshot professor and have dozens of published papers in some fancy law journal.”

  “It’s only an associate professor position at Strickland University, not Harvard.”

  “Strickland is still a prestigious school. Give yourself some credit. Not too shabby for your first teaching gig. And it beats the hell out of the public defender’s office.”

  I shrug, nonchalant, even though I know the position is the opportunity of a lifetime. “You’re acting like I scored a job as a department head. I will still be here, shaking my ass next to you, until I have my freedom back.”

  She grabs a bottle of water from the vanity and holds it up. “To freedom and making money. I’m so happy for you, Liv. Professor Ford has a nice ring to it. Professor Olivia Ford. You sound very official.”

  Her comment brings a smile to my face. “Thanks, D. I guess you can say, teaching is in my blood.”

  “I bet your dad was a good teacher. He can teach me quadratic equations any day.” She licks her lips and winks at me.

  “Gross!” I throw a tube of lipstick at her, laughing. “That’s my dad you’re talking about. He’s retired and…just ew.”

  She shrugs. “What? He’s cute for an old dude.”

  I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia with parents who were both schoolteachers. My dad taught high school mathematics and met my mom shortly after when she applied at his school to teach English. I’m a little bit of each parent, good with both numbers and words.

  Instead of teaching, I went to law school and landed myself a job at the public defender’s office after I passed the Pennsylvania Bar Exam right out of school. I had offers from top firms in the city, but I chose the life of a civil servant because I wanted to help people. Too bad the job paid shit. With all the loans and credit cards I had racked up while I was in school, the pittance of a salary I made wasn’t enough to keep food on my table, a roof over my head, and the collection agencies off my back.

  I loved my job…until I had that one case—the one that rips you apart and tears you to pieces. Every lawyer has one client who tests their limits, their morals, and their judgment. Glen Brandis, aka the Wissinoming Park Rapist, was the straw that broke my back. I lost all desire to practice law after his case. I still lose sleep at night over what happened in the courtroom that day.

  “Let’s go, ladies!” Tamara, the grouchy woman who manages the dancers, screams through the dressing room door. “You’re on again in two minutes.”

  I groan and slide off my stool. “I seriously hope I won’t have to endure much more of this before I can make my escape.”

  Donna laughs. “You only have to slum it a little bit longer, Teach,” she says, calling me by my dancer name.

  TEACH is available now!

  Read TEACH for FREE with Kindle Unlimited.

  PHILLY CORRUPTION SERIES

  If you like new adult bad boy romances, keep reading for a free excerpt of CORRUPT ME, the first book in the Philly Corruption Series.

  CORRUPT ME is available now!

  Read CORRUPT ME for FREE with Kindle Unlimited.

  Izzie Rinaldi has everything going for her. All she has to do is make it through her senior year of college, and then she’ll be off to law school, one step closer to assuming her position at the head of her family’s empire. After a chance encounter with the campus bad boy, Izzie can’t get him out of her head.

  Luca Marchese, the smooth-talking son of the most notorious man in Philadelphia, is used to getting what he wants. He hasn’t forgotten the girl he knew as a child, and now that he has Izzie’s attention, Luca will stop at nothing to have her.

  Luca’s defiance of the law turns Izzie on more than she cares to admit. She wants Luca to corrupt her in every way possible, despite his reputation as the king of one-night stands. Their attraction is undeniable, but their desire for one another isn’t enough for Izzie to overlook visits from federal agents and the potential ruin of her family.

  Linked to Luca and a criminal underworld, Izzie discovers she’s more like him than she thought. But a future with Luca could mean swapping her diamond bracelets for a pair of handcuffs.

  CORRUPT ME EXCERPT

  CHAPTER ONE

  IZZIE

  As I headed down Broad Street toward the stadium, cars whipped through the city in a frenzy of chaos. With the Phillies on a winning streak, the streets were crowded with red-and-white baseball jerseys. Despite the fans cheering in the distance, the dull hum didn’t compare to Strickland University’s bustling campus.

  My senior year would’ve been off to a good start if not for the tatted hothead in a Honda Civic who had almost run me off the road. I managed to swerve in time to miss the parked car to my right, but I couldn’t let him off that easy.

  Even though I should remain in the right lane to get to my dormitory, I checked my side mirror, inched forward, and yanked the wheel into the left lane to cut off the beat-up Honda.

  My best friend, Silvia Barker, rolled down her window, her middle finger dangling in the breeze, as I blew through the red light. As a minivan pulled onto the street, I parked in its space in front of Jefferson Hall.

  I opened the door of my M Series Coupé, desperate to peel my legs from the leather seat and grabbed my Diet Coke bottle from the cup holder. Twenty yards away, even in the glaring summer sun, I spotted my next mistake. Shirtless eye candy threw footballs across the front lawn, dirt smeared on their sweaty bodies. I flipped up my sunglasses and leaned on the hood to get a better look.

  Silvia slid out from the passenger side, a complaint on her lips. “Damn, it’s hot out here. I bet you could fry an egg on the pavement.”

  I tugged on my canary-yellow tank top to fan myself. “I know. It’s at least ten degrees hotter than in the burbs.”

  “The worst part is the humidity,” Silvia groaned.
/>   I clicked the trunk release.

  Silvia jumped off the curb to retrieve her black-and-gold studded purse from the trunk. She rifled through her bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “The Weather Channel is predicting a heat wave over the next few days.”

  “A little weather won’t hold me back.” I chuckled, turning away from her as she lit a cigarette, the smoke assaulting my lungs. “I’m like an inmate on death row with just a few more days of freedom until my life is officially over.”

  “Get a grip. It’s just a job, not the end of the world.”

  “Just a job,” I moaned. “That’s easy for you to say. You’ll be off to California next year and I’ll be stuck working with Grandfather.”

  Around a giant fountain, a group of girls in bikinis propped themselves up against a replica of the Liberty Bell. Water trickled down from the top of the cracked bell in the center of the quad, spraying them. They were the main attraction, and boys were tripping over their toes to get a second look. Returning students flocked from the well-preserved brownstone that lined three sides of the rectangular field. Strickland University had the pristine shine of an Ivy League college with skyscrapers serving as the backdrop. Even the statues of famous Philadelphians sparkled like fresh paint on new car.

  “C’mon, Izzie Bear, let’s get a move on.” Silvia took a few more drags and then knocked the fiery ash off with the bottom of her sneaker.

  I snickered, now walking toward her, as I ignored her previous comment. “I was waiting for you to put that out. You know those things will kill you.”