As usual, the crowd hooted and hollered from around the stage that jutted out into the bar. They weren’t allowed to touch us inappropriately, as I told Matt, but if you wanted better tips, they always wanted to tuck them in the band of your thong during and at the end of our routines. Some nights I had to grit my teeth at the “accidental” wandering, grazing fingers.
Tonight was one of those nights.
It wasn’t that they scared me; it just pissed me off that these assholes all assumed because I took off my clothes for them, I wanted their grimy hands all over me. But at least it was a lot safer since the guys from the MC had bumped up security after a few incidents with one of the girls getting beat up pretty bad and then one of the old ladies being kidnapped by a rival club because they thought she was one of the dancers. It was some scary shit, and something I would never tell my brother, but they were doing their best to keep us safe, which was more than I could say for some of the other strip clubs.
Toward the end of my routine, I was hanging upside down from the pole in just my thong and the glittery pasties when my eyes met with the narrowed gaze of one of the MC members. He was sitting back against the wall, and I just happened to see him through the crowd as people jostled each other near the stage. For that split second, I felt my chest and face flush more than it was already from the exertion of my performance. My heart raced, and it seemed wetness flooded between my legs. Embarrassed, I flipped backward off the pole with my heels dropping in a single staccato beat before strutting, dipping, and shaking my ass off stage as I gathered the last of my tips.
Fuck. It wasn’t like I had never seen a hot guy before—hell, damn near every guy in the MC was hot as hell. Nor was this guy new to me. He had been here a lot lately, pulling extra security, and I had definitely noticed him. Who wouldn’t? Our bartender had told me his name was Hacker. It sure seemed like the poor bastard was stuck with the weekend shift a lot.
Damn, he was a sexy specimen of a man, and he made all my girly bits stand up and take notice. The thing was, I steered clear of men in general because there was just no extra time in my life to dedicate to a relationship. Between school, work, and taking care of Matt, I simply had nothing left. Yeah, Matt was pretty self-sufficient at seventeen, but I wanted to be there for him.
Cinnamon was heading on stage after me, and as I passed her, she spoke quickly to me. “Hey girl, you have a customer in the Red Room requesting a dance.” Shocked, I looked up from tying the top back over my boobs.
“What? No. I don’t do private dances. Everyone knows this.” My nerves were on edge, and I was getting pissy with Cinnamon when it wasn’t her fault. The hurt look on her face told me I shouldn’t have tried to kill the messenger. She was the one who got me my job here and the only dancer who knew my full story. I really liked her, and she had sat listening to me many a night when I started to feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities in my life.
“From what I hear, when Shirley told him that, he told her he was paying extra in order to get you to go in there, and it would be in your best interest to go. Do what you want, but if it’s who I think it is, you may want to take this one.” Before I could argue further with her, she bussed my cheek and rushed toward the curtain and out on stage.
My blood was boiling. Dammit, I made enough money dancing without having to be groped by some drunk-ass, rich businessman. Honestly, staying away from private dances had definitely cost me a lot of extra money. Hell, I could have made a killing with lap dances and private dances, but I needed to maintain some of my dignity. Then there was the little matter of not wanting to get too close to anyone and risk blowing my disguise. There was just too much at stake in my life right now. Besides, how awkward would it be to walk in a patient’s room and have them recognize me from dancing on the pole at the Shamrock? Umm, yeah, I’ll pass on that scenario. That type of degradation was too much for me to deal with, so I set off toward the Red Room to tell the guy thanks, but no thanks. Even though I was working this job, I had my limits.
The rooms were actually clean and nice with a small stage around a pole, a leather love seat, facing the door, and a music system in the corner where you could choose the song you wanted to perform to. The particular room I was heading to was lit up with hundreds of twinkling red party lights suspended from the ceiling. Each room had a different color—hence the Red Room, Blue Room, Green Room, and Purple Room.
Pushing the door open, I barged in still dressed in just my thong and top, with the rest of my costume clutched in my hand, and stopped dead in my tracks. Reclined on the seat sat Hacker, and my planned tirade froze on my tongue.
Shit, he was hot.
My brain may have actually frozen too, because the diatribe I had planned just swirled aimlessly in my head.
“Close and lock the door.” His deep voice poured over me like warm honey. It curled around me, thick and warm until I felt like I was momentarily floating.
Doing something I never did, and unsure why I did it then, I followed his instructions, shooting him a curious look over my shoulder. With the door closed, the sounds out in the club were reduced to a barely audible hum. After the door was shut and locked, I turned around and pressed my back to the cold door. My heart pounded, and my hands shook slightly. Thoughts jumbled around in my head, refusing to form complete sentences, and I was still at a complete and total loss for words.
“Ummm, so I don’t usually do private dances, and I’m pretty sure, uhhh, all of you know this.” My eyebrow arched up in question, and I tugged my bottom lip with my teeth.
“And I don’t normally pay for one.” His smirk should have pissed me off, but it just made my thong wetter. Holy shit. And those damn sexy eyes shifted from blue to greenish blue as he sat studying me in the red glow of the room. His tattooed arms were crossed over his chest, and I couldn’t help but appreciate the definition in them. Damn, I loved a guy with great arms… and… wait for it… he had a neatly trimmed beard.
Be still my heart.
“So, I guess, uhhhmm, I guess I could dance if you really wanted me to, and since you guys pretty much, umm, sign my checks. Just don’t expect this every night I work.” Stuttering, I felt the need to set some boundaries after all. “Okay? Do you, umm, have any requests?” Jesus, I sounded like a freaking idiot.
Why couldn’t I form intelligent sentences in front of him? Where had “Sparkle” gone? This was ridiculous! Dammit! And why was I entertaining this?
“Yeah, I do. Put on ‘Emotionless’ by Red Sun Rising.” I did what he said, and as the music started to fill the small room, I grabbed the pole, cool in my hands, and stepped up on the small stage. Closing my eyes in an attempt to channel Sparkle once again, I swayed and slid along the pole. As I wrapped a leg around the pole, I imagined wrapping my legs around his hips as I sank down…. Holy shit! Stop it, Kassi!
Taking a deep breath, I inhaled the spirit behind the music, the faint smell of his leather cut, and a hint of whatever cologne he was wearing. His scent caused shivers of awareness through my body, head to toe.
“Open your eyes. Look at me.” My eyes opened, and I realized he had leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees as he watched me move on the pole. Silently, he held out a hand to me, and without thought, I reached out, taking his hand in mine. As soon as his fingers wrapped around mine, I felt a jolt of electrical awareness.
He gently tugged me down off the stage until I stood between his spread legs. My breath caught, and my lips parted as my tongue nervously traced over my bottom lip. I never saw his other hand coming until it was too late. My voice was a breathless whisper as I realized he was removing the rhinestone-encrusted filigree mask.
“No!”
“In the Dark”—3 Doors Down
NEVER HAD I WANTED anything to do with any of the dancers at the Shamrock. Sticking my dick in somewhere I knew half the male population had already been just didn’t hold a lot of interest for me. Never had. Besides, that hadn’t worked out too well for Hollywood and that
nasty bitch Cherry. Still didn’t know what he was thinking there, but at least he and Becca were happy and things had worked out between the two of them. Just because I didn’t want to be tied down didn’t mean I begrudged my brothers who did.
The guys gave me shit all the time because I never had women hanging on me or crawling out of my bed in the morning. Just because I could count on my two hands the number of women I’d been with since I left college over eight years ago, it wasn’t a crime. It was my fucking life. Now, I’m not saying I was a choirboy, because of course I’d experienced a few one-night stands and quick fucks in the back of the clubhouse, but none of them held my interest long, and none of them stayed in my bed. I didn’t sleep with any of them. I fucked them. That was it.
No breakfast the next morning. No misleading soft words. Just sex. Nothing more, nothing less.
Thanks to the trouble we were having with a bunch of the nomads from the Demon Runners, we had all been pulling extra duty at the Emerald Shamrock, which further cut back on any free time I might have had. Not that I was really complaining, because I knew Sparkle only danced on Friday, Saturday, and Sundays. After the first time I saw her dance, I volunteered for the weekend shifts, using the excuse that the other brothers had families to spend their weekends with, and I never really had plans.
Truth? I couldn’t get enough of the sexy blonde that wasn’t a blonde at all. Her wig was good, but I could tell it wasn’t her hair. Her skin was too warm and olive tinted to be a blonde. Despite the false image and the fact she hid behind a mask, there was no way to fight the draw I felt toward her every time she brought that sexy ass out on the stage. She was my own personal siren, and I had a bad feeling she would lure me to my destruction.
She had a body to die for—long, muscular legs; curvy hips; big, perfectly shaped breasts; full red lips that caused to a man to think crazy, dirty things; and those bright blue eyes that a man could drown himself in.
Her pink tongue running along her bottom lip was nearly my undoing. When I reached for her mask, it was instinctual and impulsive. I needed to see her as bad as I needed to breathe. Really see her.
When she grabbed for my hand a second too late, her eyes wide and her grip firm, my eyes narrowed. What did she have to hide that she always wore the mask? Not that it mattered, because I wasn’t planning on asking her to marry me. Like I said… fuck relationships.
What I was having a hard time fighting was the uncontrollable need to see her unfettered and coming unraveled in my arms. It was so strong, it was nearly a tangible thing.
“Shhhh.” My hand set the mask next to me on the couch and reached out to cup her neck, drawing her and her full red lips closer to my own. Her hands dropped to my shoulders to maintain her balance as she leaned toward me. When our lips brushed against each other with the barest whisper of contact, it was like a frisson of electricity ten times as strong as the one I felt when our hands first touched.
The kiss was deep and frantic before either of us comprehended, and our tongues lashed and teeth nipped at each other’s lips in a rush. Her hands clutched at my shoulders, and mine reached for her hips and pulled her onto my lap until she straddled my throbbing cock.
Fuck, she was going to kill me. Who the hell was this girl?
Her fingers tangled in my hair and grasped at the front of my cut as mine reached around her to cradle her close to me at her back and hips. Her barely covered pussy ground against my cock as we sat there dry humping like a couple of high school kids. One hand slipped around to knead her perfect, firm, full tit through her barely there shirt. Goddamn, they were totally real. She moaned as my hand continued to stroke and knead first one then the other of her beautiful tits. Rubbing my thumbs over her nipples elicited a soft moan from the gorgeous woman in my arms. Shit. What the hell was I doing?
Sanity broke through the muddled haze that was my brain, and I gently broke away from the magnetic pull of her lips. We both were breathing heavily; her with her forehead resting on my shoulder and me with my face in her hair. The hairs of the wig were soft, but I craved the sight and feel of her own hair.
“Let me see your hair, beautiful.”
“You can see it,” she mumbled into my shoulder. A chuckle slipped from me, and I leaned back to tip her chin up to look at me. Her eyes were downcast, and I tipped my head at an angle to place myself in her field of vision.
“Sparkle—no, what’s your real name, sweetheart?”
Her teeth grabbed her bottom lip and worried it in indecision. She took a deep breath before she met my eyes with her beautiful blue eyes, rimmed in thick dark lashes. This soft, sweet girl was nothing like the alluring seductress, Sparkle, that took the stage, but I liked this side of her even more than I would have thought.
“Look, I don’t do this. I came in here to tell you I don’t do this. I don’t know what just came over me, and I have to say, I feel more than a little like a slut right now. I need to go. I still have two more sets tonight because Monique called in sick.” Her eyes begged me to believe her words as she tried to back off my lap. While I understood she needed to go back to work, I wasn’t ready to let her warm body go. My arms held her hips in place, which caused her to press into my cock again. We both groaned at the jolt of pleasure from just that little bit of contact. Something told me that fucking her would be unlike anything I had ever experienced, like it may be so explosive I may be tempted to consider… no. Never mind that thought.
“Relax, babe. Despite how tempted I am, I’d rather not do this here in a strip joint, and that wasn’t my intent, okay? Honestly, I just wanted to talk to you, just needed to have you to myself for ten minutes. But mark my words, my cock will be buried in that warm, wet pussy of yours sooner rather than later. You feel me?” My words were whispered in her ear as I tried to calm my raging hormones and work up the ability to let her go.
Shit, I felt like a teenage boy with his first real hard-on. What the hell kind of magic was she weaving? What the hell was happening to me?
Her quick intake of air was the only response I got before I loosened my hold on her and she rapidly scrambled off my lap then grabbed her costume pieces and held them as if they could cover her near nakedness. She could wrap herself in a gunny sack, and I would still think she was beautiful, so I didn’t know why she was worried about covering herself.
“I’ll be here until you get off. Let me take you home after your shift is over.” She had reached the door and stopped with her hand on the knob as she looked over her shoulder at me with an expression of surprise and an emotion I couldn’t quite place.
“No. You can’t come to my home.” Her eyes were wide and startled, much like a deer in the headlights look, before she put her mask back on and slipped out the door. My eyebrows raised in surprise, and then anger bubbled up in me. Wondering if she was looking down on me and thinking I wasn’t good enough for her because I was a member of the MC had me instantly pissed. Then my mind quickly wandered to another conclusion. Don’t fucking tell me she has a damn old man waiting on her at home! Motherfucker.
My fist dented the door slightly when it met the metal surface. What the hell was getting into me? I really didn’t even know this girl. Why the fuck did it matter if she was with someone? It shouldn’t matter to me. She was just some girl I drooled over on a stripper pole. Right? Yeah, of course.
And hell, it wasn’t like I couldn’t find out every second of her life if I really wanted to, but I would rather she give in and let me in on her own. The normal, sane Hacker would have just said “fuck it” and went about his way alone. Instead, I pushed those semi-lucid thoughts away and allowed the anger to suck me in again.
Simmering in my irritation, I slammed out of the private room and stormed down the hall toward the front door and outside to get some air. I paced the parking lot several times before I came to a decision and re-entered the club looking for Bo, the bartender. He knew all the girls, and I was going to get some answers from him about little Miss Sparkle instead of hacki
ng into her life like I was tempted to. If she actually did have a man at home, I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to do, because I didn’t poach, but this minx had my insides in fucking knots.
I wanted her, and that said something considering my history.
I was so fucked, and I just didn’t realize it yet.
“Confident”—Demi Lovato
DAMN, IT HAD BEEN a long night. Cinnamon and I had each picked up one of Monique’s slots, and I was wiped out. You wouldn’t think just one extra routine would be that difficult, but added on top of the inner turmoil of my little interlude with Hacker, my body and mind felt drained. Thankfully, my performances were all done by midnight, so I could head out and not have to stick around until closing. If I had been into private dances, I could have made a lot of extra money until close, but now was another time I was glad I didn’t, because I just didn’t have the energy.
My costume was stuffed in my tote, and my wig was carefully packed in a special bag to protect it. Shit, I had spent too damn much money on it, but I wanted it to look as real as possible to keep customers from wondering and questioning me. None of the girls questioned it since they just chalked it up to part of my costume and me thinking I would get better tips as a blonde. Whatever. I never corrected them.
When I slipped out the back door tonight, no one would recognize me as the dancer they called “Sparkle,” that was for sure. My face was scrubbed free of makeup, I had gathered my long dark hair up into a ponytail, pulled my boots on, and slipped on my jacket to ward off the uncharacteristically chilly night for early July. My bag over my shoulder, I headed toward the door, throwing out goodbyes to the girls as I left. Cinnamon joined me as I passed her station, and we met up with security at the back door and headed out. We weren’t supposed to leave out the back door without security after what had happened to Hollywood’s old lady and poor Stacy before her. Another safety measure I actually appreciated.
Demented Sons Series Volume One: Books 1-4 (Demented Sons MC Iowa) Page 55