Erik's Absolution

by Kristine Allen

  Wow. Every time he kissed me, it was like the first time. When he pulled away, I stood there stunned, with my eyes closed, heart racing and lips parted. After I finally opened them, he was looking at me with a slightly confused expression before he hid it behind his signature smirk.

  “Let’s get going. Give me your car key, and I’ll take care of everything.” I was still a little nervous about giving my car key over to a man I didn’t really know. Yet you slept with him. No, correction, you screwed his brains out. Shut up. Stupid conscience. Reluctantly, I handed him my key after fighting briefly with the key ring to get it off.

  We returned to his bike, and after I gave him directions to my apartment, he pulled out into the cool night. All the way there, I prayed Matt was sleeping when we arrived.

  The bike rumbled up in front of my apartment before I knew it, and he cut the engine. I climbed off and stood there not knowing exactly what to do, so I busied my hands with the strap of my tote, situating it on my shoulder just right and holding the straps.

  “So. Déjà vu. Thanks again. For everything, I mean. Tonight and the car. You know.” My hands twisted the strap over my shoulder over and over. That awkward feeling was back again.

  “Hey, it’s okay. No need to be nervous, Kassi. We’re adults, right? It’s all good. I had a great time tonight, and I actually wanted to thank you. Because I know that’s not your typical M.O., and I’m flattered you were willing to spend time with me. I really had a great time. Maybe next time you can stay afterward.” What the hell is an M.O.? Next time? Shit. He wanted a next time? My inner slut was jumping up and down clapping her hands. The good, responsible me was looking sternly at me and shaking her head.

  “Kassi? What the hell? Where’s the car and who the hell is that?” With guilt bearing down on me, I looked up to the second-floor balcony where Matt stood with his hands resting on the railing, staring down at me with a frown before glaring suspiciously at Hacker. Aww hell. So much for my little brother not finding out about tonight. Taking a covert glance at Hacker, it was hard not to notice his tense posture and narrowed eyes as he gazed up at Matt.

  “Okay, then. Ummm, thanks again for the ride. See you tomorrow.” With a quick wave to Hacker, I turned and raced up the stairs. When I got to the top, Matt sat frowning down at me with arms crossed over his chest and a raised eyebrow.

  “You didn’t answer me, Kassi. Where’s the car? And who the hell was that?”

  Shit, who was the older sibling, anyway? I scowled at him, muttering, “Not now,” and rushed in the apartment. I caught him turning his scowl toward Hacker before he entered behind me and closed the door with a firm hand. Then I heard Hacker’s bike start up, rev loudly, and take off down the road. Crap. Just peachy. I had two men pissed at me. One my brother, and the other a man I just randomly slept with, and I sure as hell didn’t like feeling like a chastised child from either one of them.

  “First of all, I don’t owe you an explanation, Matt. I’m the older sister, remember, and I’m a grown woman. So, I got a ride home. No biggie. The car battery is dead, so I was lucky Hacker was there and able to give me a ride home.” Suddenly exhausted, I plopped my bag on the floor and headed to the hall closet to grab my blankets and pillow I stashed there during the day. When I turned to head back to the couch, Matt stood blocking my way, arms crossed with that damn cocked eyebrow again. Little brat. Lord, I loved him, but he was trying my patience tonight. Holding my pillow and blankets, I let out a sigh.

  “Matt, I’m tired and I need to shower and get some sleep.”

  “Dammit, Kassi. I knew you working at that place was a bad idea. Now you have bikers bringing you home? What the hell? How do you even know him? What if he didn’t bring you home, but instead took you somewhere and, like, took advantage of you or hurt you? Not to mention, what the hell kind of name is Hacker? Jesus, Kassi!”

  My face flushed when he mentioned Hacker taking advantage of me. He didn’t know how close to the truth he was, of course it wasn’t either of us taking advantage of the other. It was very, very mutual.

  “Hacker’s a nice guy. Believe it or not. As you can see, I’m safe. No worries. And besides, his club is the one who owns the Shamrock. He’s there every weekend pulling security. So I was and am perfectly safe. I promise. Now, if the interrogation is done, Father, I’m getting in the shower.” I smirked at his serious I’m-still-not-happy-with-you face and shook my head. After closing the bathroom door, I leaned against it and worried my bottom lip with my teeth.

  Did I make a mistake tonight? Get caught up in a moment? Ugh no! What am I thinking? I’m a grown woman, without a boyfriend. I can do what I want. We were safe—I have an IUD, and he used a condom. It’s all good. What’s the big deal really? Except now he knows where I live, and he has seen what I look like out of my “Sparkle” shell.

  How was I supposed to act when I saw him at work the next night? It was easy to tell myself I could always just act like nothing happened. Of course, it may be easier said than done, but no one needed to know that. That way, if he was just blowing smoke up my butt and he didn’t want to see me again, I could salvage some of my dignity. Hell, maybe he wouldn’t even be the club member on security detail tomorrow night.

  But you know you want to see him there again, because if there is anyone you want to dance for, it’s him…. Oh, for God’s sake. Damn, inner slut, go away.

  “Wicked Game”—Theory Of A Deadman

  SATURDAY NIGHT AND I was walking into a damn strip club. Okay, it was our club and I was on duty, but I actually hated strip joints. Unfortunately, I would be there every single night just for the chance to see Kassi if she danced nightly. She was amazing to watch, yes, but I simply liked being close to her—another abnormality for me that I wasn’t willing to analyze at this time. What I hated was other men looking at her, touching her, fantasizing about her. Just thinking about it had me getting pissed off.

  Let it go, man, she’s not yours. Shaking my head at my own foolishness, I wandered past the tables toward the bar.

  It was still early, and she wasn’t scheduled to be in for another couple hours or so. A stacked brunette was dancing, but she didn’t appeal to me. None of them did, except Kassi. Frustrated, I grabbed a stool at the end of the bar where I could visit with Bo and keep an eye on the handful of customers populating the club at this early hour. Often, I wondered what their lives were like that they would frequent a strip club alone this early on a Saturday night. My mind wandered to the possibilities as I sipped my Crown Black. As usual, I enjoyed the tingling burn as I nursed it. The rest of the night would be water, so I was savoring this glass.

  The night had been dragging by. There had been any number of dancers paraded across the stage, but none of them had done a damn thing for me. I’d been trying to watch for when Kassi came in, but it had been really busy, and I ended up having to step in with the bouncers to break up a fight between a couple of drunk asses and their friends fighting over who the dancer thought was better looking and who she was going home with.

  My eyes rolled at the thought. Little did either of the dumbasses know the dancer they had fought over was a lesbian and couldn’t have given a rat’s ass about either one of them. Stupid fucks.

  I had just taken my seat back in the corner when “Bad Girlfriend” by Theory of a Deadman started to play on the speakers. My gaze traveled the room, making sure nothing was amiss before taking in the stage to watch for assholes trying to mess with the dancer. When the spotlight lit up on the dancer, the glittering mask and blonde hair made my heart race. Kassi had taken the stage, and I never even saw her come in. Watching her body undulate, twist, turn, and slide along the stage and pole had my fucking dick at attention. Jesus. Innumerable dancers had crossed the stage already, and he couldn’t have cared less. It was not like him, or me, to get caught up in any single girl. That right there told me I needed to back off. There was no room in my life for complications, and starting something regular—I wouldn’t even go so far as to th
ink the other “r” word—would definitely be considered a complication. And for God’s sake, I was referring to my dick as if it was a person. Christ almighty.

  Not to mention, I had been taken by surprise when the guy at her apartment called out to her last weekend when I brought her home. Was he the reason she had to get home? She said she wasn’t married, but I wasn’t exactly sure what their relationship was. It didn’t matter, it was just another reason to stay the fuck away from her. If she would fuck around on him, she would… didn’t matter… wasn’t going there.

  When her eyes found mine in the crowd, I saw her smile become just a hint bigger, and she kept looking my way throughout the rest of her routine. I tried my best to appear as though I was watching the crowd, not her, but my peripheral vision and overt glances when she wasn’t facing me never missed a second of her movements. When one of the customers reached up and grabbed her ankle as she was blowing kisses to the crowd and sauntering off the stage, I nearly came unglued as I jumped from my seat to get to her.

  My feet froze in their tracks as the bouncer, Bull, was on that shit in a flash. Fuck. She wasn’t my responsibility, I told myself. I was only there to help when the bouncers couldn’t handle shit or if the Demon Runners showed their faces. We had taken out several of their members when they had tried to lure us in to an ambush with Hollywood’s old lady, but we didn’t get them all and we knew they were still lurking around town, waiting to get even; we just hadn’t seen them lately.

  My hand scrubbed my face as I tried to clear my thoughts, and I sat back down. Maybe I needed to ask Snow to take me off the weekend shift or alternate me with one of the other guys—wean myself off her. Besides my hands itching to touch her again, it was also starting to drive me crazy that all these pricks were seeing her damn near naked. Now that I had been with her, it was getting harder and harder not to yank her ass off the stage and wrap her in my shirt or throw her over my shoulder and take off with her caveman style. The problem with changing my schedule was I felt myself starting to get frustrated at the thought of not being there to keep Kassi safe.

  She had become my addiction.

  If I was honest with myself, I needed this little bit of contact, even if it was only visual, to give me my fix. If I was being smart and cutting ties, I needed to at least see her—even if it was pure torture to lay eyes on her but not be able to touch her. Fuck, I was turning into a goddamn pussy.

  Fuck it.

  When I got up from my stool and wandered back to the dressing area, I knew for a certainty I was losing my fucking mind. Making up excuses, I told myself I just wanted to talk to her for a few minutes. Make sure she was doing okay.

  Cinnamon was walking out as I approached the door, and she grinned as she watched me walk purposefully closer to her. “Hey, Hacker, now who might you be looking for? Maybe a certain ‘sparkly’ little blonde?”

  A smirk was her answer.

  “You need me to go get her or do you want to walk the gauntlet back there for her?” Considering most of these girls would love to get themselves attached to a club member, it was indeed a risky venture, indeed. Laughing, I shook my head. “Yeah, I’ll go to her. After all, she’s worth the battle, right?”

  Just as I prepared to pass by, she side-stepped in front of me and her expression transformed to something serious. “Hacker, don’t fuck around and hurt her. She acts tough, and she is, but she’s also fragile in ways that would make it easy for a guy like you to tear her apart.”

  “A guy like me? What’s that supposed to mean? I’m a great guy.” Trying to make light of the situation, I poured all my charm on and gave her my signature Hacker smile. “She’s a big girl, and I’m pretty sure she can handle her own, but I’m not looking to hurt her in any way. Besides, two consenting adults can’t hurt one another, as long as the expectations are clear.”

  Cinnamon pursed her lips and stepped to the side to let me pass. “Make sure you’re clear with her then, hon. She has a lot of things weighing on her. Between school and her brother, she worries a lot, already. Of anyone, she deserves to have some enjoyment for herself, but not at the expense of getting hurt.” As she walked away, instead of being pissed that she had the nerve to confront me, I found myself glad that Kassi had someone who was looking out for her.

  Her brother, huh? Hopefully, that was the guy at her apartment. I felt stupid being jealous of a guy who was probably her brother. Making a mental note to clarify what had been bothering me for the past week, I entered the lion’s den.

  Weaving through half naked women who took every opportunity to eye fuck me and grope me, my stride never slowed and my eyes never strayed from my destination. Sitting on a small stool in front of a vanity, the beautiful woman consuming my thoughts sat touching up her makeup. As I stopped behind her, our eyes met in the mirror. Initially, hers registered shock at my presence, then her lips curled into a sweet smile, and my heart lurched in my chest.

  “Hey, you.” She spun around in her chair to look up at me. “To what do I owe this act of bravery? You’re lucky none of them jumped your sexy ass on your way over here.”

  Without even realizing I was making a movement, my hand flipped her hair over her shoulder to trail my fingers down her neck to her shoulder, then slid across her collar bone before slipping down between her luscious breasts. Her silken skin was a powerful magnet to the insignificant flakes of metal that were my hands.

  “Needed to see you.” No—needed to touch her, because for the last week, seeing wasn’t enough. “And I got a good taste of how you all feel up there on stage, because my balls and ass may have been mauled more than a bone in a room full of puppies.”

  A chuckle escaped her, but it was obvious she wasn’t unaffected by the contact of our skin, because her eyelids became heavy, her lips parted, and her head tipped to the side to provide better access to her glowing pink skin. She was not only beautiful, she was sexy as fuck.

  “You saw me. Now what?” Her voice was a husky rasp, another tell that she loved my touch.

  “Now what? Now, I tell you I want you to spend the night with me tonight. I’m not into playing games. I want you in my bed.” Her lips teased my dick with the surprised “o” they formed. It was begging me to slide it in the perfect opening her lips provided. She made me feel like a horny teenager.

  “Holy shit. You don’t mince words, do you?” The look of surprise left as quick as it had flashed across her face. The coy expression on her face made me want to bend her over her vanity in front of God and everyone.

  “Why should I?”

  “Sex and Candy”—Maroon 5

  WHY SHOULD HE? INDEED, he shouldn’t. Now, let me be serious for a moment. After the amazing night I had spent with him, he hadn’t said much, just watched me, so I figured he was a one and done kind of guy. Which I was okay with, because we had initially agreed not to make it into more than that. Don’t mistake that to mean I didn’t want another chance to worship his classic Greek-God-like body, but I worried about things getting ugly if our relationship became public. By relationship, I meant fuck-buddy status.

  Then again, who did I really need to answer to? Matt would be eighteen in a couple of months. CPS probably wouldn’t mess with us too much. It was more keeping the dancing I’d been doing to pay the bills, from affecting my future job as a nurse. If I was able to quit, it might be different, but I didn’t want the connections to come to light. That was the whole reason for my elaborate disguise in the first place.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Please say yes, please say yes. Matt was with his friends at the lake for the night, so I wouldn’t have to worry about explaining where I had been. The timing was actually pretty damn perfect.

  “Babe, not only do I think it’s a good idea, I think it’s a brilliant idea.” His boyish grin was my undoing. The sweetness and charm were such a contrast to his bad boy appearance that it completely took me out at the knees. Fucking-A, he was beautiful. Rugged, hot and inked, the perfect combo.


  “In that case, I get off at one tonight. I’ll follow you to your house?”

  “Sounds fucking perfect.” Watching him lean in, my lips anticipated the intoxicating touch of his, but the jolt of electricity that shot from where our lips touched, straight to my pussy was completely unexpected. It caused my breath to stutter as he pulled away.

  “See you soon, doll.” Aww hell, I was going to have to be careful.

  Careful, Schmareful. Who cares? Let that boy use you and abuse you for as long as you can.

  Jesus, not you again.

  Honey, I never left.

  Grrrrrr why? Why was I having conversations with my inner slut?

  Shutting down the inner slut within me—who I knew was going to get her way, I finished getting ready for my last two sets.

  As I gazed at the stranger in the mirror, there were two things I knew for certain. 1) One a.m. couldn’t come soon enough. 2) My heart was in serious danger with this guy.

  Pulling my car in his driveway, I watched as the headlight of his bike turned in and the garage door opened. He pulled into the garage and I got out of my car to enter behind him. It was impossible not to notice how well his jeans hugged his ass as he brought his leg over the bike and stood. When he ruffled his hair into haphazard tufts, my mouth went dry. He was by far the hottest guy I’d ever laid eyes on.

  Perfection was the only descriptive word I could think of to describe him as he walked toward me. When we were toe to toe, he wove his fingers in my hair to cradle my head and buried his nose in my hair. His breath feathered across my head as he sat for a few moments just smelling me. “God, Kassi, you should never cover this hair. It’s like the darkest chocolate. You know, not the dark chocolate of those little candy bars my mom always bought, but the special dark ones.”