by Samantha Bee
I shimmy through the crowd to get to the back of the club and the stairs that lead up to the second floor that hosts a small bar and VIP tables. I wink at Joe, the security guard, standing at the entrance as I approach.
A huge smile spreads across his face, “It's about time you made your way over here, Scar. Boss has been waiting for you.”
“You know making that man wait is one of my favorite pastimes,” I tease.
He unhooks the velvet rope and shoos me up the stairs mumbling something about death wishes. I laugh as I walk up the stairs and call back over my shoulder to tell him that he’s being a drama queen.
I love the second floor of this place. It’s not quite as loud and not nearly as crowded. An L-shaped bar runs along the far wall from the stairs and extends across the front, overhanging the lower level. The part that runs along the front is made up of glass and holds three poles that are visible from both levels.
The VIP tables and booths sit next to that section of the bar, so they have a view of all the stages as well as that dance floor. Though, very few pay attention to it with the private shows Luca puts on up here. The small stage on the opposite side from the view is where Luca’s favorite dancers perform.
It's busy up here tonight, all the tables full. It’s never slow up here but it’s also not overly common to be fully booked like this. Luca must be in a good mood. That man loves his money and these tables do not come cheap. I smile and nod at Cherry dancing on stage and wink when I pass Candy serving drinks before slapping her ass. She laughs as she shimmies her ass at me, causing a few cheers throughout the room.
“He’s been watching you,” she whispers in my ear from behind as she walks past me to the next table.
“I know.” I smile at her, “He still is.” I can always feel when Luca has his eyes on me. They brand me with their intensity, searing me down to my center. He doesn’t calm the swirling winds and crashing waves of my soul, he lights it all on fire. His heat penetrates past my walls and into my very core, melting the ice that surrounds it. Which is why I normally avoid the fuck out of the too sexy for his own good asshole. Hard to do with how much we work together but hey, a girl can try.
I make my way towards the bar where Luca is leaning back against the railing watching every move I make. He observes every detail about me, the expressions that run across my face, the red heels and lipstick, the distressed black jeans, his eyes lingering on the lace detail at the top of my form fitting black tank. He notices every detail and I can see him filing it all away.
“Well, if it isn’t the original steel rose finally gracing us with her presence,” he taunts as I grab a seat at the bar in front of him.
I just smirk as he pours us both a shot of Jack. I clink my glass to his before taking it.
“You’ve been here for hours, babe,” he chastises.
“Oh, I was just having a good time.”
“I could tell,” he drawls, before pouring two more shots, “Quite the show you put on out there.”
“Well, I do know how much you love my performances,” I tease him.
“Hmm,” he nods while he stares at his shot, swirling it around before continuing, “Adam seems to be quite the fan too.”
Ahh, now I see why he’s been so tense since I walked over here. He saw his new bartender giving me free shots, “Oh you saw that did you?” He just looks at me waiting for me to say more. “I guess he doesn’t know I always drink for free here,” I laugh.
Luca sighs like he’s done with my shit, “Are you really going to make me ask you?”
Nothing sexual has happened between me and my boss, well except for that one time when we were younger. It was before I ran away though, so we don’t talk about it. Luca is one of the two people in my life that knew me from before I ran and knows my whole sordid history or at least most of it.
I work as a bartender at the club and occasionally as a dancer, but that’s not my real job. Luca hires me to do jobs that not many people are capable of doing. He’s not exactly a good guy, but I’m not exactly a good girl. I work for him and do whatever needs to be done. There’s not much I won’t do for my boss. And there is nothing he won’t do for me. He is helping me get my revenge. Which is why we ignore the sexual tension between us. At least I do. He sometimes can’t help himself and his jealousy sneaks up on both of us, like tonight. There isn’t much I can say to reassure him though. I don’t plan on sleeping with his bartender, but I do plan on taking someone home tonight. Someone that isn’t my boss. Maybe that hot stranger from outside.
So, I just shrug, “You know I don’t shit where I eat.” I won’t sleep with anyone that is mixed with business. Gets too complicated and I don’t do complicated.
“Classy as always,” he chuckles.
I just shrug again.
“That's good, now I don’t have to fire him.”
I laugh but it's not as genuine as it normally would be with Luca. He usually isn’t so upfront about his jealousy. We both always toe the line between friendly and flirty, but we never cross it and we never acknowledge our past or any potential feelings for each other. I raise my eyebrows at him but just let it go as he takes his shot.
I gesture around to the full crowd, “It’s packed tonight.”
He smirks at me, “I may have let it slip that you were going to be here tonight.”
I look down at my outfit, “I’m not exactly dressed to dance tonight, Luca.”
“Never stopped you before,” he shrugs.
I raise my brows at him, “Is this a challenge, sir?”
“Only if you feel up to it, my little rose,” he smiles but it's his smug little smile. He knows I won’t back down from a challenge. This mother fucker.
I start cracking up, “I know what you’re doing, fucker.”
His responding smirk is wicked, “But it’s still going to work.”
I take the second shot he had poured for me and just smile at him, “You’re not wrong.”
He whoops and signals for the DJ to cut the music. A hush falls over the whole crowd as the music fades out. There are very few things that the music here gets turned down for. Anyone who has been here before knows that one of those things is a performance by yours truly. It’s one of the things that makes this place so popular.
As Luca grabs a mic and starts talking to the crowd and getting them amped for my performance, I reach behind the bar and grab one of the shirts I keep back there for my spontaneous performances, they happen more often than planned ones. Luca is very good at talking me into these things and he knows very well it adds to the buzz his club gets and he brings in more money when I dance.
I slip out of the lacey black tank and pull on a cropped black hoodie with a large blue rose on the front over my red lace bra. It shows off my entire toned, tattooed midriff and I know that as I dance, it will move higher and give flashes of my bra. It puts more of my scars on display but between the lighting and my tattoos, most people won’t even notice them. It’s not that I’m ashamed of them, I just won’t talk about them.
I hear the crowd cheering as Luca shouts into the mic, “Please welcome, the original steel rose herself, Stormy!”
Oh yeah, my stage name is Stormy. Luca thinks he's a funny mother fucker and always said I remind him of a hurricane. I climb up onto the glass bar top that runs along the balcony overlooking the lower level of the club. I’m the only dancer that dances up here. No one else has a death wish, so dancing on a glass stage suspended over the lower level doesn't appeal to anyone else.
I love dancing. It's freeing. And fuck if I don’t love dancing in front of all these people up high in the middle of a night club. The energy in here is addictive.
The first notes of Gasoline by Halsey start playing. When we do spontaneous shows like this, Luca likes to surprise me with the music just to see what I will do. I like to guess his moods and his expectations by what music he picks. It’s another one of our fun games we like to play.
As Halsey’s voice starts
to come out of the speakers, I start dancing, hands running down my face, flipping my hair before moving my hands down my body as I move to the music. The lower level gets rowdy as I turn around to face them.
I do all the fan favorite moves as I move back and forth along the bar. Climbing up the center pole, everyone loves the acrobatics of pole dancing. I do a couple of my favorite moves but am restricted in what I can do in jeans, before sliding down into the splits facing the VIP tables. I sigh to myself, grateful I didn’t just hear a tear. You never know with jeans, even though I buy pairs that specifically allow me to move.
I work my way up and down the bar, making sure to turn and face both ways as I perform. As the last chorus of the song comes on, I make eye contact with the stranger from outside, I lean against the pole closest to the stairs as I slide down before quickly jerking up straight and moving slowly backwards into a backbend, sliding my head down against the ground until I lay flat on the bar top with my knees bent.
I tear my eyes away from the stranger and look at Joe, my favorite security guard at the bottom of the stairs and throw a wink his way as I unbutton my jeans and lift my hips up, slowly pushing my jeans down as I continue to dance. He shakes his head at me, hating when I start stripping up here, but the crowd goes wild.
I move back into a standing position leaving my jeans unbuttoned and folded down, exposing my red lace underwear, without completely removing them. I turn my back to the VIP tables as I bend over, kick my heels off, and start working my jeans all the way off. It’s fucking difficult to dance and remove jeans seductively, but I am nothing if not a professional, so I manage. I throw a wink and a kiss over the shoulder at the closest VIP table to me as I expose my red lace covered ass to them. At least I’m not wearing a thong tonight.
As the last notes of the song play, I kick my jeans off the bar top towards Luca and make eye contact with him for the first time since I climbed up here. He is looking smug as fuck. He knew I would take my jeans off. That’s the problem with knowing each other so well. I know he’s going to make me dance another song and doing one song in jeans was uncomfortable enough. Plus, I always like to go for the shock factor.
I sit down on the bar, letting my feet hang over into the air as the crowd cheers and Luca’s voice comes out through the speakers again. “What did you all think of my favorite little steel rose?”
The crowd cheers wildly. Cherry is walking around the VIP tables collecting tips on my behalf, while Candy and the new bartender, Adam, are walking around the lower level. I make eye contact with Adam and he waves sheepishly looking embarrassed that he didn’t know who I was earlier. I just smile. The interaction does not go unnoticed by Luca.
He smirks at me, “Should we have her do another song?”
The crowd goes insane.
He laughs, “Oh I don’t know, you guys don’t seem very excited. Maybe Stormy should put her jeans back on.”
The crowd boos and I start laughing at the energy in here. A guy from one of the VIP tables walks up to Luca and places a hundred-dollar bill in front of him. Luca picks it up and waves it to the crowd, “Now that’s the type of excitement I’m looking for!”
I scan the crowd to get the feel for the vibes going through them right now. I spot the stranger again making his way towards Joe, interesting. Luca’s voice distracts me as he announces that he’s going to play his favorite song for me to dance to. I snap my head towards him and smirk, knowing what’s coming.
I rarely ever dance to this song at the club. He’s going to play the song he likes to watch me dance to when it's just us. He likes when I let go and show my personality in my dances, when I have fun and not just work the crowd. Knowing the song he’s going to play like the back of my hand, I start to formulate a plan to shock Luca as much as he’s been surprising me tonight. He’s been breaking our unspoken rules tonight and I think I’m going to throw it right back at him.
Bad Guy by Billie Eilish starts playing as I slip my heels back on to my feet before swinging my feet around the VIP side of the bar and laying back letting my head and hair fall over the side of the upper level. As Billie starts singing, I put my legs straight up into the air, moving them with the music, dropping them wide before turning over and crawling on my hands and knees across the bar, back towards Luca. I get up on my knees, throwing my hair around me, moving my body to the music, before climbing back up to my feet. I dance around the center pole, making eye contact with my boss, the whole time. I normally avoid looking at him while I dance but tonight, to this song, I just can’t seem to help myself. I want to push him. I close my eyes and turn away from him.
I lose myself to the music and the cheers of the crowd. Shaking my lace clad ass, jumping around in my heels, feeling the beat drum through my blood, gyrating my hips, and lip syncing the words. I make my way closer to Luca, making eye contact with him again as the last minute of the song plays. I strut the last few steps towards him and pull him up onto the bar with me just as the beat drops for the last forty-five seconds of the song. The look on his face is worth all the rules I’m breaking. I have finally managed to really surprise my sexy boss. I do so love getting under his skin.
I pull him close to me so that our chests are touching, facing each so that our profiles are visible to both levels of the club. I wrap my arms around his neck as I move my hips back and forth, rubbing against him. I lick up his cheek facing the lower level until I reach his ear and whisper along with Billie, “I like when you get mad,” before pushing him away and turning my back on him. He really could not have chosen a more perfect song for me to fuck with him.
I press my back up against him and can feel him hardening against my ass. I throw my arms up and behind me, loosely around his neck again as I rub my body slowly down his. As my ass touches the bar, I turn myself around and start working myself back up his lean, strong body. I grab his hands and place them on my hips, allowing him to control how fast I move my hips. I pause to cradle his erection with my pelvis and press my red lips to his neck, leaving a mark before I grab his tie and throw myself into another back bend as the song ends.
There’s a moment of dead silence before the crowd on the lower level goes absolutely insane. The DJ starts back up the music, playing Freak by Tyga, and everyone starts dancing again as I jump off the bar and do a little bow for the VIP tables doing a standing ovation. I laugh as I walk away from Luca and jump on the stage with Cherry and start dancing with her to the music.
Mostly, I’m just avoiding confronting boss man after the shit I just pulled. Not sure how he’s going to feel about it. Not sure how I feel about it, if we are being honest. I blame all the shots I've done tonight. I must have lost my mind. Now that the moment has passed, I’m really doubting myself. Definitely was not one of the smartest decisions I’ve ever made.
So instead of facing my boss, I get lost in moving my body against Cherry’s. This song is much dirtier and fast paced than the performances I normally do. This is all sex and fun, which I just so happen to be extremely good at. I gyrate my body with Cherry’s, shake my hair around and laugh as I let loose. Cherry moves with me laughing at my antics. Everyone knows I’m the wild card here. She doesn’t mind that I jumped on to her stage. She knows very well, her tips are only going to increase because of my stunt, and I have no intention of asking her for a cut.
As the song ends, I'm laughing and sweating, still pressed against her body. She laughs, “You can’t avoid him forever.”
I growl at her, hating that she knows exactly what I’m thinking but she just continues to laugh at me. “You know, he loved it.”
I grumble, “That’s the problem,” as we make our way off the stage, that was her last song for the night.
“Then why do it?” she asks, arching her brow at me.
“You know me,” I sigh, refusing to meet her eyes as I stare at the vibrant red roses decorating her top, “I don’t think shit through.”
She pushes me, “I don’t know why you’re fighting it. If boss
man looked at me like he looks at you,” she sighs, “I would climb him like a fucking tree.”
I laugh, our boss is an insanely attractive guy. Tall, dark and handsome. Covered in tattoos, a tongue piercing, he’s the perfect bad boy. That delicious combination of sex, danger, and charisma.
“It's complicated and I…”
“Don’t do complicated,” she interrupts me. She bumps my shoulder and gestures to Luca staring at us, holding my jeans in his hands. I’m so busy staring at him I’m confused when she asks, “Who is the man candy he’s talking too?”
I look at who he’s talking to, ahh shit. It's the stranger from earlier. “God dammit.”
“Do you know him?”
I groan, “No, but I was hoping to,” she stares at me like I just slapped her but I just shrug, “I met him outside. I didn’t know he knew Luca.”
“You better be careful, girl.”
“I know,” I respond before I start making my way back to Luca. His eyes searing me, I can feel my blood starting to boil, flames licking across my skin. I meet his eyes as I walk towards him. I can feel the cold numbness I usually wrap around myself thawing out, the ice chased away by the fire his gaze burns into me.
As I get closer, I can see the perfect red lips I left staining the side of his neck. Fuck, I can still taste his skin on my tongue, feel his hair running through my fingers. I shudder, wanting to put my lips all over his body, feel him all over. I drank too much and am losing the control I usually have an ironclad grip on. Putting my lips on him was a mistake.
I smirk as I reach the two of them, “You got a little something there,” I say pointing to the side of my neck, trying to laugh it off.
Luca laughs, “Oh do I?” He reaches out with my jeans, “Funny enough, it seems like you dropped something.”
I grab them from him, “I actually recall kicking them off rather than dropping them.”