by Gwyn McNamee
STONE SOBER
GWYN MCNAMEE
CONTENTS
Title
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
A Note From the Author
Other Works by Gwyn McNamee
The 7 Series
Wrath Prologue
Gwyn Mcnamee Writing As D.P. Payne
About the Author
A HAWKE FAMILY NOVEL
GWYN MCNAMEE
Stone Sober
by
Gwyn McNamee © 2017
All rights reserved. Except as permitted by U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the author.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, establishments, or organizations, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to give a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Michelle Johnson at Blue Sky Designs
Cover Model: Assad Shalhoub
Photographer: Christopher Correia at CJC Photography
Editing: Kathleen Payne
Created with Vellum
To anyone struggling with the demons of their past…sometimes confronting them and bringing them out into the light is the only path to true freedom.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I, once again, have to start with the most important people in my life—my husband and my daughter. Stone Sober was a brutal book for me to write. So many things come to a head in this book that have been building since Savage Collision, and some of things I had to do to my characters broke me. I never could have finished without my husband’s support and daddy skills.
I also owe another tremendous debt of gratitude to my beta readers—Dawn, Jennifer W., Renee S., Diane E., Audra F., Paula F., and my super-beta Christy. You ladies always ensure I’m on the right path and doing my own story justice.
And finally, I owe the biggest thank you in the WORLD to Crystal Perkins. She not only beta read Stone Sober, but she also helped me format the ARC and final book. She is such an amazing friend (and fellow author). I couldn’t have finished on time without her assistance.
I love you all!
You can’t truly know what the phrase “sex on a stick” means unless you’ve seen Nora Eriksson wrapped around the fucking pole at The Hawkeyes Club.
This woman was built for sin but still manages to look like a fucking angel.
The way her long, pale limbs bend and drape around the pole center stage should be illegal. She moves with a fluidity and grace that belies her profession and hints at her former life as a pre-med student. So many of the dancers are vulgar. But not her. No, Nora is exquisite and refined. Her stage name fits her. Cashmere.
The Hawkeye Club doesn’t deserve her.
And that’s a real dick thing for me to be thinking considering Savage owns the fucking place.
I would say I feel like a creep sitting in the dark corner of the main room and watching her in secret, but I’d be lying. The other patrons gawk at her openly and sit as close to the stage as possible, hoping to get a closer look or even to be touched by her.
Not me.
I much prefer waiting in the shadows and lusting after her in private.
Just like the club doesn’t deserve her, neither do I.
She’s a pristine diamond—shiny and new and full of hope despite her current job—and I’m a dirty, damaged, dangerous, rabid dog ready to bite. I would chew her up and spit her out and leave her broken without so much as a glance back. I can’t do that to her, no matter how attracted to her I am.
Plus, it would be weird. Her sister is married to my brother, so that makes her…what? My sort-of-but-not-quite-sister-in-law?
It’s awkward enough dealing with the fallout of Skye and Gabe finally getting together—things are just starting to get back to normal. I could only imagine how Savage and the rest of the family would react if I pursued Nora. It would not be a welcomed development. That much is obvious.
But I can’t seem to stay away from her. Every time I’m in town, I find myself here, hiding in the corner like some demented stalker and watching her with a hard cock. I’ve been coming to the club for years, and no one on the stage has ever done this to me.
This isn’t about how she looks or how amazing she is on the pole either; this is about her. And that makes it a hundred times worse. Maybe in another world, another life, another time, things could be different. Maybe I could be what a girl like Nora deserves. But I don’t have the luxury of daydreams.
Thank God, I’m going home tomorrow.
I’m not sure how much more I can handle being in Nora’s orbit, or even the same city. Dom’s been begging me to move back. But putting myself so close to her on a continuous basis spells disaster in any language. My control can only last for so long when it comes to this woman.
The buzz of my phone on the table draws my attention away from the goddess on stage.
Shit. Skye.
> Are you coming back tonight? Why the hell did you bail? I don’t like vague explanations. We need to talk before you leave tomorrow. Don’t try to blow me off. <
At the word blow, my knee starts bobbing uncontrollably for the hundredth time today. Why is it so fucking hard to find any good coke in this city? This is fucking New Orleans, not some Amish town in Pennsylvania. All my regular sources here seem to be short at the moment, even Dom’s guys. Which is…concerning.
He’s been dealing with encroachments on his territory and supply lines for months. That it’s resulting in an actual shortage means things will come to a head soon. And that’s always messy when Dom is involved.
It’s not like I need it anyway. Hell, it’s already been almost two weeks since that party. But it certainly helps me clear my head of unwanted images and voices—bloody, beautiful, or otherwise. I’ll just have to find something else to assist with stress relief tonight. Too bad it can’t be Nora.
I set my phone back down on the table and scrub my hands over my face. The final notes of “Kashmir” wind down and Nora sashays off stage, that damn perfect ass flexing and rolling and torturing me with every step she takes in those mile-high heels. My cock swells even more, pressing against my boxers and bulging in
my dress pants that hide nothing.
Fuck.
This is my chance to get out of here without her seeing me. If I wait too long, she’ll come out from backstage, and my chances of a clean getaway are nil. I’ve managed to keep her from seeing me for this long, and I’d like to keep it that way. Just thinking of having to come face to face with her right now has my stomach churning.
I slide out from the corner booth and move down the back hallway to slip out the side entrance when a small, warm hand grabs my bicep.
Please don’t be her.
With trepidation turning my already sour stomach into a roiling mess, I turn to find Renee—aka Scarlett—not Nora, staring up at me with a calculating smile on her too-red lips.
“Stone, I didn’t even know you were here. Why didn’t you come back and say hi?”
I smile at her and cover her hand with mine. She’s a beautiful woman with many talents, and I always try to say hello if I’m in town. But there’s no way I’m telling her the real reason for this visit. That would be…unwise. “I just stopped in to drop off something for Savage.”
Lie.
Savage, and everyone else, is probably still at Mom’s house enjoying Sunday dinner and fawning over the baby. I love them, I really do, but more than a couple hours with the family in full force usually means a pounding headache and frayed nerves.
I was almost relieved to get Dom’s call. Even though I really didn’t want to get involved in any more of his drama this trip, at least it gave me an excuse to slip out of there.
And once I had taken care of my business for Dom, there was only one place I wanted to be.
Wherever Nora was.
I ducked in here to catch a glimpse of her before I have to fly back to Cali tomorrow instead of going back for more family fun.
But now that I’m looking at Renee, a whole other kind of fun has entered my mind.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve hooked up with one of the dancers, and not even the first time I’ve hooked up with Renee. That’s how I know it will help me take my mind off everything going on and relieve the pent-up tension in my body.
“I’m on my way back to my hotel. Are you off soon?”
She grins and squeezes my bicep with her long-nailed fingers. My cock twitches in anticipation of having them wrapped around it. “In less than an hour, and I have a babysitter all night, so I don’t need to be home right away.”
Shit.
The mention of her kid has me momentarily rethinking my invitation. Taking her away from her child so I can get laid seems a little low, even for me. But then again, she’s the one making a mother of the year choice, not me. She could just say no.
Who am I to police her morality?
I lean in and wrap my free arm around her back, pulling her against me. She presses into me and the scent of something overwhelmingly fruity swirls in my nostrils. What cheap perfume she wears doesn’t concern me. She’s gorgeous, warm, and very willing to do anything I want. It’s just what I need tonight.
Brushing her auburn hair back over her shoulder, I kiss her cheek, then let my mouth linger against her ear. “The Windsor Court, I’m on the club level, so call me when you get there, and I’ll come down and get you.”
Her body practically vibrates against mine, doing absolutely nothing to tame the raging hard-on I’ve had since Nora wiggled her ass off the stage.
I would love to drag her outside and bend her over the hood of my rental car for a hot, quick fuck, but I need more than that tonight. We are going to need a room for what I have in mind.
A room, and some very sturdy bed posts.
I drop down into the chair in front of the row of lit mirrors and try to calm my racing heart and labored breathing.
It’s not from the dance I just did.
He was here again.
Even though I couldn’t see him, I felt his eyes on me from the back corner booth my entire time on stage.
His stare strips me bare and makes me feel vulnerable up there, when usually, the stage is the one place I feel somewhat safe and free.
Dang.
I wish I knew who he was.
He’s been here before, at least a half dozen times since I started dancing. Whoever he is, he’s careful to always sit in a dark corner. I’ve never seen his face, only a glimpse of a large, strong hand curled around a tumbler of amber liquid, sporting a watch that looks like it costs more than my car.
The waitresses would probably tell me who he is if I asked, but I’m always too flustered after feeling his heated gaze on my every move. Plus, asking about customers is a big no-no here. Byron would get wind of my questioning and then it would get back to Savage and Gabe, and I’d be stuck having a very uncomfortable conversation with my brother-in-law/boss and his bestie.
There are rules at The Hawkeye Club, rules that don’t bend and certainly don’t break without you being tossed out to the curb on your ass. Savage runs a tight ship; it’s one of the things I appreciate about him and Gabe. They don’t tolerate trashy stuff going on at the club, and at the top of that list is sleeping with customers.
Not that I would sleep with the mystery man.
No…definitely not.
If he can do that with simply his eyes, I couldn’t imagine how he could break me down and tear me apart if he had his hands on me and his dick inside me.
I’ve been broken down enough for a thousand lifetimes.
The only reason I’m even functioning after what happened, after what I did, is because I found my place here, on the stage. It’s offered freedom from what my life had become. This is exactly what I deserve and where I belong.
I was kidding myself to think I was cut out to be a doctor.
Paging Dr. Eriksson to the pole.
Looking at myself in the mirror, I know the me from two years ago wouldn’t even recognize the me today. Heavy, dark eye makeup and thick lipstick weigh on the face that was once clean and makeup free. I never spent any time on trying to impress anyone with my appearance before. It was never important. School, books, studying, repeat, that was my life. Well, that and mountains of stress, anxiety, and pressure.
How thoroughly things have changed.
Scarlett strolls into the room with a smirk on her lips and a flush on her cheeks and exposed cleavage.
Her smile fades when her eyes meet mine in the mirror. “What’s wrong, honey?”
I force a tight smile and lean forward to rummage in my makeup bag to avoid having to make direct eye contact with her while I lie through my teeth. Lying makes my stomach turn, and I’ve been doing it way too much for almost two years.
“I’m fine, just tired. Wishing I was on my way home instead of just starting my shift.” That’s not a lie. This is the last place I want to be tonight, and not just because he was here.
Sundays are always slow, and it makes the night drag.
With a sigh, Scarlett drops into the chair next to me, and I relax, giving up the charade of my makeup search. “Well, I’m almost done. One more dance, and I’m out of here.”
That grin returns.
“What has you smiling like that? Big plans with Kade after work?” Although, I don’t know what she would be doing with a five-year-old at eight o’clock at night.
She shakes her head. “Nah, I have much better plans than just hanging out with the kid tonight. His grandma has him until she heads into work tomorrow.”
I see where she’s going with this. “Ah, so there’s a guy in these plans, then? One who is going to keep you occupied until the wee morning hours?”
A laugh tumbles from her, and she leans forward to examine herself in the mirror. “I sure as shit hope so. I haven’t been fucked well in months.”
Months? Try years.
I keep my sad sexual history to myself and smile at her. “Sounds like you have some major making up to do.”
She nods and opens the mascara tube in her hand, then leans forward and reapplies it. “I do. That whole thing with my ex last year r
eally fucked with my social life. I couldn’t go anywhere without him following me and harassing anyone who dared try to show me any attention.”
All the drama with her son’s father last year had affected everyone. He even came in and confronted her while she was on stage one night. Thank God, Gabe talked to him and made him understand the ramifications of his actions. Gabe is one man I never want to be on the wrong side of—I value my life too much to get in his cross-hairs.
Scarlett deserves to have some fun and live a little. She hasn’t had it easy. Working here has definitely taught me to appreciate what I’ve had my whole life—caring parents, a loving, although sometimes annoying and overbearing, sister, a nice house, food on my plate, and an education. Most of the girls here never got any of that, or if they had, it never lasted long. It’s an all too common thread with these girls. So, if Scarlett has found someone who can make her smile like this, I’m happy for her.
I pop up from my chair and head to my locker to grab the outfit for my next dance. “Well, I hope you have a great time tonight.” Scarlett is a good person, I genuinely do hope she can find happiness. She deserves it.
“Oh, I will. This isn’t my first time with St—” She catches herself in the middle of saying something, and I look at her over my shoulder absently.
“With who?”
Her eyes don’t meet mine. “Uh, Steve, his name is Steve. Anyway, he’s really something else in the sack. Kinky as fuck and hot as hell.”
“Kinky, huh?” I turn back to my locker and tug out my schoolgirl outfit. The plaid skirt and tiny white crop top always make me cringe. All I can see is Britney Spears with the pigtails. I refuse to go there, but I wear the ridiculous uniform because, for some sick reason, men dig it and my tips are huge. “Can’t say I have any experience with that, other than the weird stuff some of our customers are into.”
Scarlett’s eyes gleam when I meet her gaze again. “Girl, you are missing out. You wouldn’t believe what this man can do with some handcuffs and a little rope.”
Handcuffs? Rope?