Daniella

 

My neck and back were killing me. I’d spent the last ten hours combing through Club Travesty’s tax returns and looking at the books. The man kept meticulous notes; I’d give him that. But the sound of my stomach growling had me checking the time. Shit. It was past six o’clock. Where the hell was Shane? After his abrupt exit, he hadn’t come back.

Just as well. Once I got into numbers, it was tough for me to get out. But I felt like I had a firm start. Tomorrow I’d start to lay out my questions for him. Since I hadn’t found anything obvious missing from his returns, I would need to audit his expenditures. Auditing was normally something I’d have an on-staff auditor do. But considering the nature of this club and maybe something I didn’t want to admit—me wanting to spend more time with Shane—I wasn’t about to pass off the assignment to someone else.

After rolling my neck, I grudgingly put on my heels again. About five hours ago, I’d kicked them off. In search of Shane or food or maybe both, I took the front stairs down into the club.

“Wait, Miss.” Lance, the man whose job I’d saved, intercepted me once I was on the main floor. Taking my arm, he led me behind the bar.

“You can’t go out onto the main floor or into the bar without a mask. Unless you want to chance being recognized.”

Huh. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. Grateful for his quick thinking, I smiled. “Thank you. I don’t suppose someone has one I could borrow.”

He looked awkward. “Uh, it would be easier if you went out the back towards the employee entrance.”

“Oh. I was hoping you could tell me a good place to eat around here?”

“The bar has great food. Most of the staff eats from their menu. Let me show you to the employee break room where you can place an order.”

Because he was here and I felt bad I’d almost gotten him fired, I decided to say something. “By the way. I’m sorry about the other night. I never meant—”

He cut me off with a rare smile. “It’s already forgotten, Ms. Trivioli.”

 

***

 

I waited on my chef salad, trying my best not to gawk at the other people in the room. Most of them were gorgeous. The women, especially, were all made up and wore very little by way of clothing. Two of them were seated to my left, and I couldn’t help overhearing.

“You’re so lucky you’re performing with Shane tomorrow night.”

The blonde sighed. “More like he’s performing with Heather, and I’m just along for the ride. But I’m hoping he’ll let me suck that big cock of his.”

I could feel my neck getting red. Jealousy wasn’t an emotion with which I was familiar. Not even watching my fiancé last night have sex with other people had elicited such a response. Yet the thought of Shane with another woman was provoking a completely irrational dose of it. I shook off the crazy thought, grabbed my salad, and started to walk back upstairs. But not before snagging a menu of services.

I told myself I wanted to study the club’s menu in order to follow the revenue streams more easily, but I found myself completely enthralled with the descriptions of the services offered.

As I ate my dinner, I realized I had never felt lonelier. Or more sexually frustrated. Not a great combination. Maybe it was time for a change.

 

***

 

Shane

 

I’d stayed away from Daniella yesterday evening. Pure self-preservation. The quick answer to my problem would be to fuck her brains out and get her out of my system. But there was no way I was crossing that line. Women like her belonged in the suburbs with a white picket fence, minivan, and Pinterest habit. Not in a sex club. So why had I ensured she came back?

The question wouldn’t leave my mind as I walked into my spacious loft office early the next morning. She was already at my desk, working. I immediately noticed the dark circles under her eyes and wondered about the cause.

“Good morning. Merry Christmas Eve,” she greeted casually.

“’Morning. And, uh, Merry Christmas. How did you sleep?”

She appeared startled by my question but sighed when she lifted her gaze to mine. “Not great, honestly.”

“Was the bed not comfortable?”

“No, it wasn’t that. Maybe it’s the holidays. Do you have plans with family?”

I didn’t like the reminder. “No. We’ll be open tonight and tomorrow. But you’re welcome to take tomorrow off if you want to spend the day with yours.”

“My parents are on a cruise. But they’ll probably call later.”

“We could, uh, do dinner later if you want?” Shit. Where had that thought come from? I didn’t do holidays, family, or dinner dates.

She looked pleasantly surprised and then confused. “Uh, I thought you were performing tonight.”

“Not until eight. We could eat beforehand. Or not. It doesn’t matter.” I disliked being put on the spot and that she was privy to my plans.

“Sure, dinner before would be nice. Is your performance up for people to watch?”

“Yes, for members. That does not include you.” I added the last part in case she got any ideas.

I could feel her eyes on me as I kept mine averted.

“Why not?”

“Because I said so.”

A smile curved her lips. “Funny. I haven’t heard such a lame excuse since I was a child and my Dad couldn’t come up with a good reason to forbid something. Do you have an issue with me watching you perform?”

I spared a glance and shouldn’t have. The twinkle in her eyes was disarming. “Don’t cross me on this, Daniella. You’re not sneaking down there tonight.”

“Give me a good reason, and maybe I won’t.”

“Tell me what it is you want from going down on that floor to watch.”

I witnessed the color stain her cheeks while her gaze reluctantly met mine. “I don’t know. Maybe just to feel something similar to the other night when you touched me.”

Although she wasn’t trying to seduce me, I could feel an instant pull toward her. “You’re rebounding.”

She blew out a frustrated breath. “Can I be brutally honest with you?”

“Of course.”

“I’m not. Not rebounding, that is. And the fact that I’m more upset about being duped over the money than about losing my fiancé is disconcerting.”

Her candor was disarming. “I’m gonna ask the obvious. Did you love him?”

“I hate to admit I might not have. I think I loved the idea of him. We both worked long hours, we liked the same restaurants, we ran in the same circles. It was safe and easy. But the bottom line is that when I went searching for proof about the money and cheating, I hoped I would find it.”

“You wanted a way out?”

“Yeah, and how fucked up is it that I didn’t simply say so? But it was in my gut. It’s like I knew I wasn’t destined for him.”

“Not for me to judge.”

“You ever been in love?”

“Nope.” It was the truth. I’d been in lust a time or two, but love I didn’t have time for.

“Not even when you were younger?”

I shook my head. “I never wanted the commitment.”

“Anyone ever fall in love with you?”

My face flinched, and I knew she saw it. “She was young and didn’t know what love was.”

“Wish I could use that excuse with Eric. How about just being old and stupid?”

“You’re twenty-seven. Hardly old.”

“How do you know how old I am?”

“Ran your background check. I also know you’ve never gotten a speeding ticket, broken a law, or had bad credit.”

Instead of looking annoyed, like I expected, she laughed. “Great. I’m even more boring on paper.”

She stood up, coming within a breath of me. “How old are you?”

I dipped my head, whispering in her ear and enjoying the way goosebumps appeared on her flesh. “Thirty-two.”

Her face was upturned when I pulled back, eyes half closed with lust. She looked as though she expected me to crash my lips to hers. When I didn’t, she blinked rapidly but didn’t move away. “Are you thinking about kissing me?”

“I don’t kiss.”

“Too personal or too boring?”

“Probably both.” Kissing was what people did who had feelings for one another. The last time I’d kissed a woman, she’d misconstrued the meaning. Never again. Now when I fucked women, there wasn’t a lot of time for kissing. “And in your own words, you’re not looking to slum it with a sex club owner.”

She crinkled her adorable brow before stepping back, breaking the moment. “That’s the second time you’ve implied I insulted you. How? When?”

She couldn’t be serious. “You said clearly you weren’t so pathetic as to throw yourself at the owner of a sex club.”

Her mind looked like it was rewinding and then the light of recognition dawned in her eyes. “Right, I did. Because you could have any girl you wanted. So why would I throw myself at someone like that? Meaning I’d be pathetic if I did so. Jesus. You actually thought I’d be that self-righteous?”

“You wouldn’t be the first.”

Her expression softened. “I’m sorry if it came across that way. My intent was self-deprecation, not to insult you.”

Damn. Now I felt like shit. “I apologize for the retort about you being vanilla.”

“I believe you said I was too vanilla for you ever to be interested. Whereas my comment was a misunderstanding, I believe yours was the truth.”

I pulled her close, watching as her eyes widened and her breath caught. “It wasn’t the truth.” I let her feel my cock hard against her in order to drive my point home. God, it would be so easy. So satisfying to sink deep inside of her. Which made it that much harder to say my next words.

“But this isn’t your world, Daniella. What you need is a nice man who’ll treat you well and give you two point five kids.”

She pulled out of my embrace, smiling sadly before grabbing her purse. “What I need are less people thinking they know what I need. I think I’ll pass on dinner tonight.”

 

***

 

I threw back the tumbler of whiskey and checked my watch. It was nearing my performance time, but I didn’t feel the least bit into the thought of Heather and the other blonde—what was her name? Brandi. Damn, since when did the thought of two women leave me uninspired?

I was a complete and utter hypocrite. Even though I’d told Daniella that Club Travesty wasn’t her world, I was the one who’d dragged her back into it. My reasons were purely selfish, and not entirely truthful that it had only been to do the club’s books.

According to my security team, she’d returned an hour after departing and had been working upstairs. She’d probably been crying. Most likely embarrassed about having admitted she wanted to feel something more.

While walking upstairs, I tried to remind myself why I couldn’t pull her into the bedroom and fuck her out of my system. That’s really all it would take. One night, and I could stop obsessing about how her pussy had climaxed around my fingers. But doing so wouldn’t be fair to her.

It wasn’t as though I was averse to having regular sex in a bed. Ironically, the last time I’d had sex in an actual bed, I’d been twenty-two, in college, and fucking some coed who would’ve freaked if I’d suggested anything other than vanilla. Now I was contemplating the flavor because it had been so long I’d forgotten the taste.

God knew, I’d been involved in some kinky shit over the years. It all started when Max and I found Gloria at a bar while on vacation right after college. She was in her forties and beautiful, not in the classic sense like Daniella, but in the self-confident, sexual kind of way. And she’d introduced us to her club. Finally, we’d both felt free. Free from what society dictated, free from drunk, giggling girls at frat parties and stupid boys who didn’t know how to get a woman off properly. Gloria had made sure learning to give women pleasure had been the first of her many lessons.

But now, ten years later and with the club consuming so much of my time, I found myself bored. Now that I’d been there and done most everything, I found my appetite changing. Unfortunately, it seemed to center around a certain feisty, redhead with gorgeous skin and blazing blue eyes.

When I saw she was no longer at the desk, I knocked on the bedroom door. Silence greeted me. I opened the door to find the room empty. Where the hell was she?

I turned to find Max coming off the elevator, smirking.

“Where’s Daniella?”

“Not crying over your ass, that’s for sure.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means she isn’t the girl from your old neighborhood who flipped out on you and your mom because you took her out a couple of times.”

I hated the reminder of Tina. She was a girl I’d met while visiting home. Though she had a rocking body, she’d gotten way too attached after a couple dates and a single night together. That mess was the reason I was now adamant about keeping things completely black and white with my partners.

“Where is she?”

“Partaking in some club activities.”

Adrenaline coursed through me. I had to fight the urge to tear through each of the rooms looking for her. What the hell? This wasn’t her.

“Relax, dude. She’s doing the boyfriend experience with Javier. Although I was tempted to ask if she wanted it with me, I knew you’d flip out.”

So much for being worried she’d get attached to me if we slept together. Obviously, that wasn’t the case if she’d entertain sex with a stranger. I gritted my teeth. “What room?”

He quirked a brow. “Number five in about ten minutes. But what about your show tonight?”