Chapter 1

Jax

It wasn’t a dream.

It wasn’t a fucking fantasy.

I stood frozen in the doorway to the studio, throbbing in two places, both heads.

“Fuck.” The word dripped from my lips, lost in the music that pumped from a stereo in the corner—“Money Make Her Smile” by Bruno Mars.

The woman, no, the temptress swayed to the beat, the flat plane of her stomach glistening beneath the sharp studio lights, her chocolate-colored hair a curtain in front of her face, hiding eyes I had to see.

Booty shorts tight against her ass, right beneath the seam that separated cheek from thigh, and a spandex bra squeezing two full breasts together.

That silver pole, one of many in the room, was the center of her universe, and, for now, mine too. Every revolution of her supple body thickened my cock against the inside of my pants.

She clung to the pole and did a side split, exposing the insides of her muscular legs. Her hair fell back and revealed a heart-shaped face, eyes closed, lips so full I couldn’t help but picture them parted around my dick.

Yo, dickwad. You’re here for business. Get pleasure on your own time.

Yet, this was the first time in years I’d stopped, done anything but dominated. This was the first time I’d actually appreciated from the gut, the mind, and the dick.

I didn’t feel for women. I didn’t feel shit, most days. And I’d spent time with models, but—this chick was different. She was fucking radiant.

Do you hear yourself?

“Trust me when I say I hate to interrupt.” My voice was a thunderous growl over the music, tight with desire, but she didn’t hear me. She was lost in her own paradise.

Christ, what I’d give to join her there.

Create a new Mecca and take her to it. I’ll give her a pole to spin on. All night, she’ll get the pole. Down, boy.

I strode across the dance studio, worn by years of use and dancing, my dress shoes clunking on the boards, and halted as close as I could without getting hit in the face by one of those wayward and surprisingly dainty feet.

My temptress closed her legs again, arched her back, and swiveled around that center pole, inches from me. So fucking within reach.

“Lady, if you get any more intimate with that pole, I’m gonna have to leave the room,” I said.

Her eyes snapped open, deep brown glittering with specks of hazel beneath the sharp lights, and she locked onto me. She let out a shrill scream, and her hands slipped on the pole. “Shit,” she yowled, in a voice that would’ve suited one of those phone sex lines—if the women on them were in a constant state of shock or terror.

I put up my palms. “Easy—”

She lost her grip and plummeted toward the floorboards.

I darted forward and caught her under the ass and shoulders, arms out and tense as iron rods. She was light as a damn feather.

“Hey!” Angel-pants yelped. “Hey, what the hell are you doing?”

“Saving you from cracking your head, princess.” I righted her and set her on her bare feet in front of me. “Unless you’d prefer a trip to the hospital instead.”

“This is a closed studio,” she said, biting out the words. “You’re not meant to be in here.”

“Then you should reconsider leaving the doors unlocked,” I replied, easily. “Listen, I came here for a reason, but that little dance you just did, and the screaming afterward, has blanked me out. Who the hell are you?”

She was close, too close, and it was obvious she couldn’t handle it. Her nipples poked at the fabric of that spandex bra.

Most women couldn’t handle being this close to me. They either launched themselves across the space or quit talking entirely.

My dick rolled again, and I forced images of grandma panties to front of mind. It hadn’t been my intention to ogle her, but goddamn, that picture would be ingrained into my brain for the rest of my life.

“Who the hell am I?” she whispered, brushing glossy hair behind her ear, then pointed her index finger at me, tipped in a baby pink nail. “Who the hell are you? Like I said, mister, you’re not supposed to be in here, doors unlocked or not.”

“I’m a nightmare and a dream in a suit, princess,” I replied, cocking my head to one side, drinking her in from head to toe. “Can’t you tell?”

“I’m not a princess,” she grunted over the ongoing music—“Gorilla” by Bruno Mars was on now, the beat thumping its chest between us.

“Tell me your name, and I’ll stop calling you one.”

“What are we, fifteen? I’m Riley,” she said, and she actually stuck out her hand for a shake. Admirable. She hadn’t keeled over yet, she hadn’t entirely bored me out of my skull, and she hadn’t clammed up like someone had tightened screws into her jaws and jammed them shut.

I took her hand, dwarfed it in my massive palm, and drew her a step closer. She smelled of lavender and vanilla, and sweat. Sweet, fucking sweat. Goddamn. That was the smell of sex, if ever there was one. “Jax.”

“Jax?” She quirked an eyebrow. “Is that even a name?”

“Is teaching pole dancing even a profession?” I asked.

She whipped her hand out of my grip then turned and strode off, her heels thumping down on the boards as if she could pulverize them with her anger. She moved like a queen, not a princess, with measured sways of that ass, frustration aside.

“You’re a teacher here.” I said, loudly, as she cut off the music. My statement rang in the studio, up against the gray wall behind the array of poles, and the mirror at the far end.

“What of it?” Riley asked and grabbed a towel off a stack of chairs in the corner.

Christ, if I wasn’t careful, I’d wind up picturing her in one of those chairs, grinding on me, working herself back and forth, back and forth—Great job not picturing it. Business, jackass, business.

“I need to speak with the person in charge,” I said. “Now.”

“What for?”

“My business is private,” I replied. “Riley, I’m sure you can understand when I tell you it’s an urgent matter.” I wasn’t exactly the sugar-stick kinda guy, but I had enough charm at hand to woo any woman and wheedle any business owner out of their investments.

“Urgent?” Riley spun, those hazel-flecked eyes wide with mock surprise. She toweled her neck and her hair, then her stomach and her collarbones. She did it without breaking eye contact. Did this woman realize how fucking sexy she was? Probably.

She wasn’t in her twenties, or maybe she was, either way, this Riley chick wasn’t a girl—she was a woman. All fucking woman. Or she’d never have tempted me in the first place.

She bent and dragged the towel up one leg to the inside of her thigh, snapped her focus onto me again, eyes narrowed. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow, unfortunately.”

“No.”

“Yes,” she said. “This dance studio closes at nine p.m. and it’s—” Riley cut off and checked the clock on the wall at the far end of the room. “It’s fifteen minutes past. Sorry.” She shrugged.

I crossed the distance between us, fast and purposeful, partly drawn by her and partly pushed by, well, whatever the fuck about her didn’t make me yawn. I halted in front of her, mere inches between us, and looked down my nose, only slightly crooked from where it’d been broken. “I didn’t come here to mince words with teachers, understand? I’m a businessman, and time is money. Either give me the owner’s number or—” I broke off, glanced to the left, then frowned.

Up against the corner, packed tight as if to avoid notice, was a pile of pillows and a duvet.

Riley snapped her fingers at me. “Hey! Hey, dude, you don’t get to make demands in here. This place is closed, and you have to leave before I call the cops.”

“Call the cops?” I switched my gaze back to her face. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

Christ, I enjoyed the challenge in her expression. The strength. “No, Riley, you wouldn’t.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because you’re illegally squatting in this building, and if you called them, you’d be removed.” I grinned.

“It’s a commercial building,” Riley replied, reflecting my shit-eating grin right back at me. “It’s not illegal to squat in a commercial building.”

“But it must bite, right? It must suck to have to sleep here every night and clean up before the classes come in, in the morning. How long’s it been since you showered?” I asked.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying, you look like you could use a hot, soapy shower. Water trickling down your skin, your spine.”

She bit her lip. Apparently, I’d hit a nerve there. There was nothing women loved more than warmth, cleanliness, and beauty—unless it was to sacrifice all of that to be a dirty girl for the right man.

“I—this is all beside the point. Dude, uh, Jax, you have to go.”

“All right,” I said and made my decision.

I’d come here to buy this studio as part of my conquest across Miami. I’d own every bit of land I could get my hands on, turn studios like this into another strip club or restaurant, but I’d have to set aside that goal for tonight.

This woman wasn’t safe here.

“OK, so why aren’t you leaving?” she asked and folded her arms across those ample breasts.

“Call me old school, but I’d be loath to leave a damsel in distress behind.”

Riley lifted one shoulder and glanced around, past me, then behind herself at the chair and the stereo. “Good thing there aren’t any of those around.”

“Let’s get this clear and fast. I’m not leaving unless you come with me, and honey, you can call the damn cops, call the army if you want, all I’ll do is call my buddies higher up the line and have the cavalry turn around and meander back the way they came.” I scissored my fingers in a walking motion in mid-air.

“Come with you?” Riley’s jaw dropped. “Maybe you got the wrong idea, Jax, but I don’t provide those kinds of services.”

I smirked. “Cute. I’m not interested in your body,” I said and told the biggest lie ever uttered. So big, it should’ve shattered the fucking crust and mantle of the earth and plunged through to the core. “I’m interested in you staying safe. I’m old-fashioned that way.”

“I don’t need a man to keep me safe.”

“Only to open your pickle jars?”

She pressed her lips together to keep from laughing—nostrils flared and all that. “Was that a euphemism?”

“If you want it to be,” I said. “Seriously, Riley, you’re not staying here. If I could walk into this place, then anyone else can, and, shit, that’s a recipe for disaster.”

“I get the feeling you know a lot about disaster.”

I brushed my fingers through my hair. “You have no idea,” I replied, chuckling. “Let me get you a hotel room. I’ll pay for it and you can stay for as long as you like.”

“No, thank you,” she said, instantly. “I can’t accept that kind of gesture from someone I don’t know.”

“Then—shit, OK, listen, I’ve got plenty of room. I have an apartment I hardly ever sleep in, duty calls and all that, and you need to rest your head for the night, maybe condition your hair or whatever it is women do when they’re not twirling around poles or driving men insane.”

“Mutually exclusive?”

“You said it first.” I pointed at her.

She finally laughed, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The mirth tinkled from her. It lit up fucking sparks in the space between us. Hello, what the hell’s that about?

This chick was danger packaged in spandex, and man, did I want a piece. But not tonight. Tonight, she’d sleep, have a safe place to stay, and I’d plan a meeting for tomorrow—this studio would be mine. Nothing would stand in my path to domination, not even a tight-bodied pole dancer with an attitude.

I walked to the door and halted in it, looked back over one suited shoulder. “I’m not getting any younger.” Or less turned on.