Chapter Four
I imagine myself on a bus heading somewhere far away. Except if I leave, I know Ivan will find me. And in the process, he’ll kick over every rock until everyone knows where to find me. I’m trapped just as surely as when I left. Unless I stay here and keep my head down, earn more money, stay safe another few days…and maybe find out what happened to my mother. Doesn’t she deserve justice? Doesn’t she deserve peace?
Clara deserves it, that’s for sure. Finding those jewels means peace. It’s a long shot, but so is staying alive. Survival is a long shot when you have dangerous men hunting you. And dangerous men ordering you around.
Ivan ordered me to stay away from Kip, but somehow I’m standing here in front of the velvet curtain. I’m wearing full gear tonight for the floor. That means a lacy black bra and panties, just begging to be ripped off in front of some panting guy, in the dark recesses of a VIP room. I feel shaky, like I might throw up. It’s not stage fright. It’s the opposite. I can dance in front of a roomful of men. But the thought of being enclosed with this one is making my heart pound.
I glance back, but Blue is busy with some guy who got too up close and personal with Lola. I could wait for him to be finished and then tell him Ivan won’t let me see this guy. Blue isn’t about to disobey an order like that. But on some level I don’t want Blue to step in. I don’t want to listen to Ivan.
I want to go inside.
My palms grow hot. I know he’ll be sprawled on the chair, one long leg kicked out, the other tucked back. I know he’ll be wearing the scuffed boots and leather jacket. I know exactly how he’ll smell—like musk and danger, like salt and spice.
When I slip past the curtain, a slow grin spreads across his face. It looks like a smile I’d see when I open the door for a date, both appreciative and a little surprised. It should be out of place in the dark, dank VIP room, but my heart flutters anyway.
Damn it. I’m determined to make this time different.
“Hey, sugar,” I say in a voice so smooth and practiced it is clearly false. “I’m glad to see you.”
He doesn’t need to know that I actually am glad to see him again. Or that I find him sexy.
His smile fades a little. Apparently the seductress play isn’t what he’s expecting. Last time I’d been bumbling and awkward and, worst of all, real. I won’t make that mistake twice.
He studies me like I’m a puzzle. I’m the simplest thing you’ll ever see, I want to tell him. I’m afraid. But I smile instead. It’s not a big smile, not real, but it’s pretty. I know exactly what it looks like in the mirror, with my makeup on. I give it to him the same way I give him my time and my body—by the hour.
“What’ll it be tonight, sugar?” I ask.
A little crease forms between his eyebrows. My fingers twitch. I want to smooth it away. And then I’d keep going, running my fingertip over those thick eyebrows, trailing my hand down his bristly cheek. I shave and pluck the hairs on my body, leaving my skin smooth. But he has all his hair—he’s covered in the stuff. It looks both soft and coarse, both attractive and forbidding.
“Can I talk to you?” he asks quietly.
This was what I’d been afraid of. Niceness. Curiosity. It’s not good, coming from a customer. It’s not good coming from anyone. “We’re talking right now, sugar.”
“Come here.” He pulls his leg even, making it clear he wants me on his lap. I remember that lap, his thighs strong and warm and thick under me. I had an orgasm on that lap.
I can’t risk it. So I slide to the floor instead, glancing up at him with a seductive smile. My breasts sway as I crawl toward him in the small space. I move like a cat, rubbing against him before flicking my ass. His gaze roams my body, hovering on each part, unable to choose a place to land. He likes my breasts and my belly, my ass and my legs.
Then he looks back at my face, locking his eyes on mine. “I said come here.”
He doesn’t let me get away with much. I can feel the invisible leash around my neck. I can feel him tug. I slip between his legs. It’s close enough to his lap that I can pretend innocence. Maybe this was what he meant all along. I give lap dances all night long, but very few men will turn down a blowjob if I’m already kneeling between their legs.
I slide my hands up his thighs, staring at the bulge in his jeans. He wants this, and somehow so do I. I don’t have any illusions about blowjobs. I don’t imagine it will taste good or feel sexy, but I want to hear him fall apart. I want to feel it.
His hands grab my wrists. His eyes are dark now, displeased.
He pulls. My body swings up, easy and lightweight in his arms. Then I’m in his lap, tucked into the crook of his arm, straddling his legs. Shit.
I force myself to pout, to keep things lighthearted. “I want to make you feel good, sugar.”
His arms tighten around me, half embrace and half prison. “You do.”
My heart pounds. He pushes past my defenses, just like that. Not with cruelty. That I could manage. Or at least, survive. He slips underneath my walls just by looking at them. I don’t know what would happen if he actually did more. How quickly I would fall.
And I want him to feel just as vulnerable—more. So I relax my body, as if I’m giving in. I rest my arms on his shoulders, either side. My palms slide down his chest to frame the necklace he wears, the one underneath his shirt.
“What’s this?” I whisper.
His expression closes. “It’s nothing.”
I recognize those walls—I put them up myself. And I recognize those lies. They are all I have left. That alone should make me respect his wishes. I can suck his dick without lifting his shirt. Instead I find myself stroking his neck, reaching down to the warm metal chain—and pulling out the necklace.
A cross. A simple cross with straight lines, formed out of a black stone with cloudy white swirling through. Marble? I think he must have worn it for a long time. But somehow I know I am one of the only people to ever see it.
Because he let me see it. I don’t fool myself. He could have stopped me. He could do anything to me, but he let me take out his necklace. The unexpected trust sits on my chest, making it hard to breathe.
“I didn’t take you for a religious man.” It isn’t only his presence here in the strip club. Hypocrisy runs deep. I wouldn’t be surprised to find half the men here in church on Sundays, wiping away their sins with the same hands and tongues they used to defile me.
But he has something they don’t, a kind of fight, a stark determination that says he walks his own path. He has his own plan—and no use for God’s.
“I’m not religious,” he says, tucking the cross back under his shirt. “That’s a gift.”
It has to be from a woman. While the shape of it is simple, almost primitive, it was clearly chosen with love and feminine affection. And it certainly matches Kip’s dark looks—his black boots and black jacket. His black eyes. They’re angry now, but I don’t stop. A wise woman would leave him alone. She would take her clothes off. She’d give him her body. But she’d never trust him with her heart.
“Who gave this to you?” I whisper. His mother? A girlfriend?
His wife?
I tell myself it doesn’t matter. Plenty of men here are married. Rings are common enough, worn by men too lazy or brazen to take them off before coming. But I don’t want this man to be married.
His expression darkens. “You want answers, but you won’t give me any. Fair’s fair, sweetheart.”
I flinch as his hand reaches for me, but he only tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. It’s always coming undone from the pins I use to hold it. My hair is always falling down around me, tumbling and wild. The admiration in his eyes says he likes it that way. His hand lingers in my hair, teasing the strands between his fingers.
“Tell me your name,” he says gently. “If you don’t trust me, I can’t help you.”
Every muscle freezes. Cold sweeps in, turning me to ice. I don’t feel fear. I can’t feel pain. “How do you know I need help?”
His eyes soften. The understanding in them is like a physical blow, and I have to hold my breath just to keep myself from shattering.
“Don’t you?” He strokes rough fingers down my cheek. “Your eyes ask for help. Your body. You look down at me from the stage like you want me to climb up and take you away.”
I stare at him, shocked. Shocked that he read so much into me. Shocked that he’s right. “No.”
His large hand wraps the back of my neck. He tugs me close and whispers in my ear, “What are you afraid of?”
My heart pounds so loud it’s all I can hear. The dark walls become blurry as if I’m going fast instead of trapped. As if I’m falling. “I don’t need your help. This is where I want to be.”
He looks around like he’s just noticed our surroundings. Sharp eyes don’t miss anything—not the grit on the floor or the desolation in my lie. “This is where you want to be,” he says. “This hellhole. Is that right?”
I laugh suddenly. It takes me by surprise. “This isn’t hell. You think heaven is nice clothes and expensive locks? That’s what hell is made of.”
Then there’s knowledge in his eyes. “And you left that…for this.”
“I don’t need your pity.” It makes me angry, the way he’s looking at me. I don’t want him to feel sorry for me. I want him to desire me again. I want to see him panting after me again. “What I need is for you to stop talking and start fucking. You can do that, right? That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?”
His hand tightens in my hair. For a moment I think he’s going to call my bluff. In that moment, I want him to. Instead he tugs downward, guiding me to the floor.
Now he’ll fuck my mouth, won’t he? He’ll use me, just like I wanted.
But he doesn’t do that.
Instead he pushes his boot between my legs. His hand remains in my hair, holding me there. I’m straddling his leg, bracing myself with my hands on his thighs. Is he going to… kick me? But there isn’t really room for that. There isn’t room for much of anything, except the solid warmth of his leg holding me up. I’ve had my legs spread, my ass up, my mouth around a stranger’s cock—but I’ve never felt quite as vulnerable as I do now.
“What are you going to do to me?” My voice trembles. I can’t even find it in me to care. Pride is a thing of the past. Pride is silk and good wine—things I can no longer afford.
“What you asked for.” He looks angry now, but his touch is still gentle as he shifts me lower. I’m hugging his leg now, the warm leather of his boot pressed right against my pussy. “You wanted us to fuck. You wanted me to pay you for it. Well, this is how I want you.”
A pain in my scalp drags me up, and then I’m rocking back down again. Up and then down—he gives me the rhythm to move. It’s sex, that rhythm.
It’s dancing.
I’m already in a strip club. There should be nothing dirtier I can do, nothing lower. But now I’m grinding on this man’s boot, feeling horrible pleasure spark in my clit, and I realize I was wrong. This is worse. This is dirtier by far.
“Wait,” I whimper even though I don’t know what we’d wait for.
His hand drops, heavy on my shoulder, squeezing gently. “No, baby. This is what you asked for, and I’m giving it to you. That’s how this works.”
“This isn’t…” My throat feels tight, and horrible tears prick my eyes. I didn’t cry when I danced onstage the first time. Didn’t cry when I got fucked. Why does he make me feel like this? It’s even worse than how Byron made me feel. “This isn’t using me. It’s not making you feel good.”
A rough laugh, like metal dragging over concrete. “Oh, I’m feeling pretty good, sweetheart.”
He means his erection. He means the sizable bulge in his jeans.
“Let me stroke you,” I beg him. Anything would be easier than getting raked over his boot, fucking his leg, exposed in my own awkward arousal. It’s building even though I know this is wrong. No, it’s building faster because it’s so wrong. There’s something perverse in me. I don’t know if I was born with it or if Byron drilled it into me, but the humiliation only makes me hotter. Every stroke of the supple leather to my clit brings a new rush of heat.
He shakes his head, the expression in his eyes almost sad. “This is what you asked for,” he repeats. “Maybe next time you’ll ask for what you need.”
I shudder, right on the edge. “I need, I need—”
“I know,” he murmurs.
As I look into his eyes, I have the strangest feeling that he does know. Maybe he already knows what I’m afraid of. Maybe he knows what I need. It pushes me over, and then I’m coming, rocking my clit against leather, humping his leg while he murmurs how good I am, how sweet.
And when I am done, my body trembling, heart thudding, he pays me. I stare at the money as if I’ve never seen it before—as if I’ve never gotten paid before. As if it’s never hurt this bad before.
His expression is hungry as he stares down at me. But I must not be enough, because his erection is still thick in his jeans when he stands.
He looks down at me, and I feel again those brambles grow wild and fast, foliage too dense to see past, branches too thick to cut down. And again, that strange sense that he wants to hate me. He doesn’t want to get close. I remember this feeling too well. And when Kip leaves, I shiver on the floor, nauseous and afraid, remembering.
* * *
Six months ago
My face is stiff from smiling. My calves ache from the four-inch heels. Why is it the more a shoe costs, the thinner its sole? I greet another couple with as much warmth as I can pretend, considering the man has a lipstick smear on his face.
Not the same shade as his wife’s lipstick.
These parties are see and be seen. Fuck and be fucked. The woman scans the room as we discuss the latest charity fundraiser. She’s looking for her next conquest.
“Honor, darling.” The voice is like a cube of ice all the way down my spine.
I turn to greet the handsome man. Byron Adams, my fiancé. And the rising star in the Las Vegas Police Department. He’s aiming for police commissioner. “Byron, I was wondering where you’d gotten to.”
There is no lipstick on his face, which isn’t proof of anything. No, the main reason I believe he is faithful is because of the look in his eye. The one that scares me. “I was talking business,” he says with an almost bashful smile. It was strange to see that expression on him. It made him seem younger. It made me ache. “And missing you.”
Both the man and woman smile at us like we’re in love. I have to remember that. We are in love.
I lay my hand on his arm and force a smile. “Then take me with you.”
And he does. He leads me out of the room and up the stairs to the office. I’ve been in this office a thousand times, but not like this. Not with my fiancé’s rough hands bending me over the desk. He drags up the hem of my glittery dress, exposing my ass. The thong snaps.
“I couldn’t find you,” he says, voice tight.
There’s no right answer. If he wants me, he gets me. “I’m sorry,” I murmur, pleading.
The sound of a zipper pierces the room. Then he is inside me, skin to skin. His cock thrusts deep into my cunt. The papers are probably important, the tally of millions of dollars, but I crush them in my fists.
His fingers dig into my hips. “I don’t like that. Stay where I can see you.”
“I will,” I gasp out, but it’s hard. Hard because I can barely breathe, the way he’s thrusting faster now. Harder. The way my face is shoved into the desk, leaving streaks of eye makeup on the crinkled sheets of paper, damp with tears.
We are in love.
He pulls out. I tense up, knowing what’s coming next. If I’d had any doubts—any hopes—they are gone when he spits onto my ass. Careless fingers smooth the saliva into my puckered hole. Then his cock is pressing against me.
I practice like he tells me to. The plugs are as big as I can bear, but it’s still too much. Too much when his cock is inside me, dragging against the tender flesh, fucking me.
“Wait,” I whimper. “Wait.”
I don’t mean wait. I mean no no no. I mean stop and never start again. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t stop, and that’s for the best. If he did, he’d ask what I meant. He’d ask why I said it. And I don’t have answers for him. I only have my own muffled groans as he slams back into me.
I only have pain as he presses deep.