Well, shit. She was wearing the jeweled thong again. The one that sparkled in the lights of the stage and had a little golden chain instead of fabric.

Idris crushed the bottle of water he was drinking and tossed it in the trash. It was gonna be a long night. The men who frequented City Lights always went a little extra crazy on the nights Lala Royal wore the jeweled thong.

As the security for the dancers on stage, it was Idris's job to make sure the customers stayed well and good to themselves. Unless, of course, they paid for a private dance. He couldn't begin to say how relieved he was that she didn't do private dances. He might have had to do something crazy if she did. Like beat the shit out of whatever limp dick had paid for her.

Not that they didn't try to pay for her.

And Idris couldn't blame them. Isla, or as she called herself in the club - Lala Royal - was a stunner, jeweled thong or not

She could bring a man to his knees at twenty paces. Make him swallow his tongue at ten. And when she was shaking her sparkling lingerie and grinding and sweating on stage, well, let's just say Idris had no idea how she wasn't a millionaire at this point. It was more than making it rain. She could make a monsoon of dollar bills hit the stage. Just with a pout of her full lips, a toss of her dark hair, blonde on the ends. And certainly with a grind of that juicy ass.

Idris spotted the particular ass in question across the club as he took his place at the side of the stage. They were going to open the doors to patrons any minute and he had to be ready. The dancers, Isla included, were milling around the empty club, some of them drinking, some flirting with the other security guys. But not Isla. She was scrolling through her phone, reading something as the blue light lit up her face. Making her look even more beautiful. Idris looked away from her. It was hard not to watch her while she was grinding and slipping around the pole on stage. But for some reason watching her do regular things, sip a drink, pull her winter boots on before she went outside, jog across the parking lot, those were the things that got Idris feeling like his pants were too tight.

It was thinking about her as a normal woman, one who did her laundry and grocery shopped and went home to fall into a bed that smelled like her - baby powder and coconuts. GOD. That was what was going to put him into an early grave.

It was better to just think of her as a stripper for now. Keep his mind on the job. He found it wasn't so hard to drop his eyes from her face to her eye-catching underwear. In fact, Idris's eyes were so fixated on the sparkly triangle of her thong, he barely noticed that it was getting closer and closer. That she was walking that thong right over to him. He only noticed when she pulled her robe closed, cleared her throat.

He snapped his eyes back up to her face and an annoyed look flitted across her features as she tightened her robe even further.             

 Great. Now she thought he was a perv.

"You're Igor, right?" she asked him, her voice low and throaty in a way that made Idris want to rub lotion over every inch of her skin. He couldn't explain the exact correlation. He could only just accept that that's the way it made him feel.

"Idris," he grunted.

"Oh. Right. Sorry. I’m Isla."

He nodded, looked away from her, across the room. They were gonna start letting customers in any second and she really shouldn't be out on the floor of the club right now.

She tossed her head back toward the bartender. "Carter said you work at the auto shop in town?"

Ah. That explained why she was talking to him - for basically the first time ever - she was having car trouble. Well. Idris wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Sometimes," he said, looking over her head. Looking into her blue eyes was like staring into the sun. Or licking an electrical socket. It jolted him. Left an echo that he could feel for days.

"Okay, well. I'm not really sure what that means."

"If you're having car trouble, I can help you." He was a man of few words but he supposed he was going to have to, bare minimum, make sense.

"I barely made it into work. I don't think it's gonna start again." She looked up at him, a little line of worry between her eyebrows.

In a different world he might have reached out with his thumb and smoothed that line away. But he didn't live in a different world. He lived in this one. So he kept his hands in his pockets and looked at a spot just over her head.

"I'll see what I can do after your shift."

She nodded, glanced at the clock on the wall. "Speaking of, gotta jet.” She shot him a little half smile. It was distracted, impersonal but even that shot straight through him like a shot of good whiskey.

Idris granted himself a few seconds of watching her walk away. Her simple cotton robe slipped off one golden shoulder. He suppressed his groan and turned back around to face the room. He was grateful he would get a break from seeing her for a minute. She was always the closer of the night. She wouldn’t go on for a couple of hours.

He took a deep breath and swallowed the growl that seemed to want to work its way out of him. Sometimes when he was a little out of control, he felt like there was something deep inside him clawing to get out. Like a beast lived inside his chest or something. He felt that way when he was about to fight and when he was within about thirty feet of Isla. He couldn’t explain it. All he knew was that it wasn’t a good look for work. He took another breath through his nose and tried to calm himself.

Idris gritted his teeth through the show that night. Even on the best of nights, he didn’t particularly enjoy working at the strip club. Something about the looks on all the guys’ faces just really bummed him out. They all looked so unsatisfied. So desirous of something they could never really have. And the women. A few of them really seemed to enjoy it. The dancing, the attention. But most of them seemed resigned, depressed.

Except for Isla. When she was on stage she always looked like she was in a cloud. Dreamy, yet focused. Each move was purposeful and intense, as if she was stripping for a king or a god. And maybe in her mind she was. Idris didn’t judge any of the dancers. He knew there were a million reasons for this to be somebody’s job. Whatever they had to do to get through made sense to him.

He would have quit a year ago if Isla hadn’t started stripping there. She was new in town then. And had caught his eye right away. Well, his and every other eye in town. She was just so fucking beautiful. That kind of thing didn’t go under the radar in Chestershire. Population 2000.

The doors opened and Idris watched men file in for the show. He knew almost every single face. It wasn’t hard in a town so small. Sometimes Idris couldn’t believe that he’d spent his life in this shit place. But his mother refused to leave. And Idris refused to leave her behind.

And now Isla. Not that inconspicuously ogling the woman you had a crush on was a particularly respectable reason to stay mired in a place you didn’t like. But it was a reason nonetheless.

The lights went down and men scurried to their seats, gesturing to the waitresses for drinks and change for their big bills.

Idris rolled his neck and flexed his shoulders; he imagined the dragon tattooed on his back to be stretching his wings. Showtime.

He had to be on his game to make sure that all the dancers onstage were protected from the rowdy crowd. He owed them his concentration at the very least. So Idris put every thought from his head and turned his back to the stage, watching the crowd.

 

***

 

“Good show tonight, Isla,” said Ricky, one of the other dancers. When Isla had first started stripping at City Lights, there’d been some competition from the other girls. They didn’t really like how quickly Isla had become a crowd favorite. But at this point, she was so popular that she was bringing in way more customers. Which meant a lot more dollar bills stuffed into everybody’s g-strings.

“Thanks, Ricky. You too.” Isla deftly rolled tonight’s haul, damn near 450 bucks, into little rolls and shoved the money into a small safe at the back of her locker. She didn’t like to leave the club with all that money on her. Felt too much like tempting fate. She’d been followed into the parking lot a few times by overzealous fans and she didn’t want to give anybody any more reason to take interest in her.

Her body already took care of that for her.

Isla gave herself a quick glance in the mirror. She’d always been a stunner. She knew that. Had accepted it a long time ago. When she’d been younger, she’d appreciated it. But now she knew how much beauty could cost a woman. The only reason she made her living flaunting her sex appeal was because the security here was very good. They always kept the men from getting too rowdy or too close.

Isla piled her hair up in a bun and pulled on her coat, shoved her feet into some Uggs. She still wore all of her stage makeup; she took it off at home after a good shower. But she wore sweats for the drive home. Despite having to get all dolled up for the stage, she much preferred comfortable clothes for her non-working life.

She waved goodbye to Carter, the bartender, on her way out and blew a kiss to some of the girls who were having one last drink of the night. Carter was a cutie for sure and the dancers were always trying to spend a little extra time with him at the end of the night.

Not Isla, though. Her only ambition was to get home, lock her doors, and get into bed with a good book and a cup of tea. After a shower to get all the body oil off, of course.

She scuttled out the back door, zipping up her coat against the wind. And she nearly had a heart attack when a man stepped out of the shadows of the building. Isla had her switchblade out in less than half a second, had it engaged and swinging out before she could think twice.

The man’s giant paw closed over her hand, forcing the blade to fall to the ground. His other hand went around her midsection, hugging her close to him to keep her from slashing out again.

“Hey, hey,” his voice said, low and familiar. He tilted his head down into the light of a streetlamp and stepped back from her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Idris,” Isla gasped, pressing a hand over her madly beating heart. “I forgot you were meeting me. I thought you were-,” she cut herself off, figuring he could fill in the blanks of that statement however he wanted.

“Good to see you were prepared,” he said, scooping her blade off the ground and handing it back to her.

She took it from him, closed it and put it back in her pocket. “Apparently not prepared enough to actually protect myself,” she said, thinking of his arm around her middle, holding her so close.

He shrugged. “Don’t take it personally.”

She wasn’t sure what the hell that meant but she wasn’t going to ask. This guy wasn’t chatty. Probably liked his privacy as much as she did. And that suited her just fine. She hadn’t come to Chestershire to meet people and make friends.

Isla tied her hair back up into a bun - some of it had come undone - and started walking toward her car.

“My car’s over here.” Her sweet little car. It was an ancient, blue Honda Civic and she couldn’t even begin to describe her affection for it. That little buddy had been one of the only things that had gotten her through the last few years. It had quite literally been the escape route from her old life.

And now her baby was sick.

“It just started making this weird noise and then some smoke came out of the hood earlier when I was driving over here. Every time I stopped at a light I worried it was just gonna clunk right out.”

Idris nodded. “Pop the hood.”

Isla did just that and then hurried back around to stand beside him while he diagnosed her car. She looked anxiously back and forth between the metallic maze of her car’s inner workings and Idris’s serious face.

She realized, with a little jolt, that he was actually kinda good-looking. She’d never particularly noticed before. Although she’d heard some of the girls at the club talking about the hot security guard. She guessed now that they must have been talking about him. His skin was tan, a dark gold. He kept his dark hair in a tight crew cut like he was in the marines. Actually, the rest of him gave her major army vibes as well. If the size of his muscles were any indication.

He was stretching that Carhartt jacket just about to its earthly limits as he leaned over the hood of the car, fiddled with a knob. The guy was big. And he gave off some kind of vibe. Something wild. Earthy. Beastly. Like a bear or a lion or something.

He turned to her and Isla felt as if he’d just shined a light in her eyes. His eyes were just that gold. Like melted honey. Jesus. From a distance he’d always just melted into the wall. He was just a security feature of the club, barely worth a second glance. But at close range this guy had major appeal.

She took a quick step backward. She wasn’t into that. She didn’t want to be drawn toward anybody. And especially not some slow-talking, big-muscled hulk with eyes like a cup of good whiskey. That was literally the last thing she needed right now.

“Looks like just a fan belt,” he said, his voice as low as the rumble of the highway trucks in the distance.

“Can you fix it?” Isla asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Not tonight. We have to buy the part.”

Isla pushed at some of her silky hair, frustrated. “Well, can I drive it home?”

“No.”

This guy was really starting to piss her off. “Well. What the hell am I supposed to do?”

He closed the hood of her car and leaned a hip against it. “Get a ride home tonight and tomorrow I’ll come in early and fix it for you.” He said it like it was so simple.

He didn’t know that none of the girls inside had ever been to her house. That she didn’t want anyone in this town to know where she lived. That that was for their protection more than hers. It was better, safer, for everyone if she wasn’t traceable.

Isla paused, looked desperately back at her car.

Idris paused too, studied her face with eyes like the bright end of a torch.

“Come on,” he said. All he said. And then he was turning from her. Walking toward his faded black pickup truck.

Isla took a deep breath. She needed a ride home and she wanted to keep the other dancers out of it. So how the hell else was she supposed to get home? Besides, if anybody came looking for her, this guy sure seemed like he could handle himself.

He pulled the passenger side door without looking back to see if she was even following him. She hopped up and they slammed their doors at the same moment. The ambient, outdoor noises of the parking lot were suddenly closed out and Isla had the strange feeling that she was suddenly trapped in another dimension with this guy. But then he turned the key in his ancient truck and it barked to life, breaking the spell.

He was quiet on the ride home. Like completely silent. The only thing about him that acknowledged her existence was that he followed the directions she gave him to her house. When they were weaving through a small residential neighborhood, about halfway there, Isla cracked the window, letting a slice of cool air wash over her. It smelled too damn good in that car. Like freshly vacuumed seats and peppermint and… man.

God. It had obviously been too long since she’d gotten laid. A couple of years at this point. It wasn’t a problem, usually. Men didn’t really tempt her anymore. Not since… anyways. She just needed to keep her head about her. Remind herself that this was just a guy. Some regular old joe that she should just keep ignoring the way she’d been doing for almost a year. One ride in his car wasn’t going to change that.

“You don’t talk much,” she said, studying the side of his face.

He shrugged his shoulders. Said nothing.

“Drives the girls at the club crazy,” she continued on. “That you don’t say anything to anybody except Carter.”

Still he said nothing. But he did turn to glance at her. Her mouth went dry for the half second that their eyes met. Seriously, it was like looking into the sun.

“That’s not my intention,” he finally said.

Isla chuffed out a laugh. “No. I don’t suppose it is.” She looked out her window, watched the dark, sleeping world pass by. He didn’t strike her as the kind of man that would have to use games to get a woman into bed. He just had that something.

She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window as they passed under a streetlamp. Ugh. She looked tired. And her dark makeup had run in the corners from sweat. Not her best look.

“How much do you cost?” she asked him, thinking of the repairs to her car.

He glanced up at her from the road in genuine surprise. “What’s that?”

His confusion at her question had her suddenly bursting out in laughter. “I meant as a car repairman, Idris. Not as a prostitute.”

Now he was chuckling, too. And his eyes were on her face like a bright, bright light. “Wow, a question like that really had me doing some arithmetic in my head there,” he said, a light smile on his face for just a moment.

“Arithmetic?” she asked, still chuckling and wiping makeup out from under her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m thinking I’m probably worth a flat rate of a hundo and then maybe 80 for each additional hour. Something like that.”

Isla chuffed out a surprised, delighted laugh. “Oh, yeah? How many hours were you trying to calculate?”

He pulled up to a stop sign and gave her a cocky little smile. “For you? Gotta be at least four. Probably more like five.”

Isla knew they were just joking with one another. But her stomach flipped anyways. Four or five hours with this man at her disposal? In another life, there’s no way she would have turned down an offer like that. But she was living this life. This anonymous life in Chestershire. And he wasn’t really offering, he was joking.

“Sounds optimistic,” she responded, giving him a quick smile but pulling her eyes back to the road. “It’s on the left here.” She pointed down the road to the small one bedroom that she was renting.

He pulled smoothly up to the curb. “I think I have an extra fan belt in my garage. So the part’s free. And don’t worry about the labor. It won’t take me more than a few minutes before work to fix it.”

Immediately, Isla’s back went up. She was instantly suspicious. “Nothing’s free.” She studied him for a second, one hand on the door handle of his truck. “And I’m not gonna be paying you in anything other than money.”

Idris’s face went sober as a stone. “You think I’ve protected you from horny dudes every night for the last year just so that I could turn around and try to extort some sort of sexual favor from you?”

It was the longest sentence she’d heard from him and it almost made her feel the smallest. She was being an asshole.

“Look, Idris. I’m not trying to be a jerk. I just… I don’t have the luxury of giving the benefit of the doubt to a strange man. Or accepting favors that are gonna have to get cashed in at some point.”

He was half in the shadow on the other side of the truck. Isla couldn’t believe that she’d ever thought of him as just some big meathead. He looked dignified and powerful and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

He considered her for a minute. “Fair enough. I’ll watch then.”

“What?” she asked, confused.

“I don’t want your money. But tomorrow night, after I fix your car, instead of being security during your set, I’m going to watch you. And you’ll dance for me.”

Something was stealing the breath out of Isla’s chest and she wasn’t quite sure what it was. Fear? Surprise? Excitement? Anticipation? All of the above?

She shrugged, falsely casual. “I’d rather just throw you some cash. But have it your way.” She jumped out of the car. “Thanks for the ride.”

And then she was sucking down that crisp Rocky Mountain air and jogging to her house, locking the door behind her. She listened to his truck pull away before she walked down the hallway, her heart racing like she’d just escaped a lion.