CHAPTER 4
Each time the door opened, Sonya turned her head and took an instant to enjoy cool air washing over her face.
The club was now saturated with the sickly sweet scent of perfume, along with cigarette and cigar smoke, but at least it was air-conditioned inside.
Sometimes, she caught glimpses of what was happening behind those windowless walls. Just a second here and there, but it was enough.
Sultan’s was a strip club, there was no doubt about that, just as raunchy as anything Hollywood had ever imagined.
The dancers wore tiny flesh-colored pasties over their nipples and slivers of G-strings that seemed to cover little.
Okay, so they aren’t technically nude, but come on.Of course, Gilad didn’t even offer pasties and a G-string when he demanded I strip for him, Sonya thought, shuddering with disgust.
And what about the VIP rooms that lurked in the back of the club, where the girls walked hand-in-hand with men who eyed them like a dog eyes a steak, what happened in there?
Maybe Halim had not been entirely honest with her, but Sonya had a good job, and he had already shown her she would be treated decently, that creeps like Gilad wouldn’t be allowed to push her around.
Maybe he’d even done her a favor by fibbing to convince her to take a job she would never have considered if she’d known the truth.
She even thought about how nice it would be if Halim came outside and said hi as she worked. She hadn’t seen him since the club opened.
He probably hadn’t even thought about her since he sent her away to change. He was busy, and with all those hot babes inside…
Right then, a group of men came up the stairs and strutted to the front of the line.
They didn’t pull out a gold embossed Sultan’s Palace VIP Card like the other guys who skipped the line had done, instead the bouncer Johnny just waved them inside.
They were all huge men and spoke to each other in a language Sonya didn’t understand, yet it brought her an instant sense of familiarity.
The last of them stopped beside the podium, gave Alicia a casual hug and peck on the cheek, then turned to Sonya.
“A new girl?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir? No, I’m Dmitri. And what is your name?”
“Sonya.”
“Sonya, a beautiful name. A Russian name. But you are American, I can tell. My pleasure to meet you,” he said.
With those last words, he took her soft hand in his, bent down and kissed her middle finger.
Nobody had ever done that to her.
As he raised his head and released her hand, he smiled and winked before casually following his friends inside.
The moment freeze-framed in Sonya’s mind.
She could still see his face even after he was behind the black door, almost as if a statue or picture of him were in front of her.
The square jaw speckled with stubble. The groomed hair brushed and sculpted like a European pop star, yet on a man with ferocity in his twinkling blue eyes.
The strong nose, the broad shoulders, the smile that was so warm and yet so sexually charged.
His face gave her a sensation of deja vu, like it was something out of a dream she’d once had, or that she was dreaming right then.
Or was he an actor, a pro hockey player, a model, someone she had seen on TV or in a magazine?
Not a model, no. He was handsome enough, no doubt. But there was a roughness to his face, including a small scar just below his ear, a ruggedness too dangerous for fashion.
But wow, did the guy have style.
A black blazer over a white ribbed shirt that hugged his muscular torso without being a skintight, meathead type shirt. Matching black slacks that fit his wide hips and long legs just right. Crocodile skin loafers with no socks.
But it was beyond visual.
She could still smell his cologne: manly but fresh and light. Not a locker room body spray like the jerks at school or the nostril-burning stench of the other guys here, who drenched themselves in cologne, as if that were some magic elixir to make up for their beer bellies and greasy gray hair and perverted leers.
She couldn’t decide how old he was. In a way, he looked over 30, but there was a boyishness in him as well.
Too old for me, anyway. And so tall. He must be 6-foot-4, and I’m barely over five feet. I’m surprised he even saw me down here.
She could still feel a tingling sensation where Dmitri’s big, rough hand had caressed her fingers. She imagined what the sensation would be like if touched her neck and breasts and hips and…
“Sonya, snap out of it,” Alicia said, waving her hand in front of the dazed girl’s face.
“Oh, sorry. I was just…”
“I know what you were doing. Dmitri’s a hunk. Every girl here wants a piece of that Russian stud, and a lot of them have already gotten it. But we’ve got work to do.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Sonya said, blushing at the fact she’d been caught gushing over a customer on her first shift.
As she flipped through the book and greeted guests, she wondered if what Alicia said was true.
Does Dmitri really sleep with a lot of the dancers? Maybe he’s just flirtatious.
Well, surely he didn’t think a scrawny young girl like her was anything special. Not compared to all the knockouts dancing inside, with their huge boobs and booty-shaking dance moves or their slow and seductive gyrations up and down those poles.