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I chuckle under my breath. Allister enjoys looking, and he and I don’t necessarily have the same taste but he’s a gentleman to his core.
“Who’s on the door tonight?” I ask, rubbing my chin with my other hand.
“Buzz,” he says with a huff.
“He’s on his last warning.” I second his huff. We try to help out everyone, guys as well, but I’m harder on them. I expect the men that work here to be gentlemen at all times as well, and Buzz seems to think this is his own private dick playground, and that shit does not fly.
“Yeah, I know. He’s trying my patience, and there isn’t much of that to begin with. When that little doe arrived I gave him the stare. He was looking at her like she was a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
Allister never touches any of the girls that work here either, but he’s a bit more outspoken than me. As we’re making our way down the hall I bring the three photos he stuffed into my hand into my line of vision.
I shoulder open the swinging door that separates the offices from the club floor, then glance down absently at the top photo just as I’m losing the bright light of the hallway for the dim flashing lights of the bar. And I feel like someone just shoved a taser down my pants.
There she is, standing across the room, same face as the one in the picture. She’s got her arms crossed, eyes looking around like she’s just landed on Mars.
I know it’s fucking impossible, but I swear I can smell her and it’s like some long forgotten scent suddenly bombarding me with feelings about this tiny, lush creature – a complete stranger.
My pace quickens and I’m making a beeline for the three girls standing where Allister left them waiting. Except I only really see one.
“I got this, old man.” Allister urges me to make my way home, but there’s no fucking way I’m leaving now. “Like I said, that little one isn’t half-bad, it’s just—”
“Shut up.” The anger in my voice shocks me.
All he’s doing is talking about her and I’m worked up like this. What the fuck is wrong with me? Thinking that he’s looked at her, that he’s had lustful thoughts about her, has me ready to turn against my best friend. I don’t know what this reaction is, but I do know; I don’t want anyone’s eyes on her except mine. The mere fact that she’s here applying for a position as a dancer has me ready to split heads.
“I’ll send the other two home. I’ll talk to this one.” I look down at the picture in my hand, then back up and my cock is filling my pants, something that has not once happened in all the years I’ve run these clubs and been around these girls. Whoever this little sweet-tart is, she’s managed to move things inside me I wasn’t sure were still moveable.
A rush of blood through my ears blocks out the music and ambient sounds of the club. Heat radiates from my core and I’m drawn into a vortex of something long forgotten. I want her in ways I didn’t realize I could want. Some primal part of me stirs and I know what I’ve been waiting for is right here.
Right now.
Now I have to go and make sure she knows she’s claimed.
Chapter 2
May
“You are not sneaking out!” Leah shouts, doing her best to sound threatening.
We are in my bedroom. Tapestries hang on the walls beside oil paintings framed with ornate gold-leaf. And among them hang my posters and torn off magazine covers. When I was younger it was all boy bands, but now they have been replaced by covers of Bon Appetit and a truckload of retro ‘80s band posters I found in the attic.
Simon, our guardian, took the posters down over and over as I grew up, but I would usually get one of the staff to get me more. They feel sorry for us. Most of the estate staff stayed on after the accident, and Miss Henrietta and Mr. Fredby are like grandparents to us.
I would get more posters, save them up, then stay up all night covering my walls all at once, because seeing Simon’s stupid face turn fire-engine red when he would see it was almost as good as having the posters back up.
He was my father’s right hand man. His confidant and advisor. Now, he’s just an asshole.
“Shhhh!” I hiss as I pull on my thigh-high white socks and take a deep breath. “You’re going to get us both in trouble.”
My sister, Leah, gives me her best motherly glare. She looks so much like Mom it’s spooky. I mean, I don’t remember Mom that well, but from what I do remember –and from the scrap book pictures I’ve worn out over the years– it’s almost like looking at my Mom’s face when I see my sister.
“No, you’re the one that’s going to get in trouble.” She lowers her voice to an agitated whisper and inches her wheelchair forward in an attempt to intimidate me.
It doesn’t work, I’m determined.
“No one is coming to check on us. Besides, they are out for the night.”
You would think it would make me mad that my fiancé is out almost every night without me, but ours is not a match made in any sort of heaven. Couple that with the fact that he’s the son of our guardian, who hasn’t been the most nurturing soul over the last twelve years, and the weirdness factor is off the charts.
