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This is just like dancing in my room.
Suddenly that saying ‘dance like no one’s watching’ made so much sense.
I wonder if it was a stripper that made that up?
Unconsciously, I rolled my body to the music, my hips and my feet hitting the beat while I moved my hands above my head, dragging them through my hair. I couldn’t help but smile. This song was dark, and the bass thumped through me, dragging me away from the reality of the situation I was actually in.
Lord help me if my mother ever found out I moonlighted as a stripper.
She didn’t even know I was working atEmpire. If she knew what I was doing, that whole calm façade she’d managed to hold onto so far would be well and truly gone.
Movement caught my eye, there was money being tossed onto the stage. I looked up. Men had their eyes glued to me, and just when I thought it would make me feel dirty or cheap—it didn’t. In that moment, I was strong, confident, important, and beautiful.
And it had been a long few weeks since I’d been able to say that.
Since the one person who I thought saw me better than anyone else, showed me he was just like the rest. I forced that thought out of my mind. I’d done enough crying over Ham. I needed to start building my strength so when I saw him next, I wouldn’t feel like my heart was being torn from my chest.
I’d tried to convince myself I was being stupid, that I could find a college guy who was older, who had a future and his head screwed on right.
But the truth was, Ham was never just a teenage crush on the local bad boy.
He was far more.
My heart began to thump harder, and tears welled.
Fuck.
No matter how much I tried, I felt like everything came back to him.
Determined to prove I was stronger than this shit, I plastered a smile on my face as I dipped to the floor and plucked the bills off the stage, seductively tucking them into my bra and the sides of my booty shorts.
As I went to stand up, suddenly some asshole reached out and grabbed a handful of my ass. Dave had strict rules about the men touching the girls on stage. It was a big no, and it was one of the reasons why money was thrown onto the stage for the girls to collect, as opposed to allowing the men to tuck it into the girls’ clothing themselves.
I jumped up in surprise, taking a step back from the younger looking biker who was already walking back to his table across the room, high fiving his buddies and laughing hysterically. Because apparently, these young guys thought they could get away with shit like that, with no repercussions for their actions. In my head, I knew I was being overdramatic, playing up a situation because I was already emotional about things with Ham, but I was sick and fucking tired of these assholes thinking they could treat women like objects.
I wasn’t a club girl. I wasn’t their property that they could do with as they liked. I wasn’t a little girl who could be pushed around anymore.
Heat swept through me, and before I knew it, I was walking down the stairs at the end of the stage and moving through the VIP area with my hips swinging to the beat of the music and wishing I had my gun. Anger had taken over my body, and I was allowing it to burn free, sick of trying to tame it.
No fucking more, hell no.
“Meyah,” Dave called from behind me, but I ignored him, on a direct path toward the young man with blond hair, so light it could almost pass as white.
“Hey,” I called, making him turn in his chair, his eyes lighting up when he saw me walking in his direction. I stopped a couple of feet in front of him and smiled. “Maybe you didn’t know that there’s this thing called a ‘no touching rule’ around here.”
I was actually surprised that security hadn’t already come to back me up.
Blondie snorted. “You must be new. There ain’t no rules for us, sweet cheeks.”
My nose crinkled at the sickening pet name, my body running on pure adrenaline now.
Walk away, Meyah. Just walk away.
My brain was urging me to get the hell out of there, knowing these guys could be dangerous if I fucked this up. But then I remembered what happened the last time I refused to take a stand. I spent how many years at high school being tormented because everyone knew I was a pushover, crying myself to sleep because I allowed their words and actions to hurt me.
Now, I was in Arizona. This place was new, it was fresh, and if I walked away right now, I was starting my journey here exactly how I did at high school—giving people permission to treat me like shit, allowing them to walk all over me and know that I’d just take it.
Not today.
