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Slung back in my chair, I’m not enjoying the performer or the company I’m keeping. Holly’s lateness is affecting my mood. I’m considering making a vanishing act. No harm or foul that she’s changed her mind. Yet, it seems like Holly and I won’t be meeting up. Her scheduled break time is almost over.
Nails scrape up the back of my neck, and the little adhesive circle is plucked from my grip.
“I would have been here sooner had I known you had this.” She puts a hand on her hip.
“Worried I took it off a dancer?” I cock my chin, hoping she’s jealous.
“No, two of them were fighting backstage over who stole whose costume accessories. I had to put the dancer set to perform again before we close into time out. The bigger of the two troublemakers is on their way home.” Holly scowls.
She reaches out and as soon as we connect, she drags me through the crowd and back toward a long hallway.
A door swings open, and we make an abrupt stop.
“Here.” She holds out the pasty to the woman trying to leave. “Don’t lose your shit in the crowd and throw shade on someone else. I don’t come to work to play your goddamn mommy or babysit you. Kimber may be leaving—and I may not have danced—but I’ve been in charge of the club enough years that you know I won’t put up with any disrespect.”
“I didn’t disrespect you.” The dancer turns from Holly, putting on the same shameless act for me I watched her give Glen. “Aren’t you a tall drink—”
“I heard you call me a bitch as I left andheis not here to quench your thirst. So, drag your butt out the back door and decide overnight if you want to dance at Sweet Caroline’s. I can replace you in a hot minute with someone younger and tighter.”
“Seems you know all about that.” Troublemaker numero uno’s hair swishes as she storms away.
We head in the same direction. I push the silver bar, keeping the back exit open. The night air is stale, but we’re in an alleyway so there’s no fixing it.
“That made me sort of hot for you,” I compliment as the door clicks shut behind us.
Confidence on full display, she tugs my waistband, drawing me closer. “You were already hot for me.”
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The club employees wouldn’t dare call me a pushover, but I’m not certain where the boldness I had in the hall when taking on the dancer came from. I thrive on kindness because I have first-hand knowledge of what it’s like to be tossed aside.
Wherever the nerve to speak my mind originated, in this instant I’m terrified to let go of the empowerment it’s given me. I don’t have brass balls when it comes to men. Love’s left me used and broken. I tell myself I won’t get involved again and countless times I’ve stood my ground and relied on my intuition. But I’m stumbling around Cary, and it scares the crap out of me. No rational judgment will result from the way he’s taken my lips in a scorching kiss.
Our hands are all over each other. Teeth gnash against teeth. His bite, tugging against my earlobe, and returning to suck my lower lip into his mouth. Our bodies respond in a frenzy, the result of anticipation and the tension of doing the right thing by staying apart.
I wish Cary hadn’t dropped into Sweet Caroline’s this evening—or any night—but as the hours passed, I realized how glad I am he is here.
I’ve been known to decline even the most innocuous sweet shot of liquor while serving to keep my wits about me. You never know when someone will need you to call them a cab. Cary’s paced his drinking throughout the night. If we’re bold enough to do whatever this is sober, this time will be different. My aim is to get him out of my system, stop worrying about if I look presentable when Cary picks Bhodi up, and wondering if the awareness lighting up my entire body when he looks at me is a bold-faced lie.
Sex with Cary won’t be the same as the first time we were together. It will be a clean break, instead of his strong steady gaze meeting me in my room tomorrow morning. Finding one more excuse to stay. Hoping what we’ve done doesn’t change our opinions about each other being otherwise decent people.
I won’t be reading into why Cary cares if William steps up for us or not. I’ll be able to get my wits about me and remember this man isn’t in my life, he’s in Bhodi’s. Cary has volunteered to build my son’s confidence, not add incendiary fuel to the constant thoughts of him keeping me awake and unfulfilled.
The more Cary touches me, the more my jealousy builds over the interactions in the hall with the dancer. She wasn’t the first to pluck him out of obscurity in the audience and comment on his rugged good looks. I doubt she’ll be the last. Tonight Cary’s mine, completely. I want him to leave having wanted me more than he’ll ever want one of my employees. I don’t want to share, to the point where I regret shushing Cece’s lighthearted ribbing each time Carver’s table ordered another round.
My head falls back against the brick and I pant as Cary’s face dips lower, devouring the length of me like a starved man. He crouches on the asphalt with his palms slunk up the back of my shorts encasing my ass and his tongue swirling the vines on my torso as if he’s tasting each sweet inch of some forbidden fruit. The stubble of his beard tickles my stomach.
I’m so wet. It wouldn’t take much to get me off if his fingers explored forward to the throbbing spot at the seam of my shorts. I almost don’t care if we’re caught with my pants down and his mouth on my core, though I was cautious to move us to the spot where the surveillance cameras intentionally go dark.
“This is so trashy,” I say, because it is.
It’s daring and this man, whose reputation I’m likely sullying, is sexy as hell. I work in a strip club and don’t doubt sex in public turns anyone on.
My breathless words halt Cary’s hand from pushing up my top to pinch and pluck at the bouquet underneath.
