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“I was gonna say,” she says, giggling. “I think I’d know if my boyfriend was gay.”
“I’ve got two chicks waiting for a threesome by the fire,” Duke says. “See you homos later.”
He bangs out the back door, leaving me alone with Dixie.
“People are coming back to do the countdown,” she says. “It’s only a few minutes until midnight.”
“You’d rather hang out and drink than fuck?” I ask.
She glances at the door and then back to me. “No,” she says with a giggle. “Those two girls were actually having sex by the fire. I’m so turned on right now, and I don’t even like girls. You’re right, this stuff is crazy!”
“Want to join them?” I ask. “I mean, join them at the fire, no touching. We’ll just watch while we do our own thing. You can still have your countdown and hang out while I rail your ass.”
“No, let’s go up to your room,” she says. “I don’t like people looking at me.”
“Not what I remember,” I say, slapping her ass as she starts up the stairs in front of me. She shrieks and scrambles up faster, and I chase after her, catching her in the hall and pushing her back against the wall. Her arms circle my neck, and I lean down to kiss her, squeezing her ass and lifting her off the ground. She wraps her legs around my hips, and I stumble down the hall to my room, slamming the door and crashing onto the bed on top of her.
I only stop to roll on a condom before plowing into her, fucking her hard and fast, driving out all the demons Duke tried to plant in me, and the ones that haunt me like the memories I’ve forgotten that lurk in the back of my mind, saying this is not what I would have chosen.
twenty-two
Gloria Walton
I grip Angel North’s ass, feeling his bunched muscles flex hard as granite against my palms as he gyrates his hips rhythmically between my thighs. His full lips are parted as his breath comes quick, and his pale, jade green eyes are locked on mine with an intensity that makes me want to close mine, to escape the intimacy of our position. Intimacy creates vulnerability, and vulnerability is weakness.
That’s one lesson I didn’t learn from the Dolces. There was no intimacy with them.
Colt taught me when he walked away and left me in that parking lot alone, when he chose Dixie at school the next day.
I will never again allow a man to make me weak.
It doesn’t matter if he’s fun and sweet and boyish when we’re vertical, like Angel, who reminds me of what Duke might have been if he hadn’t been born into a psychotic family. It doesn’t matter if he’s kind despite his casual indifferent that no one can ruffle or penetrate, like Maverick, who reminds me of what Colt might have been if he hadn’t been targeted by a psychotic family.
Closing my eyes, I let my head loll to one side, my lips falling open in an expression of pure ecstasy. Unlike Baron, most men seem to like it when I look like I’m enjoying myself. I rake my nails up his powerful back, inked dark and glistening under the faint glow of warm light flickering over us, illuminating the throes of our passion. He grabs my knee, drawing it upand hooking it around his hips as he rolls them in a sensuous rhythm, slow and then faster.
When I open my eyes, he’s still gazing down at me, his white teeth cutting into the red of his thick lower lip. He releases it and gives me a wink before nimbly lifting off me, flipping me on my stomach, and grabbing a handful of my hair, pulling my head back. I arch into him, shoving my ass up like the greedy little slut I am.
He yanks my knees open and pumps his hips behind me for another minute while I lie my chest flat, stretching my arms over my head and letting my hair spread around me, glistening gold in the warm lighting. Angel grabs the back of my neck and pulls me up until I’m on all fours. He swings around on his hands with more grace than a body that big should possess, sliding his legs between my spread knees, his sure hands gripping my hips as I rise, sinking back onto him so I’m in reverse cowgirl position. I go up on my knees, gyrating my hips, watching my abs flex as I lean backwards. I drop my head back, letting my hair spill down toward his chest, trusting my weight into his strong hands.
The last echoes of “Jealous” fade, and I climb off Angel, crawling toward the edge of the stage to collect the bills laid out for me. I don’t really need their tips—the men who come in pay obscene amounts to rent the rooms and I get a cut—but they like to see me take their money. In the six weeks that I’ve been working at Infernal Vices, I’ve learned to read the men who come in the same way I learned to read the Dolces, always watching for signs of danger, on alert to ensure my survival.
Some men like to think they’re making a difference in my life, that I’m some poor damsel and they’ll rescue me by laying a hundred on the edge of the stage. Others just like to see me crawling on the floor for their meager one-dollar bills.
When I’m done smiling and expressing my gratitude to them all like they’re gods, I stand and make my way to the gleaming silver pole in the center of the stage, where the spotlight shines on the main attraction. Angel is gone, having done his duty in the Envy room for the night with our choreographed routine that’s pretty much simulating sex to make all the men jealous of him—or me. I always get the most tips during that song.
I adjust my shimmering green bikini with the snakeskin pattern and grip the pole as the next song in my set thumps quietly through the darkened room. When I first started, I worked in the lounge, where the waitresses get to keep their clothes on. I hoped against hope that they’d keep me out there and I could keep my dignity. But they hired me to replace a dancer, and I knew as Ms. Scarlet put me through rigorous training for hours every evening after my waitressing shift that I would end up here. Beggars can’t be choosers. I’m grateful they gave me a job at all.
I cried the whole night before my first shift, even with Maverick there to comfort me in the only way he knew how. I was sure I couldn’t do it. But Angel joined me for my very first dance, and after I saw the hundreds on the edge of the stage, enough for a night in the penthouse suite at the Hockington for a single song, I knew I was strong enough to go on alone. I have to take care of myself, and if this is all I have to sell, why not? It was taken from me for years and all I got was a cheap tiara every six months on homecoming and prom night.
The private rooms pay significantly better than the lounge, anyway. Now that I’ve been dancing for almost a month, and I’m used to the kind of money I can make in the Envy room, on the random occasion when it’s not booked and I pick up a waitressing shift instead, I’m always disappointed to count my money at the end of the night.
After only a week on the pole, I had enough to get my own apartment—deposit, plus first and last month’s rent. Unfortunately, I quickly found out that Mom had run up so much credit card debt under my name that I couldn’t even get the cheapest, roach-infested studio. When I went back to Maverick’s house dejected that night and told Mama Rae, she immediately offered to cosign for me, and I moved into a spacious loft the next day.
As I approach the edge of stage to work the crowd for a few minutes before my last dance, I spot a familiar face leering up at me and almost fall on my ass. He wiggles his brows and lazily waves a twenty at me, so I sink onto the edge of the stage, sliding forward on my belly with my ass in the air and my eight-inch blood-red platforms swaying lazily behind me.
“Hey, big guy,” I say, giving the creep a saucy little smile. “I didn’t think you had enough money to frequent our fine establishment.”
“Well, well, well,” Colin Finnegan says, smirking at me. “I thought you looked familiar. I wouldn’t say I frequent the place. I prefer to get my pussy for free. But it’s well within my means.”
