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“Fuck.” Candy slumps down with her face in her hands. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“My sentiments exactly,” I say as my way of reminding her I’m here and hoping for an explanation of what thefuckjust happened.
“Shit. I’m so sorry,” she says, sitting up again. “Seth tends to hit random people when he’s angry. Making you my boyfriend was the only way to keep you from a trip to the hospital tonight.”
“If he’d laid a hand on you, I’d have ended up there anyway.”
Candy laughs even though I’m completely serious. Because she knows as well as I do it would have been suicide for me to start a fight with a member of the Tarnished Kings. If Seth had been alone, I’d have had a fair shot but he wouldn’t have been alone for long.
“Seth won’t hit me. My sister’s his Old Lady.”
Shocked, I ask, without thinking about how prying a question it is, “Your sister’s okay with you stripping for her boyfriend?”
“I need money,” Candy answers me anyway. “More than I make waitressing at Penny’s Pizza, Arcade, and Theater. My sister wants me to let the Kings pay my debt but I didn’t want that chain around my neck.
“Not long after I started bartending and waitressing at the Cinnamon Mink, Seth came to me telling me how much men wanted to see me on stage. He made me a new offer that would make me a lot more money, a lot faster. I agreed to work the pole as long as he made sure the customers kept their hands off of me.”
“Jesus.” I’d give Candy everything I have to get her out of having to work for the Kings. To save her from a worse fate. Just like they moved her from bartender to Polecat. They’d have no problem moving her from Polecat to clubwhore. I hope Candy would have the strength to refuse them if it came to that but I suppose that all depends on the size of her debt and how desperate she is to pay it off.
“That was all of three nights ago,” Candy says.
“When you started sitting next to me.”
“Yeah. Again, I’m sorry about that. I thought, if a customer from the club ever got on the bus with me, it would be good for them to think I wasn’t alone.”
“What made you think you could trust me over any of them?” I ask.
She flips my university I.D. card hanging on the black lanyard around my neck with “SECURITY” written in bold white letters.
I need to remember to take this thing off when I clock out. It’s going to get me into some serious trouble someday. If it hasn’t already.
The bus slows coming up to our stop.
As always, I follow Candy off the bus. But this time, when we’re standing on the sidewalk, she doesn’t walk away. Instead, she takes my lanyard in her fist, pulls it forcing me to bend down until our noses touch.
“Thank you, Liam.” The tip of her nose caresses my cheek as she gently presses her lips to mine.
It’s different from the other two. A kiss without urgency. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to feel that need in her again but I’d rather it not come from fear.
“Candy.” Her name slips past my lips as they part from hers because she tastes as sweet.
“It’s Candace,” she says, a smile lighting up her face in a way I hadn’t expected.
Suddenly, she’s not a stripper under the Tarnished Kings’ thumb anymore. She’s just a girl I met on the bus. I have to see her again.
“Would you like to get a cup of coffee sometime?” I ask her.
“After all that, you seriously want to see me again? You might as well hang a target around your neck.”
“That was true the second you kissed me. Hell, it’s been true since the first time I saw you. Now that the Kings know who I am, there’s no going back. I’m not running from them and I’m not running from wanting to see you again.”
Candace blushes as she worries her lip ring between her teeth.
“Walk me home?” she says, taking my hand. I follow her into the dark.
Chapter 2
CANDY
