Five Ways to Fall

There’s no need for me to get comfortable here, not knowing if I’ll be allowed back, so I decide to go home. I prefer being alone, anyway. I take a long, scalding-hot shower so that perhaps I can rid myself of this vile feeling before I get up on that stage and strip again tomorrow.

And the next night.

And the next night.

I hope.

Chapter seven

CAIN

I grip my steering wheel with white-knuckled force. If I don’t slow down, I’m going to get pulled over or wrap my truck around the guardrail. Acknowledging this, my foot still doesn’t ease off the gas pedal.

She dances just like Penny did.

The style, the grace, the class.

With a mournful smile and her eyes closed. Like she has a secret. Like her mind has disappeared off somewhere, like she’s imagining herself anywhere but on that stage.

It’s a thing of rare beauty, the way her body smoothly swung and dipped and contorted, teasing the men without the need to lie spread-eagled or with her ass in the air like an everyday stripper.

I was hard the second she stepped onto the stage. I was thinking of ways to get her in a private room when her top finally came off.

I’m no better than Rick Cassidy or any of those other vultures.

Finally releasing the breath I’m holding, I lift my foot off the gas pedal, slowing my Navigator to the legal limit. Deep down, I know that’s not true. I don’t condone the girls getting high to loosen themselves up for lap dances and private shows. I don’t take the girls for a test drive when I hire them, and I sure as hell don’t demand late-afternoon blow jobs. The dancers don’t even turn me on anymore. All I see are girls who need a second chance. Girls who need someone to protect them because no one ever has.

The way I should have protected my sister.

And Penny.

But here’s a woman who I want. The second Ben started joking about how her br**sts were too flawless to be natural and how he’d be finding out for himself later tonight, I told him he was fired, and I wasn’t kidding. He and Nate exchanged a what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-him look and then I guess Ben clued in, because he asked what was going on between Charlie and me. I decided that I needed to leave before I made more of an ass of myself.

So I bolted.

I don’t know if I can handle knowing she’s doing that in my club daily. A temptation that I might not be able to ignore indefinitely because, dammit, this feeling is as addictive as a heroin high.

Hiring her would be a bad idea.

I acknowledge this even as I glance at the stack of papers sitting on my passenger seat. Charlie’s application, her identification, everything I need to forward to my investigator. Just looking at it, at the photocopy of her face, reminds me of my present discomfort. I adjust myself. It’s a little after eleven o’clock. Even with my normal four hours of sleep and a two-hour workout, tonight will be a f**king long night.

I hit the dial button located on my steering wheel.

“It’s been a while,” Rebecka purrs, sauntering through my front door. The woman’s voice has a crispness to it that borders on snotty. Until she’s screaming, anyway.

“I’ve been busy,” I manage to get out around a mouthful of cognac.

“I’m glad you called.” Flipping her hands through her jet-black hair, she adds, “Even though it’s late.”

“I’m glad you came.”

“And you will too, soon.” Blood rushes to my c**k with her promise. Sharp blue eyes roam my cabinetry as she steps into the kitchen. “Property value has gone up. I could make you a ton of money if you sold now.” It was her real estate agency that sold this condo to me in the first place. Sometimes I think she keeps coming back as much for the business opportunity as the sex. I think she might just be that kind of woman.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I assure her in a dry tone as I watch her turn and stalk toward me slowly, a teasing smile on those red-painted lips of hers.

Her fingers go right for my pants, deftly undoing the button and zipper. “You do that.”

That will be the extent of our conversation for the night.

In seconds, Rebecka is on her knees with those lips wrapped around me, taking my entire length in. With a groan, I set my glass down. Grabbing the back of her head with a hand, I pull her against me. Normally I would never do that to a woman, but Rebecka likes it.

She asks me to do a lot of things other women might not like.

Things that should give me a few hours of distraction before I have to decide what to do about Charlie.

Chapter eight

CHARLIE

“Charlie Rourke. Twenty-two . . .” Insipid brown eyes slide down my body as he does a slow circle around me. I’m down to nothing but my white thong underwear. He made me undress before any conversation began.

Now, it’s all I can do to pace my breathing and not coil my arms around myself.

With that swollen belly protruding beneath an ill-fitted green-and-white striped golf tee, Rick Cassidy looks like he could be suffering from the impossible: male pregnancy. But it’s not his belly that makes him so unappealing. It’s not even the tuft of hair climbing out the back of his shirt, or his disproportionately skinny legs, or the comb-over, or his misshapen nose, or his  p**n  star mustache.

It’s that phony smile—empty of authenticity, full of bad intentions—that makes my skin want to crawl into my bones. He’s everything I pictured a strip club owner would be. “You’re what . . .” Coming back around to face me, he reaches up to cup my left breast, giving it a rough squeeze. His breath reeks of stale coffee and cigarettes. “A C-cup?”

I swallow my revulsion. Outside of female retail specialists at Victoria’s Secret, I’ve never had to answer that question. And they certainly never groped me while they asked. So long as he focuses his grabby attention above my waist, I can stomach it. “Yes, that’s right.”

“And,” he says as his hand slides down to graze my abdomen with his knuckles, “I’d say maybe a twenty-two-inch waist.” He snorts. “Like your age.”

Fighting the urge to shrink back from him, I distract myself by scanning the cramped office. There’s a small desk off in one corner, covered in folded newspapers and cans of Diet Coke. Most of the space is taken up by a worn brown sectional leather couch. One that looks well used. There’s no way I’m ever sitting on that. In the opposite corner, I find a camera pointing toward us, the red light flashing tells me that it’s recording this “interview.”

Ugh.

“Here,” I say, steadying my hand as I hold out a copy of my résumé. It seems ridiculous, offering him my information now, but I may as well since I’ve gone to all the trouble of making it up. “I worked in Vegas, at—”

“Don’t care,” Rick dismisses with a wave of his hand as he saunters over to the couch. “As long as you can give a good lap dance, you’re hired.” When he turns to face me—revealing a wide grin and a set of crooked front teeth—his fat fingers already have his belt undone and his zipper down.

It only takes another second for those department store khakis to slide down to his knees. His black boxers follow next with the help of his hands, and my wide eyes automatically drop to see the veiny repulsion sticking out. Now I do wince. I can’t help it. Letting himself fall back into the couch with a smile of anticipation, he says, “Come show me how much you want a job at Sin City . . . and lose the panties.”