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IT WAS PACKED BY THE time I arrived at the club, and I could hardly push my way into the changing room to get ready for my shift. Beside me, Irina, one of the other dancers, was carefully re-applying her make-up, and she flashed me a grin.
“Crazy in here tonight, isn’t it?” she remarked to me, and I nodded.
“What’s going on?” I asked her, and she shrugged.
“Looks like Hennessey’s came under some new ownership,” she explained. “Some Mob guy, apparently. Ransom’s out, and the new guy’s in.”
I frowned. I didn’t like the Mob. They were the ones who had driven my father to the brink of bankruptcy, and the ones who now held a debt over his head that he’d been forced to take to ensure he didn’t lose the business. I was working my ass off at the club and at the store, but every time we got close to paying them off, another round of interest seemed to pop up to keep us from getting out in one piece.
“But hey, means the place is going to be busier for a while,” she remarked, with a shrug. “That’s got to be good, doesn’t it?”
She was right – it should have been a good thing. More customers meant more tips, but more customers also meant there would be less security to keep an eye on things if they started to get out of hand. In the chaos of a busy night like this, it was way easier for guys to push boundaries. And I was determined to do what I could to keep mine firmly in place.
It had been a couple of years since I had covered a shift here as a dancer, and I had been on that stage pretty much every single night ever since. It was the best way to keep out of the range of grabby man-hands, and I still made decent tips by flirting a little and grinding on the pole. I kept most of my clothes on, but that just seemed to make some of the guys here even more enthused about the idea of getting me bare-ass naked. Honestly, I just wanted to make my money and go, but I had to pretend I loved every second of this if I was going to be able to sell myself to them and make the money I needed.
“You’re up,” she remarked, nodding to my name flashing on the little ticker screen above the door. I grabbed my heels, threw them on, and headed for the stage. I still hated walking in heels, especially with how they aggravated my hip from the car accident all those years ago.
This wasn’t exactly how I had imagined myself using my dancing prowess, to be honest. But if it made money, and it kept my dad from getting in trouble with the guys he owed, I would take it. I would do anything I could to keep our family together.
Well, almost anything.
I was heading out to the stage, trying to ignore the stares of a couple of the regulars who seemed a little too enthused about me coming out – but before I could reach it, I felt a hand on my arm. I yanked it loose from the grip of whoever was holding me at once, and turned to face him angrily.
“Don’t touch—” I started, but he cut me off before I could go any further.
“Dance with me,” he told me, and he nodded to the dancefloor next to us. It wasn’t something I did often, but I knew guys would pay well to be seen with a cute woman on the dancefloor, even if it was just for a song or two. I shrugged.
“Fine,” I muttered. It would save me getting up on that stage, where all those dudes would be ogling me, and at least I could control someone who was right in front of me better than I would be able to a crowd of rowdy men.
The man pulled me on to the dancefloor, and then slipped his hands around my waist. I had to admit, even though he was just another punter, he was kind of cute. Wavy, dark hair, dark brown eyes, a cheeky smile that he used to soften me up a little. Okay, I knew this was just work, but if I could use a little genuine attraction to him to make this more believable, then I would do it.
I pressed myself close to him, hands on his shoulders, giving him the impression that I was really enjoying this. He smelled good, too, which was more than could be said for most of the people who came to a club like this. They usually stank of sweat and desperation, but he didn’t seem to have that problem. No, if anything, he had a swagger about him, like he knew he had all my attention to himself and didn’t want to give it up for a moment.
His hips moved back and forth in time with the music, and I found myself pulling in even closer. Sometimes, I had a hard time pretending that I was even interested in the guys I was dancing with, but this one – well, this one had a confidence about him that just drew me in. I knew he was no different than anyone else here, but he acted as though he was above all of them, and maybe I could believe that for as long as it took to convince him to give me a hefty tip for my troubles.
I closed my eyes and let the music take control of me. Even now, so many years after the accident that had taken me out of legitimate dancing professionally, I still found a peace in the thump of the beat that I didn’t anywhere else. Even with this stranger close to me, I was able to let everything else go, let everything just fall away as I focused on him and the music. His hands tightened on to my waist, and he pulled me in a little closer. It was clear that he knew what he wanted, and I just had to play the game and make sure I didn’t give in to him too soon. No matter how tempting it might have been...
Well. Tempting to make some money off of him, of course. Nothing more than that. Honestly, I had no idea what had gotten into me that evening, but I wasn’t going to question it. Maybe it was just the safety of having someone to cling to right now, knowing I didn’t have to go up on the stage for a song or two. I knew one of the other girls who was more confident in themselves would jump at the chance to make the tips that came with working one of the stages in this place, and I just needed to hold out a little longer to ensure that happened.
Suddenly, I felt his mouth close to my ear. His breath was hot on my cheek, and I shivered, surprised at how good it felt.
“There are back rooms here, aren’t there?” he asked me. “You want to go somewhere more private...?”
I stiffened. I knew some of the girls offered extras of that sort, but I had never done it. Never had the nerve. And besides, I knew that was a boundary I couldn’t cross. My father already hated that I was working here in the first place, and it might put him in the ground if he found out I had been going that one step further to make money.
“No, I’m good,” I replied, and I looped my arms around his shoulders, hoping I could convince him to stay here a little longer. He hadn’t even tipped me yet. I needed to get some money out of him to make sure that all of this was worth my while.
“You sure?” he murmured, his lips brushing my ear and making me shiver. “I can make it worth your while...”
I pulled back at once and glared at him.
“Didn’t you hear me?” I demanded. “I said no. I don’t do that shit.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me, clearly not that bothered by my reaction. That just pissed me off even more. A guy like him, he probably enjoyed pushing all the boundaries he could, making it so the girls he was with didn’t have any choice but to go along with his twisted little games.
“Whatever you say,” he replied, and he dropped his hands to his sides, indicating that he didn’t want anything more from me. I glared at him for a moment, hoping he would at least have the decency to hand over a little cash for my time, but he didn’t reach for his wallet. God, this had all been a total waste – and, when I looked over at the stage, I saw that it was still empty. Which meant I had to get up there and make some money to make up for the waste of time that this had been.
I stomped off back towards the stage and climbed on, ignoring the couple of guys around me who were hooting at the sight of me in my scanty little minidress. I never got naked up there, but I knew the more skin I showed, the better tips I would make, and I had long-since quit pretending that this was about my dancing skills or anything like that.
I tried to focus on the music once more as I grabbed the pole and swung around, moving my hips from side to side in a sexy slither that I had found usually did wonders in loosening the wallets of the guys who were watching me. And that guy, that asshole who’d tried to proposition me for something more, was standing over by the bar, watching me the entire time.
He had treated me like a hooker. I knew some girls did that, and if that worked for them, so be it. But I wasn’t into that shit. And I hated people treating me as though I had to be, as though there was no other choice for me to do anything but sell my body to make ends meet. I wasn’t going to let just any guy take a crack at me, any man have his way with me. I had rules. I had boundaries. And every time a guy here overstepped them, I was reminded why I didn’t bother with a boyfriend. I didn’t need to deal with more men looking at me like that after I was out of here.
I hated this place, I really did. Not the girls, they were okay, and we all looked out for each other as best we could. But the guys. The guys who came in and acted like they had any right at all to ask for everything they wanted. I wasn’t for sale, for any price – my body wasn’t something they could throw down a few fifties on and hope for the best. I needed to keep myself above that. Needed to make sure I didn’t go down that path. I had already overstepped so much I had sworn to myself I never would, if I gave in on anything else, I knew it was going to be a nightmare.
I finished up my dancing on the stage, gathered the handful of tips I had managed to grab from the guys who were watching me, and I was tugging my dress down to head back into the changing area to catch a break when I was waylaid again.
“You able to take these drinks out?” Jake, the bartender, asked me. I sighed and grabbed the tray.
“Sure, but I’m going home after this,” I told him. He furrowed his brow.
“You must be crazy,” he remarked. “You could make a stack of cash in here tonight if you wanted to, place is packed.”
“Yeah, I know,” I replied, gritting my teeth. “I just... need a break tonight, that’s all.”
“Don’t let the new owner see you,” he warned me. “I think he wants the most he can get out of all of the girls, if you know what I mean.”
“You’ve met him?” I asked, and he nodded.
“He’s here tonight,” he explained. “Andreas Salieri. He’s... wait a second, I spotted him a minute ago...”
I followed his gaze around the room, and finally, it stopped on someone.
“There, that’s him,” he remarked, and I felt my stomach sinking down to my shoes as I saw who he was gesturing to.
The man. The one from earlier who had invited me out onto the dancefloor, the one who had offered me more money to slip off with him. Shit. That was the new owner? And I had already snapped at him and stormed off? Yeah, that wasn’t exactly the dream way of introducing myself, that was for sure.
“You sure about that?” I asked, and he nodded.
“Oh, yeah, certain,” he replied. Andreas was sitting at the bar, sipping on a glass of something, but when he spotted us looking over at him, he lifted his drink in some sort of faux-toast in my direction.
“Do you know him?” Jason asked me, looking surprised that this guy was even acknowledging my existence. I shook my head at once.
“Nope, never seen him before in my life,” I replied at once. I needed to make sure I took another run at making a good impression – there was no way in hell I was going to let this guy ruin my work here. I might not have liked it, but it was the best way I had available to me to make enough money to keep Dad and I out of trouble, and I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of that.
“I need to get out of here,” I told him, handing the tray back over before I turned on my heel and headed back to the changing rooms. There might have been a lot of money to be made here tonight, but I knew the only way I was going to make it was if I pushed my boundaries – and I had already overstepped with my new boss as it was. Better to get out now, and come back with a new attitude the next day, and hope he would have forgotten all about our little encounter by then.
