Smoldered Read online

  Wait, did she say she had a kid?

  Had it been that long since I’d seen her? Still, I was pretty sure she knew I would have helped her, given her a job, provided a shoulder to cry on, or some shit like that. We went way back together.

  I placed a finger under her chin and lifted her face so she could see the truth in what I was about to say. “Nat, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just, you and me, we used to be tight, and I was shocked to see you here. And when did you have a kid? You should have gotten in touch with me. We were friends, good ones. I could have helped. I can help now, little doll.”

  Another thought popped in my head, and I didn’t think before I spoke. “Wait, what about the dad? Are you with him? Surely he doesn’t want you here. How could any man let the mother of his child do this shit? Here at the Leop?”

  Hurt flashed across Natalie’s face, and she tried to pry herself away from me again.

  Not wanting to lose the little bit of contact I had with her skin, I tightened my grip on Natalie’s shoulder and waited for her to explain her choice, to say something that might change my opinion. Looking at the young woman in front of me, I was reminded we came from the same stock. Growing up, our situations were so precarious that all it took was one bad decision and we could end up in the gutter.

  Fucking A, I’m never supporting the Leop again. This was a wake-up call, if I ever had one.

  Natalie, or Natasha, pulled back. And I begrudgingly let her. She took three small steps backward before she was forced to sit on the bench behind her, her gaze dropping to the nasty dark red carpet.

  “I know you mean well, Ash, but I need to do this on my own. As for the kid thing—it happened a while ago. You and me, we haven’t been tight in years. My son, Quinney—I mean, Quinn—he just turned four. So let it go, Ash, and be on your way.”

  She rested her elbows on her knees and dropped her head in her hands in defeat, keeping her focus trained on the carpet as she spoke softly. “I got knocked up. I knew it was a risk at the time, and now I have a kid. Nothing more and nothing less. His dad is long gone, and this is the job I picked. End of story. This is what I do, so you have to leave now.”

  At that, the woman I once knew as a young and vibrant girl stood, took one step closer, and placed a chaste peck on my cheek before walking away from me to find a more willing customer. Her tight ass swayed as her long legs took her toward the door, her shiny brown hair brushing from side to side against the body I’d been lusting after.

  At the doorway, she turned and simply said, “’Bye, Asher.”

  LEFT ALONE in the VIP room, I was stunned that I’d been unable to string the right words together to convince a woman I’d known since childhood to get the hell out of the cesspool known as the Pink Leop. Maybe because I’d frequented the joint for years, living out my fantasies while breaking all my own rules.

  How had I never seen her there? Was I that self-absorbed?

  Releasing a long, deep breath, I left the back room and headed toward the exit, trying to control my emotions. No longer in the mood for anything but a stiff drink and coming up with a plan to rescue a hopeless, defeated girl from my past, I kept my gaze away from the club floor. Except for glancing out of the corner of my eye at where “Natasha” was giving a lap dance to a group of overweight old assholes.

  Goddamn it, I needed to get the hell out of there before I scooped her up, threw her over my shoulder, and carried her out. Knowing that move wouldn’t get me far, I left, desperate to figure out what would.

  Asher

  SHOVING THE club’s ridiculous leopard-print door open and stepping into the desert nighttime air, I thanked God my frequent sidekick Mike hadn’t come here with me tonight. My head of security over at the Tunnel, Mike was obsessed with pointing out my ongoing rescue fantasy when it came to young women in distress, and he’d have a field day with the situation with Natalie.

  Sienna was his main case in point.

  When I walked out of the Tunnel earlier, I’d pointed my finger at him, tilted my head toward the exit, and mouthed, “You coming?” The cocky kid just shook his head and pretended to drive a steering wheel, signaling he was heading home. He thought he had it all at home with the sweet college coed he’d been shacked up with in his spacious condo for the last few years.

  Mike had gone to fancy schools where he’d taken a few psych courses, and even though he was younger than me, delighted in pointing out my need to save women. About two years ago, the little shit was new to the adult entertainment scene, slumming it at my club while trying to escape his rich-bitch mom and absentee father, when Lila Dasher turned up on my doorstep looking for a cocktail server job. It was obvious she was on the run, and I took one look at her and swore to myself I would keep her safe.

  Ever since Mike witnessed how I transformed Lila into Sienna Flower, a more confident woman on her way to being a star, he never failed to point out how obsessed I was with her safety, security, and overall happiness.

  Flash forward two years and the jackass, complete with his smart mind, broad shoulders, and brazen attitude, had risen from his original position as bouncer to my head of security. He’d also managed to become best friends with Sienna. How come he didn’t get called on it when he made it his personal business to watch out for her?

  Still, Mike often brought up how I got some sick satisfaction out of taking care of a damsel in distress. Well, duh, if someone had taken my mom under their wing, maybe she wouldn’t have picked up and left me with the neighbors.

  And I don’t even need a degree from a fancy school to know that.

  Kicking the exit door closed behind me, I left the Leop but knew I’d be back, despite my resolution to the contrary.

  I floored it all the way back to my place, thinking I was damn lucky I hadn’t brought my bike out. As messed up as my head was tonight, I would have laid that hunk of metal down somewhere long before I turned into my serene suburban neighborhood.

  After parking my SUV in my two-car attached garage, I stepped out under the floodlight to make sure Sienna’s lamp was on in the corner of her carriage house. It was her signal to me that she was home and safe with the doors locked.

  Okay, maybe I did have a bit of a rescue thing going on, but the girl had no one but me. Whatever she’d run from before she met me was so bad that even I only knew bits and pieces, but it had her good and scared.

  Sienna had moved from waitressing to dancing over the last six or seven months, and her style was starting to catch on. Thank fuck I moved her behind me in the little carriage house I’d planned to rent when I realized she was living in a fleabag motel.

  Back there, behind me, she was protected.

  Just how I liked her.

  I headed back inside my garage, opened the door to my house, and let the coolness of the air-conditioning cover me. Born and bred in Vegas, it wasn’t the desert heat making my blood boil this evening.

  AS I turned off my alarm and headed straight to my wet bar, I had new worries bubbling up inside me, burning through my veins and heating my temper.

  Natalie. Jesus Christ. I hadn’t seen the girl since she was eighteen or nineteen years old. The last time was on her birthday, if I remembered correctly, and she was moving out of our neighborhood where we grew up, getting an apartment, taking some classes at the community college, and working as a hostess at a steak joint in one of the newer, shinier casinos.

  She was so freaking happy over the whole thing. Her own pad, making something of herself, a good job where the waiters were tipping her out at the end of the night, and getting the hell away from the old Las Vegas ’hood. And I was happy for her.

  The whole gang was together that night. All the kids who went to our school…we were all mostly cutups scraping by, doing what we could, and looking for a leg up. A gang of ghetto rats from an early planned development on the verge of adulthood, we were trying to break free from the lives our parents had lived. I was one of the older ones and unfortunate proof we on
ly knew one thing. Vegas nightlife.

  It was in our blood, seeping out into everything we did, making it impossible to be or do anything else. We may have fooled ourselves into thinking we were doing better than our folks because the Strip had been classed up, but at the end of the day, we were the next generation of Vegas clubbies through and through.

  The night of that party, there was more than Vegas nightlife running through our veins. It was a great night. We all got rip-roaring drunk, lit up on whatever drugs anyone had handy, and toasted to the past, present, and future.

  Sadly, the past, present, and future were all the same. But I didn’t want to ruin the fun that evening and share my thoughts with everyone, so I made the most of the good time at my disposal.

  All the others, the younger ones, had to do was take a long, hard look at me, and they could figure it out themselves. I may have been starting to make money, and lots of it, but I was still working in nightlife. It was all I knew.

  Even in my drunken, drugged-out stupor, I was pretty sure I might have envied Natalie that night as her face lit up when she told us about enrolling in classes. I remember thinking to myself: Nat’s gonna be the one to get the hell out.

  The next day, hungover and strung-out like hell, I realized I’d hit an all-time low, so I decided to clean up my act. Determined to push the envelope of the adult entertainment business, I made myself a resolution to make it better, classy, top-notch.

  Now seated at my expensive bar in the middle of my luxurious house—I may not have been a well-educated CEO, but I sure as fuck lived like one—I poured myself a highball tumbler half-full of scotch and tossed it back. A bit dramatic, the fiery burn only made me rage harder, not doing its job of settling me down. I was consumed with my thoughts, both caught up in my memories and wondering what the hell I should do now.

  What the fuck had happened to Nat to reduce her to working in a hellhole, serving herself up on a platter for cheap jerks to touch any way they pleased?

  I should know, I’m one of them. Except for the cheap part.

  I held nothing against the adult entertainment business. Shit, I worked, lived, and breathed it. But, Christ, there was a right way and a wrong way, and I was one of the good guys. And kid or no kid, there was no good reason why Natalie should be on the bad side of the biz when she had me as a friend.

  Cheating Life

  Natalie

  Las Vegas, present day

  I WORKED into the wee hours of the morning, milking each and every last bachelor party and pleasing every man wanting a lap dance. It was a good night for me at the Tunnel, like it had been for the last five years, and my purse was filled with cash. Tonight I’d been able to do my own thing, slipping off the radar a bit while Asher and Mike freaked out over Sienna visiting some guy’s table. She didn’t work the floor on weekends, let alone visit one-on-one with customers, so the guys were going ape-shit over their precious headliner’s safety. Not to mention her sanity.

  As I was saying good-bye to my bouncer, Petey, and a few of the cocktail waitresses, tipping them out for taking good care of my parties, I saw Asher coming down the staircase from his office on the second floor. I wasn’t stupid. The man knew it was Friday, the night when Quinn always stayed with my mom, and he wanted a piece of me.

  I was weak, more than a little horny, and wanted a piece of him too. We’d been playing this game for years.

  Asher was nothing less than mouthwatering as he prowled toward me across the mostly empty floor of the club. I’d changed out of my evening’s costume and was wearing worn-in skinny jeans with a hole in the knee and a nondescript black halter covered with a gray wraparound sweater, so I felt underdressed compared to the elegant man coming my way.

  My boss was still wearing the dark black slacks he’d worn for work, his dress shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, revealing a light smattering of blond chest hair and the very edge of his tattoo, a navy blue bolt of electricity inked over his chest for his one and only baby, the Electric Tunnel. But it was a sight to see, and I did enjoy licking it from top to bottom.

  In the privacy of his office, that is.

  His hair and goatee were equally mussed from his running his hands through them. Sadly, it was a habit of his I knew all too well, and there was nothing I wanted to do more than dive in and make it even messier.

  As usual, Asher was wearing motorcycle boots with his suit pants. He was a hot mess of a man—there was no one else remotely like him. Despite the layer of expensive designer clothing, he was pure bad boy underneath. He’d never ditch his boots, they were as ingrained in him as his past, which was why I should have been hightailing it right out of the place. Instead, I stood planted like a palm tree blowing in the wind, waiting for the storm to arrive, stuck in the ground as if there were nothing I could do to stop the blustery weather heading my way, threatening to topple me over.

  The guy was a god, and I was nothing more than a stripper who was smitten with him.

  As I ran my hands through my own long hair, my fingers sifted through the big waves running through it. I’d set it in hot rollers on my break for a bachelor party I ran earlier, yet now it didn’t seem like enough for Asher. He should get more than the leftovers of my evening at work. He deserved fresh curls and nice clothing, and perfume not mixed with another man’s cologne.

  I wanted to be more in his eyes. Hadn’t I always?

  In my dreams, I was the prettiest, sexiest, and most darling of his girls. The one he would keep in the end, but I knew that to be a fantasy, which was why I kept firm boundaries when it came to him. Most of the time, at least. This evening was not one of these occasions.

  Asher approached with his usual control and command, wrapped his arm around my neck, and pulled me tight against him. Running his nose along my collar, he breathed in my scent and whispered, “Fuck, Nat, you smell real good, and you look so damn beautiful. I want you. Never can get enough.”

  “Okay,” I said softly, closing my eyes as I allowed myself a second to enjoy the feel of his face against mine.

  I didn’t try to wriggle out from his grasp, instead I stayed firmly planted next to him for all to see. Who would be looking? The whole club knew we were sleeping together. They also knew it didn’t mean a damn thing.

  Did it? But it didn’t really matter, because what Asher and I had together could never amount to anything more.

  Still holding me in his muscular arms, he leaned in close again and said, “I don’t want to be with you here, Natalie. I want to take my time with you in a bed, do it right for a change. If you don’t want to go to my place, let’s go to yours. Your boy is with your mom, right?”

  I stiffened, then disentangled myself from his warmth and shook my head. How could we be so close, yet he didn’t understand me at all? My club life needed to stay at the Tunnel, and anything related to Quinn remained firmly at home. Apart. Separate. I hated the idea of the personal and professional sides of my life intersecting, and insisted they never merge.

  The stubborn man pulled me close again. “Sorry, little doll. I thought you had the rest of the night, morning, whatever it is, to yourself.”

  “No, I do. But my place is off-limits, Ash. You know that.”

  I tried to put some space between us, but Asher was having none of that. “All right. I don’t get it, but okay.” He lifted his hands in the air in a mock gesture of surrender before wrapping his arms around me again. “Let’s go to my house. Please. I don’t want to stay in my office tonight.” He curled a lock of my hair around his finger as he said this, then ran a line of light kisses along my neck.

  Another okay was all I could manage, and just like that I was being led by Asher out the back door.

  We hit the fresh air with a vengeance. Asher was a man on a mission as he insisted we leave my car. “Come on, I have my bike and it’s a gorgeous night. I’ll bring you back in the morning for your car.”

  Apparently unable to say anything other than “okay,” I simply followed him to his
parking spot, annoyed that I was beginning to sound like a dumb tramp.

  Wasn’t that what I was?

  After I put on a helmet, I climbed on behind the same man I rode behind years ago, and was instantly reminded how much I liked it. His hard back, the ridges and lines of his abdomen that my fingers trailed along as my arms weaved around his middle, his unique scent blowing back toward me in the wind. I loved it all despite knowing this was a stupid, stupid move. This being my getting on the back of Asher’s bike.

  But I went and enjoyed every minute.

  My jean-clad legs pressed against his slacks as I gripped him with my thighs. Who wore slacks on a bike? Only Asher.

  As his white dress shirt billowed in the wind, his heart beat fast in his chest—I could feel it straight through his back. My nipples hardened, not only from the cool night air, but also from the damp and sweaty scent floating around me that was uniquely Asher, enveloping me like dew on a cool spring night.

  The only other time I had been at Asher’s home was for a quick bit of afternoon delight. It had been the single most lighthearted time in our history, a few short weeks where we had a lot of fun exploring each other’s bodies, laughing, smiling, and having sex constantly. A brief period where I was having trouble maintaining boundaries—like now—and I agreed on a whim to go home with him on a Thursday while my son was at school.

  Now it was early morning, dawn just a few hours away as we pulled into his garage, and a microburst of expectations enveloped us. The air was thick with promises neither of us could keep, obscuring my well-thought-out plans with a thick haze.

  The moment he pulled me off the bike and kissed me, a giant cloud of passion burst all over me. It was a welcome storm in a dry desert, washing away any second or third thoughts I may have been having. A heavy rainfall of lust poured down on our bodies, us to find shelter in each other.

  Our tongues and lips only separated for Asher to turn off his house alarm before we found each other again. Desperate in his need for me, he led me to his room, and I went willingly. Eagerly. At the doorway leading to his space, he stopped and slipped his tongue deeper in my mouth and twisted it with mine, fusing us together as one before he lifted me swiftly and carried me to the massive bed.