“I’m going to kill Tess,” I whisper. “I’m going to kill Tess.” I chant my newfound mantra while I muster the courage to glance out at the crowd melting in a cigarette haze.
The full effects of my guzzling efforts come into play as I take a few uneasy steps onto the glass-bottom stage. The lights beneath my feet go off in a dizzying pattern of purples and blues as I attempt to inch my way to the pole. One twirl. That’s all Tess said it takes to get the “clientele” to open their wallets. Then I can collect cash like candy at Halloween and run like hell all the way back to Garrison.
The music switches up to one of my favorite songs, or as it will be referred to from this moment forward, that stupid song! Way to bookmark this catastrophe in the making. I’m sure I’ll recall every loathsome moment whenever I have the misfortune of hearing it again.
“Here I go,” I whisper.
I make a mad dash to the pole as if the room were on fire, and my foot slips out from underneath me, sending my limbs flailing in all sorts of unflattering gyrations.
The crowd breaks out in a fit of laughter, followed by whoops and howls, as if I’ve accidentally managed to do something right. It’s not until I grab onto the glorified metal staff that I note my left boob has made an Alcatraz-worthy escape from my studded brassiere.
“Crap,” I whimper, quick to correct the clothing malfunction. “Bastards,” I hiss as the laughter and sneers pick up some serious steam. I manage a quick twirl, which apparently is mandatory per management, and the room spins out of control. “Oh God, oh God, oh God…” The words gurgle out of me as I attempt to stagger my way back to Tess so I can carry out the felony I’ve been destined to commit right from the beginning and wrap my hands around her irresponsible throat.
“Let’s see it, baby!” A voice bellows from the rear as I continue to stomp my way toward the red velvet curtains with my arms spread wide, and suddenly I feel like Godzilla ready to trample an unsuspecting Tokyo.
“Come to Papa!” A greasy-looking character with long straggly hair tries to climb onto the stage, and Dell, the owner-slash-bouncer, plucks him back. Oh wait, that’s Dell. The fact I’m seeing double is not a good fucking sign.
The lights in the platform go off in a spasm, right along with the music, and it feels as though the floor just opened up and swallowed me whole. I take a few unsteady steps to my left and the crowd gives a collective gasp. I try to catch my bearings in my five-inch killer heels but end up running to my right—so dizzy, so damn tired.
My ankle turns as I do a rather inglorious swan dive right off the stage.
Oh God, don’t let this hurt.
I fall like a stone right into a pair of strong, heavily inked arms. I look up very much expecting to see Dell, or some I’m-Going-to-Hack-You-to-Pieces-Later-With-a-Butcher-Knife sleaze, but I don’t. Instead, it’s Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome with his unholy grin and alarmingly deep dimples.
“Whoa, you okay?”
“Mostly not.” Unless you count the fact I’ve reduced our metric distance within my first five minutes as a Pretty Girl. Then I’m totally okay.
“How about you and me take this party someplace else?” He broadens his sexier-than-hell smile and my stomach pinches tight. Why do I get the feeling I’ve just stepped into some frat boy’s triple-X fantasy? Although judging by those bulging biceps, and the carefully choreographed tattoos that swirl up his arms, this is no ordinary frat boy.
I bounce out of his grasp. Clearly I’ve sent him the wrong message.
“I’ll pass. The last thing I’m doing tonight is aiding in my own abduction.” The truth is, I’m just about willing to help him tie me up. The thought of what a boy like that could do to me has me halfway to that ever-elusive orgasm I’ve yet to master. I peer up at him from under my lashes. I bet his fingers know how to work more than a little magic, his gorgeous full lips too. God knows my fingers are useless. I jolt out of my sexual stupor and shake the thought away.
I dust myself off for no apparent reason and oddly my skin feels numb, most likely from the lethal levels of alcohol I’ve ingested under my sister’s twisted supervision.
“I’m not an abductor, so it’s not a problem.” His grin widens and my insides squeeze tight. I take in his lean, mean body while the tat on his left arm explodes to life as a fire-breathing dragon. “In fact, I’ll let you take me someplace. Hell, I’ll even let you bring a weapon.” He smiles widely and his dimple winks at me.
“A weapons-grade date, huh?” I lean in, amused, only the leaning doesn’t stop until my face ingloriously smacks into his granite-like chest.
“My eyes are up here,” his voice rumbles through my skull, deep and baritone. There’s a boyish quality about him, and I’m finding it alarmingly attractive. “And if you’re interested, I’ve got a baseball bat in the car I can give you.”
I straighten at the thought.
Gah! He’s a freak!
“What the hell kind of pervert keeps a baseball bat in the trunk of his car? I bet it’s sitting right there next to the duct tape and garbage bags.” Crap. Did I just say that out loud?
He picks up his beer, and I proceed to swipe it from him and take a nice long swig.
Tess strides up and snatches the bottle from my hand.
“Ally,” she snipes. “Do not take beverages away from customers. And for God’s sake, try not to get ripped on your very first night.” Tess gives a little bow as she returns the bottle to Mr. Tall, Dark, and I’ve-Got-a-Baseball-Fetish.
I wave her off and snatch the bottle back. Since when did Tess become a roadblock for liberal inebriation? The occasions might be few and far between for me, but tonight the portal to my sanity is definitely ethanol based.
She lets out an incredulous breath before scuttling over to her moronic boyfriend. She’s convinced Dell is going to make an honest woman out of her even though she’s clearly aware that he shares the same relationship status with at least six other girls at the club. Dell is the biggest douche she’s ever dated and the scariest as well. He has a reputation for making people disappear: piss him off and your soul becomes eligible for the dimensional relocation program. But those are just rumors, and Tess doesn’t believe a single one of them.
“So it’s your first night, huh?” The dark-haired god raises his brows as if this new information took the sheen off my metallic panties.
“Everyone has a first day.” I glance down at my right ankle, and wonder when I wrapped a red bandana around it, only to snap out of my drunken stupor long enough to realize I’ve already managed to rack up a work-related injury. “God, it’s swollen.”
“Are you okay?” He leans in, and his warm spiced cologne intoxicates me twice as much as the champagne.
“Actually, I’m Ally,” I say, glancing down at my foot. “It’s just tweaked—I’ll live.”
“Let me see.” He gets down on one knee like some sort of baseball-bat-wielding Prince Charming and gingerly plucks off my high heel. I’m just one foot rub away from adding “feet” to his growing list of fetishes. Something in me sizzles at his touch, and I’m pretty resigned to the fact I’m about to let him have his way with more than just my foot. “You should probably ice it,” he says, carefully caressing the back of my calf, and a fire rips through me all the way up to my belly. Every inch of my body begs to have his hand ride up a little higher.
“Ally!” Kit runs over with her curls escaping her bun like little black snakes. She gives me a discreet smile at the quasi-medical attention I’m receiving at the hands of the man with the dragon tattoo. Although judging by those tats, that bad-boy smile, something tells me the medicine he practices is anything but traditional. “Okay. I see you’re in good hands.” She licks her lips after she says it. “Dell said you can take Amy’s spot in ten but if you’re hurt I’ll totally do it.”
“It’s all you,” I say, plucking off my other heel. “I’ll be sitt
ing out the rest of the night.” And most likely every other night that follows, but I leave that part out.
She squeezes my hand with excitement before hopping her way back toward the entry. I’m pretty sure Kit just added a heavily inked wannabe med student to her You Only Live Once wish list.
“Wait,” I shout after her as she dances farther away. “Bring my purse. The doctor says I need to get home and ice this!”
Her mouth opens wide as she takes in the dark-haired suitor who manned up and caught me like a pop fly. She gives an approving wink before disappearing in a sea of bodies.
“Ice, right?” I glance up at the good doctor. “Among the other alternative treatments I’m sure you have in mind.”
“Alternative treatments?” He smolders into me, and my panties try to slide down my thighs on their own volition.
“Let me guess, you’ve got a thermometer in your Levi’s and you’d really like to take my temperature.”
His chest vibrates with a silent laugh. “Everyone knows an internal temp is the only way to go.” His voice rumbles, deep and secretive. “The name is Morgan. And I’m no doctor. But tonight I can be anything you want.”
My insides explode with a rush of pleasure at the blatant innuendo Morgan just employed.
“Consider it an honorary title I’m bestowing upon you.” I glance around for signs of Tess. I’m pretty sure she’s going to drag me away from Dr. Dragon at any moment. But do I really want her to?
“Bestowing upon me?” His brows rise, amused.
I’m guessing the word isn’t in his lexicon. But his dimples deepen as he bursts into another heart-stopping grin, and at the moment I don’t really care if he understands a damn thing about the King’s English.
Crap.
I try to hobble the hell away from him and his medical equipment in the event my alternate champagne-guzzling personality decides to pull him under a table for that one-night stand Tess prescribed. She’s no doctor either, but since I’m playing fast and loose with medical degrees there’s no telling where things might lead.
The ground sways as I struggle to gain my bearings.
I glance back and catch a brassy blonde wrapping her arms around him while assaulting his neck with her overblown lips. He tilts his head as if he wants it, and his eyes close for a moment, getting lost in the nirvana before he gently peels her off.
“I’m good,” he says sweetly but curtly, and she cuts me a death look as if I’m personally responsible for the rejection.
Kit reappears with my bag, and I’m quick to thank her.
“You can have my spot for the rest of the week.” My voice reverberates in my head like a tuning fork. “I’m taking off.”
I glance down at my barely there accoutrements: my ridiculously high heels that are better classified as stilts, the glorified nipple shields, the G-string I might be moved to fashion into a noose. I’m not exactly sure where it is I’m taking off to. Tess pulled a disappearing act with my street clothes hours ago.
“Hey, you need a ride?” Dr. Dimples offers, and a part of me desperately wants to say yes.
“I’d better not.” I press my lips together because everything in me is ready to jump into a moving vehicle with him and beg him to show me his baseball bat.
It’s obvious I’m in no condition to drive. The only way I’ll get home is either to call Lauren, or Kendall—or hang out at a bus stop dressed like a human anaconda. God knows things will get interesting fast if I choose door number three.
“But thank you,” I say, latching onto his steel-colored eyes as my body begs to surrender to any offer he’s willing to make. “And thanks for catching me.”
A moment sweeps by and the room—the world—stills as his gaze lingers over mine. I’d like to think this would all play out differently if this were some party back at school, but as it stands the only place I’m dressed for success is the Gentleman’s Club. That’s probably all he sees in me, a “Pretty Girl” desperate for dollars.
I take a step back, and my knees buckle.
“Whoa,” he says, picking my arm up and wrapping it over his shoulder. “Let me help you get wherever it is you’re going.”
My insides clench because I know what’s coming. I’ve walked into plenty of my sister’s misgivings. I’ve taken her advice and deep-sixed myself in a landmine of crap a time or two.
I swallow hard.
“I’m headed to the back,” I say, securing my fingers over his, our eyes never losing contact.
I can feel a one-night stand coming on like a cold.
“You do house calls?” I ask as we hobble into the cold night air. “I’m impressed.”
We make our way toward the back of the Pretty Girls Gentlemen’s Club, where Tess and Dell have their love nest conveniently located. It grosses me out just to think of the rampant debauchery that takes place behind those doors, not that it stopped me from asking if I could crash on their couch for a few weeks. Of course, Dell said no.
“Fan-tessy is my sister. This is her place,” I say. Tess keeps a spare key behind the pot with a cactus in it. I lean over to grab it, and stab myself in the process. I don’t care what the hell Dell says, I’m way too toasted to drive.
“Ouch.” I draw my hand back like pulling it out of a fire.
“Looks like I might need to stick around and inspect you for further injuries.” His dark brows pitch, giving him a devil-like quality that I’m finding hard to resist. My heart picks up pace as I steady myself against his thick, treelike arm.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re interested in inflicting a few injuries yourself?”
“I promise not to inflict an ounce of pain—unless, of course, you say please.” Something in him softens, and he presses out a dull smile. “You got a friend you can call to help you out tonight?”
“I thought that’s what you were for?” I say it so low I’m not sure he heard. His eyes hood over, and he’s bedroom-eyeing me—reducing me to moronic substandards I swore I would never call my own. He’s luring me toward the nearest mattress without even trying. I’m one breath away from surrendering my sanity—hell, my body——right here at the corner of easy and hussy. “I don’t know where you get off looking so damn hot.”
Did I just say that out loud? I close my eyes a moment and the world does a cartwheel.
He lets out a low gurgle of a laugh as he comes in close. His heated breath sears over my cheek, and I can’t help but think I’m getting a little too close to the fire.
His lips touch down just shy of my temple, and I close my eyes and moan. Maybe walking on the wild side just one night wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
The scent of his spiced cologne makes me heady as our lips find one another—soft and hot, the slight taste of mint and beer lingers over his tongue.
Dr. Morgan detonates like a firecracker in my mouth, only a lot less painful and far more delicious. I pull him backward into the house and shut the door with my elbow. A series of soft moans escape from my throat as I dip into his Levi’s.
He rides his hot hands over the bare flesh of my back before pulling away and examining me with those “I’m going to make you come hither” bedroom eyes.
“I think I’d better go.” He reaches for the door, and I pluck him back. I place his hand back over my waist, where every drunken fiber of my being believes it belongs. He presses out a sad smile and his dimples ignite just for me. “Once I get going I’m not going to want to stop.”
“Who says you’re allowed to stop? And for damn sure I don’t want you to go anywhere.” I pull him backward, and my ankle explodes in a ball of fire. “Ouch,” I whisper, righting myself. “Besides, I have a bedroom.” I mean bed. “And protection.” I’m thinking condom but a forty-five wouldn’t be a bad idea in the event things go south. I glance around and note I’m not in Russell Hall while a vague memory of the Gentlemen’s Cl
ub wafts through my mind. I’m weak, and dizzy, and far too hormonal for anything good to come of this night.
He plucks a metallic square from his back pocket and waves it in the air.
“I don’t leave home without it.” He gives a crooked grin that has the potential to commit ten different felonies all on its own. And I’m hoping to God he will. “You sure you want to do this?”
My ears pulsate with a heartbeat, and my body gyrates with slight panic. In theory, one-night stands were something my dorm sisters did, often and without regret—hell, I even cheered a few of them on. But as for me, and my girl parts, we’ve deferred to the traditional dating pool for all our penile endeavors.
“Yes, I want to do this,” I hear myself say. It’s like I’m in a cage locked away in the farthest reaches of my mind. All of that champagne ushered any good sense I might have held onto and strapped it to the bedpost, much like I’m hoping he’ll do to the rest of me in less than five minutes. “The bedroom is this way.” I try not to slur as I lead him further into the tiny living room.
“Oh, sweetie.” He gives a dark laugh. “We’re not gonna make it to the bed.”
Morgan pulls me in. His hot, viral tongue lashes over mine, and a series of moans get caught in my throat.
The tugging and pulling of clothes ensues along with the clatter and banging of shoes being missiled across the room. My bra flies off, and I jump out of my panties a little too eagerly when they hit the floor.
My back lands hard against the tiny kitchen table, and the room does a silent spin.
Dr. Feel Good rises above me and takes his shirt off, revealing well-chiseled abs, and another tattoo that covers his shoulder, rounded blades that look like a series of sharpened knives.
He fiddles with the metallic square and the sound of paper tearing and crumbling fills the air but I refuse to look and ruin the magic.
His body lands hard over mine, and a fire erupts as our skin fuses together. His dark hair lands just below my chin as he peppers me with kisses that trail from the hollow in my neck, straight to my lips.