By a Thread: A Grumpy Boss Romantic Comedy Page 19

  “You look great,” she said. She stood and shoved her hands into my hair ruffling it.

  “Should I go heavier on the makeup?” Maybe level it up to Clown or Mime so I could at least have part of my body disguised.

  “No. Wholesome is good on amateur night. You look like someone I’d take home to Mom if I were a man… or a lesbian.”

  “Tequila,” I said weakly.

  “Tequila, girl.”

  We both shuddered.

  “Have a seat,” she said, pointing to the makeup chair. “I’ll get you some water. You’re gonna sweat up there, so stay hydrated.”

  I was already breaking out in a cold sweat.

  There was a closed-circuit TV in the dressing room that showed the tables around the stage and bar. It had gotten more crowded since I’d arrived. I tried not to calculate how many eyes would be seeing my boobs tonight.

  The backstage area was cleaner and cheerier than I thought it would be. I’d unfairly pictured strung-out naked women slumped in metal chairs, chain-smoking cigarettes and dusting each other with body glitter.

  There was definitely glitter, but the only dancer I’d seen had arrived in her minivan from her Pilates class with a fresh fruit smoothie. She wasn’t even here to dance. She was MC-ing amateur night. The rest of the amateurs were corralled into a secondary locker room location so I could have my breakdown in peace.

  There was a long, low sofa along one wall buried under a mound of furry pink pillows. Five vanities decorated with pictures and personal trinkets like high school lockers took up the opposite wall. There was an open wardrobe area, much smaller than Label’s Closet but just as neatly organized and containing just as many sequins. Soft, pink-toned lighting gave everyone a fresh, dewy-looking complexion and oil diffusers filled the room with the delicate scents of peppermint and eucalyptus.

  Faith returned with a glass of cucumber lemon water, and I guzzled half of it.

  “I don’t feel so good,” I confessed.

  She leaned down, putting her hands on the arms of the chair. “Listen here, Ally. Lots of people dance for money. Prima ballerinas, Jane Fonda, Laker Girls, back-up dancers, Rockettes. All women who make money by moving their bodies. There’s nothing remotely shameful about it,” Faith insisted. “You aren’t doing anything wrong. And anyone who tells you that you are is—”

  “Part of the patriarchy,” I finished for her. We’d had this discussion a few times before.

  But never while I was already half-naked and planning to get more naked.

  “That’s my girl.” She squared me off to face the mirror. “Do you love to dance?”

  I nodded.

  “Lemme hear you, babe. Do you love to dance?” she asked again.

  “I love to dance,” I said. I did. I really did. The only real difference, besides the hungry audience with fistfuls of cash and dirty fantasies, was that I’d be doing this dance with no bra on.

  “You love the music, the lights, the dancing. And that’s all you have to think about. You’re going out there and you are celebrating your body. You’re doing this for you. Not them. They’re allowed to watch, but this is all about you.”

  “All about me,” I said, more firmly this time. I wondered if Faith had ever considered a career in life coaching.

  “Good girl. Now who has the power?” she asked.

  “I do,” I whispered.

  “I can’t hear you.”

  “I do,” I said again.

  “That’s right. You do. So, you’re going to go out there and shake that talented ass of yours. And then you know what you’re going to do?”

  “Burn these clothes and get drunk?”

  “No. Well, maybe. But first, you’re going to collect the money you earned, and then you’re going to come have a drink with me at the bar and explain to me just how bad things really are.”

  I winced.

  I knew I could ask her for the money. And I knew she’d give it to me. No questions asked. No expectation of repayment. But I’d promised Dad. It was the only way I hadn’t let him down yet.

  I’d sworn that we would handle this the way we’d handled everything else: together. A two-man team against a disease that we both knew would eventually win.

  My father was a proud man, and he’d instilled that particular value in me. If I accepted money from someone to help pay for his care, he wouldn’t just be disappointed. He’d be devastated. I promised him he’d never be a burden, and I promised myself that he would never have the opportunity to feel like a burden.

  Which was why I’d been lying to him on his good days, telling him his insurance was covering everything.

  I made a promise.

  And I’d do whatever it took to fix this on my own. Even if it involved pasties. My Morales pride would keep me warm on that stage.

  “So, what should my dancer name be?” I asked, changing the subject before Faith could demand a full accounting of my monthly bills.

  “Hmm,” she mused, popping a blue raspberry lollipop in her mouth and studying me.

  She grinned. “Candie Couture.”

  “Oh, God,” I groaned. “Can I at least spell it with a ‘Y?’”

  “Nope. It’s ‘IE.’” Faith smirked. “Now close your mouth.”

  “Wh—” My choking and gasping after eating the first spray of body glitter she aimed at me interrupted the question.

  32

  Dominic

  I was going to fucking kill her. Drag her off the stage and into the alley and murder Little Miss Candie Fucking Couture with a Dirty Secret. But first, I was going to kill every son of a bitch in this room who dared to look at her. Starting with that greasy, gold-toothed dipshit in the corner who was grabbing his junk through his track pants. He’d be first.

  When I overheard… okay, fine. When I eavesdropped on her call on the roof, I thought I was hallucinating. My wholesome, untouchable admin wasn’t really planning to take off her fucking clothes in front of a crowd of perverted strangers for money.

  Yet here I was, sitting in a black vinyl booth with a table tent advertising two for one splits of champagne to share with your “favorite dancer.” And there she was. On the stage in shorts so short I didn’t think they qualified as clothing in front of at least a hundred and fifty assholes—myself included. She was squinting into the lights as a bunch of soon-to-be dead men—and women—whistled and catcalled.

  If I were feeling more charitable, I’d say I couldn’t blame them. She looked unbelievably tempting.

  But she also looked terrified.

  I’d had enough. I started to slide out of the booth with the intent of getting her off that stage. She didn’t belong there, and it was beyond fucking time that she came clean about everything.

  But the music was starting, and the crowd was leaning closer. When she wrapped a hand around that brass pole, I forgot what I was doing and dropped back down into the booth.

  The song was slow, dirty, tortured. I liked it. It reminded me of me.

  She hooked a leg around the pole and spun, dropping lower and lower circling toward the stage. Her hair whipped out behind her, and when she stood again, it covered one smoky eye. My fingers itched to push it back, to hook it behind her ear, and drag her in for a kiss.

  I wanted to scan the audience—and I used that term loosely—for any threats, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the stubborn, desperate, delicious woman on the stage. I hoped to God security was up to the challenge tonight. Because if anyone laid a hand on her, one single finger on her, I was going to lose my shit.

  She moved her body as if a lover was touching it, her own hands slipping over those tempting breasts, coasting over her smooth stomach, thumbs hooking into the waistband of her shorts.

  I held my breath along with the rest of the assholes in the crowd. And then she was peeling the shorts down her legs and kicking them off, revealing a plain black thong.

  I’d buy her a thousand thongs if she were mine. I’d drown her in lingerie and dresses and
diamonds and fucking yoga pants. Anything she wanted, I would give her.

  Her hips gyrated in a movement so unholy my cock flexed in my pants. I realized I’d been hard for her since the second she walked out onto stage. I hated the hold she had on me.

  The only thing that had kept her safe from me was the fact that my mother signed her paychecks.

  That and the fact that she was clean, fresh, sweet. Not only was that not my type, the last shred of human decency in me didn’t want to taint that, destroy that. I wasn’t a complete monster. But the woman sliding down that goddamn pole, the goddess slithering across the stage like pure temptation was not squeaky clean. She was deliciously dirty.

  And I wanted to sink my teeth into her.

  I wanted to get my hands on her and not let go.

  My chest was tight. I couldn’t breathe. Not while I watched her dance. Her eyes were closed like it didn’t matter that there was an entire room full of men hard for her. Like she didn’t care. Like she was untouchable.

  It was raining money on stage. But I didn’t want her to touch it. I wanted her to take from me and me alone.

  She reached for the knot in her shirt. I felt the tension in the crowd rise as my dick turned to concrete.

  “Don’t fucking do it, Ally.”

  I wanted to see her breasts more than I wanted anything in this entire world. But not as one in a crowd. I wanted to be the only one. Panic clawed its way up my throat as her fingers toyed with the knot.

  Every man in the room was holding his breath waiting for it. I held my breath and prayed for her to stop. The song was winding down. It was now or never. I picked up my drink, gripping the beer bottle like a weapon.

  “Not like this,” I whispered. “Please.”

  As if she’d heard me, as if the angel of strip clubs had passed my message along, Ally’s fingers danced away from the knot. There was a collective groan from the crowd that seemed to crack the little bubble she’d built around her. As though remembering there was a job to do, she grabbed the material over one breast and yanked it to the side.

  “Fuck.”

  The blue pasty glittered under the stage lights, and the crowd went wild.

  Cash littered the stage as she took another spin around the pole, arching her back and sliding lower and lower, one breast peeking out of her shirt.

  She was going to pay for this. Tonight.

  I flagged down a server with a hundred dollar bill.

  “Need something, handsome?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said without taking my eyes off the girl on stage. “Her.”

  33

  Ally

  The applause was ringing in my ears when I gingerly stepped off stage. I’d had to fight the urge to pick up the cash I’d basically rolled around in. But in Faith’s club, dancers didn’t touch the money. Walking away from the money was more badass and powerful than crawling around on stage, trying to pick it up.

  Shirtless guys with push brooms came on stage between each act and swept up each dancer’s earnings.

  My knees were shaking when I stumbled into the empty dressing room. Faith was off probably encouraging the audience to spend more money. I dropped into one of the spinning salon chairs and waited for my broom money. Even if it was all ones, there had to be at least $200 there. Add that to the $150 I made at Rooster’s earlier, and I was getting closer to my goal.

  “Please. Please. Please,” I chanted.

  There was a knock, and then the door opened. “Hey, New Girl, you got a private dance in the VIP room,” Vance said, spreading his hands and then rubbing those big palms together. “Guy took a likin’ to ya.”

  I shook my head vehemently. My stomach clenched. Even desperate, I wasn’t that kind of girl.

  “Not interested,” I said, looking around for my clothes. I was going to take my money, drink as much free alcohol as I could get, and go home to set this outfit on fire.

  “You didn’t even hear the best part. Guy’s offering five grand,” he said.

  I stopped in my tracks and slowly turned. Five thousand dollars?

  “Club splits it fifty-fifty,” he said. “Not so bad, right? No touching. There’s a security button in the room and a bouncer right outside the door. He pre-paid.”

  Twenty-five hundred dollars cash. On top of whatever I won tonight? That would cover the rest of the month. That would earn me two, maybe even three days off. I could buy the rest of the goddamn drywall and have those shots.

  All I had to do was sell my soul to the perverted devil waiting in the VIP room.

  I wanted to cry.

  “It’s only three minutes and twelve seconds,” Vance said. “He picked the song.”

  “Twenty-five hundred?” I repeated.

  He nodded. “Cash. Tonight. On top of those tips, and you’re definitely placing in the Top 3. Some poor geology major cutie pie just fell offa the stage out there. So I’d say Top 2.”

  My sigh was so heavy it moved the wispy strands of hair on his forehead.

  Five grand. Five grand. Five grand. It wasn’t even a choice at this point.

  “Yeah. Okay,” I said, swallowing hard. “But if I see a dick, I’m breaking his face.”

  He crooked his fingers for me to follow him. “You see a dick, sweetheart, you hit that security button and let Chauncey break his face for you.”

  I nodded rather than answering because I was two seconds away from barfing.

  “Oh, hey,” Vance said, stopping outside a red leather paneled door. “You want any special lights on in there? I can do disco ball, strobe. We got this pretty pink filter that makes everyone look ten years younger.”

  “Dark,” I said grimly. “Make it as dark as possible.”

  “You got it, sweetie. And remember, he gets inappropriate, you push that button or just yell. The walls are thin.”

  Three minutes twelve seconds. Three minutes twelve seconds.

  Vance fiddled with the lights and gave me a cheery thumbs-up.

  I took a deep breath and stepped into the room.

  Into hell.

  Into Dominic Russo’s personal ring of hell.

  Humiliation burned my cheeks. Rage replaced the nausea.

  He’d gone too far. Too damn far. My desperation wasn’t a joke. This wasn’t just playful teasing. Coming here to witness my damnation was cruel.

  “What. The. Fuck, Dominic?”

  “I paid for the dance.” His voice was gruff and low.

  I stalked toward him, ready to rearrange his face. I was going to take my half of his five grand and shove it down his throat until he choked on it.

  And then I saw it. His face was hard, as always. That beautiful jaw in its perma-clench under the unfairly sexy five o’clock shadow. But it was his eyes that stopped me. They weren’t cold. They weren’t mocking. They were fiery. Fierce. Hungry.

  Had he finally snapped? Had I won?

  I stopped a foot from him.

  His intake of breath was audible.

  I forgot about the money. The shame dissolved. I was here for one reason. To make Dominic Russo regret this night more than I did.

  “No touching,” I snapped.

  “Do what I paid you to do,” he demanded, his voice had a gravelly abrasion to it that gave me as much pleasure as dread. Even in the dim light, I could see he was hard. It was worse now that I knew what his cock looked like.

  The music started, and I frowned when I recognized the song. It was a number from the dance studio. I wanted to ask him how he knew. But he flashed me that hard, smug look, and I made it my mission to wipe that expression off his perfect face.

  I placed my palms on his thighs and thrilled when he stiffened at my touch.

  “You said no touching,” he rasped.

  “You can’t touch me.” I sank between his knees, spreading my own wide. I used his legs for balance, for contact, to inflict misery. His jaw was so tense I hoped he’d need a dental appointment next week. I skimmed my hands higher, bouncing, twisting, gyrating. Grinding
.

  If he wanted a dance, I’d give him one he’d remember for the rest of his life. We both could remember the night I sold my soul with shame.

  The music built.

  I rose, snapping my hips back and bending forward into his space. My hair hung in a short curtain over one eye. I could feel his breath on my face. His gaze burned onto my breasts, just inches from that mouth. His lips parted just enough to draw in a thin stream of air.

  I felt the beat pulsing in me. This was my fuck you to the cards I’d been dealt. I would survive. I would make ends meet. And eventually, I would go back to not giving a damn about money.

  But first, I would make Dominic suffer like he made me suffer.

  With a hand to his chest, I pushed him back against the tufted vinyl banquette, stepping over his legs to straddle him. I wasn’t even settled on his lap yet, but his erection was doing its best to tear its way through his trousers. I could feel it flex through my embarrassingly thin underwear. The man was ruining more pairs of my underwear than I cared to think about.

  His fingers flexed in the air, wanting to touch me. Needing to. But still that obnoxious self-control reigned supreme.

  Undulating just above the ridge of his hard-on, I looked at him through my lowered lashes. He was wearing another goddamn vest. The sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to the elbows to reveal the tattoos on both forearms. So proper and polished on the outside, but underneath, ink and a hungry monster of a dick.

  What did his denial get him? Or me?

  Talk about life being unfair.

  “Do you want me to stop?” I whispered in his ear.

  “No.”

  I rose high on my knees, brushing the curve of my breast over the scruff on his jaw. Instinctively, he turned toward me, his mouth open.

  “Uh-uh-uh. No touching.” His hands clamped around the edge of the bench, and I was surprised it didn’t rip in two.

  I decided to make it much, much worse. I brought my fingers to the knot in my shirt and felt his breath catch. I loosened it, and he swallowed. Tugging it free, I held the material to my breasts, pushing them together before whipping the shirt open.