Chasing Down Changes (Moroad Motorcycle Club) (12 page)

She tapped her fingers against the counter. He ignored her.

"Whatever." She walked toward him and stood behind the couch, peering down into his upside-down eyes. "Someday, Jeremy Aldridge, you will wake up and realize that everything you want is right in front of you. I hope you don't fuck it up because I won't stand by why you make a fool of me with Lola."

She bent her knees, kissed his lips upside down, and walked out of the room into her bedroom. He closed his eyes. A few hours of solitude sounded better than ever.

T
he women of Red Light sat around the table in the main kitchen. Tiff clasped her hands in front of her, trying to concentrate and stay professional. The task impossible with Jeremy standing behind her, holding her hips.

Doing business with him always present posed stressful. She wanted to keep him separated from the activities taking place upstairs, afraid he'd see or hear something that would make him change his mind about supporting an illegal business.

She feared he'd force her to stop, because being with her put him in danger of being arrested again if a raid happened. While single, she took the risk because no one depended on her. If she got arrested, no one would care.

Marci stood from the table. "Okay, I got it. Downstairs locked at all times, except for the front door during business hours for Silver Girls."

There were days Tiff had no idea where she'd be without Marci at her back. She cleaned, kept track of the girls, made appointments for everyone in the building, and took care of them all without even knowing how special she was or how much Tiff and the girls appreciated her.

"Thanks." Tiff leaned back against Jeremy. If she concentrated on one obstacle at a time, she could make everything work. "The rest of you ladies need to get ready. Your break is over. Next surge of customers come in ten minutes. Don't forget to grab the rubber-backed rugs out of the closet and make sure the men stay to their time limit. The customers earlier were pushing everyone back three minutes. If you can't finish the job the customer paid for then you make sure the men pay ahead of time for more minutes."

"Gotcha." Hannah popped out of her chair, grabbed her copy of People magazine, and left the room.

Keely blew on her freshly painted fingernails and remained sitting at the table, oblivious to the new information and order to prepare for customers. Tiff cleared her throat. Sometimes she wondered why Keely joined the network, but she made it a rule never to get involved in the women's personal life or invade their privacy.

"Sorry." Keely waved her hands in front of her and backed away from the table. "I'll be ready in time."

Tiff nodded, forgiving the girl again. Gun-shy and full of self-doubt, she performed an innocent act the men loved, except she suspected Keely wasn't faking any part of her reluctance to spread her legs.

The second they were alone, Jeremy asked, "What's wrong with her?"

"You." She turned in his arms and sighed. "Keely opens up and behaves like the others, but as soon as a man walks into the same room or she has to go out on the town, she shuts down."

"What the fuck is she doing selling sex, huh?" He frowned.

She shrugged. "In this business, I never ask or want to know. The girls are only here for three months. Afterward, I put them on a plane to go somewhere else in the United States to work at a different bordello. Then, four new girls come to work for me."

"Why such a short amount of time?"

She spread her hands on Jeremy's chest. "The people who run the network of working girls use the time limit to encourage them not to get attached to their regular customers or their environment. It's their attempt at keeping them under control and in the network longer. Every woman likes to travel and enjoy new adventures."

Jeremy grunted.

She checked her phone. "Hey, I don't make the rules. I have to follow the guidelines or get pushed out on my own. I don't want to take the risk of propositioning women or keeping them long term. My fallback story with the locals means I run a safe house for abused women. They're expected to move on quickly."

Jeremy picked up his coffee cup and drained the rest of the drink. "Moroad women have been doing the same thing those girls are doing for years. It's always been where the club supports the women. They've never had a woman run away, and not one of them ever acted like that chick, Keely. They enjoy sex."

"Hm." He was right. As soon as she was old enough and aware of why the women hung around Moroad, she'd never seen an unhappy face or a runaway. The women stayed, content and happy to please the men.

Her phone beeped. "I need to let in the first round of customers. We can't have them loitering in the back or the alley or..."

"What?"

"Nothing. It's the rules that we follow to keep the business from leaking out to those who wouldn't want a bordello in town." She stepped away from him. "If we keep the men from drifting and run a strict schedule, it keeps the residents of Federal from calling the sheriff to investigate anything unusual around the building. It worked thirty years ago, and seems to work now, too."

Outside the room, she took a deep breath. Someday, she'd have to explain Sheriff Colby's involvement with Red Light. But, today was not the day.

She squinted through the peephole in the door. Thomas Ritter stood on the other side, glancing to his left and then right. She unlocked the door and smiled.

"Welcome, Mr. Ritter." She stepped back and waited for him to walk inside before shutting the door. "We have you down in the blue room, correct?"

Mr. Ritter bobbed his head and cleared his throat. "Yes."

"Excellent." She walked with him halfway down the hallway and stopped. "Would you like to sit in the waiting area and browse the magazines for a couple of minutes?"

Sometimes the men came to Red Light nervous and unable to perform, no matter how badly they wanted to spend time with one of the women, and needed a little visual encouragement.

Sweat broke out across Mr. Ritter's high forehead. "I'm good to go."

"Wonderful." She knocked on the appropriate door.

Hannah answered immediately and lazily leaned against the doorframe. "Good evening, Thomas."

Once the customer was inside the room, Tiff hurried to the main kitchen and set the color-coordinated timer. "I need to get the next three customers going. I'll be right back."

Jeremy leaned back in the chair, arms crossed, and an intense frown marking his brows. "This goes on all night?"

"Only until eight. Anything after that will draw attention when Silver Girls opens at nine." She held up her finger to have him hold any more questions until she returned and hurried to the back door.

The regular customers understood the routine. They never waited together, and they exited the room alone. Many of the men knew each other, and some were related. There were father and sons, uncles and grandpas. Red Light worked hard to avoid any awkward moments and to keep everyone comfortable. Confidentiality kept their customers returning.

The men understood the need for secrecy. They'd heard the stories of what happened before when Federal ran a whole string of bordellos until only one was left. They didn't want to lose a good thing.

The mayor entered, and she quickly escorted him to Keely in the Red Room. After all the rooms had been filled and all timers set, she sat beside Jeremy and leaned into his arm.

"You don't have to hang out here." She raised her chin and kissed his neck. "You're going to get bored."

Jeremy remained quiet, not moving a muscle.

She tilted her head. "There's cable television in the suite you can watch, or you can go to the motel and hang with your MC brothers."

His gaze narrowed.

Her skin tingled. Something was wrong. "I could call—"

The timer dinged. She jumped up, unable to finish what she was going to say and do more for Jeremy. The most important task of the night was to get the men out of the rooms so that the next customer could come in, and business could continue.

"Hang on. The second appointments are ending, and I need to get the next wave of men inside one by one." She escaped out of the room and went to the Blue Room, knocked, and opened the door, relaxing to find Mr. Ritter fully dressed and smiling.

Four men out the door, four more escorted in, and she hurried back to the main kitchen to finish her conversation with Jeremy and found him gone. She leaned against the table. The great relief like a burst of energy. How was she going to keep up with business with him judging her every step?

All day he'd refused to talk about her work and going by his refusal to do something else instead of staying upstairs, something bothered him. He came across bullheaded and unpredictable. Even the ladies working for her walked wide around him, afraid of messing up.

She turned on the last timer and sat down for the eight minutes left on the first man's visit. Her phone laid on the table. Shit.

Jeremy left, and she had no way to call him. He never gave her his phone number or even knew if he carried a cell phone. She needed to go shopping. He deserved a homemade meal. As soon as he came back, she'd ask him what he wanted to have in the fridge.

He'd missed out on the small things while in prison. Maybe she'd surprise him with a few things he'd never experienced like those pasties they sell at Country Mart or a fancy coffee. All she had in the building was regular decaf.

Marci peeked her head in the room. "Do you have a minute?"

"Yeah." She glanced at the timer. "Five, to be exact."

"I don't need that long." Marci glanced down the hall before turning her attention back to Tiff. "Jeremy's outside talking to one of the men due to come up in the next round. I spotted him when I took the trash down to the dumpster. I thought you might want to know."

"What is he doing that for?" she stood.

Marci held up her hand. "It gets worse."

"Tell me quick."

"Sheriff Colby's parked out front," said Marci.

Tiff picked up the egg timer and held it out in front of her. "I know I've asked a lot of you lately, but will you please escort the men out the back door when the timers go off? I'll try and be back inside by the time the next customers are scheduled."

"Sure, no prob—"

"Thanks." She hurried out of the room, jogged down the hallway, and opened the door locking the first story from the second story.

Sheriff Colby never came during the time she ran business upstairs. He always waited until Silver Girls opened and the dancers entertained the men if he needed to talk with her. He'd had the same routine since she could remember back when she cleaned the Sterling Building in her teens. The last thing he needed to do was bring curious gawkers around while she was sneaking customers in the back.

She unlocked the front door, spotted the sheriff's SUV parked at the curb with the passenger window down, and hurried over to the car. "Hey, what's going on?"

Colby's gaze shifted from her to behind her. "Sweetheart, we've got a problem."

The nerves in the back of her neck tingled. She stiffened at the warmth heating her back and closed her eyes briefly. Attuned to having Jeremy around, no one needed to tell her that her man stood behind her and going by the thinned lips and narrowed eyes on Sheriff Colby's face, Jeremy wasn't here to exchange pleasantries with the sheriff.

S
heriff Colby stepped out of his official vehicle in front of the Sterling Building. Jeremy's gaze followed him around the front of the SUV onto the sidewalk while keeping Tiff in his view. He'd known the moment he walked into Silver Girls the night he saw Tiff for the first time that she had someone protecting her.

The night he found her in Sheriff Colby's driveway with a packed bag, he'd put the pieces together. He played it cool, letting the sheriff fuck up first. Tiff would learn who he expected her to turn to when she needed security.

When he caught the hand wave from a customer in the alley toward the sheriff driving by, Jeremy made his move. After having a little talk with the customer, he wanted answers, and he knew Tiff well enough she'd fight him every step to keep him from getting the information.

She claimed to want back in with Moroad, but she still guarded herself and kept him from knowing more about how she ran the bordello.

Bordello? It was a fucking house for prostitution. Giving the place a fancy name and speaking around what the women spent their time doing for money wasn't going to make her business venture legal.

"Aldridge." Sheriff Colby rested his hand on his hip, close to his gun.

Tiff stepped back, bumped into Jeremy, and grabbed his right hand as she stood beside him. His amusement over Tiff trying to keep his gun hand occupied was short lived. If Sheriff Colby came after him, nothing she tried to do would stop Jeremy from taking the sheriff down.

Prison remained his second home. He had no problems going back inside.

"I had a talk with a guy in the alley. I never caught his name, but I believe he's the mayor of Federal." Jeremy looked down at Tiff, taking in her lack of surprise. "Is there an election coming up, Sheriff?"

Sheriff Colby's mouth firmed into a thin line. "No, you missed that last spring."

"Huh." Jeremy studied the man. "I haven't been in town long, but that doesn't mean I haven't kept up on who works under the table and who grabs ass in their spare time. Somehow, someone forgot to inform me that prostitution in Federal was now legal and supported by not only the mayor, but the sheriff."

Tiff dug her nails into his hand. He ignored her. The blood she drew would be on her ass the second they were alone for her part in deceiving him.

"It's still illegal." Sheriff Colby held his gaze, never looking at Tiff.

The idea of the sheriff believing he could protect Tiff only infuriated him. The old fucker would probably take the fall for her too, but why? What had Tiff done to gain such loyalty?

"Then you won't mind telling me why you haven't arrested my woman and shut down Red Light?" Jeremy squeezed Tiff's hand when she jerked her arm to get away from him.