Stripped Down (3 page)

I bit the tip of my tongue. Frustration warmly coiled in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to snap at him—wanted to ask him who the hell he thought he was to tell me what to do when I lived maybe fifteen minutes away.

“If you were anyone but my boss,” I ground out, fighting against my own attitude, “I’d tell you go fuck yourself. But, since you are, I’m going to again say thank you for offering but I’m getting a cab.” I pushed the stool back behind me, took a few steps back, then turned.

He was fast.

His arm, still sticking out, wound around my midsection and pushed me back against the bar. He slammed his hands down on top of it, boxing me in with his large body. He didn’t touch me at all then, not even the barest brush of his shirt against my skin.

My heart was skipping again.

I didn’t like it.

“Your safety is nonnegotiable, Cassie.” His gaze bored into mine. “I don’t feel comfortable about letting you leave right now. There’s a reason our security only uses a certain taxi company. It’s because the safety of all of you is paramount. Especially when you’ve been drinking.”

It was hard to argue with an argument like that.

“You don’t like the word no, do you?” I breathed out, glaring at him as my hair worked itself free from behind my ear.

He smirked. “No. I’m an overgrown brat.”

“Evidently. My six-year-old is better behaved than you are.”

“Watch it, pretty lady,” he said in a low tone. He pushed my hair back behind my ear then trailed the backs of his fingers down the curve of my jaw. “I’m not joking when I say I don’t take no for an answer. There’s only one situation in which I listen to it, and since you’re currently fully clothed, that doesn’t apply to you.” He leaned in, cupping my chin, and his breath warmed my cheek as his mouth came close to my ear. “So sit your sexy ass on that stool, take whatever drink I offer you, and start talkin’.”

He released me and grabbed the stool I’d pushed away. He spun it back around and deposited me on it before walking back around the bar.

I glared at him the whole time. Boss or not—the man was a pig. An insufferable, spoiled, demanding pig.

I didn’t know why I was surprised.

I knew that Beckett Cruz wasn’t accustomed to accepting the word no, mostly because he didn’t hear it often. The whispers said that he was all too used to hearing yes though... Usually several times.

Rumor had it his nickname was God.

You didn’t work in a place like The Landing Strip without hearing those things.

I’d bet I was the first woman who’d said no in some way to him for months.

“All right. I’m no Elena or Becky,” he said, referring to the The Landing Strip barmaids who were cocktail masters, thanks to West’s girlfriend’s intervention. “But I make a mean Long Island Iced Tea thanks to several lessons from Mia, and even Elena wishes she could best my cranberry vodkas.”

Mia. That was West’s girlfriend.

“A ten-year-old could mix a cranberry vodka.”

“But do they have little umbrellas for them?” He raised an eyebrow and produced a half-pint glass full of folded umbrellas. “No. I didn’t think so. Pick a color.”

I stared at the glass when he tilted it toward me. He was insane. Don’t get me wrong. I’d always known that Beckett Cruz was a live wire, but this was something else.

My boss was offering to make me a cranberry vodka... With a little umbrella.

This was right up there with the craziest things that’d ever happened to me.

“This is the weirdest thing,” I muttered, pulling a red one out of the glass.

“Color-coordination. I like that.” He plucked it from my fingers and put the glass back wherever he had gotten it from.

I watched in silence as he grabbed a different glass and fixed me my drink. Slowly, he slid it across the bar and then popped open the umbrella, dropping it in with a flourish.

“Now. Talk to me.”

“About what?”

“About what’s got you all worked up.”

“Are you trying to ply me with alcohol to make me talk?” I pulled the glass toward me and pinched the straw.

He grinned. Another one of those vagina-cobweb-dusting grins.

My vagina felt pretty damn clean of those things, I tell you.

I sighed. He wasn’t going to give this up, so just being honest was my best bet.

“My dad was diagnosed with liver cancer two years ago. He went through treatment and went into remission, but last month, we found out it’s back, but it’s also spread to his kidneys and pancreas. His doctor told him yesterday that the cancer is stage three and likely to spread further. Any treatment will prolong his life but not make it better, and chemo is out of the running since he’s so weak right now thanks to recurring infections.” I swallowed and stirred my drink with the straw, barely glancing at the glass before meeting his eyes. “He’s probably got six months to live. At best.”

The recognition dawned in his eyes—why I, a twenty-three-year-old single mom, had no help. Why I had to do this job to get by. My parents’ finances had been drained by medical expenses my dad’s insurance wouldn’t cover, and the support they’d once given me was no longer an option.

I didn’t blame them. They’d helped me more than they knew. More than they should have. I couldn’t help them much back, but I did what I could.

My being a stripper wasn’t something any of us liked, but all that mattered was that CiCi thought Mommy made people pretty drinks with umbrellas. I hoped one day I wouldn’t have to lie about that anymore.

“I’m sorry, Cassie,” Beckett said quietly. He reached across the bar and covered my hand with his. “You should have called. I would have rearranged the roster so you could have had tonight off.”

“I can’t afford to,” I replied, pulling my hand back from his and resting it on my lap. “No offense, but I don’t do this job because I like it. I do it because nothing else works with being a mom and because I need the money to help my parents.”

“Do you need more shifts?”

The lump in my throat was thick and heavy, restricting my ability to even breathe. “I’m not here to beg you for more nights,” I whispered.

Glasses clinked as he picked the tequila bottle up and poured two shots. He gave me one and nodded.

We threw them back together.

His empty glass clinked agains the bar as he put it down. “You don’t have to beg me, babe. I’m offering them. Tell me what you need.”

I barely nodded. Thankfully, the tequila had burned away a little of the lump, but not enough.

“Cat still gotcha tongue?” Beckett poured another one and shoved the glass back to me.

I shook my head.

“Yes.” He nudged it again. “We’re not leaving here until you tell me what you need, Cassie.”

I stared at the clear liquid in the tiny glass. My sense of pride was incredibly misplaced, especially since I was already getting virtually naked three to five times a week. I didn’t even know how I had any pride left, if I was honest. My dignity had fucked off a long time ago.

I took the shot. My dignity left the moment I took my shirt off in front of men for money—drinking my pride away seemed awfully mediocre after that.

“Yes,” I said, after a third successive shot. “I need more shifts. I don’t want my parents to struggle.”

“Done,” he said without batting an eyelid. “I’ll look at it tomorrow and let you know when you come in to work.”

“Just like that?”

He hit me with that dark gaze. “Just like that, baby.” He slid me yet another shot.

My head was feeling fuzzy. “I shouldn’t.”

“But you will.” He grinned that grin again, laughter dancing in his eyes. “And I’m definitely going to subsidize your tip losses in your wages. Unless you really want it in cash.” He waggled his eyebrows, and somehow, he made the move look sexy.

It was his lips—the slow, easy way they moved into a half smile that was pure sex and temptation.

“Sorry.” I swallowed the shot. “I can’t work when I’ve been drinking.” I swapped the shot glass for the cranberry vodka, pursed my lips around the straw, and sipped.

He was right.

He made a good cranberry vodka. Just the right amount of both.

I don’t even like vodka.

Beckett leaned forward on the bar and pinched the straw so no more drink came up through it. “Who says it has to be work?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Are you hitting on me?”

“Of course not,” he said slowly, prizing the glass out of my grip. He cupped my chin with his finger and his thumb. “I’m not allowed to hit on the staff.”

His face was close to mine. Very close to mine.

My eyes dropped to his mouth.

Tequila wanted him to kiss me. Tequila wanted me to kiss him too.

My skin burned where he was touching me—so fiercely that, if he moved his hand, the sensation would erupt across my body. It was the alcohol. It was
definitely
the alcohol, of which I’d apparently had too much, so maybe that was why my lips curved and I said, “Then it’s not work. It’s practice.”

Shock registered in his gaze for a second before he made two more shots, clinked his glass against mine, downed it, and walked across the room to the sofa.

He sat back on it, resting his arms across the top of the cushions and holding his legs slightly open, almost like an invitation.

Beckett Cruz looked like a walking sin.

People had gone to Hell for less than giving in to the temptation of this man.

Maybe that was why I took the shot without shuddering and swung around on the stool to look at him. Then got up. Then walked to him.

Damn it. Tequila had taken control.

She was a goddamn hussy.

It was the first time I’d been even close to irresponsible in seven years. I couldn’t even pretend I hated myself for what I was doing. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t want to be irresponsible.

I did. I wanted to be a normal twenty-three-year-old.

Just once.

Beckett sat up and grabbed my hands before I could do anything. He yanked me forward, and the only way to steady myself was to straddle him, my legs on either side of his body on the sofa. He pulled me so close that the apex of my thighs nestled against his crotch and my hands grasped the back of the sofa cushions to keep me in position.

I inhaled sharply as he slid his hands up the outsides of my thighs and cupped my ass, pulling my hips right against his body. My pussy ached when it pushed against the one thing I wasn’t expecting—his erection. I dropped my gaze to his and parted my lips at the hot, if alcohol-influenced, desire that glared back at me.

“I don’t think a dance will work,” he said in a dangerously low voice that elicited goose bumps across my arms. “You’re wearing far too many clothes.”

“Apparently so,” I breathed, my hands falling from the cushions to his body.

One landed on his shoulder and the other slipped into his thick, dark hair, and he wrapped one arm around my body, effectively anchoring me to him. Desire flared through my body as he cupped the back of my neck and pulled my head down to his.

“Cassie,” he said in a rough voice. “This is the one time I accept the word no.”

Maybe it was that, or maybe it was the husky tone of his voice, or maybe it was the way our mouths were so close that I could taste the tequila on his breath. I didn’t know, but whatever it was, it made me close the distance between our mouths and kiss him.

He hesitated for all of a second before he swiftly took control. He held me in place against his body and fisted the hair at the top of my neck as he swept his tongue across the seam of my mouth. There was nothing gentle or soft about the way his mouth attacked mine.

It was primal and feral, each brush of his lips or touch of his tongue igniting a long-forgotten desire inside me. My blood heated as it thumped around my body courtesy of my rapidly beating heart, and I clenched my pussy as his cock got even harder against me.

Beckett Cruz could kiss. And not just kiss. He could
kiss
.

There wasn’t a part of me that didn’t feel the effects of his hypnotizing ability. From the coiling at the bottom of my stomach to the gasping for breath every time he was gracious enough to pull his lips from mine to kiss my neck, I was drowning in the drunken sensation of his hot mouth against me.

“This is wrong,” I breathed, his mouth on the curve of my breast, his hands beneath my shirt, my hips moving against him.

“Then you need another drink,” he breathed right back. He scooted to the end of the sofa then stood, lifting me with him in an impressive show of strength. He deposited me on the bar and reached around me for the tequila and shot glasses.

Shot.

Kiss.

Gasp.

Shot.

Whimper.

Kiss.

Kiss.

Shot.

Kiss.

Every movement became a blur. Every laugh echoed as if it had been from someone else’s body. Every kiss was hot, stoking a fire deep inside. Every touch burned hotter than the kiss. Everything made me feel more alive than I’d felt in years.

I felt like a woman.

We left the club.

More blurs.

More movement.

More laughing and kissing and giggling.

All quick.

All a blur.

All crazy.

We left the tiny building at the opposite end of the Strip to The Landing Strip and bundled ourselves into a black car, and he told the driver to go home. No sooner had he shut the divide than he was pulling me on top of him again and exploring my neck with his hot mouth. We’d both drunk too much. We’d both been irresponsible, but now, it felt as though the alcohol had taken a back seat to a primitive desire.

His hands explored my body as we drove, and as he gripped my ass tightly, we came to a stop.

“Out,” he rasped, quickly shoving the door open.

I barely had time to clamber off him before he got out and pulled me out after him. He slammed the car door despite the fact that it was late.

His house was huge, but I didn’t have time to look as he opened the front door and dragged me through it. I laughed at his grin, but he soon swallowed it with a kiss that took away every aspect of playfulness.

How we made it upstairs, I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. Not even as he pushed me back on the bed and leaned his powerful body over me.