James: A College Girl Romance (4 page)

I looked over my calendar and decided to clear any travel.

Cassia Flynn was my project for the next week. My dick needed a good challenge. Besides, I was getting tired of wannabe porn stars and big, fake tits. Fuck it—no I wasn’t. But variety was the spice of life, wasn’t it?

In the morning, I got up and jogged over to the student rec facility, which sold overpriced memberships to “members of the community” to subsidize student use. Bennett liked to think of me as a lazy bastard with no purpose, motivation, or drive. Again—he was a self-righteous prick who saw himself as superior because he had taken off a few years to get his doctorate in mathematics. Mathematics. Yet another example of him taking life far too seriously.

For some reason he still believed that our being roommates freshman year of undergrad had provided him with some special access into my deranged mind. Bennett was a good guy, but no one knew me that well. In fact, it was to my distinct advantage if everyone—including my
nearest and dearest
, if there were any to speak of—believed me to be the ne’er-do-well dilettante with no conviction or purpose.

People saw what they wanted to see. With me, they saw a drunken, selfish man-child. Judgment and critical thinking skills tended to be dulled by envy, and the image I projected was easy to accept for most people.

Keeping my dealings with people at a skin-deep level could be seen as a symptom of sociopathy. Or survival. Or maybe I just didn’t give a shit about all the assholes I’d had to deal with all my life. From an early age, I had realized it was far more fun to fuck with my father than it was to be the cardboard cutout he had wanted for a son. My father, James McDevitt III, was all about appearances, because there was no substance beneath his façade—or at least no substance that was suitable for public consumption.

I owed my father in one respect. His void of humanity had shaped who I was. I was a reflection of him. But the past was the fucking past. No changing it, if I wanted to or not.

I owed Bennett, too, for sucker punching me at his place a few years back. It had been a useful lesson. A reminder. Being a dick required being prepared for people to take shots at you. Sure, Bennett getting riled up over his little freshman had been entertaining. Getting socked in the jaw? Not so much.

After an hour hitting the bags, then the free weights, I headed back to the house and showered. The only real problem with taking up residence in a college town in the middle of fucking nowhere was the food. I refused to eat shit food, which required the ability to cook.

I was on the phone, returning texts or calls, for most of the day, but in the back of my mind was that little redheaded cocktail waitress. Fortunately, I was almost certain she would be working tonight. It was mathematics. If her parents had cut her off, she would be working as many hours as she could. I had become accustomed to particular types of women. The ones like Bennett’s ex—entitled cunts who used sex as a means of social climbing. That and strippers who saw the benefits of fucking someone who had cash and no desire for drama.

After having Irving expedite the delivery of a few items to the house, I drove out and had dinner at a decent steakhouse on the interstate before arriving at the club earlier than I normally would. I sat at the same table. In contrast to the night before, the club was busier and its male clientele drunker and louder. The same server from the previous night, dressed again as an angel, arrived at my booth.

“Good evening, Jenna.” Her eyes widened when she realized I had remembered her name. “Tell Jerry I’ll have the same as last night. Is Cass working tonight?”

Her features fell flat. With a sigh, I took out a crisp bill, held it between my fingers, and smiled.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got you.”

She reached out and snatched the bill.

“She comes in at ten.”

“Would you have her bring my next drink?”

“Whatever.”

At five to ten, I saw a small figure in a hoodie walk by the bouncer at the front door and disappear behind the door marked
Staff Only
. A few minutes later, with her red hair in two long braids, Cassia Flynn came teetering out into the club in her short plaid skirt, fishnets, Mary Janes, and white button-up shirt with several buttons missing from the top.

The main act had just started. It was the same girl from the night before. Orange tan, huge tits, boyfriend with the asshole truck. Jenna returned with my whisky, and I sat back, trying to tune out the music. Stripper rock got old fast. There was only so much Mötley Crüe, Nickelback, Def Leppard, and Warrant a grown man without a mullet and a pick-up truck could take.

But I hadn’t come here for the music.

Like the night before, I watched the redhead teeter around the club. She had definitely never been a server before, and I could tell she hated it. Most of the women I picked up didn’t mind it. To them, the money was good, and that was the only consideration. If your options were between this and being a fast-food wage slave, I could see this being the better option.

I sipped my whisky as Cass stopped at a table with a group of college-age boys. To think, I used to be one of those dicks—drooling at the stage, thinking I had a shot at the stripper just because I was being the loudest jackass in the club and holding up the largest denomination of bills. The girl took their orders, and I watched her entire frame relax as she escaped their table.

At the next table, the guy wasn’t watching the stage. This paunchy middle-aged asswipe had his eyes glued to Cass like she was a ribeye. I knew his type, too. The fucking loser jackass whose wife and kids were at home sleeping while he headed out to a strip club looking for what he thought was going to be the easiest mark—the wait staff.

Something he’d said hadn’t gone over well with her. For half a second, her jade-green eyes froze over before she made a single-word reply and headed back to the bar. I watched her place the orders with Jerry. She looked down. Then her head popped up and her eyes scanned the club.

As soon as she saw me, I tipped my glass and finished the remainder of my drink before looking toward the stage where fake-blonde, fake-tan, fake-tits was gyrating on the pole. The club only allowed “partial” nudity, which meant tits and G-strings. I would be the first to admit that booze and fully naked dancers not separated from the rabble by three inches of glass was a poor idea. Drunken assholes and naked strippers—not a good combination for any place that wanted to avoid a fucking melee.

More rules of mine since the good ol’ college days: never get out of control and never challenge the bouncers. I had done both in my younger and dumber days. In fact, my good pal Ryan Bennett still fully expected me to do both any time he saw me. Granted, I would wipe the floor with most of the bouncers in this place, but I had nothing to prove. I was more than happy to leave the chest thumping to the chumps with little dicks.

I watched as Cass arranged cheap drinks on a tray and headed in the direction of the college kids. It fucking amazed me when she made it to their table without spilling the drinks. She laid out their order and didn’t wait for a tip. Smart girl. If anything, they might leave a couple of crumpled bills, but most likely not.

Her next stop was the middle-aged sleaze. She stiffened as she walked in the direction of his table. When she got there and set down the drink, he crooked a finger at her, trying to induce her into to bending over. She smirked, shook her head, and turned in the direction of the bar. A minute later, she was standing in front of my table holding the cocktail napkin with her name on it in one hand and my whisky in the other.

“What the fuck is your problem?” she demanded.

She set the drink in front of me, careful not to spill something that would cost all her tips—if she were getting any gratuities at all from the evening’s clown car of dickheads. I lifted a hand to my ear.

“Sorry?”

“You heard me. I said, what the
fuck
is your problem? Are you used to dropping a wad of cash and having girls fall to their knees to suck your dick?”

I smiled. Excellent. This girl had a fire in her.

“On a good night, yes. I am quite accustomed to women falling to their knees to suck my dick, but don’t get me wrong. I do believe in reciprocity.”

She blinked, her cheeks flushing hot pink.

“Well, if with that wad of cash, you thought you were paying me for future
services
—”

I laughed.

“Lovely, don’t get so excited. That was just your tip, but if you feel so inclined—”

I looked down at my lap, and when I looked up, her eyes had followed my gaze. A second later, her head snapped up, and she glared at me.

“I don’t!”

“
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

I smiled as she turned and began stalking toward the bar. This tightly wound little cocktail waitress was turning out to be more fun than I had had in quite some time. I finished my drink. When my phone buzzed, I saw a text from Madison Montgomery, NYC socialite. At one point, she had been married to some entertainment investor too busy to keep her satisfied.

She had taken half in the divorce and now spent most of her time doing Pilates or shopping on Fifth Avenue. I saw her on occasion when I was on the other coast. She was one of a handful I had fucked more than once, but only because her idea of commitment was as nonexistent as my own. There was nothing wrong with Madison from the perspective of a quick fuck, but it did require dealing with a noxious sense of entitlement that permeated her entire being. In other words: she was impossible to be around for any longer than a quick fuck.

Maybe I
was
truly getting old, but I was beginning to feel a yawning, cavernous emptiness around Madison and those like her. No question—I was a rich asshole. But at least I didn’t attend charity galas just to be seen, only to spit on anyone who might actually need charity themselves.

I watched Cassia Flynn for the rest of her shift. Such as strange girl. The only times she let her guard down coincided with her brief interactions with the bartender and the enormous bouncer. She managed to spill an order—cheap well drinks that would probably come out of her tips—even though she looked like she was walking on eggshells with every step she took. When she bent down to clean up the fallen drinks, her short plaid skirt rose up enough to expose the slightest hint of her creamy, round ass.

It was like a lightning bolt straight to my dick. The splash of cold water came when I saw the middle-aged deviant watching her with the same avid interest, both his hands under the table. I watched her serve a few more rounds. Then she ducked behind the bar and said something to the bartender before disappearing into the employee area.

She didn’t return, and when the creep a few tables up from me stood and started walking for the exit, I followed. Before I had made it more than a few steps, the main-stage bottle-blonde with the orange tan stepped in front of me.

“You lookin’ for me?” she purred, clutching onto my arm with bubble-gum colored talons. On another night, I probably would have been. But not tonight. “Buy me a drink? I get off at two.”

Up close, her penciled eyebrows were distracting at best, nauseating at worst.

“Maybe another time,” I smiled as I disengaged her arm from mine.

I walked faster as I approached the exit. Stepping outside, I pulled up the hood on my sweatshirt. Last night I had been in a suit after a long week of travel. Tonight, I looked like a college jackass in a hoodie and jeans.

Scanning the parking lot, I cracked my knuckles. If I was wrong, then Cass Flynn was sitting in the employee locker room on her break, but if I was right … then shit was about to go sideways fast.

I made a left and walked quickly to my car, where I took the Luger from the glove box. By the time I had turned the corner to the back of the club, the prick had one hand around her throat and the other over her mouth as he dragged the girl, her legs kicking uselessly behind her, toward a shitty Pontiac.

I didn’t bother wasting time—or risking her life—by trying to either reason with this douchebag or take a shot at him in the dark. I walked up very quietly on his blindside and knocked him cold with the butt of the gun. He dropped like a stone. I put the gun in my waistband and caught her as she tripped. Gasping and crying, she stared down at the unconscious dirtbag at her feet.

“Let’s go,” I said as I began pulling her toward the car.

I took out my phone and snapped a picture of the scumbag’s car.

“
Go
?” she hiccupped.

“Do you
want
to wait around here for him to wake up?”

Her eyes widened.

“Oh god. Bob’s so going to fire me.”

“That guy just tried hauling you off to his killing shed, and
that’s
what you’re worried about?”

Jesus. This girl. When the shithead on the ground groaned, she jumped.

“No arguing,” I snapped.

I grabbed her around the waist and put her over my shoulder, acutely aware that I was doing the same as the shithead who had just tried to kidnap her. When I reached the car, I opened the door and lowered her into the passenger seat before walking around and getting behind the wheel. Another positively fantastic thing about the Tesla was the vehicle’s superlative—and absolutely silent—acceleration as I sped out of the parking lot. When I looked over at the girl, she was staring, wide-eyed, at me like
I
had just perpetrated her kidnapping. I wrenched the hood from my head.