Slow Burn (25 page)

And it felt wrong somehow. I felt like I was in the spotlight, and I didn’t like the way he was greedily eyeing my bare skin. How had I never noticed what a jerk Axel was before?

“Just take off your bra,” he said. “If you want to be a stripper, you have to be able to strip, babe.”

I let my balled up shirt drop back on the floor. He was right. I needed to get used to greedy eyes on me. I needed to get used to being looked at the way Axel was looking at me. Maybe it was worse because I thought he was my friend. I wasn’t sure. But I did know that I didn’t have any other options here. I was on the run, all alone, with no money and no place to stay. Axel was the only friend I thought I could turn to, but he hadn’t turned out to be much of a friend.

I needed to toughen up. The world wasn’t a bed of roses, or—if it was—they had thorns. This was about my survival here. This was about doing what I had to in order to take care of myself.

I reached back and undid the hooks on my bra. I slid the straps over my arms. I let it drop.

Axel smiled. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

The air felt cold. I watched as my skin reacted, my nipples tightening. Under his gaze, I felt exposed and cheap. I lifted my chin. Damned if I was going to let it show.

Sheena was pressed up against my back, writhing against me as she undid the hooks on the front of my corset. A group of men had gathered around the stage, whooping at the two of us. Axel had been right. Girls taking each other’s corsets off was a big draw. I did my best not to roll my eyes, to pretend like I was enjoying this. After all, I needed the damned money.

Her fingers were deft and quick. She’d had some practice with this. And the corset took so damned long to get off that even moving fast, it still seemed like a long, drawn-out seduction.

At the edge of the stage, the gathered men were already stuffing dollar bills in our garters.

Sheena smiled at them, and I tried to as well.

But it was hard for me, like always. I had thought that I’d be good at a job like this. That I’d enjoy the attention. But there was something in their eyes that I didn’t like, and I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to handle it. They looked at me like I wasn’t real. Like I wasn’t really flesh and blood. It bothered me.

Sheena pulled apart the last of my hooks, opening my corset. She moved away from me and let me slowly remove it, mugging for more money from the men at the front of the stage, now that I was down to my thong, garter belt, and stockings.

I would have my own slow, seductive dance here, and then I’d help Sheena take off her corset. She faded over to another pole while I crouched down to shake my bare breasts in the faces of the customers.

More money got shoved into my garter. I tried not to look them in the eyes as I did it. I focused on their foreheads instead. I didn’t want to see their expressions.

So, I didn’t recognize him when he grabbed me by the wrists and yanked me off the stage.

Chapter Sixteen

I cried out.

Then I saw his face.

Griffin.

Heck, maybe not recognizing him had nothing to do with looking at his forehead. I don’t know if I would have anyway. His hair had grown out a bit. There was a shaggy half-inch all over his head. He hadn’t bothered to shave either, and he had a jagged looking mustache and beard as well. His gray eyes were glassy, and he didn’t seem steady on his feet.

“What are you doing?” he said. There was a slur in his voice. He was drunk.

By this time, two of the bouncers in the club had approached the two of us. One wrapped his arms around Griffin in a bear hug. The other got in his face. “You can’t do that, sir.”

“We’re going to have to escort you out,” said the bouncer holding Griffin’s arms down.

Griffin shifted on his feet, crouched, and, in a blur of movement, freed himself from the bouncer, tumbling the guy onto his back.

The other bouncer moved forward, but Griffin drove his fist into the man’s face.

He grabbed me by the arm. “Come with me.” His fingers dug into me painfully. I had no choice but to let him drag me along.

We were met in the lobby by three more bouncers, led by Axel.

“Let go of her,” said Axel, raising his chin arrogantly. I rolled my eyes. Still trying to be Prince Charming, after everything.

Griffin did let go of me. He lifted his fists and charged at the first bouncer.

Axel hurried over to me. “Leigh, are you all right?” He threw his arms around me.

I pushed him away. I was half-naked. “Don’t touch me.”

Griffin had knocked the first guy out.

He was jamming an elbow into the face of the next guy and aiming a kick for the third.

“Stop!” I yelled.

No one listened.

Griffin’s elbow collided with the bouncer’s face. He started bleeding.

“I know him,” I said. “I’ll go with him. Just stop it.”

The third bouncer backed off.

Griffin inclined his head, stepped over the knocked-out bouncer, and came for me.

“You can’t just leave,” said Axel to me.

“Why not?” I said.

“Because you haven’t paid me back for buying you all those corsets and heels and tights,” said Axel. He put his arm around my waist. “Now, come back inside, and get back on stage—”

“Don’t touch her,” said Griffin, ripping me away from Axel.

“Leigh,” said Axel, “if you leave here, you can forget about this job. I won’t help you anymore.”

“I...” I looked at Griffin.

He was wearing a black hoodie. He pulled it off and draped it over my shoulders. “Come on.”

“Sorry,” I said to Axel. I followed Griffin outside, clumsily trying to zip up the hoodie to cover myself.

Griffin could hardly walk straight. He stumbled into buildings as he yanked me down the street. I had no idea how he’d fought all those guys so effectively when he was clearly hammered. We walked for a block until we were past the club. My high heels made loud noises on the sidewalk. The air was cold, and I was barely dressed.

Then he grabbed me by the shoulders and slammed me up against a brick wall. “What the hell, Leigh?”

“Ouch,” I said.

“You were stripping.”

“The money you gave me got stolen by a pick pocket,” I said. “It was my best option.”

He laughed, and it was a bitter rattle. “Selling your body was your best option.”

“It’s not like I was a prostitute or something,” I said. “I only took off my clothes.”

“
Only
took off your clothes? Are you listening to yourself? Don’t you have any respect for yourself at all? I’m away from you for a week, and
this
is where I find you?”

I glared at him. “You shouldn’t have left me.”

He turned away from me. “I had to leave you.” He rummaged in his pocket until he came out with his wallet. He took all of the money out of it and pressed it into my hand. “Don’t let it get stolen this time.” He staggered down the sidewalk, away from me.

What? He was just leaving? I went after him. “You’re not one to be on a high horse. What were you doing in a strip club, anyway?”

“Drinking,” said Griffin, not looking at me.

“There are other places to drink.”

“Most of them don’t have naked girls in them, though.”

I grabbed him by the shoulder. “So you’ve got no problem looking at girls doing that, but you don’t want me to do it? If you think stripping’s so awful, shouldn’t you boycott it?”

He stopped. He took me by the chin. “It’s not that I think it’s wrong. It’s that I don’t want them to see... I don’t want you to...” He let go of me in frustration. “If you’re showing your tits to everyone, then it’s not exactly like letting me see them was anything special, was it?”

I swallowed. Being with Griffin had been special. I thought it had. And then he’d left me. He didn’t have any claim over me after what he’d done. I felt anger rise inside me. “Special? Jesus, Griffin. What are you, twelve? There’s nothing special about any of it.”

“Right,” he said. “Right, because God knows how many guys had already been there before I put my hands on you, right? You had threesomes and every single one of your friends was also fucking you occasionally.”

“Not every one of my friends.”

“How many guys have you slept with since I left?”

I drew back, hurt. “None.”

He laughed again. “I saw how that guy touched you. The pretty one in the suit. Casually running his hands over you. Like he hasn’t had a piece of you.”

“It wasn’t—”

“I knew it,” he said. He started walking again. “Stay away from me, Leigh.”

“It was a long time ago,” I called after him. “And besides, if I owed you any kind of faithfulness, it stopped the minute you
abandoned
me.”

He kept walking.

“You said you would keep me safe,” I said, my voice cracking.

He slowed.

I hurried after him, as fast as I could with my high heels. “You changed things, Griffin. When you were around, I felt like...” Damn it. I looked down at the money in my hand. I’d better put it someplace safe. Griffin was running off on me, and I couldn’t go back to the club.

“Like what?” he said.

I looked up. He had stopped walking and turned to face me.

I closed the distance between us. “Like maybe my life was worth something. Because if you wanted to keep me alive, then... maybe it meant that I was important.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets.

I gazed into his eyes, and all I saw there was anger and pain. I looked at my shoes. My toe nail polish was chipping. “Look, I guess I used to sleep around a lot. I liked... feeling important. Like, if I was with a guy, then for that little bit of time, I was the most important thing to him. And I liked that feeling.”

“That’s the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever heard.”

I hung my head. “I guess so.”

“I can’t be that, Leigh,” he said. “I can’t be the only reason you take care of yourself. I’m going to let you down, and when I do, you can’t fall apart.”

“That’s not... what you are,” I said.

“No?” he said. “I leave you, and you start working in a strip club.”

“Just because I needed money,” I said. “Not because I don’t respect myself.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have any idea what that was like. No man on earth wants to see a roomful of guys staring at the woman he loves half-naked. That was horrible.”

“Did you just say—”

“Don’t,” he said. He took me by the arm. “I’m no good for you, you understand that?”

My heart was soaring. “You just said you loved me.”

He started walking, dragging me along again. “You don’t want my love.”

“Do you really think you should be driving?” I was standing outside a car as Griffin tugged open the door. “I mean, you’ve had a lot to drink.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m unsafe. Run along. Being around me is dangerous.”

“I could drive,” I said.

“In those heels?” He snorted.

Okay. He had a point. I opened the passenger side door.

“Seriously,” he said. “Be a smart girl. Get the hell away from me.”

I sat down in the car and pulled the door closed.

“Last chance, Leigh,” he said.

“I don’t want to be away from you,” I said. “I didn’t want it before, and I don’t want it now.”

“Because I make you feel like you’re important,” he said in a mocking voice, yanking out wires underneath the dashboard.

“No,” I said. “Because I love you. Are you stealing this car?”

“I’ve already stolen this car. Days ago.” The engine roared to life. He put it in reverse. The tires squealed as he pulled out of his parking spot.

I buckled my seatbelt, cringing.

Griffin drove one handed and way too fast. “Let me know if you want out.”

“You’re just doing it to scare me,” I said.

“Maybe it’s like this,” he said, settling back in his seat. He grinned at me. “I’ll play armchair psychologist.”

“Watch the road,” I said.

We soared through a yellow light just as it changed to red. “Obviously, you have daddy issues. He never loved you, so you sought the attention of all kinds of boys, but you were so much of a slut that none of them wanted you.”

“Griffin, please don’t call me names.”

He screeched to a stop at the next light. “Funny how you fell for the one guy on earth who can’t screw you. What do you think that’s about?” He turned to me, eyebrows raised.

I swallowed. “Just because you haven’t doesn’t mean that you can’t.”

The light turned green. We rushed forward, pushing me back in my seat. I clutched the arm rest.

“Anyway, at this point, you’re so messed up in the head over guys that you can’t tell who’s good for you and who isn’t. You’d take anyone, as long as he made you feel important, the way daddy never did. And that’s why you’re staying with me now, when it’s painfully obvious that I’m falling apart here.”

“I thought I was falling apart,” I said.

Abruptly, he turned the car into the parking lot of a hotel and careened into the parking lot. He squealed to a stop in one of the spaces and put the car in park. “Guess we’re both falling apart.”

“Because you’re drinking and going to strip clubs?”

He chuckled. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg, doll.” He leaned over me and unbuckled my seatbelt. “I’ve got a hotel room, and Knox is inside.”

“You didn’t kill him?”

He unzipped the hoodie, baring my skin. “I’m torturing him.” His hand closed over my breast. “I’m doing it for you.” His thumb ran over my nipple.

A little jolt ran through me. I had to admit, I felt afraid.

“He’s going to tell me everyone who knows that you got the serum. Once he does, then I can go find those people and kill them.” He looked into my eyes. “And then you’ll be safe. Like I promised.”

He squeezed my breast. It hurt.

“Griffin—”

“What?” he said. “I thought you loved me. I thought you’d stay with me no matter what.”

I bit my lip.

He lowered his mouth to my nipple, and he was gentle. I closed my eyes, warmth and arousal washing over me.

“If you stay,” he whispered into my flesh, “your body is for my eyes only.”