South Row (4 page)

I take my eyes off of that scene and look further around the room. Red velvet booths, outfitted with personal tables are interspersed throughout the club. What amazes me is that each table has a pole fitted on to it and that there are women dancing on some of the poles as couples watch them, or –
what the fuck?!
At a booth not too far from where we stand, there is a man getting head while he watches the dancer slide down the pole above him.

I nudge Wyatt, as he is closest to me, and bring his attention to the scene in front of me. Wyatt’s eyes widen when he sees and what surprises me even more is that the big man blushes.

“That is fucking hot,” Wyatt mutters and all I can do is nod dumbly, because, yes…it is fucking hot.

Connor strides over to us, holding five shots. As we each take our glass, we clink them and down them, allowing the drink to burn its way down.

“What is this place, Connor?” I venture to ask.

He smirks and nods for us to look around – we do – then he replies over the pulsating music, “This is paradise, gentlemen. Every man’s fantasy, come to life.”

We get a booth nearest the stage, opting to go without a personal stripper. It wasn’t the fact that we had to pay a hundred dollars each to have her up there – a stripper is paid one hundred dollars for each person at a booth…
shee-it!
No, we wanted an unobstructed view of the main stage where the main act was going to be performing in a few minutes.

As we had made our way to our booth, I saw the main event poster. On it was a pair of blue eyes with “
A ray of Sunshine”
scrawled beneath it. No, scratch that. A pair of the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. So blue that I wondered if they were real. Why did that seem familiar?
That’s because you wondered if
hers
were real too, remember?
That annoying voice came back and I had to tamp it down. I didn’t want my night ruined by rehashing memories I had no business remembering.

“What can I get for you, sugar?” the waitress asks me, bringing me away from my thoughts. She has the cutest Southern accent and looks like a Southern Belle with her golden blonde hair in a mess of cu
rls all around her pretty face, those sugary brown eyes assessing me deeply and alluringly, and plump pink lips plastered with lip gloss that she is parting in a big smile.

The pulling
together of the stage curtains snaps my attention back to the stage. The waitress notices my shift in focus and smiles.

“They’re gettin’ the stage ready for the main event,” she tells me
in a Southern drawl.

“I guess it’s a big deal?” I ask.

“Oh yeah. She don’t perform around here every night like the regulars do, but when she does perform, it is a sight to behold…somethin’ to witness, I gotta tell ya,” she says, somewhat in awe.

Now I’m anxious to see if this dancer lives up to the hype. My heart is pounding and I don’t know why.

“Ok, so I guess everyone’s having it, so I’ll have one too,” I say to her as I look around at the guys nursing their tumblers of blue liquid.

Belle – because that name would fit her and that damn sexy accent of hers – smiles and winks at me before saying, “One Adios Motherfucker comin’ right up, sugar.”

The guys whoop and cheer around me, slapping me on the back. You would think it was my bachelor party or something. Wait a minute…

“Guys,” I call over the music. “Is this some kind of bachelor party?”

Luke laughs and responds, “This is your pre-bachelor shindig, bud. Enjoy it!”

I feel a smile tug at my lips and I say, “I fucking
love
you guys.”

“Save the emotion for the lap dance we’re gonna get you when you’re shit-faced drunk,” Johann advises on a laugh.

Belle returns with my drink and I take it, slipping her a twenty in her bosom. She blushes but recovers with a wink and saunters off, swishing her hips a little more than usual.

“Raise your glasses, assholes,” Wyatt tells us.

As we do, Connor yells out, “Adios Mother fuckers!” and we down the fire bomb of a drink and slam the tumbler down on the table in front of us.

“Oww!” Luke howls and claps his hand together. “Another!”

“This time, y’all need to try the Salty Dog,” Connor suggests.

“Fuck yeah!” Wyatt exclaims.

We order and down our drinks as they come. As I am about to slam back another Motherfucker, the stage curtains part and the melodious voice of The Weeknd comes on. As he sings the intro to
Wicked Games
, my heart starts beating an erratic rhythm. I think I may have alcohol poisoning. Thinking, “
what the hell, I’m dying already”
, I put the drink back to my lips, only to be stopped dead in my tracks.

As the beat comes on and the words start singing, I see the sexiest woman on stage in a swing and I have to agree with the first line of the song; thanking God I left my girl at home.

The dancer’s body is glowing almost orange and I know it’s because of her too long and too thick red hair. The curly mane is reaches all the way down her back, caressing her soft skin. She is wearing white lace boy shorts and matching lace bra, thigh high stockings attached to her white garter and white fuck-me-hard heels. Yeah, those don’t just say
fuck me
…they tell you the intensity with which to fuck.

Even from where I sit, I can see her eyes, though her face is covered with a white mask with fancy filigree at the edges. They are a striking blue and they entrance me. My mouth goes dry and I swallow past the lump of lust in my throat.
She looks like an angel. Well…if not for her thick, sexy legs, round ass, and bouncing breasts, not to mention her attire, the white against her skin would look almost innocent. So, I guess she’s a naughty angel.

The dancer leaps from the swing and lands in a crouch. Then, she flips over and lands on the floor with her legs splayed. My cock surges in my slacks an
d I have to fight down the hard-on that is threatening to break free. She curls herself around the pole and climbs up. As she slides back down it, she points out to the audience and I swear she is pointing right at me.

I guess Luke has the same thoughts when he says, “Fuck, I think I’ve just come.”

“I gotta go call my wife, or a priest, or an exorcist, or my mom,” Wyatt mutters dumbly, not moving an inch.

“Aye dios mio,” Johann expresses.

Connor is the only silent one, so I begrudgingly tear my gaze away from the siren on stage and look over at him. He is staring at the woman with adoration. He knows her, maybe even more?

“Dude, you okay?” I query.
Connor slowly faces me and I see some worry in his eyes that he doesn’t try to conceal this time.

“You’re probably going to kill me, but I don’t care anymore. It’s time you
knew,” he answers cryptically.

My
brows furrow in confusion. “Knew what?”

He turns his attention to the stage where he smiles again. Turning my confused attention back to the stage, my mind clears as I stare at the dancer. Just…
wow.

The woman walks closer to the
edge of the stage where she squats in front of a patron. The music changes with her new position,
Skin
by Rihanna pulsating through the speakers. I’ve never seen this woman before, but my dick is in a tizzy as if something is familiar.
Dear God.
This girl is a fucking vision as she crooks a finger to the patron who trips over himself to get closer to her. I’d probably do the same. A frisson of jealousy zips through me and my heart does a familiar odd beating.

Mine.

…the fuck?

As I shake off that oddity, I try to focus on what is happening on stage and tamp down the raging jealousy that is building as I see the patron leaning close to the dancer. The man buries his face into her crotch and sniffs her – super jealous right now – then hands her a wad o
f cash from his pocket; like he’s been waiting to give her his money all night. The woman stands, tosses the cash behind the swing, and surprises the shit out of me by doing a sexy hand stand while and spreading her legs wide. Her erection-inducing red hair touches the floor and I picture myself wrapping strands of it around my cock. The image shocks my dick to painful proportions, and I groan as I adjust myself.

She now lowers herself to the floor, with her back to the gather
ing of men in front of her. She props herself on her elbows and hikes up her legs so they are bent at the knees. She hangs her head back and licks her plump lips and bite them…the same way South used to. I can’t help but licking my own lips in response. A woman comes up to the stage and runs her hands through the dancer’s hair then grips it tight in her fist. At this point, the music reaches a crescendo and my pulse spikes just as the whole scene does.
This is good stuff!

The raven-haired beauty swoops down and kisses the dancer and every man’s eyes and dick bug out. I hear collective groans next to me and can’t help my own. This is, indeed, every man’s fantasy.

Just as we think the kiss will go on to something even sexier – which we all hoped it would – the woman uses her teeth to unmask the redhead and then walks away. The redhead flips over on all fours and crawls sexily over to the pole. Once again, I start imagining myself behind her, pounding my hard dick right into her and watching that gorgeous round ass jiggle.
Fuck, she’s hot.

The dancer raises herself up onto the pole, then, grips it once she is standing. With sheer strength, she lifts herself and kicks her feet out to the side, then swings her body around the pole. She laps the pole with strong legs as she balances upside down, waving her arms in a sultry manner. She unclenches her thighs slightly and now she is slipping. Fast.

Before I know it, I am out of my seat. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it is because I think she is going to fall and hurt herself. Maybe it is because I really want to see her up close. Maybe, because I’m an idiot who’s drank too many Motherfuckers. But when I am met with those big, beautiful blue eyes, widening with panic, I realize something.

I know her.

And my heart stops…and starts beating again.

I am enjoying myself up onstage far more than I usually do. Something about the atmosphere tonight is really exciting me to a new pitch. Anticipation has been running through my veins ever since I spoke to Connor earlier and he’d said he’d be coming by. He always comes to my performances and we always hang out afterwards. Even after so long, he and I are still best friends. So why the hell was I so fucking excited?

When I ran away
, after that whole tragedy at home, we had lost contact for years, but this past month we reunited when he did some renovations for Totem. I’d wanted to ask him about his brother, Collin, that first day and every time after that, but I held out. If Collin was in San Fran, he would have brought him by, and that made me sad because, no matter how many years flew by, I still loved Collin.

Tonight, I can’t help but think of our last encounter as I dance. This has gotten me through a lot of my routines in the past. It’s like I disappear and I am right back in his room. Yes, I seduced him. I had wanted him so badly that I threw myself at him,
young as I was.

Luckily, he took the bait,
namely me, and he was my first.
Your only
, an annoying voice reminds me. Yeah, whatever.

So
I hadn’t slept with anyone since that first time. It’s not like I was saving myself for him…much.

I tried to have other relationships, but their hair was never the right color. They didn’t have the same color eyes. Their lips felt different on mine. Always something stupid. It came down to the fact that those guys just weren’t Collin. But I needed to get over it.

Just as Samara pulls away from my lips and unmasks me, I get back on the pole and swing my body into an icon split, transitioning into a death lay and quickly into a nose breaker drop. I love the fast-pace pole tricks that I do. It keeps the patrons on the edge of their seats and keeps them eating out of my palm. I’m sliding down the pole fast and it gives me a rush.

Hearing commotion and seeing a man race toward me distracts me momentarily. I don’t worry because I know the guys will tackle him before he even gets to approach me. Just before I reach the floor, I tighten my legs and stop – as I always do. The man leaps onto the stage and “catches” me and I
stare up at him in panic as I realize who it is.

Collin.

Collin Danes.

In a second, Collin is being hauled off the stage. I am still upside down, panic ratcheting my heartbeat. I’m frozen. It feels like ages with me frozen upside down, but I still see Collin struggling in the grips of the bouncers and, what I assume is his friends, fighting to get him back. Collin still has his eyes on me and I can’t tear my gaze away from him.

I hear myself screaming, “Wait!” and the whole club falls silent. Even the music stops.

I untangle myself from the pole and run over to where Big Jesse, Andre, and Vince have him. Connor is there with guilty eyes trained away from me and I want to punch him for not telling me that Collin would be here. So I do. One sucker punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of him on a pained groan.

Stopping inches away from the man who made me a woman, I take him in. I thought he was gorgeous before, but now I am speechless. He looks like, who can I liken him to? Shit, I’m coming up empty. A model? A porn star? An actor? An athlete? A fucking dream? I guess all of those rolled into one would make the Collin I see now in his dark jeans, black button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, black boots, light scruff on his face giving him a dark edge, and his short, ash brown hair now ruffled by the commotion he’d caused. He is, hands down, the most ruggedly handsome man I’ve ever seen. He’s not a pretty boy, but he’s not rough around the edges either. A wet dream, is what he is. Collin’s hot, he’s delectable, he’s…
Jesus
.

No,
he’s not Jesus. I’m just saying…
damn!

I am breathing hard and not just from dancing. My pussy is doing flips of joy right now
and my heart? Well, let’s just say it’s feeling again. Collin,
my Collin
, is here…in front of me.

“
What are we doin’, Sunshine?” Vince asks, and for a moment I forget my own stage name. “You know the policy. They touch, they’re out.”

“I know him,”
I say softly, still mesmerized by his stare.

Those brown eyes with the green
edging have always haunted me. The way he looked at me as he took my virginity was so damned intense. It made me feel like he loved me in that moment. The way he’s looking at me now, I can’t even read it completely. What I do pick up is his shock and disbelief.

“
It could be your daddy, shorty. Rules are rules,” Andre informs me, as if I don’t know that.

I turn a pissed off gaze at him. I hate when he calls me shorty. I am not one of those hoes that hang off his black ass each night
, though he wants me to be. Don’t get me wrong, he’s fine. So damn handsome and sexy, and that smile…sweet baby Jesus, that smile presses a lot of my hot buttons. But Andre treats women like he does trash. He doesn’t harbor them. And since I don’t want to kick a man’s ass – because you bet your sweet ass I’d kick his sexy, black tush from here all the way back to Atlanta where he’s from – I stay out of his sexy clutches.

“Dude, don’t piss her off,”
Jesse warns, a little scared.

Big
Jesse knows me. I don’t take shit, I give it. They all work very hard to please me at Totem seeing as I rake in so many paying customers. The women here don’t dare try to cross me, because I’m not afraid to fuck a bitch up or make her lose her job.

When I just got here, Sanya Storm was the hot dancer in the place. Everybody either wanted her or wanted to be her. Not me. The more spots I got, the more she thought she could
intimidate me. The heifer didn’t see it coming. I was the nice, sweet, peppy South, but she didn’t know I had claws. I ripped that bitch a new one when she started sabotaging my sets and my wardrobe, and I sure gained respect both from the other girls and the bouncers. Now look where I am. I am a fucking headliner. And where is she? I don’t give a fuck.

“What the fuck is goin’
on out here?” Trace, the owner, storms over to us.

His face instantly softens when he sees me. Trace is sweet on me and not just because I
make him money. Even though he’s married, he wants to be my man. But telling Trace no is like saying maybe…he just never gives up. Trace is handsome. He’s got curly black hair, blue eyes, pouty lips and a dimpled chin. He is tall and muscular, but…
just not your type
, the voice pipes up in my head.
There’s your type right in front of you.

I face Collin once again and all the air whooshes out of me as I meet his intense stare. He disarms me in the most delicious way.

“We caught this idiot,” Vince speaks up referring to Collin, “Charging for the stage, but before he could harm her, we restrained him.”

“He wouldn’
t hurt me,” I defend, at the same time Collin says, “I wouldn’t hurt her.”

We snap our gazes to each other and I see him gasp as I trap him in my eyes. A fire between us crackles and I want it to be us again
…alone…giving and taking from each other. I gave him more than my seal of innocence that night.

I gave him my heart.

“Then why hasn’t he been tossed on his ass?” Trace asks.

The men are silent and I unwillingly tear my gaze away from Collin and look at my bodyguards – not just mine, really, all the girls’. They
’re staring at me as if to say
that’s why, boss.

I scowl at them because I know a simple toss on his ass was not what they would have done. They would have roughed him up as well.

“South?” Trace questions.

“
I know him, Trace. Please, just…lemme talk to him,” I plead.

Trace frowns. He wants to say no. I start gnawing at my bottom lip, a sign that I
’m nervous. He looks at Connor who is just straightening up from the punch to the gut I gave him.

“
You know this guy, Danes?” he inquires.

“
Yeah,” Connor chokes out.
Ha-ha, that’s what you get.
“Yeah, he’s my brother. We know her. We grew up together.”

Trace continues to frown, but relents, flicking his head to the muscle for them to release him. They begrudgingly do so, bumping him a few times. Collin shakes out of them and straightens his clothes
, still staring at me. Fuck, it’s unnerving.

“
Yeah, you better let him go, you assholes!” one of his friends voices, making me aware that there is more than just me, Collin, Trace, Connor and the guards around.

I look around and…
shit!
The whole club is staring.

“You, you,”
Trace growls, pointing at both Collin and me, “My office. Now!”

Collin and I stand in position still looking at each other as though if we blink, the other will disappear.

“Hey!” Trace snaps. “Get the fuck in my office. Andre, get everything settled. Vince, bring Misty out here.”

“But she isn’t set to go on
…” Vince swallows his argument at Trace’s withering glare.

“
Did I ask you a question or give a fucking command?” he asks in an eerily calm voice.

“I’
ll get her, boss,” Vince mutters.

“
Of course you will.” He turns to Jesse. “Big J, handle these boys.” He’s referring to Collin’s friends.

“Free shots on me,”
I quickly add. I don’t know what Trace meant by “handle”, but I really don’t want them kicked out or hurt in any way, shape or form.

Trace shoots me one of his many death glares and I wink at him.
Immediately he softens. He can’t stay mad at me.

He sighs.
“You heard the lady. Free drinks…on me though.”

“That’
s what I’m talkin’ about!” Collin’s Hispanic looking friend shouts.

“South, are you sure you’re gonna be okay?”
Connor asks, concern knitting his brows.

I narrow my eyes into thin slits.
“You better pray I calm down after this. I’m gonna kick your ass, Connor,” I threaten.

“
Me, too,” Collin agrees.

The deep rumble of his voice sends an electric shiver through my body. My nipples tighten immediately and a stranglehold of desire grips my throat. I bite my lip so as not to moan, because I swear, his voice drips sex. Hot, sweaty, no-holds-barred, talk-dirty-to-me, sex; the type I only see in porn videos.

I chance a look at him and, by God, he’s still looking at me.

“Romeo and Juliet,”
Trace says referring to Collin and I. “My office.”

He turns on his heel and walks toward his office. Collin raises his eyebrow at me. Is he challenging me? Hmph. Well.

I straighten my spine and lift my chin then spin on my heels, bounding toward Trace’s office. For added defiance, I swish my hips a little more to give him a good view as he trails behind me. Yeah, baby, I’ve filled out since you last saw me.