Teased (The VIP Room, #1) (9 page)

When she was ready, she went to the curtain
to wait her queue. As the music began, Vida swallowed hard and
stepped forward.

Chapter 7

Vida unlocked the apartment door, turning to
wave back at Henry that everything was okay before going inside.
Flipping on the light switch, she turned and locked the door.
Dropping her backpack onto the chair, she went into the small
kitchen to get a cold bottle of water before she took a quick
shower to wash away the filth from the club she still felt clinging
to her.

She refilled the bottle with water from the
sink and was putting it back into the refrigerator to get cold when
she heard the bedroom door open and footsteps coming down the
hallway. Vida kept her face expressionless as the waitress from the
Waffle House came into the room looking disheveled and stinking
from sex. Colton walking behind her paused as they both became
aware that they were no longer alone. The waitress, now in jeans
and a pink top, was obviously on her way out. Colton, wearing only
jeans that he had zipped but hadn’t buttoned, was shirtless,
exposing his chest covered in a variety of tattoos.

“
I didn’t know you lived with her.”
The waitress looked accusingly at Colton.

“
He doesn’t, I’m just a temporary
roommate,” Vida explained quickly. The woman looked like she was
about to throw a hissy fit. She was all about letting Colton handle
it, but Vida was tired and didn’t want to listen to yet another
woman take another sarcastic remark from Colton, which she could
tell from the steely look on his face he was about to give
her.

“
Oh, then I guess that’s all right.”
Suspiciously she glared at Vida, who decided the best thing to do
was to ignore them both. Getting her nightclothes, she went into
the bathroom, unable to hear the words exchanged between the two of
them.

Vida wished just one time she could have an
uneventful night without any of Colton’s fuck buddies coming and
going. She was beginning to think the room at King’s wasn’t all
that bad.

Coming out of the bathroom after she was
dressed in her flannel pajamas and her hair brushed backed into a
tight braid, she saw Colton leaning against the counter in the
kitchen.

Ignoring him, she plucked her sheets and
blankets from the closet and started making up the couch.

“
I didn’t need you to butt in and
explain anything to Tammy. It was none of her business.”

Vida shrugged. “Sorry, next time I’ll keep
my mouth shut.” Finished, she laid down on the couch and pulled the
blanket over her. “Could you turn off the light?”

Colton stood tautly for several seconds
before walking to the light switch and turning it off.

Vida heard his footsteps leave the room and
then turned on her side to make herself more comfortable. Trampling
down the unexpected jealousy, it took several minutes to calm her
nerves before she relaxed enough to fall asleep.

Vida woke the next morning, determined to
finish the last of her course assignments. She set her computer up
at the table and began her work only to stop long enough to fix
herself a cup of coffee. She was so engrossed in her work, she
wasn’t aware of Colton coming into the room. It was only when he
sat down at the table across from her that she was drawn away from
studying her book.

“
When do your classes end?”

“
This week,” Vida answered his
question, watching as he took a drink of his coffee.

“
After your class is over, I want you
to leave town, find someplace to hole up. I’ll help King find
Sawyer and bring her to you when I can.”

“
Why would you become
involved?”

“
I’m already involved. It’s only a
matter of time before Digger finds out you’re staying here. It will
actually be easier for both of us if you leave town. It will draw
Digger’s attention away from you.”

Disappointment filled Vida; she hadn’t
thought that Colton would be worried about Digger coming after him.
He was right, Digger knew everything going on in town, and he
probably already knew that she was no longer staying at the
club.

“
You’re right, I didn’t think about
your safety. We don’t have to wait until my class is over, I
can
—
”

Colton set his cup down hard, spilling the
remaining coffee over the side. “I’m not worried about Digger
coming after me, but if he’s as smart as I know he is, the son of a
bitch will know your classes are almost over. If you went missing,
it would make all the papers, the headlines alone of a young
college girl’s disappearance is the only thing holding him back.
Once your classes are over, he can make you disappear and everyone
will just think that you moved on. Exactly what you said you were
going to do last night.”

Vida’s mouth snapped closed. What he was
saying was the truth. She had even told a couple of her friends at
school her plans.

“
I can’t leave without Sawyer. We made
a promise when we were kids that we would both leave town together.
I can’t break my promise.”

“
Dammit.” Colton brushed his hand
through his already tumbled hair. “This is a fucked up
mess.”

Vida silently agreed with him.

Standing up from the table, he wiped the
spilt coffee from the table. “Get dressed; we’re going out.”

“
Where to?”

“
I don’t know, but I’m sick of being
cooped up. I need some fresh air and, since I can’t leave you
alone, that means you’re coming with me.”

Vida started to protest, but she hadn’t had
a free day in so long she had forgotten what it was like simply to
go out and have fun. Closing down her computer, she went into the
bathroom and changed into jeans and a long sleeved shirt. Colton
had dressed and was sitting on the chair in the living room waiting
for her.

“
Ready?”

“
Yes.”

It was early afternoon, so not many people
were out on the roads. He drove them out of the city where the
light traffic dwindled down until they only passed a car every so
often. The scenery lulled Vida into forgetting her problems; the
drawback was it increased her awareness of Colton. Sitting against
his back with her thighs so close had her wanting things her mind
refused to acknowledge. Her body on the other hand had a mind of
its own.

He handled the bike expertly, making Vida
wonder how he had learned to ride the bike so well in the city.

Eventually, they rode through a small town
where Colton stopped for gas. It was next door to a restaurant
where they went through the drive- thru. Vida sat on the bike as
Colton stood next to it, eating their food. When they finished,
Colton drove down a small, paved road on a large piece of land.
They found a farmers’ market, which had been set up on the side of
the road.

“
Let’s check it out,” Colton said
suddenly.

Vida agreed and they spent an amusing couple
of hours going to the various booths. Vida bought some fruit while
Colton purchased drinks and a couple of sandwiches. Finding a spot
on the ground away from the booths, they ate quietly as they
watched the customers shop.

“
I love being out of the city,” Vida
said, looking at the countryside surrounding them.

Colton paused at eating his sandwich. It was
the first thing Vida had shared about herself. The woman kept
herself so contained, you never knew what she was thinking.

“
You don’t like the city?”

“
I hate it. I like being out in open
spaces. The idea of having just a few neighbors and having a small
town sense of community where they actually care about one another
appeals to me.”

“
But you have that in the city. Your
relationship with Sawyer proves that,” Colton argued.

Vida shook her head. “Sawyer, Callie and I
all lived on the fifth floor in a low income housing building.
Sawyer’s mother would babysit Callie and me while my mom worked or
Callie’s was busy. But none of them shared anything about their
lives. The apartment building was filled with people who weren’t
even supposed to be living there. Everyone minded their own
business because they didn’t want anyone sticking their nose into
theirs or the possibility of getting evicted.”

There was definitely no sense of community
where she had grown up. Vida watched the people at the farmers’
market greet each other, standing and talking amongst themselves
before continuing with their shopping.

“
I see your point.” Colton recognized
that she wanted a tight community to replace her lack of family
until she had one of her own. Colton didn’t know why that thought
bothered him, only that it did.

Her dark hair was pulled back, showing her
high cheekbones and green eyes. Her red lips bit into a piece of
melon that had juice running down her chin. Giving her a napkin, he
watched as she wiped away the juice from her face and licked her
lips to catch the stray droplets. Her unconscious sensuality
hardened his cock. Colton shifted on the hard ground.

Taking an apple for himself, he watched her
pick up another piece of melon and had to force his attention back
to what she was saying.

“
In a town like this, a child like
Callie would never have suffered. A neighbor, school or friend
would have reported her mother. She might still be alive if she
hadn’t had the misfortune to live where she did.”

“
You don’t know that, Vida. Maybe she
would still be alive or maybe something else could have killed her.
She might have died some other way and never known what it was like
to have such wonderful friends as you or Sawyer.”

“
She was so special, Colton. Her
mother would drop her off as often as Sawyer’s mother would take
her during the day. All three of us didn’t realize we weren’t
sisters until we were about five-years-old; we spent so much time
together. Especially Sawyer and me because our mothers were friends
and they would swap out babysitting. Brenda, that bitch, would only
let Sawyer’s mom babysit when she was coming off her high. She
wanted Callie by her side all the time, even when she was...” Her
voice broke off.

“
My mom and Sawyer’s mom both reported
her to social services when the bruises became worse, but they
always gave her back to that bitch, then she started threatening
our moms. She held a knife to my mom one night when she tried to
talk to her. She even threatened Sawyer and me if they didn’t mind
their own business.”

“
Vida,” Colton tried to stop her,
knowing where this story ended, seeing no need for her to take this
trip down memory lane. Goldie had told him about Callie’s mother.
He had wanted to have a talk with her himself, but Goldie had been
terrified that the woman would disappear with Callie.

She continued on, lost in her own story,
“The first time Sawyer and I saw Marshall, he scared us; he was so
frightening.” Vida could still see the white haired, muscular man
who had been as large as a giant to the small children they were
then.

“
He scared me, too, and I wasn’t a
little girl.” Colton tried again to regain her attention
unsuccessfully.

“
The sad part is, I think he really
cared for Callie; she gained weight and didn’t have as many
bruises. Sawyer and I were happy that he’d moved in with her mom.
Do you think he meant to hurt Callie when he killed Brenda?” Vida
buried her face in her hands. “I still see her face every day,
Colton, wishing I had smelled the smoke sooner, got to her door
faster, knocked louder. There should have been something I could
have done.”

“
I heard about that fire, Vida. It was
in all the papers and it was all anyone could talk about for weeks
in the neighborhood. There was nothing you could have done. When
Marshall caught Brenda in bed with another man, he went crazy and
killed them both. Callie must have managed to escape out of the
window because they found her body hiding in one of the vacant
apartments. She was probably so scared from what she’d witnessed
that she had run and hid, and was too frightened to come out when
she heard the sirens.”

“
She was only
eight-years-old.”

“
Sweetheart, you were only a year
older. You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You tried to
alert them then got outside with your mom. That was why you lived,”
Colton tried to reason with her.

Vida came back to the present with her hand
in Colton’s. Self-consciously, she pulled it away and began
cleaning up the remains of their impromptu picnic.

They passed back through the booths as they
left and a young girl with a woman standing by a cardboard box drew
Vida’s attention. She paused and looked into the box where a
reddish-blond ball of fluff stared back at her.

“
Awe, isn’t it cute.” Vida bent down
and petted the squirming puppy that promptly started smothering her
in puppy kisses. Giggling, Vida stroked the curly soft fur. “Is it
a girl or boy?”

“
It’s a girl,” the little girl
replied. “It’s the last one I have left. Mama wouldn’t let me name
her cause we have to sell them, but I think she looks like a
Chloe.”

The little girl cast her mother a sidelong
look. Shaking her head at the little girl with a soft smile, the
mother reached into the box and handed her the wiggling puppy.
Burying her face in the soft puppy fur, this was what Vida wanted
out of life, normalcy. It sounded boring, but Vida could easily see
the love and happiness shining from the mother and child.