Shane’s thumb traces along my jawline, sending another thrill down my spine to stoke the heat inside me. “Pity,” Shane softly growls, looking both amused and disappointed. “You looked so pretty with your mouth wide-open and waiting. Waiting for something . . . to suck on.”
A shudder racks through my body, unbidden and uncontrollable at the image that brings to mind, and it takes every ounce of willpower I have to stay standing and not drop to my knees to immerse myself in obedience just to feel the intensity of what he’s promising.
There’s a moment of tense quiet where I think he’s waiting to see what I’ll do, and I wonder if he actually thinks I’ll give him a blowjob right here in the hallway.
While the thought might be hot, it’s definitely not something I’d actually do, even though my body’s saying something very, very different.
Finally, he stands to his full imposing height, no longer angling over me, and he crosses his arms, his feet splayed wide. The mood has changed, seemingly at his whim, going from heated sexiness to all-business in a flash.
His chin dips as he lowers his gaze to look me in the eyes again, and his voice loses the growl, becoming softer but at the same time less intimate. “I was worried about you last night when you gave your shift away. Everything okay?”
I get the sense he was disappointed, and maybe a bit worried I wasn’t here, either because now he thinks I’m some wilted flower who can’t handle a jerk customer or maybe because he just wanted to see me.
Maybe both, to some degree? my mind asks, the hope mixed with the arousal that is pulsing its way through my body. I try not to let that hope plant too deeply and tell my hormones to calm the fudge down.
“Everything’s fine,” I finally reply. “Something just came up with a friend and she needed my help.”
That’s true, or as close as I can get to it. Jeanine isn’t exactly a friend, but she did require my help.
Shane doesn’t look convinced, his eyebrows lifting as he studies me closely. “A friend needed help? That’s . . . vague.”
Dang it, every time I try to play him, even a little bit, he calls me on it. He’s giving me a little wiggle room here, maybe because he wants to find out more or maybe because he’s just being nice, but he knows something’s up.
Stuck, I shrug, hoping to play the one trump card most women have. “She thought her guy was stepping out on her, so she wanted me to do a little recon, see if he was being honest about where he was. He actually no-showed, so I gave up my shift to slowly drink in another bar for no good reason. I’m a bit bitter about the loss of tips, honestly. I’m out fifty bucks for the night.”
It’s just enough of the truth that it rings honest, and Shane’s eyes soften as he accepts the expanded version of my story. Giving me a slight nod, he smiles, his white teeth flashing in the dim light. “Okay, just wanted to make sure you didn’t have a freakout after I left. And next time, before you go drinking alone at some random club, call me and I’ll be your cover story so you don’t get caught spying on some friend’s dude.”
I nod, too stunned at his casual offer to say anything. Is he serious? If he were drinking at a club with me, watching my surroundings would be the last thing on my mind as I got lost in his brown eyes and powerful presence. Although last night would have been a lot more fun if I could have taken Shane out on the dance floor and shown him that I might not be on Allie’s level, but I can work it myself a little . . . with the right guy.
“I’d better get back to my tables, see if they need anything,” I say, clearing my throat and my mind. “Gotta make up for yesterday to pay the bills.”
Shane chuckles. “Sure. And stay out of the private room area, Meghan. It’s no place for a good girl like you.”
I almost tease him about being a bit bad too, throwing his own words back at him, but something about his calling me a good girl feels nice, and instead, I just bask in the compliment as I hit the floor again.
Chapter 6
Shane
For the next week, I keep an extra eye out on Meghan. It’s not that hard, honestly. I keep an eye on the entire club anyway, and I’ve been paying attention to Meghan for at least the past month regardless. She’s just so tempting that I can’t help myself.
But now I find myself making sure that her area is even better behaved, that nobody gives her any grief even as I keep my distance physically. My attention never wavers from her tiny body as she swishes around the tables, leaning over provocatively to flash the fullness of her lush tits as she flirts harmlessly, giggling her little girl laugh and playing her airhead act every night. The guys love it, and the few girls who come in love it too. They just see her as the totally relatable girl next door.
Every flirt, every move, every time she makes eyes with a customer, it feels like she’s taunting me. But deep down, I know it’s her usual schtick as a waitress.
Every girl has one, dancer or waitress alike. They have to in order to survive in a place like this. They find a mask, a mantle of fakeness they put on like a Halloween costume when they hit the floor. For some, they become sweet or sarcastic, and for some it’s femme fatale flirty or bitchy snippy. They find the personality type that attracts the customers, and the best girls know how to read their customers and behave accordingly to get the big tips.
For Meghan, that’s her natural innocent bubbliness. It’s disarming, enchanting, and very effective camouflage. I’ve watched her for long enough to see how smart she really is, and that while she’s innocent and maybe even naturally flirty, she’s no airhead despite her act. It’s in the flow of her words, the way she shoots guys down even as she compliments them, and how she can subtly manipulate every table into falling in love with her. She’s quickly gotten a small group of regulars who come not to see the dancers, but to get their beer and liquor with a side of her sweetness.
They see her as the girl they always wanted in high school, the good girl whose sparkling eyes and smile say she’ll be honest and pure . . . but that underneath is a kitten waiting to be unlocked if she can find someone able to teach her.
Although, I’m not entirely sure that part is an act. I remember the way she blushed at my tawdry comments, her eyes dropping even as her breathing quickened, and her awkwardness the morning after we’d slept on her couch.
I don’t think the innocence is all that fake, and though it shouldn’t, that just ramps up my interest in my little angel Meghan all the more. Because I know, deep down in my guts where the good and bad sides of me swirl in constant tension, that I could unlock that sex kitten.
All I’d need is one opportunity. Much like the thought I had in her apartment about sullying her white couch with my griminess, I can picture dirtying Meghan up—lipstick smeared across her face by my lips, long blonde hair a mess from my hands tugging and pulling her at my will, my cum all over her tits in her black bustier uniform as she sags, spent from spasming helplessly around my cock before I marked her as mine.
Suppressing a groan, I shake my head, trying to clear it. Meghan’s taken up so much real estate in my damn mind, I’m having to wear my compression shorts every time she’s on shift, or else I walk around with a tent in my trousers.
Needing something more, I head over to the bar for a cold drink. No booze. That’s unprofessional . . . but the bar has more than liquor. “Hey, Marco. Can I get a Coke when you get a chance?”
Marco doesn’t look my way, too far in the weeds with orders to talk, but he flashes me a thumbs-up so I know he heard me. While I wait, I lean against the bar, surveying the room. Meghan and two other waitresses are hustling about, Sasha is on stage crawling on all fours toward a front-row guy in a nice suit who looks like he’s going to have a stroke with as red as his face is getting, and every table is full. Best of all, the patrons are behaving themselves. It’s a good, easy night at Petals.