Page 62 of Give In

I’d watched the door with the same vigilance I used to. But I hadn’t taken into account the time I spent in the back.

Or how well he’d come to learn my schedule.

Damien sat with his hands behind his head and his legs stretched in front of him, casual as ever. But I saw the anger behind his smirk and the antipathy glittering in his ever-darkening blue eyes. His dark hair was messier than usual, as though he’d been running his fingers through it.

I waited, but it was more of desperation than a true belief he’d speak.

Sure enough, his head dipped to the sound system.

When I pressed the button, none of my usual songs played. A hard rock beat thumped through the speaker, the singer’s bourbon-roughened voice filled with betrayal as he sang about a lying girl.

How fitting.

He must’ve messed with the playlist.

My movements were stiff and unsexy. Each sway and step was like moving through drying concrete, and I wanted to quit. I wanted to let my mask drop and let him see the pain.

Just once, I wanted someone else to carry some of the weight that was dragging me deeper into the concrete, threatening to suffocate me.

But I’d learned way too early in my life that the only person I could count on was myself. No one would carry me.

Working at Sinners may not have been glamorous or ideal, but it wasn’t bad.

Until that night.

The whole shift had been emotionally rough. Halloween was a few days away, so there were weekend specials that had the place packed. Three dancers, including Brittany, had quit, which had left us short-staffed. There’d been handsy assholes who’d thought they were above the rules. I’d had a few bad tippers, which were still better than the no-tippers I’d had.

And I may have been open-minded as long as what people did in their own time didn’t hurt anyone, but some of the shit they’d asked for tested that.

None of that had been as bad as the group of guys, dressed in their five-grand suits and two-hundred-dollar haircuts, who hadn’t been getting off on viewing the girls. No, they’d been getting off on cutting them down.

They’d had no qualms about critiquing us to our faces while they’d explained why they hadn’t been worthy of dancing for them. The unfortunate few—including myself—they’d deemed ‘okay enough’ had been treated to a more in-depth rundown of their problem areas.

I’d known better. I could see the lust that’d gleamed in their malicious eyes. Each of them would’ve sold their soul for one night with me. They’d have torn each other apart for a blowjob.

But I’d never stoop so low, and they’d known that.

Which was why they’d been vicious. To compensate for their inferiority and their tiny penises.

The already exhausting experience had become that much more frustrating when the bouncers had refused to remove them. From a business standpoint, they’d been the kind of clients Sinners wanted more of. They hadn’t been fighting or perving. They’d thrown around cash on multiple high-price bottles of liquor, and their whole look had classed up the place.

To the bouncers, the men weren’t breaking the rules because none of them had laid a hand on a girl to hurt her physically.

But words hurt just as bad. Sometimes worse.

And I was greatly looking forward to proving that point when the hellish night wrapped up.

In my head, the know-it-all voice of regret had been extra chatty, reminding me that I wouldn’t have had to deal with the douche-canoes had I just called off.

The voice wasn’t my own anymore. No, it’d morphed into one that was low and rough, bossy and intense.

And the owner of it was watching me strip, his blank expression doing nothing to combat the storm in his eyes.

When I finished and bent to grab my clothes, Damien came to stand behind me. We weren’t touching, but I could feel the heat radiating off him. I stood, steel infusing my spine as his breath fanned across the spot where my exposed shoulder met my neck.

He tugged gently on the feathered wings. “Love the costume, angel.”

It’d been a stupid thing for me to dress as for Halloween. I’d tried to tell myself it was just a costume, but I knew it was more. And by wearing it, I showed Damien that, too.