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She blinked. “What?”
“I’ve been calling your name.”
I doubt that. “Sorry, it’s been a long night. And I have no idea if he’s nice. Most nights, he just hits the buffet.”
Brittney nodded. “The shrimp here are really good.”
“Yeah, I guess.” If you like rubber.
“Anyway, someone’s here for you. They’re in the locker room.”
Juliette’s windpipe clamped shut, but she managed a hissed, “Who?”
“No idea. He’s handsome, though—blond. Said he’d been trying to call you all day.”
He’s a liar. Juliette didn’t have a phone—she was completely off-grid, and for good reason.
She cut her eyes at the front door, where a curtain of beads sparkled in the neons, her thigh muscles aching with the urge to run. She could make a break for it, but if she did that, she couldn’t come back here. And she needed the money. It had taken far too long to find a place that would hire her this time—three weeks after leaving the last state, sleeping in a bus station bathroom, starving.
She wasn’t ready to do that again. And at least in this club, unlike that bus station bathroom, she wasn’t alone.
Brittany, mistaking her hesitation for devotion to this shit job, said, “Jesus Christ, Jenny, Waylon will never know. I’ll cover for you.”
Juliette swallowed hard and glanced over Brittany’s shoulder. The man sitting in front of the stage was turned their way now, head cocked as if worried. A man who had no problem correcting touchy-feely scumbags and liked his whiskey neat. A voyeur.
She felt safer when he was here. But she shouldn’t. Trusting a man—any man—was dangerous. Deadly.
She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Chapter 3
Ronan
He watched Jenny ball her fists and head for the back room, his jaw so tight his molars squeaked together. The door swung shut at her back. But he could still picture her standing there, shoulders tensing at whatever the woman in pink had said to her, face shifting from a curious kind of nervous to real fear.
Should he ask the other woman what had happened? She was approaching him now, his drink in her hand. Too-pink lips, too-pink thong, too-dark nipples, a shade of rose that wasn’t natural. Did she paint them with lipstick?
Ronan drew his gaze to her face as she stopped beside the table. “Is Jenny okay?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard above the throbbing music.
Her eyes widened, pink shadow disappearing into the crease. Then she winked. “Do you know all of our names, handsome?”
No. He didn’t know most of their names, didn’t care about their names, not unless they needed his help—he really was a creepy bastard. But that wasn’t the right thing to say.
Instead, he shrugged. “It pays to know the person in charge of the whiskey.”
She grinned. Crooked front teeth, one of them stained with a smear of lipstick. “I guess it’s my lucky day.” She held out the glass—his drink. “I’m Brittany.”
He took the cup and settled it onto the tiny table that held remnants of the terrible shrimp he’d eaten earlier, the limp-as-fuck salad. Strip clubs: Come for the butts, stay for the buffet.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Brittany’s face fell. “Jenny’s fine,” she said, more curtly than before. “She’s taking her break.”
A break? Most women here didn’t look upset when they walked away from the sweat-infused stage zone. Had he imagined her unease? It was possible.
The stories his mother had told him about her club days were horrific. He sometimes felt those stories had imprinted on his brain—carved a piece of goodness from his soul to make room for that particular brand of vileness.
Brittany was still watching as if waiting for him to respond to her news about Jenny.