Page 2

Even the hustle and bustle of working both gold and silver didn’t keep me from peeking at Puck as he lounged against the main bar, watching me with a deepening frown. Whatever, he wasn’t my problem.

“Sugar, why don’t come over here with us?” A guy in his early thirties, who might be attractive were it not for his potbelly, day’s growth of beard, and leering glassy gaze, popped a one-hundred-dollar bill at me. “Take something off and this is yours.”

My outfit already left little to the imagination. Fishnets, shorts so short they could pass as panties, and left half my ass showing, and dayglo pink bra with fishnet cropped shirt over it.

Only things he couldn’t see were my crotch and nipples. Not worth a hundred, not from that guy. I blew air through my lips. “Get a dance, sugar. Sheena puts me to shame.” I winked in the direction of the dancer who approached him.

He rolled his eyes, and his buddies chuckled as I cleared their empty bottles and went back to the bar. I stopped along the way, pocketing my tips and ignoring Puck.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

Dani cast me a worried glance, but I shook my head at her. He’s fine. I know him.

“I’m working. Why don’t you give me a call later?” I kept my voice easy and light, as if he was just another guy whose call I could ignore.

He glowered at me, not liking it. “If you’d answer.” His jaw was tight, angry even. I never saw much emotion out of the big guy…except when he’d pummeled Ghost outside of the clubhouse or when—

His grip tightened on my hip, his fingers digging into bare skin, and making me suck air between my teeth. That dark part of me, the one that got me into trouble, roared to life in response. As much as I wanted to walk away, I didn’t dare leave that touch.

“You don’t have to work here,” he whispered. “There’s always a job for you at the shop if you don’t want to babysit. You can—”

Living at home—David’s home—grew harder by the day with Nadine around. Mom would get paroled soon. I needed out of that house, out of Dry Valley. Away from everything that had happened.

“Can you pay me five hundred a day? A thousand if I let you smack my ass every so often?”

His eyes narrowed.

“I didn’t think so.”

I swallowed hard, filled up my tray, and trained my fakest smile on him before sauntering off with as much hip sway as I could muster. Eat that, big guy . The MC guys never stayed here long. Surely Jester was done by now.

By the time I turned around, he’d stepped from the curtains, beer bottle lazily dangling between two fingers.

Jester was a sexy blond with tattoos and a BDSM dungeon.

The freak was hot. I couldn’t deny that.

Flirting with him was the best. No strings, no expectations.

He wouldn’t call me a whore if he didn’t get in my pants—or tie me to his sex throne.

He tracked Puck’s narrow gaze to me and a smile lit up his entire face. “Yo!”

He wrapped me in a big one-armed hug and swung me around. “How long you been here?” He set me down but kept his arm around my middle.

When I peeked at Puck, his frown morphed into a full-blown scowl.

“Kenna.” Jester leaned low, eyes serious, face somber.

My heart dropped to my stomach. Whatever this was had to be about that night and what I’d done.

“You look fucking hot.”

Relief flooded across my body and my muscles relaxed as I snorted a laugh. “Thanks, I think?”

“Can I get another one?” Jester handed me his bottle before jerking his chin for Puck to come back into the purple room. The hooker in the little dress had already ducked out of the doorway, wiping at the corners of her mouth.

Puck didn’t want to go. His movements were stiff, his back straight.

“Hey, Ky, only cocktail waitress I want in here is this one.” Jester lifted my arm to Ky, the youngest Soletsky, where he stood near Dani.

On wobbly knees, half scared I was going to trip, I approached the bar.

Dani lifted a pierced eyebrow. “Thought you didn’t want the purple room.”

“Apparently, they want me.”

Ky snorted and Dani grinned. Pervs. But I wish they were right. That was the problem. I had always liked Puck too much. Then when he got all protective, it…did what? Turned me inside out, turned me on.

Ugh .

When I came back, Val and Merc were both there and Puck spun his coke glass with the tips of his long fingers and flicked a glance up at me. His hair was down, hanging to his shoulders, and looked as if he’d crawled off the bike and shoved his fingers through it.

My own itched to do the same.

Ignoring him, I placed Jester’s beer on the table and winked.

“What did you think of the show?” Something challenging and mischievous lit his eyes.

I snorted but cut my gaze. I’d seen plenty of blowjobs since working here. “Not the first time I’ve seen it. Could have had a more talented female lead.”

Then I licked my lips, dragging my tongue across the bottom one with aching slowness. But I wasn’t looking at Jester.

This was how I get myself in trouble.

Puck’s eyes were narrow, zeroing in on me, as behind him Val lit a cigarette and spoke quietly to Merc. I looked away, toward Jester. I was paid to keep my head down. Puck made that difficult.

“You watch?” He smirked, somehow making the sarcastic smile cute.

“I prefer participation.” Then I caught Puck’s gaze. “Or being watched.”

Jester shrugged and lounged, tossing both arms over the back of the booth. “I’ve got all night, by all means.”

My giggle was the first sincere thing to spill from my mouth since they’d come in. I relaxed a little, bumped his leg with my hip, and gave him a saucy wink. “Pretty sure I’d cost more than these ladies.”

“Oh, I think you’d be worth every penny.” He leaned forward, ran a hand up the back of my thigh. This wasn’t a handsy customer, this was Jester. His fingers were light and teasing, thrumming against my skin. “Those pouty lips and that pretty little mouth. I get hard just thinking about it.”

My nostrils flared, my nipples turned to little pebbles, and warmth spread low across my groin. Jesus. I closed my eyes, inhaled, and reminded myself where I was. Unlike the woman in the slinky dress, I didn’t make money if I started fucking customers—even if they were someone I’d known forever.

Jester caressed the back of my thigh, applying gentle pressure, not stopping until my knees bumped the edge of the booth, and I was almost on his lap. He nuzzled the side of my neck, and I opened my eyes.

Puck focused. Something about the way he tilted his head slightly in question made my skin heat unbearably.

I shivered and Jester chuckled against my skin.

Between Puck’s stormy look and the way Jester’s fingers inched closer to my ass, I was barely in control.

Then Jester shifted, raising his knee so that his thigh pressed tight against my groin, and nipped my neck.

That control snapped and I groaned. When I rolled my hips, he nipped me harder, and my entire body heated to an unbearable degree.

The snap of pain that one thing I couldn’t say no too, the one thing no one understood.

Jester wasn’t the only freak.

A pretty dancer, topless, with dark curls perched on Puck’s lap as Val held Sloane’s hand and led her to the stage. I hadn’t learned the other woman’s name, but I liked Sloane and she could move like nobody’s business. She had talent I couldn’t begin to compete against.

Another hovered close to the velvet couches, preening to get Merc’s attention. The Desert Kings were popular. But this crew, especially. The bearded brooding one with clear blue eyes, one with his boyish grin and fighter reputation and, the one who looked like a fucking Viking come to life.

“Need anything else?” I watched Puck’s hand move up and down the woman’s thigh and jealousy flared in my chest. Not that he was mine, or that he wanted me, but he was only doing that to—what exactly? Get back at me for flirting with his friend.

Disgusted with myself and with him, I looked back at Jester.

His gaze followed mine between topless dancer and Puck then back to me and grinned. It was the sort of twisting of the lips that made women want to crawl all over him.

“I could be better.” He cupped my ass, moving it so that I was rubbing my pussy against his thigh. And oh God, the thick denim pressing against my clit piercing sent waves of delicious sensation through me.

Jester had more than a reputation as a brawler.

There were other things, darker things, that had called to me in a way I knew would get me into even bigger trouble.

Or maybe I just hadn’t been laid in damn near a year and never in a way that I truly craved.

More than likely, it was that Puck hadn’t given me this much notice ever and it turned me on.

The more I flirted with Jester, the longer I held the big guy’s attention. The dancer was chatty, rubbing her full breasts all over Puck’s cut, but still he watched me.

Closing my eyes for a ten count, I let myself lean into the dark part of me where my future didn’t matter.

What happened to other people didn’t matter, all that was important was that very moment.

It wasn’t a place I’d visited in a long time, and it welcomed me with a warm arousal that licked at my core.

I loathed and loved that part of me. Loved because of how freeing it was, loathed because it made me just like my mom. The woman who’d given into her cravings and ruined both our lives because of it.

My eyes opened and my gaze landed on Puck. The noise around me stopped save for the roar of blood in my ears. His nostrils flared, and he ran his index finger suggestively around the rim of his glass completely ignoring the woman on his lap.

The movement of his long fingers made me imagine what they might feel like running across my skin. Puck had great hands, wide palmed with clean, blunt nails. Damn . I’d revisit all my dark corners over and over if he’d touch me. If he’d never stop looking at me like I was good enough to eat.

But he wasn’t the only one eyeing me with devilish intent.

Testing the waters, I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth, stuck my empty tray under my arm, leaned in, and pressed my chest against Jester’s.

“We’re all about customer satisfaction here at The Black Cat.” Sound rushed back in as his grin grew wider, his caramel eyes darker.

“That so?”

The wicked expression on his face made me think of all sorts of dirty things. I cast a quick glance at Puck, who seemed to be thinking the same. I shivered. Damn . Flirting with Jester was getting a reaction out of Puck I’d tried for, for years. Puck lifted his brow, as if to ask me how far I’d go.

“What about you, big guy?” I asked Puck, forcing him to do more than just look at me. “Has your service been satisfactory?”

“Yeah, baby, has it?” The dancer stroked his beard now, kissing his jaw.

Before he could answer, Jester shifted so that he could pull my leg all the way across his lap.

The tray dropped to the couch, and I straddled him fully now.

The positioning was more intimate than how the dancer perched on Puck’s lap, as was the absent way he made circles on my skin with his thumb almost in time to Puck’s fingers on his glass.

“It’s getting better.” Puck snorted, but kept his gaze on us.

God, that was hot.

I brushed my fingers across Jester’s jaw. But I kept my eyes on Puck. Whatever came next, I wanted him to see. I wanted it to turn him on. I wanted him to want me.

Jester’s face was clean shaven and smooth, very different from the full beard Puck wore. Different, but just as hot. He surprised me by turning his face into my touch, leaning closer.

My heart thudded in my chest. It was like I was living in some sort of alternate universe. But Jester had always flirted, always left that door open, just waiting on me to make a move.

Never in a million years would I have thought I would lean in and press my lips against his and shiver when his tongue slid over mine. I kissed him, tongues sliding against each other. God, the man could kiss.

When I pulled away, Puck’s eyes were narrowed slits, and he looked as if he would eat me alive.

Maybe both of them would.

“Baby,” Jester murmured, his eyes half-drunk and heavy. “You could give me all kinds of satisfaction.”

I glanced down at his crotch, where his arousal swelled and slowly slid off his lap, trailing my finger down the hard length of his cock.

“I like big tips,” I said over my shoulder as I walked toward the curtain.

Jester chuckled. “Darlin’, you can take the whole thing.”

But it was Puck’s amused chuckle that warmed me all over.