Page 4

J agger hadn't anticipated himself to be taking off Bianca's jacket so soon after putting it on, but seeing Sadie with Travis made him frustrated and tired of pushing off her advances.

When she smashed her lips to his, he took it for what it was worth - a distraction.

He'd led her into the office at the back of the bar and glanced at the private door he usually kept locked at all times. Even Sadie hadn't been allowed back there, telling her it was "just Renegade stuff that needed to be kept hidden." She'd assumed it meant guns or even drugs that had been part of the gig so many years ago before he and his dad had cleaned them up and made the gang into honest men. For the most part, anyway. You can't babysit gang members, after all.

Throughout the past year, Jagger had started to get in touch with a side that had since become a permanent part of him. The dominance in his sexuality allowed him some control over his life that constantly seemed to be falling apart in one area or another. He reveled in the knowledge he gathered, the experiences, and the release that it gave him and started allowing that part of him to indulge in it from time to time in that old storage room and had turned it into a playroom for his more intense sexual encounters.

He wanted to try Bianca out in there, if only to shove a ball gag in her mouth to get her to stop her terrible porn star moans, but he could already tell she was vanilla as shit.

"How would you feel if I tied you up, Bianca?" Jagger asked between open-mouthed kisses and grabbing roughly at her waist.

Bianca laughed. "That's so weird, Mr. Wilder."

This isn't going to work, he thought as she continued to grab at him. So much for letting out his pent-up aggression tonight.

"OOHHH YES!" Bianca was yelling even though he was only kissing her throat, roughly pushing her against the wall in the office and grabbing at the hem of her short black dress. He hoisted the skirt up and rolled his eyes while his mouth pressed against her shoulder, and she cried out again, "OH, MY GOD! TAKE ME!"

"Sure," he grumbled. "But not here, let's go upstairs."

He took one more look behind him at the locked door and led Bianca out of the office and up to his apartment, grabbing her coat off the floor as he made his way behind her.

Let's get this over with , he thought with a grimace. I can't afford to find another shot girl right now.

Sometime later, Jagger moved off the bed and pulled his black jeans back over his hips, zipping his fly and buckling up before looking down at the snoring shot girl from the evening's events.

He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag before settling into the black upholstered chair next to his bed, content to take a few minutes before waking Bianca up and getting her out of his place.

He wasn't a monster but women didn’t stay over.

Jagger opened up his favorite app, "SecretScape," and began scrolling, liking a few posts for inspiration to use towards the novel he'd been working on since college. A memoir of sorts about how his father had raised him to be a drug mule in high school to help pay for his alcoholism. By the time he was sixteen, he was helping his father's gang bury bodies from their rivals, The Dregs. And by eighteen - well, there was a reason he took off and went to school.

Jagger took another drag and wiped some residual sweat off his brow with the back of his hand, cigarette dangling between his fingertips as he took another look at Bianca's sleeping form. He wanted to pretend it was Sadie lying there and not another random girl. He knew what he was doing wasn't exactly healthy, but there wasn't anything he could do about it right now.

Except…

"Screw it," he muttered out loud and clicked "Post New Secret" on the app. He hadn't posted a secret there before, content to indulge in everyone else's, but he felt especially broken tonight.

'I can't stop thinking about her. She's my best friend, and yet I search for her in every body that warms the bed beside me in her absence."

Before he thought better of it, it was posted and joined the other secrets in the tangled web of internet mistakes.

Slipping his phone in his pocket, he held the cigarette between tense lips, grabbed his leather jacket off the floor, and put it over his bare chest. By the time he leaned over to stub it out in the ashtray by his feet next to the bed, it vibrated in his pocket.

When he pulled it out, he grinned at the alert, saying he had a comment on his post from BookwormBarbie. He couldn't help but send her a message responding to the James Dean reference that coincided with his username.

Jagger knew he shouldn't have been so surprised they managed a decent conversation, but he was usually a closed-off individual. However, this was the age of the internet, and if you couldn't talk to strangers about your problems, who could you talk to?

When he sent the message about his bedmate being too dull for him, seeing how far he could push the boundaries, she didn't let him down when she followed up with her own comeback before logging off.

Beg, huh? Jagger thought with a slow grin. He felt himself harden in his jeans and let out a low curse before looking over at Bianca.

"Nope. Not making that mistake again."

Jagger went downstairs to the bar, his head pounding from lack of sleep and the sound system's bass traveling through his floorboards.

"Sadie!" He called out, "You here?!"

Jagger was still in the dark gray sweatpants he changed into after he came in from walking Bianca out to her Uber during the night, his chest bare. He leaned over the staircase's banister and looked towards the bar area but saw no one. Only Sadie and Warren, his dad, had keys to the bar, and he knew he locked that shit up tight after Bianca left in case she tried to come back unannounced.

Jagger opened his mouth to yell again, a wave of panic rising in his chest, and he began to clock where he'd hidden the guns around the bar last year. As his eyes drifted towards the stage at the other end of the bar, he clenched his fists and tried to relax because Sadie was currently moving around the pole in a flash of black fabric against creamy white skin. He hadn't realized how long her hair had gotten since they finished college, but it had been a while since she stopped cutting it.

Jagger couldn't help but notice now as it whipped against the top of her ass when she threw her head back.

He swallowed hard and had to force his fists to unclench. He almost felt bad for watching her.

Almost.

Sadie hadn't noticed him over the music, obviously lost in her movements, sweat glistening on her skin and causing what little clothes she had on to stick to her. Jagger's eyes never left the lines of her body as he made his way to the bottom of the stairs and leaned his bare shoulder against the wall. He took in how well she moved in time to the song playing, vaguely catching some of the pretty dirty lyrics. His lips pulled up in a smirk, finally recognizing ' Backstage ' by NEFFEX.

Sadie always had the most interesting taste in music, her playlists consisting of show tunes, pop ballads, and songs you'd typically hear in a strip club.

He loved that about her.

Suddenly, he felt the too-familiar rush of lust for his friend. His headache was soon replaced by another ache in his cock as it twitched in response to the vision in front of him.

Sadie slid her hands up the pole and lifted herself up, keeping her legs straight as she swung them to hook her ankles together and caught the pole tightly between the apex of her thighs. She slowly leaned backward, her fingers tracing the pole, and then they were gliding up her chest, and a hand gripped her throat as she tossed her head back. Her eyes were closed, and her hands were now tangling in her hair, the black bralette top she wore straining against her breasts that threatened to spill from her movements.

Jagger wished more than anything to feel those fucking legs wrapped around his neck, licking her through the lacy scrap of fabric that was hugging that perfect mound of flesh. He wanted to hear her whimpers and make her lose control. He wanted to replace her hands with his and grip her golden locks in his fists as he forced her to look at him when he forced himself inside her. He wanted to-

His fantasies were interrupted as he watched her eyes open and lock with his, still upside down on the pole.

Sadie's breath caught in her throat, and she quickly reached above her to grab the pole and start getting down. Within a few moments, she was right-side up, her legs releasing to bring her feet down to the ground. She ran to the edge of the stage and shut the song off with a quick button. The stereo system that her phone was plugged into was still glowing.

"I'm so sorry! Did I wake you?" Sadie asked as she quickly stepped into her motorcycle boots, which remained unlaced. She made her way down the few steps of the stage to meet him on the main floor. She'd been bartending long enough to know better than to walk barefoot throughout the bar, brushing off how little she was wearing. He'd seen her in bathing suits before, and during the summers, they'd managed to sneak away to the shore for a day. But in this environment, it was different.

Jagger didn't realize he'd been walking toward her since she shut the music off until they stood toe-to-toe. He let his eyes wander down her body, and when he looked back into her doe eyes that had the nerve to look so innocently at him while the body in front of him was a picture of sin, he thought he'd died and gone to hell. Her face was flushed from her physical activity, and Jagger wanted nothing more than to wrap his long fingers around her neck and pull her in for a hard kiss. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, "I thought you were going to do this at night."

Sadie's eyebrows drew together as she gave him a look. "I'm sorry you were still sleeping, Jag. It's past eleven; I figured you'd be awake by now. The bar is opening in 10 minutes," she said as if that explained everything.

Despite his best efforts, Jagger couldn’t stop darting his eyes across her chest and torso. He blamed it on still being half-asleep but deep down he knew it was a bald-faced fucking lie.

Sadie tried to cover herself better and pulled at the fabric of her black bralette that clung to her ribs, hoping it would magically get long enough to conceal her torso.

Jagger's expression did nothing to hide his amusement at how nervous she suddenly looked, seeming as though she finally understood she was standing in the middle of the bar in little more than her underwear and boots.

God, those fucking boots.

She might as well be wearing high heels with how they affected him right now.

"I didn't sleep well last night," he admitted. "But, I have to say, it's not the worst way to wake up, Sweets." He was clearly teasing her and raised an eyebrow at her discomfort.

Sadie ran her small, manicured hands over her face and groaned. "You're lucky I love it when you call me that."

She wrapped her arms around herself in a hug and tried not to feel self-conscious when she realized what she admitted. Sadly, in doing so, she missed the searing look on his face.

"I normally would have stayed after, but Travis borrowed my car and I needed him to pick me up, and you and Bianca seemed to be cozy, so I felt it best to just head home."

Jagger scoffed at the mention of Bianca and hooked a thumb in the waistband of his sweatpants to rest his hand in an imaginary pocket. The slight movement drew them down enough to show the curve of his tanned hip bone and a snake tattoo she had thought about on more than one occasion. Sadie had never seen the entire piece but had imagined it must have gone down his thigh the way it coiled over the top of the slight V that trailed downwards.

Sadie's brows furrowed, and her tongue darted to wet her lips. "What's wrong with Bianca? She's beautiful. All legs and flaming red hair."

Jagger laughed out loud, the sound echoing in the empty bar.

"She's definitely something," he said with dripping sarcasm.

They were still standing so close to one another that Sadie tried to lie to herself when she attributed her shallow breathing to her morning workout. She came to work off some of the sexual tension she was feeling from not one but three men. Honestly, her soul couldn't take much more of this. She needed a better boyfriend, a better lay, and a goddamn orgasm.

They stood in a silent game of chicken for what felt like an eternity. Neither of them moved closer, but they did not move away from one another, either.

Sadie surprised herself when her hand reached out to toy with the un-tied drawstrings hanging from his waistband, brushing against his hand with her own. Jagger stood utterly still and fought the desire to pull her to him. His blue eyes shone in the bar's lights as he looked down at her small frame. The entire scenario was sending a rush of blood to his cock, and the bulge in his pants started to be painfully evident through his sweatpants since he wasn't wearing anything underneath.

It might be possible to control his breathing, but he couldn't control that.

She brought her other hand to the front of his waistline, and her fingertips grazed against the hard length, shielded only by thin cotton as she worked up the nerve to run her fingers along his waistline. When she reached the tattooed snake, her fingers traced the tail and down the length of its torso. His skin was so hot against her fingertips that she was ghosting her hand over his to grip the waistband before she realized it.

"Sadie," Jagger breathed, halting her movements and putting his hand over hers. Just as her eyes flitted up to meet his, there was a sharp knock at the door.

"Come on, it's 11:32!" A gruff voice called, causing Sadie to jump and yank her hands back to her sides. "Ya'll should've been open two minutes ago!"

Sadie tried to look anywhere except at Jagger's face. She was so thoroughly embarrassed by her recent actions. Might as well be throwing herself at him at this point. Time to get her damn libido in check.

"I-I, I should change." She stammered and made her way behind the bar, where her bag was hidden from plain sight. She pulled out a change of clothes and willed herself not to turn around, sensing Jagger's eyes on her.

Why isn't he moving? She thought. You really fucked this one up. Just because you're horny doesn't mean you have to assault Jagger. What's wrong with you?

Sadie heard him moving as she quickly pulled her white Serpent Pit shirt over her head, his words coming shortly after.

"I'm going to change, too. Unlock the front door when you're covered," he spoke quietly, his voice strained.

Sadie tugged her black leggings up over her hips and threw an "Okay!" over her shoulder, her attention now on pulling on her boots. The gruffness of his voice did not go unnoticed by her, and her hands shook as she struggled to tie the laces.

"Oh, and Sadie?" Jagger questioned from the top of the staircase, hesitating before he reached his apartment door. His eyes met hers as she looked up from tying her boots, finally meeting his gaze.

"I enjoyed your performance." His gaze moved from the stage back to her once more. "Feel free to interrupt my sleep anytime."

And with that, he was through the door to his apartment, leaving Sadie with her mouth hanging open and her body thrumming with something very close to desire.