Page 26 of The True Garza

“Tell me, Stacey, what’s a ripe and beautiful girl like you doing with a bouncer for a boyfriend?” he asks me. “You should be a boss’s wife. You should be given the world and be treated like a queen. I see something special in you.”

Sure you do.

“Well…he’s nice, and romantic.” I bite my lip shyly. “And I think, I don’t know, I kind of love him.”

“If that were true, you would not be here rubbing your hands all over me,” he says, looking down my cleavage. “I saw you out on that dance floor. How you danced. You’re in heat, unsatisfied. You do not want ‘nice’ and ‘romantic.’ You want abossto fuck you rough and raw.”

I glide my palm down his chest, under his jacket, kicking my knuckles back to feel for a phone.

Bingo. It’s on his left.

I offer a sheepish smile. “Maybe.”

“No, not maybe.” He gestures to the lines of white powder on the table. “Do you want? It’s the best out there.”

I shake my head. “It kills my sex drive. I’m a weed girl. Do you have any of that?”

“Of course.” He gestures to one of his men.

When his man moves to the table and begins preparing a joint, I shift to straddle Jamal, positioning myself so that my clutch is as close to his phone as possible. Then I take his face in my hands and kiss him. I’m greedy with it, so it’ll prove his conjecture that I’m “unsatisfied.” His groan and hard grip on my ass tell me he likes it. But I’m counting down in my head the duration of the time needed for the cloning to take place, for all the data to be transferred.

Once the countdown is over, I let him go and shift back to sitting on his thigh, ducking my head with a bashful smile.

Jamal rubs his thumb across his bottom lip, watching me with a pleased smirk. “I’m going to take you away from him.”

I return a smirk of my own. “I can’t wait.”

Over an hourof smoking and drinking later, Jamal still has me hugged on his lap, his full attention on me. Fake-smoking weed while undercover isn’t new for me. I’ve had to fake snort cocaine on undercover jobs before, too. But that’s a bit trickier, so it’s always better if it can be avoided. Since Jamal has no reason to suspect I’m after him, opting for weed in this case was safe.

He feels me up and mutters filthy words against my skin. But I’m numb to it. In college, I was sexually assaulted by a friend’s father. It broke me for a while, left me sad and pitiful. But then I got angry, and I unplugged the power of the male touch. Decided that the only time a man’s touch would ever mean anything to me would be when I allowed it to. De-powering the male touch means it can neither harm me nor rouse me unless I let it.

So all of this reprobate’s kissing and groping? I feel none of it. That’s what makes playing roles like this so effortless for me. I can kiss, touch, and fondle without a second thought. Because only I control the switches to what affects me.

Surreptitiously, I unclasp my charm bracelet and let it slide off my wrist.

“Oh shoot, my bracelet,” I say when it falls to the carpeted floor.

“Leave it,” Jamal commands, pupils dilated, arm tight around me. “I will buy you many more like it.”

“But this one is precious to me. It’s a family heirloom.”

With a grunt, he reluctantly loosens his hold and allows me to crouch down and get it. But as I do, I stealthily stick a bug from the bracelet under the bottom of the sofa.

“Boss,” one of the men says as I’m straightening up from the floor. “Pierre is on the way up.”

I glance to the monitor to see Sacha running up the stairs.

Jamal chuckles, amused.

Outside the door, Sacha tries to get past two guards, but they block him.

“That’smygirl in there!” Sacha shouts at them. He then tilts his face up to the camera. “You crossed a line, Jamal! Stacey, come out here right now!”

Jamal arches a brow at me. “Do you want to go? I can take care of him. Very easily.”

I sigh noisily as if it’s the last thing I want to do. “If I don’t, he won’t stop. He’ll just make a scene. And I don’t want your men to hurt him.”

“All right. Go.” He slaps my ass and licks his lips. “You will beminesoon. Come to the club tomorrow, yes? I want you to dance for me again. I will ensure your boyfriend has the night off.”