Bride Wanted Page 10

  "Well hello there, Willow. You're half an hour early. Something I can help you with?"

  "Hey Mr. Brent. Just wanted to come here early,” I told him. “I don't have anything else to do."

  "Hmm, well okay. You know I don't pay overtime."

  He gestured with his cigar, and a few ashes fell to the bar. My boss was a rough around the edges type of guy, to put it nicely, who liked to proudly declare that he had registered with the city as a cigar bar for a special license, so that no one could tell him he couldn’t smoke his cigar in his own damn establishment.

  I shook my head and looked for a rag to wipe the ashes off. "Yeah, I know."

  I worked around the bar, cleaning bottles and shot glasses. Mr. Brent didn’t seem to care, as long as, I didn’t clock in yet. Once my shift had officially started, I began asking customers what they would like to drink.

  Late afternoon settled in as I walked back and forth, pouring beer and mixing cocktails and trying to make small talk with the customers. It was hard in a place like this, where the kind of small talk they wanted to make involved the words, “Show us your tits.”

  Try as I might, I couldn’t forget my brother’s predicament. Sam's peaceful face in my mind tore me apart. How long would it be before they took him off the machine? Could they do that; was it even legal? I couldn’t see how this would be any different than murder if my brother died because of the lack of money.

  One of the dancers sat down at the bar table and took out a wad of cash. She began to count it, and I couldn't help but stare at it like it was a beacon of light.

  I knew they made money.

  But that looked like cash sufficient to pay off medical bills type of money.

  "Stacy," I asked, pushing her a shot of tequila, which I knew was her favorite. "Is that how much a dancer can make in a week?"

  She pushed her lips to the side in thought and downed her shot.

  "Not really. Maybe if you're new? I made this last night. I was just too busy to count it, ya know. Mr. B skims two hundred a night and we keep the rest."

  My eyes fell out of my sockets. "Wait, he takes two hundred and you still have all that left?”

  She chuckled. "Yep. That way we don't have to worry about a percentage."

  My eyes lingered on the money for a second.

  Sacrifice.

  A sacrifice had to be made.

  I pushed Stacy a drink on the house and went over to Mr. Brent's office.

  "Hey, Boss?" I asked, peeking my head into his office.

  "Come in, Willow."

  I slipped in and sat down in front of his small desk.

  "What's wrong?" he asked. “I knew something was up with you today.”

  "I want to be a dancer."

  I said it in a rush, before I could change my mind.

  "You want to dance for me?” He grinned and shoved his cigar back in his mouth. “It's about damn time you asked. You want to know how many men have asked if you were going to be getting out from behind that bar and onto a pole?"

  "Maybe I'd rather not know? But I'd love to start tonight."

  He got up and motioned for me to follow him. He took me into another part of the building I had never been before; it was the dancer's area. There were lockers and a lot of counter space with mirrors on top, with makeup spilling out onto all surfaces. The tiny, shiny scraps of clothing they wore were hanging on racks as well as draped across chairs. The ones they had already worn on stage had clearly been tossed off in favor of a new outfit, and littered the floor, next to tons of high heels. I mean, really high heels.

  "Just dress as skimpy as possible, you can use anything here. Since you're new, I'll just skim fifteen percent until you hit a stride."

  I clutched at my shirt. "Thank you, Mr. Brent. I really appreciate this."

  He nodded. "Say, you've always been the mild mannered sweet one here, the girl next door type and all of that, so what makes you want to be a dancer?”

  "Well, the medical insurance to keep my brother on the breathing machine dropped his coverage, so..."

  "I see.” He shook his head, his cigar wobbling back and forth. “Damn greedy motherfuckers. They like to collect money, but don't want to pay it out. My grandfather passed away like that."

  He patted my shoulder. "You'll be fine. Get out there and dance a bit. That'll help brighten up your mood, and fill up that bank account of yours as well."

  And his, too.

  "Thanks, Mr. Brent."

  He left to go back to his office, and I stood still in the middle of the room like an awkward lamp post.

  "Huh, this stuff is really skimpy," I mumbled to myself, picking up a sheer thong. But it was no different than a bathing suit, right?

  Right, keep telling yourself that…

  "Hey, whatcha doing back here?" Stacy asked, popping up behind me.

  "I’m a dancer now," I said, shrugging a little.

  "Really? Mr. B just let you on just like that? Sheesh, that's fast. He made me audition for him and he told me to gain a few pounds. Said the guys here like women with some meat on their bones and I was too scrawny. How rude, right?"

  “Yeah, that is rude,” I told her.

  I felt bad for her. But for once, that extra weight I could never seem to drop seemed to have worked in my favor rather than against me.

  Stacy sat down at her makeup station. "It doesn’t matter. I never really gained the weight because my metabolism is good no matter how many burgers I eat.”

  “Must be rough,” I said, laughing.

  “I know, right? The good thing is that Mr. B seemed to forget about his instructions. I think there are men who like all kinds of different body types here. Once he saw that they were happy to continue buying drinks and watching me, he dropped the whole issue.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “You look great just as you are.”

  I blushed as I said this, as it implied I had been watching her naked body on stage. I had only meant that I liked her figure and admired her confidence. But I was afraid I had come off creepy. If she thought so, though, she didn’t say anything and instead just patted the bench beside her.

  “Come sit right here, you can have this spot next to me. I can show you the ropes.” She looked me up and down, then shook her head. “Someone as innocent looking as you is gonna need a few tips!"

  I sat down next to Stacy and watched in the mirror as she did my makeup and hair and picked out an outfit with a matching pair of shoes.

  “There are some guys here who like the innocent look, so I’m not doing you up too much,” she said, like a school mom tasked with training me in the ways of exotic dancing. “But most of them think we’re bad girls and that if they pay us enough in tips when we’re on stage, we’ll do extra things for them when we give them lap dances. So it’s not good to look like a goody two shoes. No offense.”

  “None taken,” I told her, shrugging. “I appreciate your help.”

  They had a rehearsal pole in the changing area and Stacy showed me how to grip it and do basic moves.

  "You're not worried you'll crack your neck?"

  "Nah, I was in gymnastics when I was younger. Doesn't scare me."

  "Wow."

  I was athletic and could do a few gymnastics moves, too, but Stacy’s moves were on a different scale entirely. After some pole dance coaching, I had the basics strung together for an okay show. Maybe I wouldn't make as much as Stacy did on my first day, but it was a start. It was going to be a hell of a lot better than the measly three hundred and fifty dollars I earned a week by tending bar here.

  I didn't even know how much money it would take to keep Sam alive, but that didn't mean I could sit idle until then. Now I had the chance to save money to take care of Sam. It wasn’t exactly what I’d seen myself doing for a career, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

  The music began and the rest of the evening shift dancers arrived. The bar was filling up with the early crowd— older men who didn’t want to go home quite
yet, and frat boys getting an early start on Saturday night drinking.

  Mr. Brent knocked loudly and stuck his face through the curtain. “Time to go, ladies! Willow, you’re up first!”

  I gulped. This was it. My shot to help save my brother.

  Chapter 3 – Darien

  It had not been a good week, to say the least.

  I was tired, achy, and felt like an old ass man at the age of thirty-five.

  I was a single father, who would soon be officially divorced, and I was also the owner of a lucrative company. Right now, I should've been feeling like a billion bucks or more, because that’s what I was worth, but working all day Saturday while worrying about your kid will make anyone feel deflated.

  I was just driving around. I wasn’t ready to go home to a house without my daughter in it, but it was dark and there wasn’t anything to do. I finally turned toward the downtown street that would take me home, but my eye caught a sign that I’d seen before.

  It was a bar that I’d passed countless times on my commute, but didn’t know very well. I wasn’t usually much of a drinker, seeing as how I had a kid to take care of. Its name was Peaches and Cheeks and so there was no way I didn’t know it was a seedy strip club, on top of the fact that the single male employees who worked for me liked to tell me stories about the hot dancers who worked there.

  I always thought I’d leave that kind of stuff up to them to explore. It wasn’t my thing. But tonight, suddenly, the thought of being in there, where nobody knew me or could kiss up to me was very appealing. I didn't want to be the big successful billionaire tonight. I was just going to be a guy out to have a few drinks and forget his troubles for a couple of hours. In a place where no one knew me.

  The music was loud and the smell of cheap alcohol was in the air. I inhaled it and sat down at the bar to order a drink. I would need it, to be in a place like this which wasn’t even normally my scene.

  "Hey, can I have a whiskey on the rocks?" I asked the young male bartender.

  "No problem."

  He poured my drink and slid it down to me.

  I downed the spicy mixture and savored the sting lingering down my throat.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a female dancer on the pole. Her light pale skin glowed under the lights that shined above her.

  She wore a skimpy set of red lingerie. I would say she wore it confidently but— although she should have, because her body was fucking gorgeous, with curves in all the right places— she appeared to be shy and self-conscious. She stumbled here and there, which was another indication of her newness and innocence.

  Suddenly, I felt fucking guilty for being in this place. My mind told me it was sad that females were subjected to this treatment because of the lack of money. I thought about Ariel. I was fortunate that she didn't have to ever look this life in the eye.

  But I was also a red blooded male and that dancer was the hottest thing I had seen in a long time. I told myself not to feel bad. I couldn’t help it that my cock was getting hard just looking at her and thinking about what I wanted to do with her.

  She wiggled her curvy ass and I thought about bending her over and fucking her from behind. She took off her bikini top and her breasts were so big and round that all I wanted to do was play with them.

  For now, watching this hot yet innocent looking dancer on stage, I decided I wasn't going to worry about anything. I worried about custody and all that shit enough during other times of my recently stressful life.

  I was here for a good time, so I straggled over to the stage where the beautiful blonde with a small waist and big nice hips danced. The men seemed to love it when she stumbled, looking at each other with nods and grins. Her clumsiness screamed fresh blood to them.

  I dug into my wallet and saw that I had a stash of hundreds. Nothing smaller.

  "What the hell," I mumbled to myself.

  I took out a few and was prepared to hand them to her─ well, stuff them in her garter or wherever she preferred them. She did a few turns on the pole, and then began walking over to me to collect the cash. She looked hesitant at first but then appeared to have renewed resolve, lengthening her pace in her very high heels. She must not have been used to walking on them because something happened and she lost her grip, tumbling right over onto me.

  "Ah!" she screamed, falling head first my way.

  "I got you!" I said, catching her.

  We both fell back onto the floor and the men whooped and hollered.

  "I'm so sorry!" she apologized, checking my jacket.

  Her voice was sweet, yet strong. It captured me in a state of slow motion. She flicked her long lashes up at me while her innocent, yet still somehow sultry, blue eyes peered up at me from underneath them.

  Suddenly, I felt as undone as she had just become.

  She’s just a fucking stripper, I told myself. And not even a good one at that. You could have any stripper you wanted, so don’t go getting attached to this one.

  But I couldn’t seem to help it. It appeared she had some sort of magical spell over me.

  "Are you okay?" she asked.

  I rubbed my neck and grinned. "I'm good. You?"

  Another dancer walked out on stage and the men turned their attention towards the obviously much more experienced stripper in black lingerie and latex thigh high boots.

  "I'm okay. I'm such a terrible dancer," she groaned. “My boss is sure going to regret his decision to let me up here on stage tonight.”

  So, it was her first time doing this. What were the odds? She must really need money.

  I dug out the bills I had for her earlier and shoved them into her hands.

  Big mistake. I shouldn't have touched her. Of course, she was sitting on my lap, but this was skin on skin.

  That silky cool skin made my blood rush. As did the pink, erect nipples staring up at me from her breasts. I wished I could take them into my mouth and kiss them, suck on them, please her the way it pleases me to have her plush ass sitting on my lap right now, not even an inch away from my hungry cock.

  "Oh?" she said, looking at the money in her hands. "Thank you!"

  Such innocence. What the fuck was she doing here?

  She ran off into the back and I watched her perfectly round ass cheeks bounce as she disappeared behind a curtain.

  If it weren't for the guard that stood there, I'd have followed her and begged her to come with me. It was as if she had been some fucking magical fairy who had flittered into my life and back out again in such a short amount of time that I didn’t know what hit me.

  I didn't know what led me to stay there. But I found myself in the corner, tearing my eyes away from the current dancers to the curtained door over by one of the bouncers to see if the hot girl who had literally fallen into my lap while wearing sexy red lingerie would come back out again.

  Minutes melted into hours, and then those hours bumped into the early morning hours. Two in the morning, and I was still there. I hardly even drank my whiskey. The guards shooed off the rest of the men and I got up to leave.

  I was a fool. She could have left hours ago through the back or something.

  Just as I headed to the exit, I saw her come back out in her regular clothes. Two men who had exited the bar after her continued to trail close behind her. I ran over and followed them into an alley.

  "Hey, baby, we were waiting to see you back on the pole. Or out walking the floor so we could get a lap dance. Don’t be a cock tease. Let us take you back to our place for a good time!" slurred one man.

  "Yeah, we got plenty of action left in us,” said the other, his voice way too loud.

  She shook her head. "Sorry, gotta get home."

  When one of the men went to grab her arm, I stepped in front of him and elbowed him in the face.

  The woman yelped, "Behind you!"

  His friend tried to attack me and I stuffed my foot in his face. Scooping up my curvy blonde in my arms, I ran off with her out onto the main street where there was plenty of light
ing.

  I sat her down and checked to make sure she was okay.

  She was gorgeous up close with those big baby blue eyes and dark thick lashes.

  "Are you okay?" I asked.

  "You... I remember you.” Her cheeks turned pink in the street light. “Thank you. I'm fine."

  She looked around and glanced at the bus stop across the street.

  "Don’t you drive?" I asked her.

  "No, I take the bus."

  "Let me drive you home, my car is right over here. This isn't the time for a young lady to be out here." She looked at me and then over to the bus stop.

  She was weighing her options. Then she stepped over to me and smiled. "Okay. I don't think you're like the others."

  "No, of course not."

  At first I was a bit insulted that she could think so. Then I realized I had been in a strip club all night long. But then again, so had she.

  I walked her to my Lamborghini and opened the passenger side door. She slipped in like a soft piece of silk, then down into the seat as if she belonged there, as part of the car, as part of my life.

  I hopped in on the other side and turned on the light inside the car.

  I caught another good look at her. The scent of her floral perfume lingered in the air.

  No, don't do it, Darien. You remember that clause. No dating or sexual relationships. Don't risk your custody of Ariel!

  I revved the engine and pulled out of the parking spot.

  She told me her address, and I drove her there. It was disheartening to hear that she didn't have a safer way to get to her job.

  Before she left, I tapped her shoulder. "You should get a car."

  She shook her head and bit her lip. "I can't. I have to take care of my brother. He needs my help. But thank you so much for the concern and the ride."

  "What's your name, if you don't mind me asking?"

  "My name is Willow.” She laughed a little. “Before you ask, yes, that's my real name. Haven't thought of a proper dancer name yet."