Free Me Read online

  My jaw tensed as I wondered exactly how Alyssa had described me—blonde? Bony? Uptight? A pain in the ass?

  “Though, Alyssa, you were wrong,” JC said to the waitress behind me. “You said that she was pretty, which is totally not correct.”

  My eyes widened with horror. I wasn’t pageant material maybe, but I’d never been outright told I wasn’t pretty.

  JC turned his focus back to me. “No, no, no. You’re taking me wrong.” Jesus, was I really so transparent? “Pretty is a complete put-down if you ask me, because you’re actually quite gorgeous. It’s a unique sort of beauty. A hardened one. Not many people can pull off stony and stunning. But you can. It’s your eyes. They’re softer, inset like that. They contradict your expression.”

  I blinked. Maybe I gaped a bit too. The straightforward way this man—this stranger—talked about me, about my looks…it should have felt crude. Violating. Not flattering. Not charming.

  And it sure as hell shouldn’t make my stomach flutter with butterflies or make my pulse pick up. Or make my cheeks blush.

  The woman behind him leaned forward, her breasts rubbing casually against the man’s ear. “It doesn’t hurt that she has nice tits,” she added.

  This time I did gape. For one, how could she possibly know anything about my tits, which were on the bigger side, yes, but completely covered? And two, had she looked in a mirror? Because if we were talking about nice tits, there were few that could compete with hers, and I was even pretty sure they were real.

  “Now, Natalie, that’s hardly appropriate.” But his eyes moved down to check out my rack as he said it.

  Still, I appreciated the attempt at civility.

  Then I remembered I didn’t appreciate any of this at all. “Flattery is not going to get you anywhere with me. You need to get this out of here. Now.” Thank God for the natural rasp in my voice—I used it to hide my unsteadiness.

  “I don’t do flattery, Gwen.” He paused, seeming to want that to sink in before he went on. “And, I’m sorry to be the one to inform you, but I have this room booked to do absolutely whatever I want.”

  “You may have the room booked. But not to do whatever you want.” The room had an explicit lease agreement with definitive rules. He had to have received a copy. He was a regular—none of this could be new to him. And if he thought he could try to take advantage of my unfamiliarity, he had another thing coming.

  I clung to that—the rules, the law. Clung to the knowledge that right was on my side.

  “Actually, he does have the room booked to do whatever he wants,” Alyssa said meekly.

  I turned to see her face crumple into an apology. Whether she was apologizing for not telling me about the situation beforehand or for taking his side, I didn’t know.

  I did know there was no way she was right.

  As if reading my mind, he said, “Alyssa’s right. I do.”

  There’s really only one person who would have arranged something with that kind of authority, but I asked anyway, dreading the answer. “Says who?”

  “Matt.” The answer came both from Alyssa and him at the same time.

  Then he clarified. “Matt and I have somewhat of an informal agreement.”

  What was left of my dignity fell away. If it was true—and I had a sinking feeling it was—then I was in the wrong. It was humiliating. And disappointing.

  I’d heard rumors about Matt’s informal agreements, but I’d yet to see them live and in action. Probably because Matt knew I’d disapprove. Since he was my boss, my endorsement wasn’t exactly required. Unless he was worried that I’d go above his head and tell the owner, Joseph Ricker.

  I wouldn’t do that. Matt was a good boss and I had no interest in taking his job. But I could at least scare him into ending such ridiculous arrangements. “Maybe I should call him.”

  He seemed to understand what was on the line. He tilted his head and before he even spoke, I knew he’d be a good debater. “You don’t really want to do that, Gwen, do you?” He sat forward, both feet on the ground, his hands clasped with his index fingers extended. “I mean, here’s how I see it. Obviously Matt doesn’t want you to know about me. I’ve been booking this room now for what—seven, eight months?” He looked around the room for agreement, which several people readily gave.

  Then he looked at me. “How long have you been here?”

  “Five years.” I’d been hired as a manager right before my twenty-fifth birthday. It had been my first real job after I’d earned my dual degree in restaurant management and human resources, paid for, of course, by Norma. I hadn’t necessarily intended to stay at Eighty-Eighth, but I’d climbed from part-time assistant manager to second-in-command within three years. The pay was good. The job was comfortable. My boss and my peers respected me.

  He pointed his index fingers now at me. “You never work Tuesdays, do you?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Because Matt’s kept me from you on purpose. Why do you think that is?” His question was patronizing, so I answered only with a hard stare. “No guesses? I have one. I bet you must be the tight-ass around here. The follow-the-rules girl. And the deal I have with Matt, well, the rules are vague. That probably goes against your nature. Doesn’t it, Gwen?”

  I hated how he said my name, like he had all the power because he knew that bit of information about me. Hated it and loved it. I also hated how his eyes drew up my body, long and slow. Sensually touching my every curve, my every angle.

  Hated and loved it. Hated that I loved it.

  I sat on the chair that was still behind me, not trusting my legs to keep me steady for much longer. “What exactly is this deal you have? And who are you?”

  “I,” he paused, “am JC.”

  I’d never heard of him. “JC…?”

  “Just JC.” He said it like it answered everything. Two short syllables to put me in my place.

  “As in Jesus Christ?”

  A few people laughed. But actually, if Christ really had existed—a point I was not sure on in the least—I imagined he’d be quite like the man in front of me. Magnetic, smooth, surrounded by depravity that he didn’t publicly partake in.

  JC chuckled as well, his expression brash and sexy. “I’ve been called that. But usually only when my face is pressed between a woman’s thighs.”

  Ew.

  Also, hot.

  It wasn’t strange for me to hear such lewd comments. I worked in a club. In New York City. I knew crass.

  But the way JC said his inappropriate words made the muscles clench low in my belly. Lower than my belly. In forgotten regions that hadn’t been stimulated in years. Hadn’t even been thought about in years. It brought the room to a tilt again.

  I didn’t like it. I didn’t understand it. Yes, I was human—a woman with sexual desires just like any other—but I’d learned long ago how to turn those feelings off. They didn’t make themselves known without my permission, and they certainly didn’t send sparks down my spine that ricocheted out to my limbs and ignited my every cell. I did not like it in the least.

  So I decided not to acknowledge it. “And your deal…?”

  There was a glint in JC’s eye that said he knew exactly what I was trying to hide. Or maybe I was imagining that because he didn’t bug me about it, and I had the feeling he was the type who would. Instead, he answered my question. “I get The Deck every Tuesday. I use it to entertain my friends and associates.”

  “You entertain your associates,” I repeated. Ah, I knew what this was. He was the snake charmer. The man who brought the deals into his firm by schmoozing their potential clients with hot girls and liquor. “With strippers?”

  “Come on, do you really think these women are strippers? They’re my associates too. Don’t judge them by their lack of clothing.” He eyed one of his guy friends who was currently being straddled by one of the topless girls. “Give it another hour and I bet the men will have undressed too.”

  I looked around the room again, the idea so f
oreign to me. Getting paid to disrobe…I could understand that. I’d come from a life where sometimes you had to do those kinds of things to keep yourself fed.

  But to break rules just because? That, I didn’t get. What would it be like to be that uninhibited? To be that unrestrained?

  I shook my head. The whole thing was beyond my grasp. It also had me pissed. I felt undermined. And disrespected. When Matt had offered me Tuesdays and Wednesdays off a year ago, had that really been because I deserved it? Or was it simply his way of keeping his dealings outside of my radar?

  “This is fucking bullshit,” I muttered, my anger directed more at my own stupidity than anything else.

  JC raised a questioning brow.

  Hell if I was going to explain myself to him. “What is it you do anyway?”

  “This and that. Invest in projects sometimes. Hang out and do what I want the rest of the time.”

  So not the charmer, but one of those guys. A trust fund baby that kept up his lifestyle by giving money to other people who did the work while he partied it up and collected.

  I couldn’t help myself. I rolled my eyes.

  “I could also help you with that stick up your ass.” JC’s tone was serious, but his expression held a glimmer of something more playful. Teasing.

  I narrowed my glare. “By what, replacing it with your stick up my ass?”

  “Ha ha. Funny. I mean, if you wanted to…” He paused as if giving me a chance to jump in and agree. Fat fucking chance. “But that’s not where I was going with that. I was offering something else. Not was—am. I am offering something else.”

  Sure. Something else. Right. “Is that one of the things you do? One of your side jobs?”

  “I don’t take money for it, if that’s what you’re implying. No. It’s not a job. I just see that you’re pretty tense. I think I could help you with that.” He was matter-of-fact where I’d been sarcastic. Genuine where I’d been caustic.

  It left me speechless, and I couldn’t even begin to say why. Because he had the upper hand? Because I’d been thrown off my managerial pedestal? Because the way he looked at me was the most appreciatively I’d been looked at in who knows how long? Like he wanted to eat me up, but also like he wanted to savor me.

  Like he knew that there was a very small but very persistent part of me that wanted just that.

  “He helped me out,” Natalie said. “Honestly, you can’t hang out with JC without learning how to chill a bit.”

  He didn’t glance up at her, his eyes still glued to me. I wondered what exactly he’d taught her. What method was used to educate her? Surely it was as shameless and vulgar as I suspected.

  “Yeah, no thank you.” Not that I was a prude. I was just uninterested in the freeness of character that seemed to be present. I preferred control. I preferred restraint.

  I looked around the room again. There was a couple making out on the loveseat and a threesome half-dancing, half-dry-sexing on one of the tables. The woman straddling the guy’s lap was now gyrating over his crotch as he bit his lip, lust marked heavily in his expression.

  My disgust must have been apparent because JC said, “Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.” He studied me for a second. Then he stood and started toward me. “You haven’t, have you? Tried it, I mean. Haven’t had a good lap dance. Haven’t had any lap dance.”

  He was taller than I’d thought he’d be, his height reaching a good six or seven inches above my standing height, putting him around six feet. And the way he pierced me with his eyes, the way he goaded me with his libidinous undertones, I felt smaller than usual.

  Smaller and hornier.

  The hairs on my arms stood up and my heart fluttered at his nearness and his hypnotic voice. I stumbled on my response. “I hav-v’nt.”

  He nodded to Natalie. “Wanna show her?”

  “Um, no thanks,” I said, standing up before Natalie could answer. Did he really think I’d let her give me a lap dance? No way. I shivered at the thought, though, not entirely sure it was in disgust.

  JC shook his head. “Not for you, babydoll. You’d freak. The girls here will show you.”

  Normally I’d correct him for calling me babydoll. And I’d definitely walk out before the insane scene went farther. But I was glued for some reason, my feet planted to their spot as JC pulled the chair I’d abandoned out in front of me. He didn’t have to ask anyone to sit there—the girl wearing the French lingerie silently sank into the seat. She braced her arms behind her and spread her legs. Wide.

  Natalie took three sultry steps and stopped between the seated woman’s knees. She turned to face out and began her dance. Her movements were subtle at first, a slow tilt of her hip to one side, a sensuous slide of her pelvis to the other. Soon she rested her hands on the other’s legs and bent her own knees as she twisted down—her ass practically sitting in the lap behind her—then twisted back up.

  There was a palpable tension that spread throughout the room, but JC’s guests remained in line. I’d expected whoops and cheers to erupt, but none did. The only sounds besides the faint thump of the club music on the other side of the wall were the soft brush of Natalie’s thighs as they slid back and forth against each other, the swish of her ponytail, and the ragged breaths of both the girls in front of me.

  My own breathing had become jagged and I had to concentrate to keep it quiet. It wasn’t easy. Natalie’s dance was hypnotic. Her body moved to a definitive beat that no one but her could hear, yet it could be felt. It was seductive. It was foreplay. Watching made my thighs quiver. Made my nipples pebble. Made my panties wet.

  A shiver ran down my spine as I let desire spread throughout me. It wasn’t just the sexual aspect that had me so turned on. Nor was it the artistic beauty of her movements. It was something else, something I couldn’t name, something I didn’t quite recognize.

  “It’s extremely sensual, isn’t it?”

  I startled, not realizing JC was so close behind me. Or maybe I did know and that was the real cause of my body’s simmering arousal. But I didn’t know how to answer his question.

  It was sensual.

  And that pissed me off because I wanted it to be porn and not whatever odd thing it was in actuality. I definitely didn’t want it to be this thing that flooded me so entirely.

  So I didn’t answer.

  JC seemed to take my silence as an invitation to say more. “You know what makes it so hot? Besides the beautiful naked women and the fluidity of Natalie’s movements, it’s hot because of what it is. A transfer of power.”

  He must have leaned closer toward me because now I could feel his breath skate across my shoulder as he spoke. “When you get a lap dance, you can’t touch. You want to—God, you want to—but you have to let the pleasure tease you and take over while you remain helpless. It seems at first that it may be easy, doesn’t it? That it’s just about keeping control. Something I’m sure you excel at. But it’s really exactly the opposite. It’s about giving up the control. The control belongs to Natalie. Lena has given her the power. She’s promised to abide by her rules—rules she might not like or agree with. And in return, Natalie gives her the pleasure she’s looking for.”

  He bent in farther, his breath tickling my ear and stirring my blood as he said, “Tell me you don’t want to be her.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “I don’t. I don’t even like regular dancing.”

  “Not Natalie, Gwen. That’s not who you want to be. You want to be Lena. You want to be that free.”

  My breath caught as unexpected tears pricked my eyes.

  I wanted to turn and slap JC. He was cocky and arrogant to think he knew anything about me. He didn’t. He was guessing, trying to get in my pants most likely, and with his guesses he’d struck a nerve. Struck it hard enough that, if I were the free person that he clearly stated I wasn’t, I would have slapped him. Hard.

  But I wasn’t upset because he was guessing or even because of why he was guessing. I was upset because his
guesses were right. I did want to be free. I was a tight-ass. I was boxed in. I existed on routine and missed a whole helluva lot of pleasure.

  What he didn’t know—he couldn’t know—was that I’d chosen to be that way for a reason. It didn’t matter what I wanted, this was how I knew how to survive. Fuck him for trying to insinuate that I’d made the wrong decision. He wasn’t me. He didn’t know.

  I didn’t slap him. And I didn’t say anything. I simply spun around and left the Viper, pulling the door shut behind me. But beyond that slight outburst, I refused to let JC get to me. I refused to think about the choices I’d made and the character I’d taken upon myself. I refused to let myself wonder if there really was any other way I could be.

  The rest of my shift went by without me returning to the room upstairs. I convinced myself I could forget about the whole experience. That meant I wouldn’t tell Matt I knew about his informal deal.

  And I sure as hell wasn’t working another shift on Tuesday as long as I could help it.

  Chapter Two

  “Did I catch you before work?” Norma’s voice sounded muffled through my coat collar as I tried to balance the phone on my shoulder and unlock the doors to the club at the same time.

  It was cold, and with my gloves on, I’d only just managed to hit the TALK button before my phone stopped ringing. “Barely. I’m walking in now.”

  It was a Thursday, and like many other weeknights, Norma had worked late so I hadn’t gotten to see her before leaving for my eight o’clock shift. “Did you get dinner? There’s leftover takeout in the fridge if you didn’t.”

  “Yeah, I ate.” She sounded distracted. “I’m sorry. I meant to call you earlier, but I was tied up with…meetings.”