“Honey,” I whisper.
He repeats my name like he’s never heard of it before. “Honey.”
My gaze drops to his mouth, which is firm and almost thin. A hard man’s lips, with scruff shadowing his jaw. “And yours?”
Those lips curve into a half smile. “You’re better off not knowing my name.”
That much I believe. It makes me trust him more. “I’m better off not sitting on your lap. Better off not taking my clothes off for strange men every night. I guess that ship has sailed.”
His lids lower with something like appreciation. “You can call me Kip.” He must have seen I didn’t quite believe him, because he laughs softly. “It’s my real name. Not like Honey.”
I wince at the pointed jab, but what does he expect? The truth?
There is no truth. Honey isn’t my real name, but as each day goes by, I feel less and less like Honor Moretti. I’m transparent, like a ghost. Insubstantial. That’s what hiding does to you. It makes you invisible.
He relents at whatever expression’s on my face, softening. “It’s short for Kipling.”
Just those few words and he’s given me something. Something personal. Something real. That’s rare in this club. That’s rare in the whole world. It makes me want more. I’ve seen the jut of old bone from the ground. I want to dig deeper, to uncover more truths. “As in Rudyard Kipling?”
His eyebrows rise. He tries to cover it up, but I’ve already seen.
“Are you surprised a stripper has read poetry?” I ask.
“No.”
“Liar.” I’m not mad though. The girls here are mostly surviving. We’re kicking up to the surface. It doesn’t leave a lot of leisure time for reading. “So, your parents were fans?”
“Just my mother, as far as I know.” He gives a rueful smile like I’ve disarmed him. Which only proves he came here armed. “I’m just glad I got Kipling and not Rudyard.”
I like him this way. More open. Less threatening. It eases me enough that I run my hands down his chest, drawing a shudder from him. “Did you grow up with Mowgli and Baloo?”
“Until I was sick of them,” he says. “I had a big book, the kind you can only find in a garage sale. The paper yellow and the binding turning to string.”
“It sounds lovely.” My hands play lower—at the flat, hard plane at the bottom of his abs. Strippers often chat up the customers. Some of them come for more than a rub down. They want to talk
, to flirt. They want to use us like therapists and then fuck us after. It’s a kind of foreplay.
I tell myself that’s why I’m talking to this man. No other reason. Not because I want to.
“It was,” he says, “at the time. I’d get lost in them. I wanted to go live in the jungle.”
“And then you grew up and realized you were already there.”
His smile is pleased and sly. He likes this. “Is that where we are? The jungle?”
“The ground is made of concrete and the trees are full of glass. But there are snakes here. There are hunters.”
“I thought it was just a story,” he says lightly.
“Stories are powerful.” They’re life and death. They’re survival. There wasn’t much to do locked up in my room except read. And dance. I am a world away from that life, but that still holds true. I still spend most of my time reading and dancing.
And I’m still locked up, in a different way.
He looks too curious for my comfort. “So what stories do you tell?” he murmurs.
I shrug, for all the world nonchalant. “Same old story. Broken home. Ran away. Now I’m a stripper.”
It’s a sanitized version of the truth.