Love the Way You Lie (Stripped 1)

“I’m sorry,” I finally say, although too late and insincere to be useful.

His eyes darken. He stands up and approaches me. I shrink back from the dark look in his eyes. He doesn’t stop until I’m backed up against the wall.

“Did he fuck you that well?” he whispers, mouth an inch from my cheek. “You couldn’t say no?”

He’s just trying to scare me. I know that. I can recognize that fact, but it doesn’t stop it from working.

“All this time he never comes into my club. Now suddenly he’s a regular customer.” Ivan runs a finger down my cheek. “Although I guess we can’t really call him a customer.”

“I just…” My voice wavers. “I didn’t think it would hurt anyone.”

“So worried about other people. When really it’s you that’ll end up hurt.”

“No, he wouldn’t—”

“Maybe you should get down on your knees again. I can see what you’ve been giving him.”

My heart pounds. I offered him this in his office, but it’s different out here in the dressing room. And maybe it’s different because of Kip too. He’s changing me. He’s making me stronger, and in my life that’s not really a good thing.

“No,” I whisper.

“What did you say?”

“She said no.” The voice comes from the doorway. Both Ivan and I look over. Kip.

Oh Jesus. He’s never come to the dressing room. Why is he here now?

That’s answered for me when I get a glimpse of Candy behind him. She must have known Ivan was going to talk to me, must have known I was in trouble. And she called Kip to protect me. But it will only make it worse. Ivan and I are tinder, brittle and dry. Kip is the match.

He looks seriously pissed, brows furrowed and mouth set in a grim line. “Honey.”

Just that one word and somehow I’m going to him, obeying his tacit command, choosing him over Ivan before I can process what a monumentally awful idea that is. Kip is just a customer. Not even that. But Ivan is my boss. He’s also a man holding the key to my past. I need him to like me. I need to be on my knees in front of him right now, but instead I’m behind Kip as he steps in front of me—protecting me with his body.

Ivan raises an eyebrow at Kip. “Sticking your nose in my business?”

Kip is like some kind of avenging angel, standing in front of me, fearless. “She said no.”

Ivan laughs, incredulous. “She’s one of my girls. She does what I say, when I say. If I want her to fuck half of Tanglewood, she’ll spread her fucking legs.”

Kip doesn’t immediately react, but I feel his anger spread like wildfire, forming around the three of us, locking us in this battle. When he speaks, it is quiet, barely above the roar in my ears. “She belongs to me now.”

The words ring through me like a bell, echoing inside me. What? Ivan sounds surprised too. “She’s a stripper.”

“Not anymore.”

I can’t catch my breath. What the hell is he talking about? She belongs to me now. It’s barbaric. And considering I need Ivan, a really inconvenient time to be getting possessive. So why does pleasure spread from the inside out, warming me, raising goose bumps on my skin?

Then I can’t hold it in anymore—I peek around Kip’s arm to see Ivan looking calculating. I expect him to say something sharp or threatening. His power around here is well known. The men who come to visit him are scary characters in their own right, but they are always deferential to Ivan. If this were a high school yearbook, he’d get voted most likely to terrify, and I’m terrified for Kip.

But then something strange happens.

Ivan’s gaze turns considering. He sizes Kip up. His gaze flicks to me. Acknowledgement turns his eyes cool. “Yours?”

“You have something to say to her, go through me.”

And just like that, he backs down. Ivan’s gaze flicks to me, then back to Kip. “You can tell your girlfriend that what she’s looking for isn’t here. It never was.”

My mother. He means she never arrived in Tanglewood. It’s hard to breathe. I always knew she never left Las Vegas, but hearing it confirmed still hurts. I guess when you see that gleaming closed casket, there’s always a part of you that hopes. Some small part of me that imagined her finding some other way, driving off into the sunset. Alive. Safe. Betrayed by both her husband and lover.