d forgotten where the fuck he was. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“Hey,” Zane tapped his bottle of beer against the one in Eric’s hand, “you want to come to Poles with us?”
Eric shook his head. He should have known how the evening would end. Zane had a fucking hard-on for Bea, one of the dancers, so every time they met up, Poles was the usual destination after a few beers. So far Bea had yet to accept Zane’s invitation to dinner. Eric was amused at his friend’s preoccupation with the tall redhead. He knew that Zane would wear her down eventually. She wanted to accept his friend’s invitation when he’d asked her out but she’d hesitated. She probably knew that Zane had fucked one of the other girls from the club, who’d wanted more from him. More than likely, Bea had been warned to stay clear.
“So, you game?” Zane asked, getting impatient for an answer. “You know you want to. You could do with getting laid. It might wipe that scowl off your face.”
“I don’t want a nameless fuck,” Eric admitted.
“She wouldn’t be nameless if you got a name,” Zane chuckled.
“That isn’t what I meant and you know it.” Draining the rest of his beer, he got to his feet. “C’mon. Let’s go before I change my mind.”
“That’s my man.” Zane shot up and wrapped an arm around Eric’s shoulders.
As they headed out to his truck, all Eric could think about was Sylvia—the woman who heated his blood. It had been months since he’d spotted her on the dance floor in Kenza.
She’d turned his head from the first moment he’d seen her, and she’d kept it turned in her direction. Until the night in Kenza, he’d tried to keep his distance because he thought she was dating his cousin, Ramon. He never played second fiddle to anyone, let alone a cousin, so he’d been rough with Sylvia to keep her at arms length. Whenever they spoke, he’d use a sharp tone. Thankfully, they hadn’t spoken often because he knew he’d hurt her, but he just couldn’t help himself.
Since that night at the club, he hadn’t been with anyone. Hell, he hadn’t been with anyone in a long time, since he’d first seen her. Sylvia drove him crazy.
Her thick, blonde hair surrounded a beautiful, fresh face with a sprinkling of freckles over her cheekbones and nose. She reminded him of the girl-next-door because there was a sweet innocence about her.
She made his mouth water, and all the nights since he’d met her had been hard in more ways than one. In the club, his hands had been all over her luscious ass, and his cock had throbbed so fucking much that he’d had to take care of the problem himself once he’d gotten home.
Never one to let a woman preoccupy his every thought, he was annoyed that she wouldn’t leave him alone. He should think himself lucky because he’d gotten to thirty-seven without having a ‘woman’ problem. He could do with getting her out of his head, and the only way he knew how to do that was to get her in his bed—out of his system.
He sure as hell wasn’t looking for anything permanent. His brother had put him right off having a relationship. Mateo was engaged to a money-hungry bitch that Eric couldn’t stand the sight of. His other brothers all felt the same, and their sister Emelia, had a serious hate for the woman. Emelia loved nothing more than to make a dig at her. Caprice would let the dig roll over her and turn a blind eye, not because she was nice or hurt but because she needed to keep the peace between her and Mateo. The family was positive about her motives but his brother was blind. Eric wished his brother would open his eyes and really look at the woman he was engaged to. Hopefully, he would before the wedding went ahead.
Eric needed to concentrate on getting on Sylvia’s good side, instead of needling her all the time. She fired his blood when she was annoyed with him. It was a reaction, and to have all that fire directed at him was a huge turn-on. He’d been hard as fuck ever since Kenza and his hand only dimmed the lust he felt when he thought about her. He was still horny as hell.
Chapter Two
Sylvia slammed her locker and crumpled the note. Was that creep out there? Who was he? She tried to shake off the unsettled feeling, but between her secret admirer and the too short schoolgirl skirt that she wore nothing worked.
She tugged on the skirt and wanted to hurl. Her boss at Poles wanted her in a schoolgirl outfit for her stint on stage. He paid her wages so she didn’t really have much choice.
She’d worked at the club for only a month or so, and, in that time she’d earned a small fortune. Well, it was a small fortune to her. All she needed to do was work another few months and then she’d have enough saved to make a down payment on the cozy cottage she’d discovered one weekend.
Talya had dragged her out of bed one morning and they’d driven until their stomachs had ached with hunger, about an hour into their journey, and that’s when she saw it. The beauty of it had reminded her of an English countryside. There had been rose bush after rose bush surrounding it, and they also peaked through the over-grown grass. The grounds had been neglected, the roses in need of pruning, but she saw past that to how it would look with some hard work. Sylvia wasn’t afraid of hard work. She’d been brought up on a dairy farm, and had ridden the tractor with her father from the time she was a toddler. No, she wasn’t afraid of work and she wasn’t afraid of paying her dues here to earn what she wanted.
The whistles and cheers from the audience carried backstage, bringing her back to what she had to go out there and do in five minutes. She took in a steadying breath and pictured that little rose garden again.
She’d sworn she’d never pole dance again, especially with a crowded room of people. She’d done it before, as a freshman in college, when a huge medical bill for her father threatened her attendance at school. Instead of giving up, Sylvia had taken a job at a strip club for her first year. If her parents had known what kind of job she’d gotten, she’d have been home in a blink of an eye. Of course, once it wasn’t needed, Sylvia had stopped dancing...until now at least.
Her college degree had landed her a good job though, and during the day she worked as the assistant to the CEO’s of McKenzie Holdings, a large construction company in Lexington. But it wasn’t a good enough job for her to buy that little cottage, so by night she was Scarlett, erotic dancer for Yuri Petrov in his club, Poles.
Yuri was a good boss—usually. He was amused with Sylvia’s choice of words over the schoolgirl outfit, but he’d promised she’d only wear it once. He could be damn persuasive when he put his mind to it. She should have asked her friend, Talya, to go and talk to him about the short ass skirt. Talya had him wrapped around her finger, which she would completely deny, but the big Russian boss would do anything she asked. He had a thing for Talya. Sylvia knew this as she knew that she’d probably be late for work downtown on Monday.
Sylvia glanced at herself in the floor to ceiling mirror that ran down one side of the dressing room, and winced. If her family saw her now she’d never hear the end of it. Or worse, if the McKenzies saw her, she wasn’t sure if she’d still have a job. She did know if word got back, Ramon would have a hell of a lot to say about it.
Tugging her skirt down, she just about stopped herself from stamping her foot. There was no give in the cotton fabric, which was held together at the waist by a thin strip of Velcro.
She huffed in frustration.
“Sylvia? You in here?” Talya shouted, barging into the dressing room without a care in the world. “You look hot! Why aren’t you out there?”
“This needs to be longer,” Sylvia complained, giving the skirt one last tug.