“Oh, so now you want me. You saw me shake my ass and my tits and now—”
Lightning fast, I reached across the seat and caught a handful of her ponytail, tugging gently. “What did I tell you about diminishing yourself in my presence?”
“I’m not diminishing anything. You’re trying to diminish me
by running so fucking hot and cold.”
I grabbed her hand and brought it to my cock, hard and straining against my jeans. She bit her lip, but she still let out one of those sexy little gasps that I both hated and adored. “Does that feel cold to you?”
“It feels like you went to a strip club and watched a topless dancer.” She snatched her hand back and slipped across the seat. “They have back rooms for that. I know you know that all too well, because I stood outside one last spring while you got your dick sucked.”
Yeah, I’d gotten my dick sucked, all right, for the sole purpose of killing the last bit of interest Carly had in me. I was still trying to do that.
Some twisted, masochistic part of me was also still trying to keep it alive.
“I was hard before I saw you dance. It definitely pushed things along, but it didn’t start me off.”
Arms crossed, she stared straight ahead.
“I know you don’t understand—”
“You don’t want me to understand. You want to keep me in the dark, but I guess after last week, you also want a bite of nookie cookie now and then, huh? Sorry, buddy, it’s not going to work that way. I’m not your sometimes fuckee.”
Despite everything, my lips twitched. She was the only person capable of making me smile so easily. Those smiles usually ended up bookended by the urge to shove her against a wall and fuck her brainless and wanting to pull my hair out because she was so goddamn frustrating.
“I don’t want a bite of your nookie cookie. I want to eat the whole damn thing and lick my fingers afterward. Then I want to clean up the crumbs with my tongue.”
“Overshare,” she muttered, and I would’ve smiled wider if I’d been focused on anything but the pulse of blood in my dick.
“I know I haven’t been fair to you.”
Still nothing.
“It’s for your own good—”
“Heads up, I don’t do well with people telling me that things are for my own good, especially when it feels like I’m sitting in a steaming pile of poo. My sister said those words to me my entire life, and you know what ended up happening? The second I got a taste of freedom, I started stripping. Because it felt good to be wanted, even if it was just for this.” She gestured at the front of her body. “I know no one could understand how getting up there and dancing half naked is freeing for me, but it is. Or it was until last Friday night.”
I gripped the wheel tighter. “I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t,” she said loudly when I would’ve interrupted her. “I flirted with Marco for tips, and because I enjoyed his attention. It wasn’t my fault either. What I was to blame for was coming to work unprepared, but I rectified that tonight.” She picked up her purse and shook it. “I have pepper spray, throwing stars, and a recording app if anyone decides to touch me again. They can take pictures to demonstrate my supposed character until the end of time, but they won’t get their hands on my fucking phone.”
Admiration wound through me. “Throwing stars?”
Her chin came up. “My sister taught me how to use them.”
“Good. That’s good. She should teach you some basic self-defense moves—” I fell silent at her hard stare. “I suppose you have that under control.”
“I do. I know some self-defense moves, Gio. I didn’t use them on you because I wanted to have sex with you.”
If I’d been capable of blushing, that would’ve done it. Why, I didn’t know, but damn if I didn’t feel the back of my neck grow warm.
“Not like that,” I said quietly. “Never like that.”
“Some part of me gets off on exhibitionism,” she said after a moment. “At first, I told myself that was just another kind. But it wasn’t, was it? That’s why it keeps kicking back on me, why I keep having flashbacks.” She shuddered. “Why I can’t sleep, because Marco and his men are watching me from the corners like twisted boogeymen.”
“No. That had nothing to do with sex, or pleasure, or enjoyment. It had everything to do with power and control.” As soon as the words were out, I exhaled. “I don’t mean—”
“We both got off. There was something there, in the midst of what they’d started.” It was her turn to blow out a breath. “Maybe it was easy to get what happened tangled up, to make it into more.”