Superficial bullshit, all of it.
A blonde woman steps into Alec’s path, eyeing me up. “Well, well, well, isn’t this a nice surprise. Two Morelli brothers here at once. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“He needs a lap dance,” Alec states, jerking a thumb in my direction.
The blonde’s eyebrows rise and she looks me over with a little more interest. “Oh yeah?”
I don’t like the way she’s looking at me. “No blondes.”
“I can dye my hair,” she half-jokes.
“In the next ten minutes? That’s how long I’m going to be here.”
“And where are you going after?” she asks with an inviting smile.
“You’re wasting your time,” Alec tells her, putting a hand on her arm and gently pushing her out of the way. “He’s not here looking for a good time, he just has some fucked up plan.”
This is a waste of my time. I shoot Alec a look and he leads me past the blonde stripper and into a private room.
“Why don’t you just sit tight,” Alec suggests. “I’ll go grab a girl and bring her in.”
“Make it quick,” I tell him, taking a seat on the black leather seat.
He leaves me in the room and I sit here, feeling empty. Visions of Mia’s face when I return to our bed tonight spring up before my eyes. I hate even imagining, so I’m not looking forward to carrying it out. I am looking forward to holding her, but I don’t know if I’ll get to tonight. I think she ends up in my arms because deep down she knows she belongs there, but after tonight, after I paint an ugly picture for her, I don’t expect her to feel that way. I know it’s only for two days, I know I can fix it after I break it, but it’s going to be a rough two days.
A little less than two days, I suppose. By the time I go back to Mia, most of tonight will be gone and she’ll go to sleep. I only have one more day to get through, then I can switch gears. Then it will be like the peek I’ve had today. Her affection will be mine. We can build an actual relationship. I’ll still have to keep a firm hand on my feelings so they don’t get out of control, but I can have her. The confusion and blurred lines can be over. I can let her know she’s mine and I’m hers, and that’s it.
The emptiness subsides. That’s worth it. I only have to hurt her one more time, alienate her affection for a little over a day. That’s it. She’ll be relieved when she finds out it wasn’t real, that I didn’t mean any of it. We’ll move past it, like she’s tried to move past the rape.
The door opens and Alec comes in with a leggy redhead. Not a real redhead, but it doesn’t matter. She has green eyes and looks nothing like Mia, so she’ll suffice.
“Hey there, handsome.”
“We can skip all that,” I tell her, reaching into my suit jacket and drawing out a flask. I’m not a flask man at all, but I want to go home smelling of booze and whores, and I’m not about to drink what they serve here.
The redhead’s smile falters briefly. “Oh?”
Alec shakes his head, annoyed at my tactlessness. “You don’t have to work for this one. He’s not really here for the lap dance experience. He has a girl at home and he wants her to smell you on him.”
The redhead shrugs, like that’s not even the strangest thing she’s heard today. “Cool. So, an actual lap dance, or you just want me to rub up on you?” she asks, walking over toward me.
I catch a whiff of her cheap perfume as soon as she’s within reach. Alec picked well. “Doesn’t matter,” I tell her. “If you want to get some lipstick on my collar, that’s fine, too.”
The redhead smiles. “I can do that.”
“This is a bad idea,” Alec tells me again, in case I missed his opinion the first 29 times. “Girls don’t like this shit.”
“Your job here is done,” I inform him. “Come back in ten minutes.”
“Your brain is broken,” he states. “This is why you’re going to die alone.”
I scowl at him for that one, but he doesn’t stick around and wait for it to land.
I uncap the flask and take a swig. “Let’s get on with this.”
The redhead straddles my legs and places her hands on my shoulders, lowering her thong-clad ass until she just brushes my thighs. “So, what did your lady do to deserve such treatment?”
“I don’t want to talk,” I tell her.
Her eyebrows rise and fall in the space of a couple seconds, but she nods, accepting her dismissal and continuing to move against me. It’s a long ten minutes. Not-Mia rubs her scent all over me, smears lipstick on the collar of my white shirt and tries to be as pleasant as possible, given she’s not allowed to touch or talk to me. Her hand dips dangerously close to my cock at one point and I shut her down with a curt, “Nope.”