On The Ropes (Tapped Out 3)

She turned and walked out of the room without another backward glance.

Fifteen

He had a fight tonight, and I wouldn’t be there to see it. Because we were arguing, and because I had to dance.

Maybe the club owned me after all.

He’d called me a couple of times, and though I knew it was cowardly, I hadn’t answered. I didn’t know what to say. Worse, I knew whatever he said, I’d be back in his arms before my shift was over unless I practiced strict avoidance.

I’d even gone so far as to give my notice today—two weeks as was standard, but Trina had begged me to stay for three weeks instead. She’d had two girls quit on her in the last week, and I’d be doing her such a huge favor. Pretty please with a cherry between my legs.

It wasn’t like I couldn’t use the money, especially now that I might be going into business with my sister, so I’d agreed. If I picked up an extra shift or two in that time, even better.

In under a month, it would all be over. I wouldn’t need to survey Gio’s activities anymore, or to try to recapture my youthful enthusiasm for something that now seemed dirty and fake under the cold light of reality. I wouldn’t have to rationalize the mistakes I’d made. I would move on, a little older, a lot wiser, with my heart and soul mostly intact.

For the last two weeks, I’d spent almost every night with Gio. Not the whole night, just stolen hours here and there. Enough to take the edge off the need we had for each other, but not enough to arouse suspicion from my sister. Not seeing him again after these next few weeks at the club would hurt like hell, but I didn’t have any choice. I wouldn’t spend my life wondering when he’d end up in jail or dead. Or if he’d kill someone at Marco and Lorenzo’s request. I’d always known one day I would have to draw a line in the sand.

Tonight was that night.

When the cage door snapped shut, I spun into gear. Dancing emptied out my mind and made me focus on my movements. I was only heat and motion and energy. There wasn’t any room for worrying, or regret, or fear when the music was pumping and the music was flowing. I wouldn’t allow myself to get scared again. I’d danced the past couple of weeks without incident, and I’d be fine tonight and tomorrow too.

Only a few weeks left.

Within a short time, I was lost to the music. My hands caressed my body like a lover’s, and my feet moved without conscious thought. I stripped off my little handkerchief top and pressed my hands to the cage floor, absorbing the bass’s vibrations as I shook my ass, clad only in booty shorts. It was easy. Effortless. Grabbing my breasts and pinching the nipples, spinning on my towering heels. I could’ve been alone in my room for all the mind I paid the crowd. They didn’t exist for me. Gio wasn’t there yet. He couldn’t be, because of his fight. And if he wasn’t watching, I simply wasn’t interested anymore.

I finished and collected my money, shoving it in my pockets and a handy zippered club wallet. At the end of my first post-back room set a couple of weeks ago, I’d forgotten to collect my cash, on account of running out of the cage like a demon was chasing me. One of the other girls had gathered my money for me and taken a healthy twenty percent fee.

My mental health breakdowns would wait until between shifts from now on.

I’d almost made it through the throngs of people and back to the dressing room when I heard that voice I’d been waiting for—and dreading.

“Tesoro.”

My feet nearly stopped. His voice, deep and rough, could easily command my body. How many nights had I had cause to realize that recently? He’d have me on my back in a minute and be inside me in twice that. And I’d let him—hell, I’d beg him. He was the only one who’d ever made me feel this alive, as if my skin and bones weren’t strong enough to hold my heart inside. He was everything.

Too much.

I made it into the dressing room and dropped into the first seat. Blindly, I dug through my makeup bag for my lipstick. Though I couldn’t breathe through the layer of trickery on my skin, I needed that armor. When it came to him, especially.

The door crashed open and then he was in the room with me, taking over the space. By some miracle, no other girls were around.

He flipped the door lock, and my throat closed. I tried to keep applying my lipstick, to focus on my face in the water-spotted mirror, haloed by a dozen tiny lights, but when he came up behind me, I dropped the tube. It rolled off the table and disappeared under an old, faded settee that had probably seen its share of action. Not from me. I wouldn’t succumb.

Not again.

A cry left me when he slapped off the lights. The only light that remained came from the mirror, and it left him almost entirely in shadow. All I could see were his huge hands, clenched. His broad body, blocking out the rest of the room.

And my own decimation, a breath away.

“You ran from me.” His guttural words scraped over nerve endings already rubbed raw.

I shut my eyes. “You’re supposed to be at your fight. I heard them talking. How you were going to win. Make them all kinds of money.” My eyes flashed open and locked on his, scalding blue in the dim light. “Isn’t that all that matters?”

“You want to know what matters?” His big hand wrapped around my throat, and for a moment, panic seized me. Dense and unrelenting, there was no escaping it. My eyes widened and he immediately eased up on the pressure as he dragged me back against him. He spoke close to my ear so that my hair fluttered over my mouth. “What I’m about to do to you. That’s what matters. Nothing else.” His fingers squeezed, but by then, the fear had disappeared in a rush of heat that blew through me from head to toe. “No one else.”

“Now,” I whispered. “Now, I’m your focus, because I’m pulling away.”

“Is that what you call it? Because to me, it looks like bailing.” He bit my earlobe, sending a shockwave of pleasure through my system. “And I can’t even decide if it’s the best thing or the worst. If you’re safer away from me than with.”