Careful What You Kiss For (32 page)

“You’re not gonna be sick,” Tawny hissed. “So don’t even think about it.” She pulled a key from some nonexistent pocket in her leather pants and unlocked the door, pulling it open. “I’m doin’ you a favor. You might start acting like it.”

“Thank you.” Tensley went through the door, spotting Milo right away. He was stationed against the wall, eyes straight ahead, hands locked in front of him.

“Bar’s stocked,” Tawny said. “Milo will keep anybody from getting out of line.”

What constituted being out of line?
Tensley screamed inside her head. Not surprisingly, there was no answer.

Tawny left, locking the door behind her.

Milo nodded toward the bar. “You want a drink, you’d better get it now.”

A drink — or ten — might be a very good idea. Tensley went behind the small bar and grabbed a bottle of the first amber liquid she saw. She raised it to her lips. The alcohol burned going down, numbing her throat. Too bad it couldn’t numb her brain. Yet, anyway.

“Put on one of those.” Milo motioned toward a hook, where a few short silk robes hung. “They like to see it come off.”

Of course “they” did. She obeyed, sliding her arms through the white fabric.

Max. She had to get to him, tell him. Somehow. Before she had to … ugh. Perform. For sleazy guys in polyester suits gripping money in their sweaty fists.

If only she’d had the chance to grab her cell. Hold on. “Milo!”

“Huh?”

“Give me your cell. Please.”

He shook his head. “The customers are gonna be here any minute. You gotta get ready. Put on, you know, your face.”

She frowned. “I have makeup on.”

He swatted the air impatiently. “Nah, your face. You know. Like this.” The big man closed his eyes halfway and pursed his lips, cocking his head to one side.

He was mimicking a woman being seductive. And he was serious. It was kind of sweet, in a twisted way. “Oh,” Tensley said. “My face. Right.” She nodded. “I will, and thank you for the reminder, but first I have to send a quick text. Really fast, I promise.”

“No.”

“Yes. Please.”

“What the hell. They’ll be here any minute. You don’t send no texts from in here.”

“Milo,” she pleaded, walking to his side. “If you have ever liked me at all, please let me borrow your cell.”

“Who you texting?”

She said the first thing that came into her mind. “My cat sitter.”

“What?”

“You know my cat. Gemini.”

He shook his head, looking at her as if she was crazy. Which she probably was, all things considered.

“He has a — condition,” she made up on the fly. “And if the cat sitter doesn’t give him his medicine as soon as she comes over, he could — Well, you know.
Die
.”

“Die?” He looked skeptical.

“Yes. Die.” She moved her nose to within an inch of his. “You don’t want that on your conscience. Trust me.”

Milo hesitated, then reached inside his pocket to pull out an iPhone. “Didn’t know you had a cat,” he mumbled.

Tensley grabbed it. Thankfully, she had Max’s number committed to memory. The numbers even sounded like him, strong eights and nines. No wimpy twos or zeroes.

She punched his number into text messaging, then typed out a cryptic note, praying he would understand. “Working extra time at this moment. Cat needs medicine. Come right away if questions. Life or death.”

Footsteps outside the door, the rattle of a key in the lock.

“Give it to me,” Milo ordered, putting out his hand.

Tensley pressed “send” and handed over the phone, steeling herself for what was to come.

“Face,” Milo hissed.

She put one hand on her hip and tried to adopt her best seductive expression, though she was pretty sure it looked more like “what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here” than “come-hither.” From the corner of her eye, she saw Milo shoot her an alarmed look, which pretty much confirmed it.

Tawny opened the door, stepping back to allow two men to step inside. The first was a tall guy with a round, protruding stomach and a double chin. His thick blond hair was faded with streaks of gray and he looked like someone who would laugh so loud, other people would be embarrassed for him. He raised one eyebrow at Tensley and said, “Now you know how to show a customer a good time, doncha?” over his shoulder to whoever was behind him.

Tensley froze.

Tawny glared at Tensley.

Tensley smiled, her upper lip trembling, at Big Blond Guy.

Seemingly oblivious, he lumbered toward her, eyeing her up and down. “Aren’t you a fine-looking woman.”

Tawny glided in from the back. “Have a seat, gentlemen,” she said, gesturing at the leather chairs. “Tensley here is going to show you a
very
good time.”

“Ah, now,” Big Blond Guy complained with a skeezy smile, “We have to share?”

“There’s plenty of her to go around,” Tawny purred, arching her back. “I know you’re both gonna enjoy yourselves.”

The divers in Tensley’s stomach performed synchronized flips.

“Why don’t you stay, too, honey?”

“Can’t, big guy. I’ve got a show to do.” Tawny squeezed his arm. She pranced toward the door.

“Okay,” he said, dropping into a chair and turning a hungry look upward at Tensley. “I’m ready.”

She had just taken a deep breath when she saw the man with him, no longer blocked by the other’s large frame.
N-o-o-o-o-o. It couldn’t be.

He gave that half-lidded, Cheshire-cat smile that showed his dimples.

It was. Bryan-with-a-y-not-an-i.

“All right, honey,” said Big Blond Guy. “I’m ready for you.”

Tensley heard a sound like him patting his knee, but couldn’t tear her eyes away from Bryan. What was he
doing
here? Why didn’t he look mortified that she’d found out he brought customers to a place like this?

“Hey.” Bryan snapped his fingers at her. “He’s first. Get going.”

That was why. He didn’t recognize her. Of course he didn’t. They didn’t know each other in this life.

Asshole. Thought he could snap his fingers at her, did he? She’d snap those fingers right off his hand and — hold on. She might have something better in mind for him …

She sauntered toward him, relying on her body’s memory of how to do this kind of thing, which hadn’t let her down yet. Thrusting her pelvis, one arm up in the air and then sliding down across her face, her breast, her hip. “You’re first,” she said, her voice low, sultry.

“What about me?” Big Blond Guy pouted.

“I always start with the amateurs,” she replied easily, grabbing hold of Bryan’s tie and raising a knee to his chest to push him into a leather chair. He stumbled and sat down hard. “See what I mean?” The look on Bryan’s face said he didn’t know whether to be pissed off or turned on.

“You’re next, honey,” she said to Big Blond Guy, “but if I don’t take care of this one right away, it’s going to be all over for him. Amateurs don’t know how to hold themselves …
if
you know what I mean.”

Big Blond Guy chortled. Bryan wasn’t waffling any more. Now he looked pissed off.

She undid the belt of her robe, put her hands on the arms of the chair and leaned over him, her enhanced breasts inches away. She shook them.

“You’d better not be looking for a tip, saying that kind of shit.”

Why had she never realized what a whiner he was? She leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Oh, I think you’ll be giving me a great big, fat tip. Unless you want your wife to know where you’re going on those business dinners. While she’s sitting home in your pretty little house, taking care of the baby.”

“Screw you.” But he sounded nervous.

“Um, no, honey,” she said sweetly. “I think we can do just about anything but that.”

“I paid good money and it wasn’t to have some — some stripper try to abuse me.” He was now so furious, she could have sworn she felt spittle on her ear.

His words should have hurt, but oddly enough, they didn’t. “Oh!” She stood up, putting a finger to her lower lip. “Abuse is in the other room. Is that what you wanted? ’Cause you’re in the wrong place.”

Big Blond Guy’s laugh boomed. “What the hell?” he asked. “You need some woman to beat you up?”

Bryan’s eyes flashed as he grabbed Tensley’s arms. “I don’t have to take this.”

Oh, yes, you do.

Milo made a move toward them.

“It’s okay,” she said to Milo, waving him back. “We’re just having a little fun. That’s all.”

And, sadly enough for Bryan, she was just getting started with that fun.

Tensley had never been a person who enjoyed exacting revenge, but she could make an exception this one time. Really. She could.

She prevented Bryan from getting out of the chair by putting her boobs about an eighth of an inch from his face, where she could feel his hot breath on her skin. He was a boob guy and she knew he’d never be able to resist these girls.

Back a million years ago, right before she’d caught him in his lie, he’d casually wondered out loud whether she might want to have hers done. She’d been so eager to please him, she’d almost considered doing it.

She slid the robe off her shoulders. It fell on the floor.

His breath missed a step or three, and his hands began moving upward. She should have realized a lot earlier in their relationship that it had always been that way with Bryan. His penis ran the show. If he’d been a firefighter tasked with saving people from a burning building and he’d seen a pretty girl across the street, his penis would have shot up, knocked the axe out of his hand, and dragged him after the girl, burning house and people be damned.
Jerk
.

She loosened the tiny bit of string that barely encased her breasts in cloth and, in one exaggerated motion, took off her top, letting it also drop to the floor. “Come on, honey, don’t you want to touch them?” she whispered.

Somehow, it didn’t feel as bad as it would with a stranger. After all, Bryan had been with her naked body before, even if he didn’t know it.

Oh, who was she kidding? It felt horrible.

He gurgled something unintelligible, but his hands closed in on her bare boobs, squeezing them like grapefruit. Large grapefruit, if one were to get technical about it.

“There you go, baby.” She fought to suppress her nausea and began nibbling on his left ear, which she knew he loved.

“You’re gorgeous,” he choked out, eyes closed.

Uh-huh. And you’re a cheat and a liar.
“More gorgeous than Simone?” she murmured.

His eyes flew open at the mention of his wife’s name. “Wh-a-at did you say?”

She loosened his tie and pulled it off, laying it across the arm of the chair. “I said, more gorgeous than you know.”

“Oh.” His voice was faint, his penis apparently shoving his cognitive processes into the background.

Next, she undid his buttons, but after two, gave up and ripped his shirt off. As in an actual tearing of fabric, which caused Big Blond Guy to get nervous. Tensley heard him call Milo over and ask, “Hey, we’re not in that, you know, abuse room, are we?”

Milo loomed over Tensley long enough to shoot her some sort of warning look. She didn’t care. She was too busy rubbing her crotch up against Bryan’s bare chest while she finished tearing his shirt in half. That should be fun for him to try to explain to Simone.
I’d just left the meeting and was walking to the car when, out of nowhere, a crazed dog grabbed me by the shirt … Uh, no. I was running to catch a plane when my shirt got caught on that rolling walkway thing and … Hah.

Wasn’t easy to suppress both a giggle and vomit at the same time.

He put one of her nipples in his mouth and sucked noisily while grabbing her bottom and rubbing her hard against his lap.

Ugh
. She steeled herself to stay, even though all she wanted to do was grind the heel of her stiletto into his nuts, and whispered, “You’ve been needing this release; I can tell, baby. Ed Cross being an ass to you again?”

“An ass,” he agreed. This time, it took him a few seconds longer to surface from his haze. “Wait. Did you say — ?”

“Your boss,” she soothed. “He being an ass?” Convenient that his boss, Ed Cross, had a name that rhymed with his position. Now what else could she plant in his brain to pop up after his penis had expended itself and settled down for a quick nap … .

She heard a commotion outside the door. Tawny’s furious voice. And the voices of others. Male voices. Milo snapped to attention. Big Blond Guy fumbled with the zipper on his pants.
Eww
.

As for Bryan, Tensley wrapped her arms around his head and clasped him hard, determined to make sure he stayed right where he was, face in her boobs. The door sprung open and she looked up to see Max.

Shame washed over her, even as she held tight to a struggling Bryan. It was the worst in a series of nightmares. Max seeing her, like this, with a paying customer. She’d held as tight to the fantasy he didn’t believe she was a stripper as she had to the one where she didn’t believe it.

Guess they were both wrong.

Max jerked his head. “Get up,” he ordered Bryan. “Hands behind your back.”

Tensley scrambled off Bryan, retrieved the robe and pulled it on, cinching the belt tight. She couldn’t meet Max’s eyes.

“Officer,” Bryan protested. “I had no idea. This girl told me to come with her. I didn’t know what was going to happen. She must have slipped something in my drink — ”

Tensley turned a disgusted look on him. “Nice try.”

“Save it,” Max ordered. He shoved Bryan up and out of the chair, jerking his arms behind his back to handcuff him. Then he grabbed Bryan’s ripped shirt from the chair and tossed both pieces to another officer. “Evidence.”

He looked over at Big Blond Guy. “What about him?” he asked Tensley.

She stared at Max’s badge and shook her head. “He didn’t do anything.”

“I didn’t, I swear! Nothing at all. I was trying to get out of here.”

Again, she felt Max look at her. She shrugged and then shivered. It felt suddenly very cold in the room. “He probably was, I don’t know.”

“Paid your money, though, didn’t you?’ Max motioned to him. “Move it.”