Disgraced Cowboys (Lone Wolves of Shay Falls 3) [Siren Publishing Ménage Amour] (2 page)

A spark ignited between the two men’s gazes, one she recognized well. He
was
gay, then. That explained it. Figured.

Still, both hot cowboys kept throwing glances her way while tossing back beer, and she made no attempt to hide the fact that she was watching them, too. The first man looked no happier standing at the bar than he had when he’d spoken to her. The other, who was shorter but no less handsome, was eyeing her with a tightly strung expression, too. Maybe his boyfriend was bisexual and he didn’t like it. Maybe he was jealous of her. Weirder things happened in this line of work.

A cue in her music caught her attention, and with a practiced air, she reached behind her back to unhook her bikini. She teased the crowd by sliding the fabric back and forth over her taut nipples before finally whipping it away and baring her tits to the audience. Almost every male present cheered and hollered, but the mysterious cowboy scowled harder. A guy in a suit nudged the cowboy aside to talk to Paulo, the club owner, who was also standing at the bar. She watched the suit guy point her out and say a few words to her boss, who nodded when the guy slipped him a few bills. She knew what was taking place, and so did the cowboy clearly eavesdropping beside them.

Silver Eyes shot her a dangerous glower, but she just gave a little shrug and a knowing smile before turning her attention to the grand finale—a set of dirty, pole-fucking moves that ended with her bent far enough backward to see the crowd begging for more.

Dollars were falling out of her costume as she hurried from the stage back to the dressing area. Sweat slid down her neck and between her breasts, and she dropped her bikini top on the dressing table to quickly towel off with a damp rag. She knew what was coming even before one of the guys poked his head in the doorway.

“Brandi,” Stephen said. “Boss says VIP Room in ten minutes for a high twenty.”

She nodded, ignoring a nasty snort from one of the dressing tables on the opposite side of her mirror. “Bitch,” she heard muttered, and she had a pretty good idea who was doing the muttering.

Brandi kept her mouth shut while she freshened her makeup. One of several disadvantages in moving from place to place was dealing with a new hierarchy of dance bitches in each club she hired on at. Only a rare few showed anything other than contempt for new competition, especially when that competition beat out their earnings four to one.

A “high twenty” was Paulo’s own Hot Pink lingo for a customer who paid him for twenty minutes’ worth of her high-intensity lap dancing. This was a nice way of saying extreme grinding and dry humping, though legally that wasn’t what one could call it. The suit guy was the customer, no doubt. He hadn’t seemed too bad looking from what she could tell at a distance. Rubbing against him for a while shouldn’t be too disgusting.

At least, that’s what she told herself while she got ready.

She changed into a new thong bikini, this one in black satin, and pulled a filmy black boudoir-style robe over the top. She tied the sash while Stephen, one of the bodyguards who worked the back rooms, escorted her past dimly lit, half-moon-shaped booths where girls were working other customers. Prices for the VIP Room started at three times what a floor girl normally got for a lap dance out front, more if the guy wanted anything special. Whatever business her suit guy was in, he must have been doing well for himself.

The VIP Room was done in the same dark maroons as the rear area, only with slightly better furnishings. Her customer sat on an overstuffed chair, and his eyes turned into wide, greedy marbles when he saw her. The dim lighting out in the bar did him better justice than the real man up close. He had thinning hair and a widening gut. Still, she’d done the bump and grind on worse.

“Hi there,” she said, pasting on the usual seductive smile. “You asked for me?”

“I sure as hell did. You dance amazing. Wanted to see more of it up close.”

“I’m flattered.”

The music being piped in carried a thumping jungle beat that was perfect for what she had to do next. She strode up to him, catlike and in time to the music, then tugged on her belt sash and let the short robe fall to the floor. His eyes did their best to take in every inch of her at once.

She fought a surge of annoyance as she sidled up to straddle his lap. In a rote, practiced fashion, she gave him what he’d paid for. Tossing her head back, she began grinding her hips almost against his trousers, bumping her pelvis “accidentally” against his lower abdomen frequently, as though she actually liked it. She shook her breasts very near his face.

The man was gripping the arms of his chair hard, and Brandi knew he was fighting the urge to grab her. How much the men were allowed to touch and do while being sexually tormented by a stripper depended on how much they paid, how private the setting, and how much the girl was into him. And there was the law, of course. The last thing a dance bar owner wanted was to get fined or shut down. Paulo ran a more letter-of-the-law establishment than most she’d worked at.

A thin sheen of sweat broke out over his forehead as she reached in front of her and took hold of the front clasp of her top. It clicked open with a tiny
snap
, and she heard him suck in a breath. From her position right over him, she saw a vein pulsing along one temple.

Slowly, torturously, she peeled back the cups to expose her breasts, which were close enough that he could have licked one if he stuck his tongue out far enough.

“Jesus, you’re so fucking hot,” he said, breathless as though he’d just run in from the parking lot. “Drop those hips just a little lower, baby. Lift that silken blonde hair while you grind.”

A driver. Great. Some guys were content to sit back and take the ride. Others felt the need to get in the driver’s seat and command the action. Whatever. She glued on a fake smile as she lifted her hands, pulling her hair upward.

“Oh, yeah,” he crooned, and she felt his hands leave the chair arms and slide onto her thighs, gripping them while she continued rotating her hips.

He was paying damn good to be in the VIP Room, so she let him keep his hands on her while upping the ante. She sat directly on his lap to grind, feeling his hard-on through his trousers while her pelvis made obscene circles. His hands moved around to grab her ass cheeks, which were bare in the black thong. Brazen little prick, wasn’t he?

A tug brought her tits almost to his lips, and she was about to back things down a notch when the door shoved open. Her head whipped to the side, and the motion unfortunately landed a nipple right in her customer’s mouth. Still, that was less of an issue at the moment than the bizarre cowboy, his silver eyes now oddly tinged with yellow, who filled the doorway with a thick glower.

“What the hell’s all this?” he asked, storming in and pulling the door shut behind him like he owned the place. He strode in wearing illegally sexy jeans and a black, Western-yoked shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Somewhere along the way he’d ditched the long duster, though he still had the Stetson on.

The guy beneath her jerked his head back, but not before she noticed he’d latched onto her nipple for a quick, cheap suck. He flicked her nipple with his tongue for a moment, and she very nearly slapped the hell out of him for it.

“Hey, asshole,” he spat back when his mouth was tit-free. “This is a private party.”

“No, this is your invitation to leave before things get ugly,” the cowboy replied, sauntering closer.

“Yeah? And who the fuck are you?” The suit guy may have been a lewd prick, but he echoed her thoughts perfectly.

“Phillips County law enforcement.” The guy reached into his shirt pocket for a wallet that he flipped open in their direction, then flipped it shut again before she could make out a badge. “We’re respondin’ to a complaint about this club, and after what I just saw, you’d best get up on out of here quick and quiet. Otherwise, you’ll be the first one I pop for solicitation durin’ the raid.”

Brandi was thankfully already off her customer’s lap before he jumped up. “Raid?” he asked in a panic. “What the hell are you talking about? We weren’t doing jack shit.”

She grunted assent. “I was just dancing,
officer
.”

The lighting in the room was doing bizarre things to the golden gleam in his eyes, though she no doubt had flames coming out of hers about now. “Right,” he said. “Dancin’ with his hands practically up your snatch and your tits in his mouth.”

Brandi pressed her lips tight and refastened her bikini top.

“That was an accident,” the guy tried, but the cowboy just snorted.

“Do yourself a favor and leave.” Something wild flickered in the stranger’s gaze, a dangerous gleam that made her want to heed his advice and run. “Go now, and I’ll forget what I just saw.”

The other guy’s sickly green eyes wavered between her and the cowboy. “Fuck this place,” he muttered and headed for the door.

“Not a word to tip anyone off,” the cowboy said. “I got other men out there you don’t want to mess with.”

The customer stormed out of the room while Brandi snatched her filmy robe off the pink carpet and tied it around herself. “I’d bet tonight’s take that you aren’t any fucking cop.”

He turned to her and stalked close. Jesus, he was tall. The room seemed to shrink around his broad shoulders and well-worn Stetson. “I
am
the law, as far as you’re concerned.”

She let out a laugh. “Is that a fact?”

When he grabbed her arms, however, she yanked back and felt waves of anger thudding against her chest. “One word from me and the bouncer will have you tossed right out on that uptight ass of yours,” she spat.

“Oh, you mean Stephen? He’s takin’ a break.”

Her mouth fell open. “What do you mean, a ‘break’? He doesn’t get paid to take breaks. He’s supposed to be protecting the girls.”

“He and I have a little understandin’,” the man went on, appearing quite pleased with himself. “But if it makes you feel any better, you’re perfectly safe in here with me.”

She folded her arms beneath her breasts and cocked her head at him. True, he wasn’t looking at her with the dangerous leer she got from a lot of guys. But he still had a gleam in his expression that turned his eyes into a startling amalgam of silver and gold. Two of her favorite colors—when they weren’t blazing from six foot two of pissed-off cowboy. No matter how sexy he looked with his chiseled jaw tensed.

She raised her chin and forced herself to meet that unsettling stare without flinching. “So what the hell is all this about? You act like you’re my long-lost brother or something.”

“Hardly.”

He turned on a boot heel and strode to the chair he’d just evicted her customer from, seating himself and pulling off his hat. His dark hair was short-cropped and already combed neatly back, but he pushed a hand through it anyway. “You ain’t a virgin,” he said, staring down at the hat he turned over in his hands. “I sure as hell wasn’t expectin’ that. I didn’t even know it was possible.”

She let out an indignant snort. “Don’t tell me you believe other lap dancers when they give you the ‘I’m really an innocent virgin’ routine? I hate to break it to you, but they’re lying.”

His gaze found hers again. “I ain’t talkin’ about lap dancers. I’m talkin’ about you.”

“Then you’re either highly confused or not very observant, because in case you hadn’t noticed, I
am
a lap dancer.”

To demonstrate the point, she pulled open her robe for a moment and was rewarded by a quick but heated skim of her curves that left her tingling. Then his eyes hooded with a tinge of disappointment that jabbed at her stomach. She pulled the robe closed again.

“In which case,” he said, “I suppose there’s only one way to get your attention.” He reached for his wallet again and extracted a hefty stack of bills.

She set a hand on her hip. “If you wanted a private dance, you could have just waited your turn.”

He held up a wad of twenties. “You want this or not?”

She snatched it from his hand, rifling through the stack. Several hundred-dollar bills were sandwiched in the mix, and she tried not to let her surprise show. She folded the lot and tried to tuck it in the hidden pouch inside her thong, but the wad was too big. Instead, she slipped the robe off her shoulders and bundled the money inside of it beside the chair. “Don’t worry, cowboy,” she said, letting a thick note of sensuality drizzle over her voice. “I’m gonna take real good care of you.”

She climbed onto his lap, knocking the hat right from his hands as she gripped the front of his shirt and smiled into his odd-colored eyes. Holding that disorienting gaze, she began gyrating her body like a belly dancer. She would thrill him long and slow, keeping eye contact the entire time. He seemed like the type that would enjoy it.

The thought of being in control of the hot cowboy stud that way brought a little smile to her face. It gave her an odd sense of security, keeping men’s ridiculous sexual urges under her thumb—or G-string, as the case may be—when she danced. Maybe she was weird, but it felt safer being in a dance club than out in the unpredictable world where anything could happen.

She’d barely had the thought when her crotch grazed his flat stomach, and something truly bizarre happened. A tingle of pleasure lit up the clitoris that had been completely impervious to her chosen line of work up to that precise moment. She let out a tiny gasp and fought the urge to rub her mound on him some more, preferably while her tongue was deeply embedded in his mouth. The very thought, not to mention his exotic, enticing scent, triggered a moist gush of warmth from her cunt. Considering the scant thong, if she were to brush against him again, her pussy juices would stain his clothing.