Authors: Tina Bass
Bree jumped down off the bar in time with the last strum of the guitar when she noticed Draco standing at the end of the bar watching her. She made her way to him just as T-Rex was rounding the bar.
“Goin’ on break?” T-Rex asked her like it was a question but she knew she didn’t have a real choice in the matter. He had informed her the first time he watched her do a routine that she was to take a break afterward because he didn’t want her to over exert herself.
Dang
, she thought
, his wife is a lucky woman to have a man that sweet always looking out for her.
“Yep,” she answered him with a smile just as she looked back at Draco.
Okay, I’m pretty lucky too
, she told herself.
At least for now
. That thought just popped into her head before she had a chance to stop it. “Nope, won’t think about
more
, not right now,” she mumbled to herself as she shook that thought away. Stepping close to Draco, she asked him, “You taking a break with me?”
Bree had only taken two steps into the room when Draco spun her around by her arm at the same time he slammed the door shut. She didn’t even have a chance to say a word before his mouth crashed onto hers. His hands slid down to the hem of her skirt, jerked it up over her hips, then grabbed her around her waist and lifted her up. Her legs went around his waist, without her even thinking about it, as he advanced across the room and dropped down on the sofa with her straddling his lap as he continued to kiss her. When he finally broke the kiss, they were both panting. “Damn, baby, you’re killin’ me,” he growled out right before he kissed her again.
After another minute or two, Bree ended what had started to become a hot make-out session while she still had just enough sense left to remember where they were. “We can’t do this here.” She was filled with regret as she moved off of his lap and pulled her skirt back down.
“Yeah, fuck. Gotta get you home,” Draco complained as she watched him adjust himself.
“I’m so glad I’m not a guy.” Bree giggled, still watching a very uncomfortable Draco.
He looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Yeah, I’m pretty damn happy you’re not a guy too.”
She couldn’t seem to help herself as she busted out laughing and flopped down on the sofa beside him.
* * *
Draco walked back inside of Stripped. He had surveyed the building and the parking lots, front and back, the entire night. He had examined the cameras placed all around the outside, as well as the ones inside. He had even watched a little of the feed from T-Rex’s office. He knew the security system was top notch and that the bouncers did what they were supposed to do. But, he was not taking any chances with Bree’s safety. It gave him a feeling of relief that T-Rex felt the same way. So, except for Bree’s break, when she was working so was Draco. Now it was getting close to last call, and he knew that customers could sometimes get a little too rowdy and if that happened he wanted to make damn sure he was there.
Draco had just made it to the bar when Bree jumped her ass back up on top of the damn thing, shouting, “Okay, my beautiful peeps, this one’s for y’all.” He heard Gretchen Wilson’s,
You Don’t Have To Go Home,
and Bree singing and dancing on top of that fuckin’ bar, swinging and twitching that sexy ass this way and that
. I swear for Christ that woman is gonna be the death of me,
he thought as he watched her every move.
Because he was watching her every move, he saw when her big gorgeous smile dropped half a beat right before she stumbled backward and almost fell off the bar. Something was off. He had watched her too many times now doing her routines to see that something was wrong. He rounded the bar to her so fast he was right in front of her when she turned and jumped down. Apparently T-Rex had come to that same conclusion because Draco noticed T-Rex was quickly approaching the bar, the man’s eyes locked on Bree.
Then Draco turned his attention to Bree. “What the hell happened?”
“I s-s-saw him. He was…was here. He was watching me, with th-th-that look.”
“Who, baby? Who was here?” He reached out with one arm and brought her close into his body, trying to scan the club and comfort Bree at the same time.
“Marcus,” she answered just as T-Rex reached them.
“Break now and until we’re locked up,” T-Rex bellowed to Bree, then he looked at Draco. “She does not leave your fuckin’ sight.” Before Draco could say a word T-Rex was on the move again.
Draco watched T-Rex at the same time he urged Bree toward the door off to the side so he could get her out of the club area. He saw T-Rex alert two of the bouncers before they had reached the door. He lost sight of him just as he stepped into the hall. Once again Draco focused his attention on Bree as he followed her down the hall.
“No, keep goin’,” Draco told her when she stopped in front of the break room door.
“What?”
“Office.” With hands at her waist he guided her down the hall toward T-Rex’s office door. He needed to watch the cameras and check the feeds.
She stopped and turned around to face him. “It’s locked, and we’re not allowed in there even if it’s not.”
“I have a key and yeah, right now, you’re allowed.” He motioned for her to go, but she just stood there staring up at him.
“Dra—”
“Bree, walk.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. “I wanna check the cameras.” He walked her backward the rest of the way down the hall.
Cameras?
Bree thought. “What cameras?” She watched Draco pull a key out of his pocket and unlock the door.
“The security cameras.” He walked into the room and over toward T-Rex’s desk.
She had been working here for eight months, and she had never seen any cameras of any kind. “How did you know there were security cameras?” Draco paused just long enough to give her that same “you’re crazy look” before he turned his attention to what looked to her like an ordinary wall. That is until Draco hit some kind of switch to reveal a whole set of monitors that were hidden behind the wall.
“Wow! How did you know they were even there?” she asked absently as she moved closer to the monitors.
“Bree?” She turned back to look at Draco, who was just standing at the desk looking at her. “Baby, do you even know what I do?”
“Do?”
“My job.”
“Oh, well, yes. You’re a cop.”
“What do I do as a cop?”
“Uh…give out tickets?”
“No, Bree, I don’t give out fuckin’ tickets. I’m with the Specialty Units and security is one of my specialties.”
“Security? Like security systems or like keeping people safe?”
“Both. But yeah, security systems are my main focus.” He paused and just looked at her for a beat. “Until now.” He looked back down at the desk, then back at her. When she just stared at him, he did a chin lift to the monitors. She turned to look back at them, and they were all on, all showing different parts of the club, inside and out.
“This is so cool,” she breathed and felt Draco come up behind her, wrapping his arms around her stomach and pulling her back against him. She turned to look up at him. “I can see the whole club at once.”
“Yeah.” He smiled down at her, then kissed the tip of her nose. “You doin’ okay?”
She squeezed his arms that were still wrapped around her. “Yeah, I’m okay.” She felt his arms tighten around her before he looked back at the monitors.
Bree stood wrapped safely in Draco’s arms as they watched the monitors. Well, he was still watching them. She had grown tired of them after about ten minutes of watching people leave and the cleaning crew starting to do their nightly thing. She was getting more and more bored as the minutes ticked by and could not understand what Draco was finding so fascinating when the door opened and T-Rex walked in with two of the bouncers.
The bouncers just stood quietly at the open door while T-Rex walked right up to her. “Don’t worry ‘bout your nightly duties, it’s been sorted. Ya doin’ your quick change?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t help but smile as he referred to her washing her face and changing her clothes as her ‘quick change.’
“The boys are goin’ with ya.” T-Rex turned to look at the
boys
standing at the door. “But not in the dressin’ room.”
“Aww come on, T-Rex. Them two?” Bree turned to face the two bouncers. “No offense, guys, but y’all don’t talk at all.” She turned back to face T-Rex and leaned into him. “Like ever.”
“Damn, woman, didn’t hire them to be your fuckin’ BFF. Don’t give a shit if they don’t ever speak ta ya, long as they keep y’all girls safe.” T-Rex leaned down closer to Bree’s face. “Go do what ya gotta do, then get your ass back in here.” With that he turned his attention to Draco and the monitors, dismissing Bree and the bouncers. “What we got so far?”
Bree turned to the two guys still standing quietly by the door. “Men! Get on my dang nerves.” She pranced to the door.
“Good to know it’s not just me she can be a pain in the ass with.” She heard Draco say when she was almost out the door.
“That she can be, my man. That she most definitely can be,” T-Rex responded.
Without turning back to face either of them, “I can hear y’all, you know!” Bree announced as she walked out the door and into the hall with the two bouncers, one on each side of her.
Draco smiled as he watched Bree walk out the door. “Best damn pain in the ass in the world,” he muttered quietly.
“Wouldn’t want her any other way,” T-Rex agreed.
Then both men got down to business as they turned back to the monitors. Draco explained that so far he had only been watching the live feeds and hadn’t seen any sign of Warwick. Draco figured that with Bree’s reaction Warwick would have known that she had spotted him, and he took off.
T-Rex went to his desk, hit a few keys on his computer, and half the monitors started to show recorded feed while the other half continued to show live. “Where ya wanna start?” T-Rex questioned.
“Let’s start with Bree on the bar. Wanna pinpoint where she was lookin’ when she first spotted him. Then we can have an idea of where the bastard was and go backward from there to retrace his steps.”
“Works for me. Wanna know how that piece of shit got past my boys.”
They worked together in silence with the exception of a “there he his” or a “right there” each time they got another glimpse of Warwick as he moved around in the club, obviously trying to stay to the side or in the shadows. It wasn’t a quick process. In fact, it was rather time consuming and as the minutes turned into ten, twenty, then thirty minutes and Bree still hadn’t returned, Draco told T-Rex to pause that.
“Whatcha’ seein’?” T-Rex questioned as he paused the recorded feed they had been watching.
“It’s not what I’m seein’ it’s who I’m not…” Draco started to say as he stepped over from the recorded feed to the live feed. “Damn hard-headed woman.” Draco watched Bree on one of the monitors. She was behind the bar cleaning and shit like she did every night after closing.
“I be damned.” He heard T-Rex growl as he moved from behind his desk and to the door, looking back at Draco. “I be right fuckin’ back.”
Draco looked back at the monitor and watched Bree for a minute before he saw T-Rex stomp up to her. Draco couldn’t hear them, but then again T-Rex’s body language was enough for him to know he was giving Bree hell, while she just stood there, calmly looking up at him. Draco noticed that Bree had changed clothes and shoes, and without the five extra inches her heels gave her she really had to look
up
at T-Rex’s six feet five inches height. He watched as Bree walked to the other end of the bar, picked something up and carried what looked like a milk crate back and set it down right in front of T-Rex. Draco busted out laughing as he watched his Breezie step up on the crate, get right in T-Rex’s face, and started giving the three hundred fifty pound man that just happened to be her boss, hell right back. Her arms were flinging this way and that, and she had a sexy as hell scowl on her face. To Draco’s utter shock, she crossed her arms at her chest, cocked that sexy hip, and started tapping her foot, while still standing on that crate. How the hell she didn’t fall off, he had no idea. T-Rex and Bree just stood there for a beat, staring at each other, before T-Rex ran his hands through his hair, to the back of his neck, then slung them down at his side as he jerked around and walked away, while Bree jumped down off the crate, carried it back to where it belonged, then…went back to what she was doing.
His Breezie
, Draco thought, shaking his head and chuckling.
“Fuckin’ fearless.”
Bree walked back down the hall to T-Rex’s office with her two silent bodyguards, one on each side. They had finally spoken to her, if you counted one word grunts and grumbles as speaking. When she had finished changing and walked back out of the dressing room, one of them grunted “office” and the other one grumbled “now.” When she told them she was going to clean up like she always did one of them grunted “no” while the other grumbled “office.” She ignored them both as they continued with their one word grunts and grumbles, but she just tuned them out and did what she was paid to do.
Now she had to face T-Rex and Draco. She reached for the door knob, took a big breath, blew it out in a whoosh, and opened the door. And yep, two big pissed off looking males turned in her direction and glared at her.
“Look, don’t start again,” Bree started, looking at T-Rex before she turned to Draco, “and don’t you start at all.” She took another few steps into the room and noticed the two bouncers stopped at the door and just stood there. “I was completely safe. The doors were locked. I had grunt and grumble there,” she threw her arm up and pointed with her thumb over her shoulder at the two bouncers, “not two feet away from me the whole time, and I can almost bet my savings that the two of y’all were watching me,” she continued, gesturing in the vicinity of the monitors. “So no worries. I was perfectly fine.” Bree stared down T-Rex. “Just like I said I would be.”
T-Rex moved his eyes from hers to behind her. “What the fuck did I say?”
Bree turned to look behind her at the two bouncers who were now looking at each other, before they looked back at T-Rex. “But she said she would tell you we were in the dressing room while she changed,” one of the bouncers confessed. She heard Draco behind her growl rather loudly. “But we weren’t.” The other bouncer added quickly as their eyes flashed to Draco, then back to T-Rex as he started speaking again.
“Look at her. How damn hard is it ta move her ass back here?” T-Rex leaned in a bit. “Like I fuckin’ told ya?”
“But…” one started to say as he looked at the other one.
“But what? Look at the two of y’all!” Bree struggled to control her laughter as they actually looked at each other. “Now look at her.” Yep, they both turned to look at her. “Between the both of ya, ya got what…two, two fifty on her? Bet she doesn’t weigh a hundred pounds and the two of ya together couldn’t drag her ass back in here like I fuckin’ told ya?”
“She said her cop boyfriend would arrest us if we touched her,” one of the bouncers said.
Bree heard Draco chuckle behind her as he moved closer to her and wrapped his arms around her middle and pulled her back against him. Both the guys watched Draco and paled a little.
Then the other bouncer added, “You know we can’t go back to jail.”
T-Rex growled, “I don’t give a damn what she—”
“Look, I’m fine,” Bree interrupted. “Grunt and grumble…” she took a few steps away from Draco, toward the bouncers, “good to know you can speak more than one word.” She turned back to T-Rex. “They did watch out for me, and they even helped too. Which was very nice of them.” She again took a few steps to them. “Thanks again, guys. But I did not say he
would
arrest you, I said he
could
.” She shrugged her shoulders and tilted her head to the side. “You just can never tell with them alpha-macho-dudes.” She turned and grinned at T-Rex and Draco. “Am I right…
dudes
?” She heard T-Rex growl as a response, while Draco moved to her and pulled her back into his arms.
“Bree,” T-Rex called as he moved behind his desk, took a seat, then gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Sit.”
Bree stepped out of Draco’s arms, walked over to the chair and sat. From the corner of her eye she noticed Draco walk over to the door to the two bouncers and said something too low for Bree to hear.
T-Rex cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to him. He stared at her for a beat. “Gonna’ give ya some vacation time.”
“What? Really? I mean, thanks, but I thought you said I had to be working here at least a year and a half. I’ve only been here eight months. But, still, this is great. I’ll talk to the others and find out when they’re taking theirs, and I’ll work mine around them, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
“No. Your vacation starts now,” T-Rex informed her.
“What? Now? Why? Oh…oh no! You’re…you’re firing me?”
“Bree—”
“Why? Because I cleaned my area tonight?”
“Bree—”
“That’s part of my job.”
“Bree—”
“I told you I would be fine, and look, I’m fine.”
“Bree—”
“I’ve never been f-f-fired before.” She was almost in tears. Every job she’d ever had she gave a notice, worked through the notice, and was told repeatedly how much she would be missed and she would always have a job waiting for her. But now? Now she just felt like a failure.
“Bree—”
“Just tell me what I did wrong.”
“Nothing.”
“I can fix whatever I—wait, what? Nothing?” She pulled herself together, narrowing her eyes at T-Rex. “You’re firing me for nothing?”
“No, Bree, listen—”
“No, you listen. I’m good at what I do. So good, in fact, that I’ve never had not one complaint. I can—” Bree was stopped in mid-sentence when Draco’s hand covered her mouth. She hadn’t even realized that he was standing behind her until just this minute.
He bent over the back of her chair so his mouth was at her ear. “Baby, if you stop your yammering for two seconds you would know you’re not bein’ fired.” Draco moved his hand from her mouth and stood back up behind her.
“I’m not fired?”
“Hell no, Bree, I’d be bat shit crazy ta let talent like ya go.”
“But you said—”
“What I said,” T-Rex spoke over her, “is your vacation starts now and it’ll end when you’re not in danger anymore.”
Bree turned slowly around in her chair, looking up at Draco. Not quite satisfied with that—looking that far up—she stood. Still not right, she stood up in the chair and looked
down
at Draco.
Yes, much better.
“You!” She slammed her hands on her hips. “You told him about Marcus, didn’t you?” She didn’t wait for Draco to answer. “Just so you, and you,” she looked back at T-Rex, “know, I’m not the helpless little female that needs a big strong man just to cross the freakin’ street, kinda girl.”
Draco stood silently, looking up at Bree for a beat or two before he turned his head in T-Rex’s direction. “Give us a second, will you?”
Bree watched as T-Rex moved from behind his desk to the door, grabbed both bouncers by the arm, and all three walked out of the room, pausing only long enough to close the door. She looked back at Draco as she felt his hands wrap around her middle.
“Bree.” Draco sighed as though he was aggravated with her as he lifted her off the chair and placed her feet back on the floor. “Can you please just take the damn vacation time without bitchin’ about it?”
“Hummm, let me think about this. How about…uh, no!” She took a step back away from him.
“Breezie, as much as I like that smart mouth of yours, sometimes it’s just a pain in the ass.”
“You know what, Drakon, as much as I like your protectiveness, sometimes
you
are just a pain in the ass.” She took another step back and headed for the door.
“Bree,” Draco growled, and she turned back to look at him.
“Dra,” Bree mimicked his growl.
She heard him grunt low in his throat as he turned, ran his hands through his hair, and started pacing around the office, grumbling under his breath. She stood there and watched him for a minute, but when he showed no signs of stopping, she walked back over to the chair she had been sitting in, turned it to face him and sat back down.
Draco had stopped mid-pace to watch her. She didn’t notice he paused his pacing until after she had sat down. “Sorry, just getting comfortable. You can continue on with your huffy-puffy-patrol.”
“Huffy-puffy-patrol?” he demanded, but couldn’t quite hide the smirk.
Yes, huffy, as in sulky. Puffy, as in pompous. Patrol as in…” She waved her hand back and forth, indicating where he had been pacing. “You’re pacing back and forth. So, yes, I would call it your huffy-puffy-patrol.”
He stalked to her, grabbed her up out of the chair, and turned her so when he sat she had no other choice but to straddle his lap. Before she had a chance to make a sound, his lips hit hers in a fast but serious kiss.
Draco broke the kiss. “I’m tryin’, baby, but it’s hard, so fuckin’ hard, to give you what you want and still be what you need.”
“What is it that you think I want? Or that I need?”
“I know you need to be safe, and I will, swear to you, I’ll see that you’re safe. But I also know you still wanna be you. Swear for Christ, Breezie, I’m tryin’ to give you all that, but, baby, you gotta’ give some too.”
“You don’t think I’m safe here?”
“No, not the way Warwick got past security and the way he moved around tonight almost unseen. Don’t know if he meant for you to see him or if it was just a lucky fluke that you did. I do know after watchin’ the feeds tonight, and I hate to say it, but the bastard is pretty fuckin’ good with the sneakin’ shit.”
“You mean, he was here for a while even before I saw him?” She swallowed nervously. “Just…watching me?” Okay, so maybe some vacation time was starting to sound good right about now.
“Yeah.”
“Then why didn’t someone tell me that?” She slid off of Draco’s lap and started her own pacing. “Dang it, Dra. You told me you wouldn’t keep this crap from me. That you would tell me what’s going on. But here you are, not telling me anything.” She turned to face him, leaning into him. “A-freakin’-gain!” she finished on a screech.
“I just did.”
“Yeah, after the fact.”
“And when the hell was I supposed to tell you?” He stood from the chair, towering over her. “When you were cleanin’ the damn bar after you were told not to?”
“It’s part of my job!”
“Not tonight.”
“Every night!”
He growled and then grumbled under his breath. “I’ve half a mind to lock your ass in a safe house.”
“Oh, you so do
not
want to go there,” she snapped.
“Go to the fuckin’ ends of the earth for you.” He leaned down, his face close to hers, “sweetheart,” and snarled at her.
Her breath caught at his words, until he snarled the ‘sweetheart’ at the end. “Drakon Vittore, you s
weetheart
me in that tone one more time, and I swear, I will slap that word from your vocabulary!”
“Breezie!” he barked, more frustrated than he had ever been in his life. “Damn it, woman, will you step the hell back for one fuckin’ second, and hear me? You have a fuckin’ psycho stalkin’ you, biding his time until he can get his hands on you. And, baby, I will do anything, everything, whatever it takes, to ensure that does
not
fuckin’ happen.” He took a breath, scrubbing his face in his hands. “Please, baby, can you just fuckin’ give me this?”
“Okay, okay, sheesh. You don’t have to go all bear-a-fide.”
“Fuckin’ hell, Breezie, bear-a-fide?”
“Well, you’re the one snarling and growling at me when really all you had to do was inform me of what’s going on, then maybe suggest that I take some vacation time for my own safety. That, I have no problem with. What I do, however, have a problem with, is you and T-Rex deciding amongst yourselves what I
am
to do,
then
demanding that I comply with said order without a commendable reason. That, Dra, just pisses me the hell off.” With that she stomped to the door and went in search of T-Rex.
Draco stood and watched Bree as she stomped her sexy ass out of the room. “Fuck, but I love the fierceness in that woman.” He grinned as he gathered up the notes he and T-Rex had made while watching the feed, before he could go after her. As much as she could drive him in-fuckin’-sane he had to admire her guts. He had witnessed it first hand with Storm, and even if he couldn’t hear as he watched her stand up for herself with T-Rex. And he knew she sure as shit didn’t back down from him.
Yeah
, he thought,
my woman is au-fuckin’-dacious.
Then he remembered what the bouncers had said, how she had threatened them with her cop
boyfriend
. He liked the sound of that. As he stepped out of the office and into the hall, he couldn’t stop the chuckle thinking about his Breezie calling him her boyfriend. Yeah he liked that shit…a lot.
What he did not like…seeing Bree in the arms of another man. As he walked through the door that led back into the club area he saw Bree with her back to him, hugging one of the two bouncers that she had threatened earlier. Apparently that bouncer didn’t like the look on Draco’s face because as soon as the man glanced in Draco’s direction he quickly let go of Bree and took a step back, then with his eyes still trained on Draco, took another step back.