Sleeves (16 page)

“We tried that initially, and it didn’t work. We couldn’t get enough people in here to pay the bills. No—we need to keep it open to the broader, general public. Just the regular bitches, not the ones with fetishes.”

“You didn’t give it enough time.” Max’s voice was tight and his chest expanding with his frustrated breaths.

“So? You got a fucking point here with all this shit, or what?” Kel’s chest tightened as his heart hammered and flooded his stomach with green bile. He could vomit any minute. And it wasn’t because he was afraid of what Max said. It was because he wanted Casey in that cage with him—locked for eternity where she could touch him, know him and be his alone. Didn’t matter how he tried to hide himself as long as she was with him.

He wrapped his arms around his torso, hoping to keep the device down.

“Yeah, I do have a point. A good one, actually.” Max roamed over to the bar, sprayed it down and then handed the towel to Kel so he’d clean his butt cheek marks off.

Kel grunted and took it. Max was right. That fucker always was.

He scrubbed and tried to tune out the useless noise in his head, screeching at him to go after Casey.

“You gonna share it?” Kel glanced up at his friend.

“Nope.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because you’re acting moodier than any thirteen-year-old hormonal girl I’ve ever met. You’re not listening, and you’re all wrapped up in your head. So for now, I’m only going to warn you. You threaten any of these ladies, and I walk. I’ll leave and take my half of the club with me. I know you own this place, you created it, but who keeps it running?
Me
. I do all the books, I keep the liquor flowing, I find ways to get the word out so we never lack for customers. I clean this place up so it doesn’t resemble your shit-hole apartment. Do you want to take over all those responsibilities?”

Kel set the rag down, hung his head and shook it enough so Max could see it, but not enough his ego would burst into flame and disintegrate into ash.

“Look, I’m not trying to be an asshole here. I know what kind of hell they put you through, the shit you endured every day. I was the one guarding you, keeping you hostage. When they dragged your ass back after you escaped with Hannah’s help, I knew I had to get you out of there for good. They were killing a genius and torturing a kid, and I couldn’t take it.” He dropped his head. “
My or
ders were to gather intel, not get you out. And what have you done to solve the problems you swore you’d unravel? What have you done to fix what they did to you? What if they’re doing the same shit to other people?”

“You and I both know they aren’t. That’s why you quit your real job and do this shit with me now. There’s no one like me.” Kel shoved himself up onto a barstool.

“Maybe not someone like
you
, but what about your parents? They could be creating more people like them, getting them impregnated so they can have more little Kelly Daniel Liams running around. Ever thought of that?”

“All the damn time,” Kel said through gritted teeth. “I have no way of stopping them from doing that.”

“No, but you can help those people. You can make a cure, and then together we can reveal what’s going on. Maybe the authorities would actually believe us this time. You were supposed to do something about it, not waste away in a prison cell of your own making.” Max rolled his shoulders back then popped his neck to the right. He swung his arms, limbering them up as if he was about to knock some sense into Kel.

“You’re right, I just . . . If I don’t have touch, I can’t think straight.”

“Then I’m going to ask you one more time—do I need to hire some streetwalker to come in here and do it for you?”

“No! God no. I don’t want that.” Kel set his elbows on the bar and slammed his forehead into his waiting palms. His fingers roamed back, and he gripped into his hair. “I just . . . I need some time.”

“You need Casey. Stop pretending she didn’t do something to you.” Max slapped the top of the bar and then finished wiping it down since Kel did a half-assed job.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I need,” Kel said with a biting tone. He watched Max out of the corner of his eye, and Max went about tidying up behind the bar. “Some know-it-all-bitch that took me to a shrink and wanted to lock me back up. Yeah, great plan. She’s a fucking social worker, and she doesn’t believe me. She thinks I’m nuts.”

“You told her?” Max moved in slow motion as he pivoted around and his eyes went wide.

“I told her bits and pieces. She knows what she needs to in order to keep safe.”

“Is that code for you fucked her?” Max pushed his hands into his pockets and leaned back into the wall behind him.

“Yeah, somethin’ like that.”

“Why the hell did you do that? You know how dangerous that is—Hannah almost di—”

“She didn’t almost anything—she
died
, pure and simple.” Kel got up and pushed off the bar.

“You didn’t ever see it.”

“I sure as hell did. And Casey’s different. It’s not a problem.” Kel roamed toward the hallway.

“Then stop being a pussy. Go get her.”

“Fuck you.” Kel moved back into his apartment, put the key in a drawer Max had given him, then sat his grumpy ass down on his bed and wallowed for hours until it was time to get back in that cage.

* * *

The crowd was even thicker tonight.

Kel didn’t care. His eyes were glazed over, and he sat in a hunched over ball, staring at his feet.

Music pumped through the club, and the women waited patiently for Kel to do something—
anything
.

When it was obvious he was a useless lump, Max did the unthinkable, shoving some dark-haired woman dressed in some naughty secretary-getup inside the cage with him.

Kel lurched at her, pinning her up against the bars and then he chained her there so she couldn’t move.

Then he went to the opposite corner, whimpering and going back into a circular blob shape.

She looked enough like Casey to torture him that he had to keep his eyes off her.

“Fuck her! She wants it bad,” someone shouted from the crowd.

And something snapped inside Kel.

He ripped the key out of his jeans pocket, unlocked the cage door, leaving the chained woman gaping after him as he rampaged between the club tables, touching every whore around him. He licked cheeks, rubbed his jeans covered cock on some woman’s shoulder blades and shoved his ass in some other bitch’s face.

They were pawing at him, making his skin crawl and then blaze with a thick fogging pain that made his vision blur.

His lungs were choking up on him, and he coughed, gagging when some woman kissed his cheek and groped his chest.

Casey, why don’t you want me or like me anymore?

His gut twisted, and he collapsed on a table, sending drinks flying everywhere.

“Touch me,” Kel whimpered.

Women’s hands stroked his thighs, ran across the ridges of finely honed muscles on his abs. It didn’t matter how much agonizing pain he was in.

He closed his eyes, let his breathing shallow and his arms went lax at his sides.

Max could be heard, shoving women aside, rushing to get to him.

The next thing Kel knew, he was being carried in a fireman’s grip back to the cage. He was thrust inside, landed with a thud on his back and Max was hollering for the women to back off. They were crushing their way into the cage like a feeding frenzy of sharks, able to smell Kel’s blood.

Max locked himself in the cage with the brunette still chained up and Kel, barely functioning.

He squatted next to him, and his head loomed over his face.

“What can I do? What’s going on? Do I need to get you out of here? If I take you to your place, they’ll know where you are, and I don’t think if I’ll be able to distract them like I did last time. Casey helped me so no one saw where I took you.”

“No. Just leave me where I am. Give free shots, and they can watch me back here.”

“Are you gonna give a show or not? I can shut the curtains until they leave,” Max said, glancing over his shoulder at the women protesting outside the bars like a regular prison riot was going on.

“They want me. I’ll strip down and figure something out.” Kel shook his head, his body warring with what he was telling Max.

“Fine, but we’re closed tomorrow night. You need some time to get your shit together.”

Kel’s hand flew out and gripped Max’s shirt. “She didn’t come, did she? Not even her friends. She’s given up on me completely.”

“No, you fucker. She came, but she left when you broke out of the cage. She thought you’d seen her, and I wanted her safe, so I helped her get to her car. That’s why I was so late getting to you.”

Kel’s eyes flooded with tears, and they ran freely down the sides of his temples. “She was here?”

“Sorry.” Max got up, freed the woman that was clearly high off being touched and singled out that way by Kel. She wore a dazed expression as if she thought she was the reason he went berserk with lust.

She had nothing to do with it. None of them did.

And now Kel cried like a pussy in his cage while the woman was ushered out by Max and then reunited with her friends, rejoicing over her success at being chained to his bars like she was a hunter’s trophy—stuffed and mounted on the wall.

Not that he could see them celebrating very clearly. Kel’s eyes never stopped being moist until the next morning when he all but drank himself into a coma and vomited up his scrambling device yet again.

It sat next to his unconscious body; both covered in bile and regurgitated alcohol.

Chapter 8

“Hey, didn’t I see you at that club, Sleeves, a week ago?” a perky woman with light blonde, straight long hair asked Casey while she stood in line at the grocery store.

“No, I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of that place before.” Casey scratched her chin on her shoulder, braving a glance down into the woman’s purse.

What was wrong with her?

Ever since she went back and saw for herself how out of control Kel was, she was on high alert, like the feds were after her or something.

“You should totally go. There’s this insanely hot man there, lets women touch him all they want, and no one can quite break through to him. Well, except I’ve been told some woman finally did, and he’s going nuts without her. It’s so romantic, don’t you think?” The blonde was chewing gum, and her perfectly manicured finger nails fanned her face as she spoke of him.

Casey’s gut tightened. The women attending that club were getting more porn-like if this was the type of woman going there now.

This blonde’s breasts were enormous, or at least they seemed that way since they were tucked up right under her chin. She had a tiny waist, and her legs were curvy, exposed by her Daisy Dukes.

Even her flip flops were sexy along with her stupid gray wife beater.

Casey was drab in her boring work clothes. All business in black slacks, a white blouse and black heels.

Her hair was tucked up in a sloppy knot, but it was really hot today.

It was supposed to break records in LA all week.

This woman was probably in her late twenties and spent plenty of time at the beach, or that was the impression Casey got of her.

“No, I don’t go to places like that. Sounds too nerve racking.” Casey started placing her grocery items up on the conveyor belt. “Besides, if I ever got caught there, I’d probably lose my job over it.”

“Oh, you’re a police officer? Woops!” The blonde covered her mouth and made a dopey, fake surprised look. “I guess I shouldn’t have told you about that place then. It’s not exactly legal I guess—the things he does—shit. It makes me hot just thinking about it. This man’s sexier than you can believe.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Casey turned away, her stomach dancing with rippling knots, making her nauseous.

Why did everyone everywhere she went wind up talking to her about Kel? How had this turned into an inescapable nightmare in her life? She was at the grocery store, for Christ’s sake, and some random stranger was talking about him like he was a rite of passage for all women around.

Was his success skyrocketing and he’d gone viral with every ovary located in the LA area?

She snorted and smiled at herself. Lucky her—didn’t have any ovaries, so she should be safe from him.

Only—she wasn’t. She missed him like crazy, and no matter how often she went to the gym to feel good about herself, talked to other nice men, she couldn’t bring herself to go on dates anymore. Not that it had been that long since she met Kel. It had only been two weeks, but still . . . she was off. Everything felt skewed.

Her shower was definitely not the same, that was for damn certain.

Casey’s shoulders were tight, up around her ears and her nostrils flared as this clearly promiscuous woman behind her in line kept spouting off about what he’d done last night at the club. About how many women had licked, touched, done obscene things to him, and they were all inside the cage.