Addiction (12 page)

“Case.” Blane calls out my name as he stands from the couch to my right. He walks up to me and gives me one of those handshake-one handed hugs. “Thanks for inviting us out tonight, man.” I have a feeling he is still high from earlier.

“No problem.” The only reason I did it was to see her tonight. To get her on my side and to come and work for me. And it worked. Although it’s also torture to be around her, knowing that I can’t have her. But I have
some
self-control. Since when?

Blane starts to speak to me, but I don’t pay any attention to him. A man in the back of the room, who I’ve never seen before, gets up from his chair and walks over to the couch where Taylor sits. He plops down beside her and leans over, whispering something in her ear. She lets out a soft laugh. But it’s one of those uncomfortable laughs; the fact that she scoots farther away from him confirms it. He scoots closer to her. I fist my hands down by my side as I watch her sink further into the couch. It’s obvious she doesn’t like the guy, but he isn’t getting the hint.

He places his hand on her leg, and she jerks away. When he tries it the second time, she shoves it away. He grabs her hand and pulls on it, jerking it forward. She tries to pull away as she shakes her head. He just laughs as he leans down to her face. He is about to kiss her when she looks away. At her rejection, he lets her go, but she looks up at me. Her eyes land on mine, and I can almost hear her silent plea to help her. I shouldn’t have let it go this far. When a woman says no, she means no.

Without thought, I walk over to the couch. I ignore the gasp that comes out of Taylor as I approach. Keeping my eyes on the little fucker, I grab his shirt and pull him to his feet.

“Whoa. What the fuck, man …?”

I slam his back up against the closest wall. His dark green eyes widen as I hold him tightly against the wall. “She doesn’t want you touching her,” I inform him. “What part of that did you not understand?”

“I … I was just … talking to her.” He stumbles through his words.

“Bullshit,” I say calmly, but voice hard. “I watched you put your hands on her even after she clearly told you to stop.” Just that thought has me wanting to beat the shit out of him, but that would make me look too obvious. Right now, I just look like a guy saving a woman from an uncomfortable situation. I don’t wanna call attention to myself.

“You what?”

I finally look away from the guy I’m holding to see Blane standing next to us. He looks the guy in the eyes, and I can see them start to cloud over. “I’ve told you before, Dillon. She is off-limits to you,” he spits out.

Dillon tries to shove me away, but I don’t budge. So the guy has a thing for her? That was obvious, but Blane just confirmed my suspicion. He’s tried to get with her. Or, the other thought that makes me want to kick him in the balls, they have a past.

I feel a growl come from his chest as he narrows his eyes on Blane. “In case you’ve missed it, Blane, she’s an adult and can do whatever she wants,” he snaps.

“She doesn’t want you,” I remind him.

He looks back at me. “Just who the hell are you?” he demands. “Her boyfriend?” he snaps.

I snort. ‘Cause I wouldn’t be any better for her than he would. Just for different reasons. “I’m her boss,” I say simply. “And you are now banned from my club.” With that, I toss him over to Miller, who stands at the entrance of the room. He hauls him out just as Blane turns to Taylor and lets out a few curses.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CASE

I sit behind my desk up in my office as I watch Blane and Taylor argue back and forth. I knew Blane wouldn’t like her working here at the club, but it’s for her benefit. I can’t tell her that, and he wouldn’t understand it.

“May I say something?” I ask, standing from my chair. They both turn to face me; their argument paused at the moment.

“How come you didn’t come to me about this first?” Blane demands. “You know I would have told you that I didn’t want her working at this club,” he shouts at me, ignoring my question.

“Excuse me?” Taylor snaps as she pulls on his shirt making him turn to face her. “Don’t get mad at Case. All he has done is help me out today. Where the hell have you been?”

He looks over at me, ignoring her question. I know exactly where he’s been.
Working for me
. “What have you been helping her with?” he asks narrowing his eyes at me. Of course, he’s mad at me. I spent time with him tonight and made him smoke weed, yet I never mentioned spending the day with his sister. I can see where he could be mad.

Taylor huffs. “I tried calling you like three times this morning. My car broke down on the way to work, and it kept going straight to voicemail.”

His eyes soften, and he takes a deep, calming breath. “I’m sorry, sis.” He reaches out and rubs her arm.

She pulls away, obviously still mad at him. “Savannah didn’t answer her phone either, so I called Case. He came and picked me up.”

His head spins to look at me. “You what?”

I almost roll my eyes, but she continues to yell at him, so I give him a smug smile instead. “Then once I arrived at work, Mr. Binsen fired me for being late.”

“He can’t do that. Can he?” he asks her.

“He did.” She turns her body to face me. The smile she gives me pulls at my gut.
I’m not the good guy here.
It’s a soft smile, and two dimples appear on her cheeks. My dick hardens wondering what it would feel like for her to look up at me like that from her knees as if I was her savior. “Then Case offered me a job. And I accepted it.” Her voice is full of appreciation, and I actually feel sorry for her. She thinks she owes me. And in all honesty, I wanna make her pay up. I’m not that good of a man to let an opportunity like that go.
You have to, Case!

“Give us a minute,” Blane tells her, but he doesn’t bother looking away from me.

“Blane …”

“I said give us a minute,” he snaps.

She pulls her shoulders back pushing out her chest in defiance. I hide my smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Case.”

Yes, you will
. “Looking forward to it.”

She slams the door shut behind her just as Blane turns to me. “This is not part of our deal,” he growls.

I plop down in my chair and shrug. “The deal has changed,” I say simply. “Or did you forget that?”

He bangs his fists on my desks. “Dammit, Case! She’s not like me. You should not punish her for my fuck-ups.”

I tilt my head to the side in confusion. “You think I’m punishing her?”

“Well … yeah,” he says sounding confused.

I shake my head. “There is no safer place for her to work,” I inform him.

“You don’t know Taylor like I do. She doesn’t like the bars or clubs. She doesn’t even like to drink alcohol. She won’t make it through one night here.”

I snort. “Give the girl some credit.”

He looks at me with hate in his eyes. “You know I can’t stop you. And she sure as hell isn’t gonna let me tell her no.” He sighs in defeat. But he looks up at me, and if I wasn’t mistaken, it looks like tears are in his eyes. It hurts to see how much he loves her. To know that this may not turn out how I promised him. This game has a new player with Taylor. Can I get them both out of this alive? I sure hope so. “You have to keep her safe. She is all I have left. I’ve already failed her before.” He hangs his head in shame. “Please tell me that you’ll protect her.”

I nod my head. After all, that is why I made sure she took this job. My mind may have other things in mind for her as well, but I did have her safety in mind first. “You have my word.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

TAYLOR

“Are you Taylor?” I recognize the waitress who was working last night the moment I walk into the club for my first night to train. To say I’m nervous is an understatement. Since college started, I’ve only worked at the coffee shop, and before that, I worked at the mall while in high school. I’m the type of woman who can get by with only a little bit of money. My focus was always on school. Not what pair of jeans I can spend the most amount of money on. But now that my car needs to be fixed and I was fired … I feel like I’m backed into the corner. This just looked like too good of a deal to pass up.

“Yes, I am,” I say with a smile trying to help mask my nervousness.

She doesn’t return my smile. She looks me up and down and sighs heavily as if she thinks I’m a lost cause. And she’s probably right. “Let’s get an outfit for you. Then we’ll get started with setting up.”

She walks past me and then starts to walk up the stairs back by the entrance. I look around quickly at the club with all the lights on. It looks clean and just empty. It looks like an open empty room with a stage at the very front. I find myself doing a circle to look for Case.

“Come on,” the girl snaps. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

I spin around and hurry to the stairs to catch up with her. As we approach Case’s office, my heart rate picks up. Something about him makes me curious. No matter how high his danger level is. 

We left last night right after my brother and I got into it in Case’s office. My brother was so mad at me; he didn’t even speak to me as he drove Savannah and me home in her car. I still have no idea what he and Case talked about after he made me leave the room. And once we got to the house, he grabbed a hold of Savannah and they went to their room. It sucks when your brother is sleeping with your friend and you all live together because when your brother is being the baby, he gets all the attention. I could really use some girl talk.

The waitress, who has yet to introduce herself, pushes the office door open and walks in. I suck in a deep breath as I follow behind her, but I let it out when I realize it’s empty.

I sit down on the couch that sits against the far wall while she goes over to the end of the wall and opens a door. She bends down and throws out a few cuss words as she goes through a box. “What size are your tits?” she demands frustrated.

I blink a few times at her. Uh, that’s personal. But I find myself saying, “34D.”

“And your waist?”

“I wear a size three,” I answer softly.

“Motherfucker,” she hisses before she jumps to her feet. “He doesn’t have a D, so you get a C. But he has the shorts.”

I look down at my t-shirt to stare at my chest. “I don’t think they’ll fit in a C.” Their tops already look too tight if you ask me.

She holds up the black corset covered in sparkles. It has the illusion that it ties up the front, but it’s fake. It zips up the back. She admires the top as she holds it up to my chest. “It’ll be fine. Plus, it will just make your tips even better.”

Thirty minutes later, I look at myself in a full-length mirror back in the locker room. Just as I had suspected, the top is too small.

“It looks good.”

I turn around to face the redhead. I know that is not her natural color—it has to come from a bottle—because it is bright freaking red. It’s very pretty on her, though. “They are about to pop out,” I say trying to breathe. She shrugs. “I can barely breathe.” I place a hand on my stomach. “Loosen it,” I order her.

She just shakes her head. “It doesn’t loosen. Plus, if you did, then you would for sure fall out. It needs to be tight. If it’s too loose and you bend over at a table, you will be serving them your tits and not their drinks. Is that what you want?”

“No.” I sigh. “How long until I can get the right size?” I have never worn something this tight in all of my life.

“I left Case a note on his desk with your size and told him to order you one. It shouldn’t take him long,”

Why does the thought of him knowing my chest size embarrass me? The guy has already seen me naked; he doesn’t need to know my measurements.

“Let’s go,” she says already heading out of the locker room

It only took me thirty minutes into the club opening to find out that I sucked at being a waitress. I’ve already spilled three drinks and knocked over my tray twice, and I only have one table. If I could, I would go over to a corner and cry my eyes out. Instead, I plaster a fake smile on my face and I keep going.

“You need to move faster,” she hisses in my ear. It’s so hard to concentrate with the loud music and flashing lights. Let alone hold a tray in my hands and walk through the packed club.

“I’m trying.” The tray that I’m balancing on my hand starts to wobble, and I lift my other hand to stabilize it. I smile brightly as I stare at her.

The next thing I know, I’m on the floor looking up at her, now covered in alcohol. “Ugh,” she says stomping her foot and storming away from me.

“Sorry,” a man shouts as he grabs my arm and picks me up from the floor.

“It’s okay,” I say, trying to brush the alcohol off me. I smell like a walking bar and I’m wet.
Makes me nauseous
.

“What all did you have on your tray?” he asks over the loud music as he pulls his wallet out of his back pocket.

“Oh no, that’s not necessary,” I say waving my hand at him. I may have never been a waitress before, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works. He shouldn’t have to pay for another table’s drinks because I fell down. He thinks he tripped me, but it was my fault.

“Let’s go,” my warden says coming back to grab me by the arm once again. I wave and thank him as she pulls me into the crowd.