Neil (The Uncompromising Series Book 2) (6 page)

Three strides away from the end of my routine, I gave up and walked off stage. With a quick glance over my shoulder, I scanned the end of the bar but he was gone. Air whooshed out of my lungs and I rushed backstage.

An arm’s length from the dressing room, the new owner, Davie, caught up with me. “What the fuck was that? You didn’t even finish the song. You think you’re too good for us now that you got a day job? I did you a favor tonight giving you these shifts.”

“I know.” I pulled the bills I had out of my G-string and quickly counted. Damn it, barely forty bucks.

He threw his hands up. “Then what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Forty bucks wouldn’t even pay for the babysitter. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried like hell not to lose it. I’d been in worse shape than this, far worse. I’d figure it out. But one double shift stripping wasn’t going to fix shit long-term.

“Am I fucking talking to myself? Get your ass back out there and sell some goddamn drinks!”

“Fuck off.” My mouth got the best of me.

Davie’s hands went to his hips and his voice turned menacing. “What did you just say to me?”

I could skip paying the rent on my current place and use what I had for a deposit on the studio apartment I’d looked at yesterday. The neighborhood was ten shades past sketchy but the place had bars on the windows and I hadn’t seen any gangbangers around when I was there. I could make it work. Ignoring Davie, I reached for the dressing room door handle and he grabbed my arm.

I turned to let loose on him but the sight of Viking standing behind Davie made my words stick in my throat.

“Let go of her.” Deep and quiet, his voice rocked through the hallway a thousand times more threatening than if he’d yelled.

“Who the fuck…?” Davie’s eyes traveled up the height of Viking and he stopped talking.

“Do not make me repeat myself.” Viking’s accent thickened and became as scary as his presence.

Davie dropped his hand from my arm and held it out to Viking. “Dave Castellano. You ever thought about being a bouncer?”

“Step back,” Viking warned.

Davie lowered his outstretched hand. “Right, sure, I get it, personal space and all that.” He took a giant, theatric step backwards. “This good?” He spoke as loud as if he’d crossed the room.

Viking spared me a glance. “Get dressed.”

I crossed my arms over my tits. I wanted inside that dressing room so bad I could taste it, but I wasn’t about to let Viking think he could tell me what to do. “No thanks, I’m enjoying the sideshow.”

One of his nostrils twitched.

Davie looked between us. “Hey, is this some kind of lovers’ quarrel? Because that shit stays
outside
the club.”

Viking slowly turned to Davie and issued a single command like he was the fucking Terminator. “Leave.”

Davie puffed his scrawny chest and because he had no self-preservation, he stuck his foot in his mouth. “If you’re harassing one of my girls, you can get out of here right now before I call security.”

Viking took a step toward Davie. “She is not your girl.”

Davie’s hands went up and he backed up so fast, his ass hit the wall. “Easy there, killer. I wasn’t saying that she was mine
mine
. I was just saying—”

Viking took another step.

Davie turned and ran. Actually ran down the hall.

“You have two minutes. Put clothes on.”

I turned back to Viking and my breath caught but I still managed to throw out some attitude. “Are you telling me what to do?”

His penetrating gaze was even more potent than this morning. “Yes.”

My nipples hardened and a rush went through my body. Part of me, the survival instinct part, told me to run like hell. The other part, the traitorous female part, wanted to launch myself at him. “Does that usually work for you? Telling women what to do?” If he weren’t so hot, I’d be shitting myself right about now.

“Yes.”

I mentally shook myself out of my stupor. “So that’s why you’re here? Out of all the strip clubs in Miami, you came to this one so you could push me around?”

He didn’t respond and his silent stare made my knees tremble.

“Fine.” I managed to huff. “I was getting dressed anyway.” I walked into the dressing room and went to slam the door behind me but it hit a distinctively solid mass. I turned and put on my best fuck-off face. “Show stops when my ass leaves the stage.”

With one step, he caught my chin. “Why are you working here?”

All of my attitude dissolved into a puddle at my feet with his single touch. His hand warm and calloused, his grip commanding, he wore alpha like an advertisement for bad decisions. Not to mention he smelled amazing, like heat and spice and man. He was everything I didn’t need in my life. “It’s called a job.” My stupid voice wavered.

He studied me like he could see right through my bullshit. “You have a job.”

“Buying me a fancy phone and groceries doesn’t give you the right to intrude on my life. I don’t have to justify shit to you.” Answering phones wasn’t paying my bills and the two times I’d taken Conner to the doctor last month had sunk me deeper, but that was none of his business. I pulled out of his grasp and turned my back on him like I didn’t give two shits what he did. “You can wait in the hall.”

The door shut but his scent didn’t leave the room.

“You’re still here.” I didn’t bother looking. I knew he was standing there like you knew when a hurricane was coming. The air snapped, your skin crawled and the pit of your stomach refused to settle down.

He didn’t answer and I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of verbally squirming. Ignoring him, I put my tips in my purse and pulled out my next outfit. Hands shaking, my back to him, I stepped out of my G-string. I’d been naked so many times I’d lost count, but this? This felt like I was stripping down to my fears and revealing my soul. Insecurities I thought I’d buried floated to the surface as I tried to pull up a white thong without giving him an eyeful.

Pissed that I was letting a man get to me, I yanked up the stupid underwear, tugged the short white skirt over my hips and put on the white lace bra. It wasn’t until I had one arm in the tight nurse’s top that Viking stopped me.

His huge hand cupped my nape and his breath touched my ear. “You are not wearing this.”

I flinched but my voice still came out defiant. “Yes, I am.”

Without touching my skin, his other hand dragged the top off my arm. His voice lowered and his accent got even thicker. “Take your skirt off.”

The hair on the back of my neck rose. “I’m gonna. In about five minutes.” My heartbeat in my throat, I turned up the attitude. “Grab a seat and pull your wallet out. You can watch the whole damn show.”

The air shifted and his scent got stronger. He reached around me and slapped a wad of money on the makeup counter. “Take it off.”

My stomach lurched and bile rose. “I’m not a whore.”

His body stiffened and I braced myself for the worst. My arms went protectively across my chest and I curled in on myself.

Slow and deliberate, as if he knew he’d frightened me, his thumb dragged up the side of my neck and his voice turned gentle. “Did I ask you to fuck?”

My whole world tilted when he said
fuck
. Desire mixed with fear and my thighs clenched but my shoulders went rigid. My mouth dry, my breath coming in short pants, I threw his arm off me. “Get out.”

“Get dressed.”

I grabbed the money off the counter and spun. My hand and the cash hit his solid chest but he didn’t flinch. “Keep your fucking money. You can’t tell me what to do.”

His fingers wrapped around my wrist and pulled. I stumbled in my five-inch heels and fell into him as his gray-blue eyes turned to ice. “You are taking the money. You are getting dressed and we are leaving.” He released me as quickly as he’d grabbed me.

I threw the wad of cash back on the counter. “I’m not your fucking slut. I don’t have to listen to you.”

His voice dropped to a deadly calm and his accent enunciated his words with tight control. “Outfit off. Clothes on.”

My temper threatening to unleash, my tits covered by scraps, I stupidly taunted him. “Or what?”

“Test me.”

It was a warning I should’ve heeded but smart choices were never my strong suit. “Go home, Neil.” I yanked the door open.

A hand larger than my face hit the old warped wood and slammed it shut. “No.”

I
SHOULD’VE BEEN PISSED AT
his alpha bullshit. I should’ve given him an earful, but suddenly my day caught up with me and I was just too damn tired to care. Resigned to let this play out, I leaned my forehead against the door and sighed. “What do you really want?”

“You do not have to work here.”

My head still against the door, his hand braced inches from my face, I turned and followed the bulging muscles up his arm, past his huge shoulder to his impenetrable stare. “Seriously? Out of all the strip clubs in Miami, you came to this one? To tell me that?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t know what to make of him. Why did he even give a shit? “How’d you find me?”

“Babysitter.”

I wanted to be pissed at her but Viking would’ve intimidated my sixteen-year-old self into telling him whatever he wanted to know too. “And you went to my place,
why
?”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t even blink.

Shit. “Is this about the groceries?” Or the phone? I really didn’t want this to be about the phone because I didn’t want to give the stupid thing back. “And don’t even bother mentioning the TV. I don’t want one.” I totally wanted one. A big giant one with a thousand channels, but you’d have to torture me to get me to tell him that.

“This is not about food.”

No intonation, no change in his expression, no nothing. I knew he had shit brewing in that head of his but he was the master of exclusion. “That’s all you’re gonna say?”

He stared at me.

Case in point. “Fine.” I pushed off the door. “I give. You win. I work at a shitty place, doing a shitty thing for shitty tips and I’m a crap mom. Did I forget anything?” I scooped the nurse’s top off the floor and shook it out.

“Ariella.” My full named rumbled off his tongue like moving earth and shuddered through my resolve.

My hand about to go through the sleeve, I paused. “It’s Ariel.” I should’ve questioned what else he knew about me besides a name I never used, but I didn’t. I was too busy trying not to lean into his stupid, ridiculously built chest just to smell him.

“Put clothes on.” It wasn’t a quiet demand, it wasn’t coaxing, it wasn’t even a whisper because his voice was too deep to whisper, but it was the single sexiest thing I’d ever heard him say.

“I am.” I pushed my arm through the sleeve and turned my back on him. If he said one more thing to me in that tone, I’d probably drop to my knees and beg him to take me out of here because nothing about Viking was ordinary. He didn’t even speak like a normal person. It was as if his voice commanded the air around him to move out of the way so he could own it.

“Do not fight me on this.”

I sucked in a breath and forced myself to remember why I was here. Viking was just a man—a man who wouldn’t leave my head or my dressing room—but I had a job to do. And if I stood here another minute, he’d make me forget my promise to myself. I’d sworn off men for a reason. “Screw you.” I buttoned up the top.

The stale dressing room air moved with a swirl of spicy musk. His body heat left my back and his voice took on a tone I couldn’t decipher. “As you wish.”

Thumping bass from one of the stages filled the dressing room as the door opened. Regret hit the pit of my stomach and I turned to say something, anything, but my gaze caught the wad of cash on the counter.

Hating the emotions rolling through my mind more than his dismissal, I grabbed the bills and rushed into the hall after him but he was already at the back exit. “You forgot your fucking money!”

He ignored me.

Goddamn it.
“Neil!”

Without even a glance over his shoulder, he pushed the door open and strode out.

I stomped back to the dressing room and threw the cash on the counter. My aim off, I missed. Crinkled bills floated to the ground and I cursed. Squatting in my stupid heels, I started to pick up the hundred-dollar bills and my breath caught. One, two, three…

Holy s
hit.

Seven hundred bucks.

He couldn’t know. Could he? How the hell would he know I was seven hundred short on rent? The answer was he wouldn’t, not unless he knew the amount of my rent
and
my bank balance. Oh my God… would he? No. No way. I snatched my cell out of my purse and shot off a text to him.

Me: Come back and get your fucking money you coward

Who the hell did he think he was? I stood and my cell pinged with a text.

André: What the hell is going on?

No he fucking didn’t.

Me: Nothing

André: Why is Christensen texting me and telling me to give you a raise? You need money??

That motherfucking
asshole
. How dare he tell André. Rage-induced tears welled and I wanted to rip those goddamn hundred-dollar bills to shreds in front of Viking.