Taking the Score (5 page)

Them both.

“Brody—”

“Hush, now, I’ll give you what you need.” He ground his cock against her hand, and her shocked gasp almost undid him. “That’s what you want, right?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “That’s—yeah, that’s—”

No, this is.
Though it killed him, he removed her hand and hitched her leg over his hip so he could rub his best parts against her best parts. A grinding thrust had her moaning, a sound so sweet he longed to hear it over and over. If he could hear it along with his name when she came, it would be revelatory.

The problem was he might shoot off first.

He had to get her off quicker. Still with one hand under her ass, his other found the zipper at the side of her shorts and pulled, creating a gap for his searching fingers.

They both moaned as he entered taboo territory. She was already soaked, her slick heat spilling over his fingers. Every stroke ramped up her moans, drove him to the brink. To feel her clamp down on his fingers as she rode them through her orgasm— The goal spurred him on. His mouth was so close to hers he could have kissed her again, accelerated the pace, but he didn’t want to miss her eyes, which had fluttered closed.

“Look at me when I make you come, Emma.”

Those eyes flew open, fiery blue suns exploding with desire.

He resumed his teasing stroke below and kept his gaze on his target: those beautiful lust-stoked pupils. Little silver sparks seemed to light up when he stroked a little slower. She liked it languorous. All women were different, but his experience was that most preferred it quick, more friction, get it done.

Not his Emma. She rocked against his hand, her mouth parted in a silent plea.

He turned his finger so the callus glanced over her clit. Her breathing quickened. She tried to say something but nothing emerged, her words lost in the build to her orgasm.

Fascinating.

He had always enjoyed puzzles, working things out, moving pieces around until it made sense. Ms. Strickland did not make sense.

He would learn her.

He plunged two fingers in and thumbed her clit, spreading moisture over where she was most sensitive. She cried out and locked down around his digits.

“That’s it. Squeeze me tight, baby. Give me a preview of what my cock can expect.”

Shit, he needed to shut that down. Not chatty by nature, in Brody, lust seemed to open some conduit in his brain and tap into his basest desires, producing a torrent of dirty talk most women blushed to hear. A nice girl like Emma Strickland would not enjoy his trucker mouth, but then he recalled that he was no longer dealing with a nice girl.

His dick was still contained, and this was already the hottest fuck of his life.

“No. I want you in—when I—please.” She lowered her foot to the floor, the action expelling his fingers, and she pushed her shorts down. A skimpy scrap of shiny black fabric barely covered her sex. She kicked off the shorts and raised her leg around his hip, the heels giving her the perfect height to align his groin against her core.

It was wrong, so damn wrong, but the pleading in her gorgeous blue eyes kept him focused on making it right. Making it perfect. Frantically, he pushed his boxers down and freed his aching cock. There was a moment between them, an acknowledgment that nothing would ever be the same again if they didn’t call a halt to this. Still time to grasp at the last thread of his sanity… But then she guided his erection to the most heated, needy part of her and whispered, “Don’t stop, Brody.”

Sanity was overrated. He could no more stop this than stop his heart from beating.

That strip masquerading as underwear had to go. Moving it aside, he thrust into the sweet, pliant heat she offered. Jesus H. How could this pleasure have been sitting mere feet away from his desk forty hours a week? How could this even be happening?

But it was, and every pump into her made it both more real and more of a dreamlike fantasy. Worlds colliding, pleasure building, life-affirming. It was hot and sweet, wet and hard, filthy and pure, and so damn fine.

Gripping her sweet ass tighter, he lifted her flush against him, needing to seal their connection. Get closer, though it wasn’t possible. Know more, though he questioned if that was possible, too.

Dimly, he was aware of music playing, but everything narrowed to where their bodies connected, the slick suction of flesh, her whimpers of pleasure. Those whimpers turned louder, ratcheting up the coil of need in his balls. Her head fell back, the ecstasy of the moment etched on her beautiful face. She was close. He could feel it in the sounds, the way her hands clutched at his shoulders desperately, the clench of her walls as she insisted on her pleasure and then she stilled and buried her scream in his neck, muttering mostly incomprehensible words. Most of it filthy, and he strained to hear his name but either she didn’t say it or the roar in his ears heralding his own release drowned it out.

He jerked into her, emptied all he had. The frustration of the past six months, his anger at the notion of Emma performing for anyone else but him, his fury that she was here and that his life was upended because of it. He had never fucked angry before, and now he knew why. A fuck like this was the kind of experience a man doesn’t recover from easily. Finding pleasure in an unexpected place coupled with the raw emotions coursing through him was a dangerous combination.

Unable to break the connection, he remained inside her, absorbing those twitchy orgasmic aftershocks, the one and only place he wanted to be. Neither was she hinting that she had something better to do than bask in the glow of what they had just done.

Shit, what had they just done?

He had no time to examine that as a thunderous knock on the door ripped him back to the present.

Chapter Six

The loud rap sliced into Emma’s fuck-drunk daze and brought reality snapping back like a tree branch across her face.

She had just goaded her boss into screwing her and whaddya know, he had kindly obliged. Judging by his expression, he was hella surprised by this turn of events as well. Slowly, he lowered her to the ground, removed his still-hard cock from her body, and stepped back out of her immediate orbit.

The knock sounde
d again, louder.

“Fix yourself up,” Brody growled. “Now.”

Emma opened her mouth to protest but got snagged on the delicious sight of Brody running a hand down his still-rampant erection and tucking it back into his boxers. No wonder she’d felt so completely filled—that thing was a beast!

When she didn’t move fast enough, he rearranged her clothing with jerky movements. One look at her revealing halter summoned a sexy scowl. Off came his jacket, and he wrapped it around her shoulders. Warm spice invaded her nostrils, but she had no time to enjoy it as he was already steering her forcefully to the door, a grim slash where his mouth used to be.

“I assume you didn’t arrive here dressed like that. Go get your clothes and meet me out front.”

Again with the bossiness, this time tinged with cold disgust. “My shift’s not over.”

“What part of this do you not understand, Ms. Str—Emma? You are not working here.”

“What? Just because you were inside me does not make us betrothed, you Neanderthal jerk.”

“I already told you that no other man is going to touch you. As this job is predicated on men being able to touch you, then logic says something has to give. That would be the job.”

Yes, let’s apply logic to this messed-up situation.
He yanked open the door to find Ray outside, looming. The slimeball’s gaze skittered over Brody’s jacket caping her shoulders, dropped to the possessive hand on Emma’s arm, and tracked as it circled her waist and pulled her close into Brody’s hard body.

“I was just returning your card, Mr. Kane.” Ray handed over the black Amex. How many charges had he tacked onto it? Strip club taxes, the girls called it. “By any chance, are you related to Senator Kane from Texas?”

Brody nodded curtly and gripped Emma’s hip tighter. Fury radiated off him in waves.

“Emma’s leaving now.”

“We don’t allow our employees to form personal relationships with the clients.”

Emma tried to move away but the motion just tightened his hand on her waist, and she realized she’d been testing his resolve. The safety she felt in his caveman arms was as shocking as the intimacy.

Brody glared at Ray, eyes filled with disdain. “Mr.…?”

“Grigson.”

“I’ll buy her time for the rest of the night, Grigson. Just add it to my tab.” He patted her ass. Weirdly, that felt more invasive than the cock he’d buried deep inside her five minutes ago. “Go get your clothes and meet me out front, honey.”

Honey? Oh, you’re pushing it, Kane.

Pissed beyond belief, she wanted to scream her head off at both of them as they compared dicks and decided where she would be spending the rest of her night. After her wild-child years and her move to Chicago to clean up another Daisy mess, she’d vowed never to let any man determine her fate. Emma Strickland was the captain of her own ship, but lately she felt lucky if she was allowed to swab the decks.

She looked at Ray, hating that his approval was necessary. He gave a brief nod of permission. Dazed, she wobbled to the restroom to clean up, the stark reality of what had just happened clobbering her hard.

She’d had hot-as-Hades sex with her boss.

In a strip club. (While she was working as a stripper.)

They hadn’t used a condom.

Fuck.
They hadn’t used a condom.

She wasn’t on the Pill. Oral contraceptives were a luxury when you owed thousands of dollars and your sex life was on life support. The battery-operated kind. She couldn’t even afford batteries. But she was sure it was the wrong time in her cycle to conceive. Ninety-five percent sure.

In the dull mirror, she assessed her appearance and concluded: unrecognizable. But a voice in a cobwebbed part of her brain chimed in with,
We’re back.
That
Emma, the girl she’d gone to great lengths to unshackle herself from, was the ghost on her shoulder, dangling the handcuffs of her past.

You used to love getting down and dirty in bar bathrooms, dank alleys, and the backseat of a guy’s muscle car. Remember how you and Shona superglued Steve O’Halloran’s dick to a tree on Route 81 because he cheated on you with that skank, Jenny Gustafson? Remember how you took him back?

Tonight, that girl had returned with a vengeance and corrupted Mr. Kane. There was no way he’d have crossed that line if she hadn’t incited him. How could she ever again look him in the eye?

Won’t have to for much longer, you naughty girl. Ta ta, Score Property, nice knowin’ ya!

Back in the dressing room, she encountered breasts of all shapes, sizes, and varying degrees of fake tan. Katerina clutched her arm, her slender fingers grazing Brody’s suit jacket approvingly. “How did it go? Big tip?”

Sure, but not in cash. Just thinking of Brody’s thick length inside her drew a rash of heat all over her body.

Katerina smirked, understanding her blush. “So, he gives more than just tips?”

Emma grabbed her street clothes, hesitating at first but realizing that she had nothing any of these girls hadn’t seen before or wanted to see now.

“You are leaving?”

“He’s bought my time for the rest of the night. Ray said I could go.”

That earned an arch eyebrow lift. “Your first night and you have already hit the jackpot?” She looked at Emma with a new appreciation. “If you play the cards right, you can land him. Like big fish. Clothes, jewels, apartment—all for the taking.”

No, he’s my boss, you see, and the only landing I’ll be doing is my ass on the asphalt when he boots me to the sidewalk.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back.” Given she had likely lost her day job, that was a foregone conclusion. She suspected a million girls had trod Katerina’s advised career path before, thinking a Prince Charming would ride in and be so impressed by a lap dance, they wanted to tap that ass off-site and forever. Women only escaped lives like these in body bags, not limos.

“You must be more optimistic, Emma,” Katerina said, mighty strange words coming from someone so dour. “Fairy tales do come true. Look at me.”

The woman worked in a strip club and endured pasty rash on a regular basis. Some fairy tale.

Katerina’s smile was sly. “I hope never to see you again, Chardonnay.”

Emma stepped outside and right into Ray. He had some weird rule about not going inside the dressing rooms. Dignity and respect, he called it.

“You said I could leave?”

“Yes. I did.” He stared at her as though he might have underestimated her. It wouldn’t have been the first time. “Do you know who your client was tonight?”

She shrugged. No way did she want Ray knowing that Brody was part of her other life. “Some asshat with more money than self-control.”

“That, honey, is Broderick Kane III. His father is a senator from the good ole state of Texas. He’s richer than God and headed to great things. So you keep your mouth closed, your legs open, and your eyes and ears alert. People would pay good money to learn his secrets.”

His secrets? He was a tree-trunk-up-his-ass nerd, who happened to have a kinky side, and could make a woman come inside sixty seconds. So she’d be keeping that little sex nugget to herself, unpacking it later during lonely nights while she figured out how to land a new job.

“I’m not going to learn much in one night.”

Ray grinned, and Emma knew the chilling meaning of “termites in his smile.”

“That debt looks a lot smaller when you’re cooperating with me, Emma.”

What the hell? Did he expect her to spy on Brody, looking for a chink Ray could exploit? Sleep with him and hope he had interesting pillow talk?

“He’s waiting for me.”

A brusque nod from Ray and he backtracked to his office, no doubt to check on his ledger of misery and plan the destruction of more lives. The notion of seeing Brody after he had taken her to paradise and back, then with his dark, condemning expression, doused her fiery loss of control with an ice-cold vat of regret, filled Emma with dread. She couldn’t face him. Not now.

Pulling out her phone, she hurried toward the back alley, and waited until she’d cleared it and was in a cab she could ill afford. She texted Brody:
On my way home
.
The answering buzz came within five seconds, but she ignored it as she sank her weary head against the cab’s backseat.

But she couldn’t ignore the next call, the ringtone of the opening bars of “A Total Eclipse of the Heart” filling the cab. Their anthem. The song came laden with happy memories of making Daisy laugh as Emma gave it her most dramatic tuneless rendition. It sure beat soothing her baby sis to sleep because Mom thought motherhood was too hard and Dad thought fatherhood was optional. Those crazy tunes had seen them through the tough times.

A smiling heart-shaped face lit up Emma’s phone screen. Daisy Catherine Strickland, the person Emma loved more than anything in the world. These days, every time Emma saw her, rage boiled up. At what she had done, at what Emma had to do to keep her safe. At the failure oozing from Emma’s pores.

“Hey, Ems,” Daisy said cheerily. At two in the morning, mind you, but Daisy had always lived on her own timetable.

Emma dug her nails into her palm, furious at her sister’s bonhomie. Drawing a deep breath, she asked, “How’s it going?”

“Okay,” she said, though she sounded wary. Perhaps she sensed Emma’s anger vibes all the way to the rehab facility she had stashed her in back in Pennsylvania. “Only one week to my ninety days. I’m gonna make it this time.”

This time.
If Emma had a dime for every instance she’d heard that, she’d have no problem paying off that debt to Ray. This was her sister’s third trip to drug rehab, and Emma prayed it would stick. Every penny not going into Ray’s coffers went to getting her sister the help she needed, because Emma had threatened to cut off all contact if she didn’t get clean.

“So you’re eating well,” she said, that maternal instinct impossible to suppress. After playing mom for so long, it was always there above and beyond the rest of her mixed feelings.

“Yeah, the food’s all that health shit. Gluten free and whatnot. I could murder a Quarter Pounder.” She launched into a whiny recitation of the contents on the rehab salad bar Emma would give her right arm to be sidling up to right now. Her stomach growled on cue.

Daisy couldn’t possibly have heard that, but she hesitated and asked into the ominous silence, “So how was work tonight?”

“The usual assholes.”
Oh, and I gave my boss the world’s worst lap dance and then let him fuck me boneless backstage.
“We’re getting there, D.”

“You know, Ems, we could run. Soon as my ninety days is up.”

Run.
They’d done it before. Escaped the bad influences of their ne’er-do-well family of criminals and the daily approbation of life in a small town in Penn.

“California or Florida,” Daisy said. “We could start over.”

“He’d find us.” She was sick of running to a standstill. She wanted to lay down roots, finish school, start her life. She wanted something of her own, unfettered by the familial chains forever holding her back.

Guilt at that treacherous thought pinched her chest. Daisy couldn’t help being weak. When Mom had up and left them as kids, Emma had to be the strong one. And when Dad had swapped his leathers for prison garb orange, Emma was the glue that held them together. She would find a way. She always did.

Ray’s unsubtle hint for her to work Brody and pay off her debt that way pinged her brain. She would never do that, and as she was likely out of a job, the Brody Kane option was no longer on the table.

Daisy’s next words were tinged with remorse. “You shouldn’t be doing this for me. I could move on and no longer weigh you down.”

As if that was a possibility. Emma could never let her leave. Daisy was her blood. Her life. If Emma weren’t around, she’d just backtrack to her bad habits.

“Right now, you focus on getting better. Take care of yourself and”—
have an extra serving of salad for me
—“stay out of trouble.”

“Will do, Ems. Love ya, sis.”

“I love you, too, Daisykins.”

On her chuckle at the endearment Emma had christened her sister with all those years ago, she hung up.

“It’s okay,” she insisted. Now she was talking to herself, because the cab driver sure as hell wasn’t listening. Daisy was getting healthy, and Emma was fulfilling her role of big sister and its primary function: do everything in her power to keep her charge safe.

But that would be tough without a real job and benefits. Tears stung the backs of her eyelids. She was going to have to get stripper lessons from Katerina.

Another buzz of her phone drew her attention and made her sex clench in memory. Brody’s text message blared from the screen:
8am tomorrow at the office. Don’t be late.