Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 105065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 525(@200wpm)___ 420(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 525(@200wpm)___ 420(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
“Carry on then.” Lachlan takes a seat in front of the stage and stretches out his legs while he waits.
He doesn’t look like he’s going to be easily swayed, so I know I’m going to have to pull out all the stops. I decide to forgo the routine I had planned and freestyle it instead. I think organic movement will look sexier than if I’m too much in my head. While I’m confident in my fighting skills, this stuff is a completely different ballgame. This stuff means I’m banking on someone to like me. To want me.
Those are things I never had time to want. When every day was a game of survival, I didn’t want anyone else to care. Because if they cared that meant I could lose them too. I’m not good at this stuff. I don’t know how to be sweet or seductive. But I know what I want, and I’m determined. I hope that will carry me through.
I plug in my iPod and cue up the song I’ve chosen. Living Dead Girl by Rob Zombie. I want to keep him guessing. I need to be an enigma. A confusing dichotomy of shy and sweet and hard and tough. Lachlan lives in a dark world. He doesn’t want a pop princess up on stage. None of them do.
I shimmy out of my skirt and leather jacket, leaving only the strappy leather ensemble covering my body while he watches. When I steal a glance at him, I can’t tell what the hell he’s thinking. His face is a steel mask of indifference, and it’s too dark to see if he’s still sporting a hard on. I temper my nerves and close my eyes as I start to move.
I’m just going to pretend he isn’t there. Seems the best way to do it. I do some of the customary stage crawling and a lot of hip gyrating, walking around the pole very slowly and a few little leg tricks before I move onto the bigger stuff. I’m confident that as long as I own what I’m doing and believe in it, it will shine through. I have the strength and coordination to pull out a couple of the big guns. I do some aerial inverts, a Chinese flagpole, and a boomerang. And when I’m done, I finish it all off with a butterfly for my own amusement before melting back to the floor and dismounting.
When the song finishes and I open my eyes, Lachlan is still there, but this time he can’t hide the heat in his eyes. He’s burning a path over my every curve and valley, feasting on me like he’s seriously considering fucking me right here.
“So what do you think?” I ask shyly.
“I think ye’re doing a bang up job,” he admits reluctantly. “Carry on.”
I smile and get down on my hands and knees, crawling across the stage. The next song on my iPod is Sweet Dreams by Marilyn Manson. I flip my hair around and do a few floor tricks up close and personal to give him a nice little show from his vantage point down below. Lots of back arches and hip gyrating. The stuff that men just can’t look away from.
Something else Scarlett taught me comes to mind. Men love an ego boost.
“I like the jeans.” I crawl closer to the edge and let my eyes drop. “They look good on you.”
He laughs again, but it’s not in amusement.
“Oh, ye flatter me sweetheart. Fancy them, do you? Would ye like me to bend you over and show ye what’s inside?”
“Tempting.” I flop onto my stomach and move into a shoulder stand before melting into a backbend. “So very tempting Mr. Crow. But the thing about butterflies is they need to be admired from afar. If you touch them, they could die.”
My words cause the darkness to return to his face. I thought we were playing a game- that it was nothing but banter- but then I glimpse something else beneath. Something I wasn’t expecting. Grief so raw and real, it feels like I’m looking in a mirror.
For a strange moment, I feel connected to him. His pain draws mine out like a magnet, and our eyes lock onto each other, linking us together in an unexpected way. This time, it’s me who breaks the trance, quashing down whatever this strange energy is and locking it up tight.
The song comes to an end, but I don’t stop moving. I still haven’t shown Lachlan the goods, and a part of me is wondering if he’ll ever ask. He doesn’t.
“That’s enough,” he says finally.
I stop and swing my legs over the side of the stage to dangle as I wait for the verdict.
“I don’t want ye in my club,” he says.
My stomach rolls with nerves and a sense of impending doom. His suspicion of me is too strong, and even his reluctant attraction to me won’t get in the way of that. Right now, I have no doubt he’s being real with me. He doesn’t want me here. At all.
I’m trying to conjure up the words to argue with him. To plead my case. But they aren’t coming. Defeat is weighing heavy on my shoulders, and all I can think of is that I’ve failed Talia. How the hell did she ever get a job here? Another mystery to figure out.
I rise on shaky legs and do the only thing I can at this point. I call his bluff.
Stalking back across the stage, I pick up my clothes as though I’m about to storm out. “Look, just forget it. You saw what I can do, but if you don’t like it, I’ll take my act somewhere else. There are plenty of clubs in town…”
“Mackenzie.”
My name comes out of his mouth like a whip, and it commands my attention right away. He hasn’t moved an inch, but he doesn’t need to. This is the Lachlan Crow I hear about on the streets. The man that nobody fucks with. He’s scowling at me, and the threat is clear. And yet, I’m smiling inside. Because I’ve got him right where I want him.