Change (6 page)

With fury in her actions, Sara slid into Casey’s car,
crossed her arms over her chest, and pointed her chin forward. Surely she could
endure her temporary humiliation for another four blocks until home.

Casey reached over her body, shocking her even more.
All he’d wanted to do was make certain she put on her seatbelt. Holding herself
rigid, he locked the belt into place, seeing as how she was doing her level
best to throw a silent tantrum, then grabbed the gear shift, slammed it into
first gear, and sped away from the curb.

It was a good thing he’d locked her into place. The
man’s driving proved he was a crazed lunatic…as well a bastard.

Only problem was, after ten blocks passed in an
absolute blur, and that crazed lunatic kept driving, Sara knew well and good
he’d lied to her. Well, technically he did not tell her the whole truth. He’d
driven past her street and was heading out of town. The only home out there was
his.

He must have known what she was going to say even
before she opened her mouth, because he said it for her.

“I said…home. I did not say which one.”

His devil grin remained rather prolific the eight full
miles it took to get there.

Chapter Four

“
W
here were you last night?” Lace questioned
from the opposite side of the bar.

Tonight was two-for-one, in every sense of the word.
Two drinks, two dances, two girls—for the right price anything could be bought
inside
Griffen’s Club
.

Lace was taking a breather from her first pole dance.
The second would be done within the private room, where she made a ton of
money. Moreover, the reason Sara was trying to perfect the pole. If a girl
could get into the private rooms, she could make an easy grand if not more,
every night of the week.

Sara was the freeloader in Lace’s home. She contributed
what she made from bartending, but nothing more came out of her pocket. Lace
was fine with the arrangement. She told Sara she’d always wanted a roommate.

Sara hated freeloading, though it did seem to suit her
purpose. Yet she wasn’t about to put herself out on a limb because of finances.
Where else would Lace have found the perfect roommate, if Sara, the naturist,
hadn’t come along?

“I woke up at seven, and you, my friend, hadn’t slept
in your bed,” Lace added. She gave Sara a knowing look, then a knowing wink,
darting a glance to the grumpy bouncer holding vigil at the door.

“I fell asleep in the back room—after you left me here
to fend for myself,” she lied. Easy enough to do when she did not look at
Lace’s face.

Casey had taken her to his home under protest.
However, once there, he’d pointed Sara to his couch while he’d gone upstairs
within his big, fancy house, to sleep on his big, fancy bed. He hadn’t even
allowed her the comfort of a blanket; told her being cold all night was
punishment for the stolen tequila.

And he did not think two kisses and a fingering job
until nearly coming into the palm of his hand hadn’t been punishment enough?

When she awoke, cold, stiff, and pissed, there’d been
cab fare and a note set on the table, informing her she was to stay an extra
hour in the club tonight to pay him back for the cab fare.

Wretched bastard!
Stinking rich, he could surely afford a few lousy bucks for the
returned safety of his employee to her home, couldn’t he?

“And why the hell ain’t you off your shift yet?” Lace
asked.

Sara raised her eyes and looked her roommate dead to
rights. “Tequila punishment.” This much she would tell her roommate. The rest
of last night she would keep a secret—for now.

Lace smiled. “How many hours did he give you?”

“Just one.”

Sara started on the order of drinks their topless
waitresses wanted. Lace’s smile held firmly in place until two of Casey’s girls
walked away.

“Just one?”

“Yep. Only one.”

“Christ! I’m surprised Boss Man didn’t bring out the
big guns, once he found out about our…um…Sunday evenings,” Lace whispered. If
any of the other girls found out, there’d be hell to pay.

Lace then glanced over her shoulder to make certain
Boss
Man
wasn’t overhearing this conversation, as well.

Sara gave said man a quick glance, too. When he must
have sensed eyes on him, he turned and smiled her way. Not at all a friendly
smile, his grin looked more on the terms of a
caught you in the act
upturning
of the lips.

Her eyes snapped from his. Big guns? No. The wretched
beast brought out a pair of sensual lips and one talented finger to give Sara
her due.

“Surely after I left you two alone he said something
about you working pole?” Lace was fishing for answers and using the wrong bait
for the wrong type of fish if she thought Sara would intentionally tell her the
truth.

She looked at her one and only friend in the whole
world. “Yeah, he said something.” She then handed another waitress the last of
her order: two beers from tap with no foam. “It’d been on the terms of…Hell no!
And not while breath still inside his body…or to that effect.” She might have
glorified the man’s anger, but Lace would never know.

“Shit! Really?”

“My sentiments, exactly,” Sara answered, glaring
across the crowded, elbow-bumping, fist-pumping, eager beaver hunters to the
man standing near the door.

She was then called down to the end of the bar. Lace
followed and stood behind the customer. When the man did not move over, Lace
gave up trying and walked to the other side of the bar. This action pulled
Casey from the doorway, post haste. He literally stormed over to the women.

“Lace? Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else?” he
rudely said. His eyes hit both women, waiting for the answer from only one.

Lace stuck out her tongue but did as she was told.
“I’m going, I’m going,” she said tartly.

She had a
customer
in two minutes. They all
knew she needed to limber up and the only place to do any limbering would be
inside the back room.

Casey held firm his position until his favored
employee moved off. As Sara watched her well-endowed, topless friend slip
through the door labeled private, her boss remained where he was, opposite her
side of the bar.

When her eyes turned to his, he snapped out, “Say
anything to Lace about last night…and I will fire you.”

A dire warning, if ever heard.

Sara took it as another way. “Oh, really? Well, fire
me then.” She was daring the angry man into action. Enough of the cat and mouse
game between them. Either he came clean about what he wanted from her, or she
would just move on.

Casey signaled for the other girl who bartended with
Sara to take over. He then grabbed Sara by the wrist and physically dragged her
into his office. He did not slam the door shut, but he sure as hell looked as
if he wanted to. However, a slammed door was a real attention getter, and he
wouldn’t have wanted his customers unsettled, even though he looked quite
unsettled himself. The veins in the sides of his neck were sticking out. His
body coiled, his eyes were filled with lightning.

“I am going to give you a half-second to apologize to
me,” he warned.

“For what?” she demanded, yanking on her arm.

“For beginners…,” Casey stalled, glaring at her face.
He must not have put much thought to he’d been nearly crushing her wrist in his
grasp.

“Yeah?” she snapped. “For starters…”

“Christ, Mecenna!”

Sara felt waspish all of a sudden. “Christ, Casey!”
she mimicked.

The man took a step forward.

She took a step back.

He grabbed her arm.

She slapped his hand away.

He turned and slammed his fist onto his desk, so hard
she could hear bone crack.

Sara stood her ground, but thankfully, Casey did not
witness the flinch and sudden flash of memory she’d made behind his back.

He took a deep breath, flared his nostrils, and turned
to face her.

Sara took a deep breath, and held it for as long as
she could—a mere second.

Without ease of warning, he grabbed his other wrist,
muttered under his breath something vulgar, something Sara did not hear
properly, asking him what it was.

“Care to repeat that?”

“I think I just fucking broke bones because of you!”

Sara almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
An
inner part of her did feel sorry for her fellow human being. But when any
sympathy pertained to this man, her sorry scale was a bit lowered most days.
Still, she took a step forward.

He took a firm step back.

She held out her hand to him as a peace offering,
which then able to identify the trouble if he cooperated.

Casey glared at her hand—hard.

“Jesus! Let me take a look at it, would ya?”

“What? You know what a broken bone looks like?”

“I do,” she answered tartly.

Her eyes trapped his while he must have weighed the
pros and cons in his head. But she knew he was in too much pain to argue
otherwise, accepting any possible cons with a grain of salt. He very slowly
held out his arm for her to gather a hypothesis.

Sara placed Casey’s wrist into her palm and gently
touched the wrist bones. Had she not her own broken wrist from the car accident
a few years back, she wouldn’t have known how they felt out of place—or what
could make them hurt. And Casey’s were certainly out of place.

Sara jabbed the one she knew to be, just to make it
smart.

With a shine of fury in his eyes he yanked his arm
from her grasp, and made his wrist hurt even more. “Fucking Hell, you did that
on purpose!”

Sara wasn’t going to deny she had. “You’re the one who
broke it.”

The forced smile that came forth on his face lit up
the small room. “No.
You
broke it! I just happen to have it inside my
body!”

“Me?” she quizzed. “How the bloody hell did I break
your wrist?”
This,
she had to hear.

“You made me do it!”

A sharp brow rose on Sara’s forehead. “Oh really? I
made you pound you wrist onto your desk…hard enough to break bone?” Any
explanation in favor of this would surely be a lie.

Casey lied. “If I didn’t have to pull you into my
office, I wouldn’t have hit my desk for the pure fact you infuriate me so
bloody damn much, it’s all…” He paused, growling loudly at her.

Sara rolled her eyes in spite of to do so could easily
get her into a lot more trouble than she already in.

“And since I may have broken it,” he added.

“May?” she recklessly slipped out, checking her grin.

“Yes, may…” A sharp raise of his brow clarified it.
“You will now be driving me to the hospital to get it fixed.”

“Like hell I will!”

“Oh, yes you are,” he warned menacingly.

Sara balled her fists onto her hips. “Oh, no I am not.
Drive your own bloody damn self to the hospital.”

“Do you want me to go out there and tell Lace exactly
how you responded to my touch last night?” he threatened.

Sara’s mutiny returned tenfold. “You wouldn’t dare?”

“Wouldn’t I?” he offered, with a sudden devilish grin
to prove his point.

Sara could see he would more than shout what happened
between them inside the club last night from the nearest rooftop if it would
gain him a ride to the hospital. For a bouncer who could take a lot of pain, he
sure as hell was acting like a baby. And using blackmail? That bites!

“Fine. I’ll go with you, but you’ll owe me one full
extra hour of pay.”

“The hell I will!”

“Either that, or I go out there myself and tell Ginger
to drive you, and we both know you’d never hear the end of it if she takes you
there.”

Ginger was his other bartender—took no shit from
anyone, not even this man.

“No, Mecenna,” Casey said, shaking his head while he
cradled his arm to his torso. “You will drive me to the ER. I will not be
paying you an extra hour, and you will do it because if you don’t I’ll not only
tell Lace about last night, I’ll tell everyone in the club, and you’ll feel
every eye on you throughout the remainder of your now extended two hour shift until
your skin crawls.”

One look at his face and she suddenly believed him.

Casey was pissed and she was now staring at a very
long night.

****

“If you grind the gears on a hundred and
fifty-thousand dollar car one more time…” His biting tone clipped at her
profile, he’d meant for it to take a little paint off her hide.

Casey knew Mecenna had never driven a stick shift in
all her life. She’d told him as much the moment he handed her the keys.

Alas, she’d also been informed on how to run the
clutch and gas pedal at the same time, and how to get the car to respond to the
slow change of foot pressure…or lose her job.

Even told, she’d killed it twice at the stop sign. By
the third forward jolt of metal, Casey slipped down in his seat to hide his
face. He sure as hell did not want anyone to see him or recognize him while
inside the car, while his baby was being driven by a total nut job.

“I am quite certain you could do this yourself.” Her
threat was not as strong as she likely wanted it to be, due to the fact of her
having perfected the
Find and Grind
of the vehicle’s gears again.

Casey flinched—for his car. He felt its pain. If
anyone ground
his
gears as hard as Mecenna was doing to a nearly
irreplaceable vehicle, he would’ve punched them in the face. However, his
lovely employee was doing her best, and this was all he could ask of her at
this point.

His wrist had one small fracture and the ER doc had
put into a brace. No cast, thankfully. He wouldn’t have been able to do his job
properly if his wrist was set into a plaster cast.