Electrified (11 page)

“Oh boy! I’m sorry, Nat. I didn’t realize Asher had company.” She pushed the air in and out of her lungs, and jumped as she heard Asher coming down the hall.
Shit
.

“Nat, I’m here, baby. I had to chat with Mike on the phone for a sec, but now I’m all yours.” He rubbed his face, scratching his goatee, clearly having no clue that Sienna was there yet.

Seeing Sienna, Asher changed gears midsentence, turning all his attention on her when he noticed he had a visitor other than Natalie. “Sie, honey, you all right?”

“Yep,” Sienna said, thinking fast on her feet. “No worries, Ash. Just wanting to chat about our trip. I was so excited thinking about it this morning. But it can wait.” She waved her hand with nonchalance and turned to head back to the side door, desperately trying to escape.

Asher strode over to her quickly, grabbed her shoulder, and turned her to face him. “Me, too, doll. Can’t wait. Nat came back for a drink last night, and well, she’s still here as you can see. We’re going to make breakfast. Want to stay?”

There was no way she was going to talk about her coffee date with Natalie there. Not because she didn’t like Natalie; she just didn’t share too much of her feelings with anyone.

“No, sweetheart. You two have breakfast. We will have our whole trip together. I’m going to go home and change, so I can run some errands.” Attempting not to be fazed by the completely bare woman with her butt cheeks pressed to the granite countertop, she stood on her tippy-toes, gave him a quick peck on the cheek, and immediately went out the door she entered, pulling it shut tight behind her.

Sienna also didn’t want to make Asher feel awkward. She’d wanted him to make up with Natalie for some time, so this was good. She just hoped that was what he was doing with her, and that he didn’t mess it up.

Natalie had a son, an adorable little nine-year-old boy named Quinn, who Sienna knew she took a lot of pride in raising. Natalie’s mom pitched in with childcare since the child’s dad was long gone from the scene, and it wasn’t easy being a young single mom.

This wasn’t a situation for Asher to dick around with, and she planned to tell him that on their trip now that she could see they already made amends. She’d held her tongue long enough, especially after the episode a few weeks back.

But first, she had to survive her own personal crisis. Coffee with Carson.

Her phone beeped as she walked back into her carriage house.

Wow. I’m popular all of a sudden.

She looked at the screen and found a text from Big Mike.

Mike
: Call me.

That was all it said, so she did. First it was late-night advice, now phone calls?

Mike answered on the first ring. “Hi, Sie.”

“Hi, Mike,” she said warily. “What’s up? Everything good?”

“Yeah, it’s all good. I wanted to see how you got along last night after the note. That’s never happened before, and you know I care for you, girl.”

Big Mike is my fairy godmother all of a sudden?

She so desperately needed to talk with someone about Carson, she took him up on his offer to chat. “I’m all right. After getting in the car last night, I texted that guy. Carson, that’s his name. It was a weak moment, but I guess I was curious.”

“I got you, Sie.”

“Well, anyway, we’re going for coffee today. I’m hoping to just get the curiosity out of my system. I know you and Ash want me to settle down with someone, but that’s not going to happen, so I figure an afternoon out with some adult conversation will do the trick. He seemed nice enough.”

Mike sighed heavily over the line. “Sienna, that’s a bad attitude. I told you, girl, you deserve a good life and more.”

Geez, Mike is quite the romantic.

“Maybe you’ll like this guy,” he went on. “I’m no matchmaker, so that’s all I can say. Uh, the real reason behind my call is you. I thought you might take a leap and see this dude. When you do, I’m gonna tail you.”

“What?” She plopped onto her sofa, shocked at what she was hearing.

“That’s right, girl. I always go with you, so you’re not sneaking off to coffee with a strange guy.”

“Mike, we’re meeting over here in Henderson at Canyon Coffee. I was planning on wearing big glasses and a baseball cap,” Sienna said with a giggle.

Who else wears a baseball hat to meet a guy for coffee? A stripper needing anonymity.

“Nope,” Mike said. “I’m going with you. As much as I want you to meet someone, I need to get a feel for the scene.” Sienna didn’t even have a chance to reply before he asked, “What time? You can drive there yourself, if you want, but I’m gonna follow.”

“One o’clock. And I’m only telling you because I can tell there’s no arguing.”

“See you at twelve thirty, Sienna. Still wear the cap and glasses.”

“Okay. ’Bye.”

He disconnected, so Sienna decided to get dressed and clean up her desk. She had to do something to calm her nerves. She hadn’t checked her e-mails yet, so decided to get that task out of the way.

Except when she booted up her computer, Sienna found herself feeling sentimental.

She wished she could keep in touch with a few of her friends from her old life. She wondered if any of them ever thought of her. Lila had turned her back on all of them when she ran, but they didn’t know what she was going through. She knew better than to be honest with them; it would be difficult for them to believe who her husband really was and what he did.

Besides, very few women took a stand against any man where she grew up. Being transparent with her friends would only stand to hurt them, and in the end, would make life worse. She’d never before had someone who had her back, like Mike or Asher did now.

Back then, she was forced to take dramatic measures to survive. Still, she couldn’t help missing and worrying for the women she had known for most of her life.

H
ER CARRIAGE
house was clean and Tunnel e-mails returned. Sienna had killed as much time as she could, so she headed to her bedroom to get dressed to go out for coffee. Coffee with a man. A man she couldn’t risk letting in, but she was pretty sure had already barged in where he didn’t belong, settled where he absolutely shouldn’t and couldn’t be, and would have to be pushed out. Fast.

This was all on her; it was all her own fault.

Sienna walked into her large walk-in closet off her bedroom and decided to go for understated. Chocolate-brown leggings, a big chunky oatmeal-colored sweater, suede boots, light makeup, and a Los Angeles baseball cap that one of the other girls had brought back for everyone after a trip. With her hair in a low ponytail underneath the cap, Sienna looked like a suburban housewife, except for her body.

She knew a stripper’s body when she saw one. The pole dancing and certain dance moves they had to do just did something to women in their line of work. Sienna had come to recognize the unique curves of dancers, like her, who took their clothes off for a living.

She was barely recognizable even to herself, and the feeling wasn’t exclusive to what she saw in the mirror. It had been so long since Sienna had any friends other than Asher, Petal, and Mike, she barely knew what her personality was other than Sienna Flower, adult dancer. She internalized the idea of her body, her stage persona being the entirety of her.

There were times when Sienna yearned to have more friends, to have someone special to wake up next to, but she couldn’t allow it. She’d sacrificed all that when she left her old life to recreate herself.

In her old life, she might have woken up every morning next to someone, but to him she was a nothing. Her husband thought
he
was someone, especially when he was throwing her into the bookshelves or raping her against her will. She still wore the faint scar on her hip from when her husband had brought a candelabra down on her repeatedly when she’d resisted him, with no regard to the pain radiating through her hip bone.

Everything he did went against all she’d ever been taught. Growing up, she’d been led to believe that as a wife she would be considered precious, that she would be doted on by her lover and partner, and together they would create a family. But that was far from her reality.

Within a few weeks after the marriage ceremony, her dreams became a living nightmare. Beatings, rape, and emotional abuse were all doled out on a regular basis, yet kept secret from their tight-knit religious community in New York City, where they lived.

She had absolutely no one to turn to when the torture started. She knew that the clergy would turn a blind eye, her family wouldn’t risk being shamed in front of their friends, and her in-laws would never believe anything but the best about their son.

Intent on staying alive, she had slowly conceived an escape plan, and executed every detail with precision and caution. When she crawled out of the window on that dark and cold night, her body had burned with fear. But the fear of what would happen to her if she stayed was worse.

Lila crawled out the window wearing ratty jeans and a tight black turtleneck with her hair uncovered and flowing freely down her back. The clothes she had found in a thrift shop outside their neighborhood when she went to the dentist. Her hair hadn’t seen the light of day since she was married, so it was longer and darker. Minutes before leaving, she had hidden in the bathroom and cut long bangs with shaky hands to partially conceal her eyes.

This quick disguise got her to the subway and into one of the other boroughs, where she boarded a bus to Chicago, then Kansas. Her plan was to make a few stops, which she hoped would throw anyone off her master plan to land in Vegas.

She’d come a long way from the scared young woman on the run who didn’t know what to do next.

Thankfully, now she was firmly planted in Vegas with a very different appearance than she’d had back in her early twenties. She was gorgeous but unattached, lonely, and remained an enigma to most.

She didn’t have anything even remotely close to a social life, and now she was walking out the door to have coffee with a man. A man she only knew because he had watched her dance at the Tunnel, and now she was dreaming of having more with him.

God, I’m stupid.

Canyon Coffee was a ten-minute drive from her house. Nestled in an upscale shopping center near an organic grocery store, yoga studio, and a small Italian bistro, it was a quiet location. Sienna rarely took her car out except for quick local errands, but today she put the top down on her little foreign convertible and enjoyed the ride. It was nice being chauffeured in the back of a town car, but there was something liberating about driving on her own. It gave her yet another small sense of freedom, one she’d never had in her old life, and could rarely enjoy in her new one.

As she pulled into a parking spot, she saw Mike in his big SUV. Parked in a front spot with a direct line of sight to the coffee shop, he was in position to watch her every move. Warmed by the thought of his careful diligence, Sienna made a mental note to grab Mike a coffee when she was on her way out later.

Sienna got out of her car and started making her way to the coffeehouse. She didn’t glance Mike’s way, careful not to make any overt gestures toward him. She didn’t want to give him away, since it would be somewhat awkward for Carson to know she had someone watching over her.

Taking a deep breath, she walked toward the coffee shop like she met a random man for coffee every day of the week.

Sienna startled slightly when the chimes above the door jingled, signaling she’d entered the coffee shop. She kept her head slightly down, although a quick survey of the store revealed no one showing interest in the latest customer to enter. There were two tables occupied with suburban housewives in yoga clothes, who were probably gossiping over their lattes. In the corner, Carson was sitting in one of the large brown leather armchairs with his black down vest laid over the one catty-corner to his. She glanced at the counter, noting there was no line for a drink, and nothing left to distract her.

Carson stood up and walked toward her. He looked good in daylight. Instead of his usual white button-down shirt, he was wearing a light gray henley tee, worn-in jeans, and brown motorcycle boots. He still hadn’t shaved, and Sienna had the strangest urge to rub herself like a kitten against the stubble on his face.

He looked rugged, but refined. A gentleman who could take anything that came his way. Tough on the outside, but soft on the inside, as evidenced by the warmth in his eyes when he caught sight of her, and in the way his brow furrowed in anticipation as he approached her.

“Good morning.” One corner of his mouth lifted slightly, acknowledging the irony of his salutation although it was early afternoon. He obviously knew she kept late hours.

She was a stripper. He was a patron. Sienna needed to keep reminding herself of that little fact. This wasn’t a fairy tale. Fairy tales didn’t exist.

“Same to you,” Sienna whispered back.

Carson suggested they sit down, and lightly placed his hand on the small of her back to escort her back to where he’d been sitting.

Although she was a stripper, she’d never been touched so intimately. The faint brush of his fingertips along the bottom of her spine sent chills all the way down to her toes and back up again. Sienna automatically pulled away from the slight touch despite wanting to sink into it, confused by the unfamiliar sensations that seemed to ripple right through her.

“Is this okay?” Carson frowned and immediately removed his hand, but it still lingered, hovering near her back. The cute little lines where he furrowed his brow appeared again, making him hard to resist.

“Sorry,” she said. “Actually, it startled me a bit. I’m so used to the no-touch policy at the club.” She shrugged, unsure of what to do, where to turn, or if she should make a beeline for the exit.

Actually, I want you to rub me up and down with your big, strong hands, touching me like no one ever has before.

“No worries. Let’s go sit, start over, and I can grab us some coffee,” Carson said, and gestured toward the comfy chairs he had been saving.