Fire and Desire (BWWM Romance) (2 page)

“I missed you too
but there’s something I need to tell you.”

An expression flashed in his eyes that she couldn’t detect.

“I didn’t expect my feelings for you to be so strong. The plan was to have this conversation first.”

Emily’s eyebrow rose. “What are you trying to say?”

“I really am married.”

Her jaw dropped at she felt the life being sucked out of her. “Married?”

“She thinks I’m here on business.”

Her pulsating heart threatened to burst through her chest. “What the hell was all this?”

“Like I said I planned on telling you.”

“And what? You thought I’d be okay with it?” Emily wanted to slap the dumb look off his face.

He ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I never planne on it going this far.”

“You must think I’m dumber than your wife. For three months you’ve contacted me with no mention of a wife. We’ve done things that no married man should ever do and now you want me to believe you had no plans on nothing happening?” She pushed the car in gear and pulled off.

Moments later she pulled back up at the airport. “Get the hell out of my car.”

*****

One year
later….

Emily Washington examined the woman on the couch in front of her. She had on a blue and gold capris jumpsuit with matching wedged heel sandals. Her long hair was pulled into a sleek ponytail with a hump in the front. She sat cross-legged across from Emily, playing with her tongue ring, waiting in anticipation for the interview to begin.

The girl had very fair skin, almost as pale as an albino, but up close, one could tell she obviously wasn’t Caucasian. The woman had a unique look, something Emily could work with.

“So your stage name is Spice. What made you choose that name?” Emily tapped her pen on the notepad in her lap.

“My sexy red hair, of course.” She smiled as she flipped her hair over her shoulder.

“I see, and what’s your nationality?” Emily frowned and continued with the next question on her checklist. She was not impressed by Spice’s attempt to be cute.

“Black and Irish, my father is from Ireland and has red hair. Is that going to be a problem? You said you wanted all types of women.” She adjusted her seating.

Emily tilted her head to the side and gave her a long hard stare. “It’s for your profile
if
I decide to hire you. You can actually have two different profiles because we do have clients that only prefer white women. A man wouldn’t even notice that you weren’t white, which is a plus. Now for the more serious questions,
what
are you willing to do to entice a man to make him keep coming back for more?”

Spice shrugged her shoulders. “Whatever they want me to.”

“You need a much better answer than that if you want to work at The Playhouse.” Emily sighed. She was fed up with girls thinking that because they were cute, men would just toss money at them. Emily knew for a fact men wanted something they felt they weren’t getting at home.

“Well,” Spice replied in a husky voice. She licked her bottom lip while moving closer to Emily. “I can show you.” She stood, slowly rubbing her breasts through her top, then slid one hand down her stomach to the inside of her pants, and reached for Emily’s hand with the other.

Emily snatched her hand back and stood. “What are you doing? I don’t swing that way, honey.”

“But…I thought…” She dropped her head.

“This isn’t the strip club. Follow me.” Emily guided her out the den and headed upstairs. She stopped at the third room in the hallway and opened the door. “Have a seat.” Emily pointed to the pink suede chaise in front of the computer.

Spice did as instructed.

“You can perform all you want for the camera. That’s what you’ll be doing if hired.” She clicked the inner lock on the door and closed it.

On the way to her office, she tapped on the keys of her cell phone.

“Hello,” a British accent greeted her.

“Hey, Kenny. I have one for you. Her name’s Spice, and she’s in three.” She reached her office and took a seat in front of several monitors.

“I see her now.”

“You know the routine.” Emily ended the call and clicked the mouse on room three. The monitor flashed from four views to one. She was just in time to see Spice’s eyes widen in reaction to Kenny’s face appearing on the monitor in front of her.

“Let’s see what you got, miss lady,” Emily heard Kenny say.

Spice paused a moment and looked around the room. Emily helped her out by pushing play on the music player. The up-tempo beat echoed through the room’s speakers.

A smile spread across Spice’s face. She relaxed and proceeded to undress to the beat of the music. Her hands roamed down her body and then back up, stopping at the strings of her halter top. It fell down almost if by accident, exposing her left breast, and then the right.

She rolled her hips as she slid the rest of the outfit to the floor; then she proceeded to climb on the chaise like tiger, slow and graceful. When she reached the other end of the chaise, she spun around and swung her legs across the arm of the chair. Spice lay upside down, facing the camera.

A sly grin spread across her face. She brought a finger to her mouth, sucking on it with her glossy red lips. The other hand moved up her inverted body—past her breast to her navel and stopped inside thongs. She played with herself for a moment, then removed her fingers, showing the juice that flowed off them to the camera.

In a forward flip motion, she removed her thongs and landed with her rear end facing the camera. She exposed her pink nectar for Kenny to get an up close and personal view.

Emily had seen all she needed to see. She left her office and returned to the room. With a few small taps on the door, she said, “Get dressed and come straight down stairs.”

She made her way back downstairs to her checklist. Her gaze skimmed the page, and she wrote a note under performance: Has what it takes.

Footsteps alerted her to Spice approaching. Emily rose off the couch and made her way to the front door. She waited as Spice reached the last step.

“I’ll give you a call or email you within the next few days.” Emily smiled.

“Did I do okay?” Her face scrunched up in confusion.

“I’ll call you.” Emily unlocked the door and opened it. “Have a nice day.”

Spice took the hint and left. Emily closed the door behind her and let out deep breath before calling Kenny back.

“You enjoy the show?” she asked as soon as he answered.

“Did I? You know I did. The question is, what do
you
think, boss lady?”

Emily laughed. “She’s hell of a lot better than the last three. Normally when I interview someone who’s worked at a strip club, they’re so involved with working the pole and doing tricks they don’t connect to the client. They have to learn the art of making a client feel as if they are with them in the room. Spice performed for you and you only. Heck, if I was a man, I would have wanted her.”

“I guess that means she’s hired.” His smile could be felt through the phone.

“She won’t get a call back to the end of the week. For some reason, when I call them too early, they act like they made this business and I need them. They have the nerve to act like they are doing me a favor by logging on.” Emily’s tone went up an octave. “Please, my name is Mercedes. I can still put a man in a trance and make him come his pants in less than a minute so they better recognize who the Queen Bee really is.”

Emily closed her eyes and counted to ten, still reeling over firing some of her models who were too diva for the business the previous week.

Jasmine and Sapphire somehow felt Emily should pay for their clothing as well as personal vacations outside of the ones she sent them on in groups to take photos for the website. Emily had a deal with a clothing designer. The woman used to stop by the club selling her outfits to the dancers when Emily first started dancing. She extended the hefty discount to her girls as long as they bought three or more outfits at a time, and even gave them one free when they made the top five on the site. Her bending any further to please Jasmine and Sapphire was simply out of the question.

Emily even booked headline shows across the nation at various strip clubs that brought in major cash just because of her site. All they had to do was dance three songs for a flat fee. No lap dancing unless they wanted to for extra, but she left the decision up to them. They did, however, have to mingle with the clientele. Jasmine and Sapphire tried to treat Emily like she was a regular employee and not the owner because they were the first ones hired. She showed them who was in charge and fired them. Keeping them around only would have put ideas in the other girls’ heads.

“Okay, remember I’m on your side. Call the girl when you want to,” he joked. “By the way, I just finished uploading the new photos and the
Playhouse Pick of the Week
.”

“Thanks.”

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll talk to you later. Asia’s at the door.” She pushed the end button on her cell phone.

Emily opened the door for Asia, and Asia swiveled her hips past her, wearing a pink sweat outfit with her expensive satchel in tow. Asia was hands down one of Emily’s best money makers. She was an exotic beauty, a mix of black, white, and Japanese, complemented by her long, thick, wavy black hair, and almond-shaped green eyes. Her skin was a perfect bronze all year round. Asia had luscious lips and the body to match. She was one of the most requested models and also the most downloaded in the picture gallery. A sweet plus of being online is that several men could pay to watch her at the same time instead of having to wait, risking them losing interest and going to another site.

“Hey, Mercedes.”

They gave each other air kisses.

“You’re in the Love Nest,” Emily instructed.

Asia nodded and headed up the stairs. The Love Nest was retro with a twist with a big, crimson, round bed in the center. Fashion mirrors accented one of the walls, and a white love seat sat in front of the computer. A black light and a lava lamp completed the look. Men went wild when the girls put on body paint and turn the black light on.

On good days, Asia’s performances averaged over thirty men paying to watch her at the same time. Thirty men paying twenty dollars for fifteen minutes came to six hundred dollars for one show, and she rarely did less than ten a night. Dancers in a strip club would collapse trying to do thirty-two lap dances in a night, not even coming close to the three thousand Asia was guaranteed to make on one of her bad days. She was definitely a gold mine.

Emily caught with of the flowery perfume Asia left lingering in the air. Even though it was barely two in the afternoon, Emily knew people would want to see their idea of a fantasy. She laughed at the idea of some corporate bigwig sitting in his office, getting his fantasy fulfilled prior to going into a meeting, while ensuring his employees computers were monitored by fire walls blocking sites like hers.

Normally Emily would have gone into her office to monitor a few more shows, but she needed to finish up two other interviews, hire security guards, and check on a building downtown that was for sale. She decided to get security guards once she realized the big risk of opening up her home, allowing her models to work out of it. Emily wanted to keep them and her family safe. She didn’t want to risk anyone daring to come in her home even though she had cameras covering every inch of it.

***

Slamming the door after dealing with the last interview, Emily felt like a pressure cooker reaching its peak. She was an equal opportunist, but some people needed their asses kicked. Fake online pictures were common when a person had no intention of meeting face-to-face, but what in the world would possess a sane person to use a fake picture knowing they were going to an interview? Especially one based on appearance.

She had no problem with gay men dressing like women; however, this man couldn’t have been a woman no matter how much money he paid for it. He/she was a linebacker wearing a spray painted leopard-printed dress and
It
had a full beard. The interview only lasted five minutes, but it felt more like forty to Emily. The online picture had showed a beautiful blond and white. This monster wore a cheap blond wig and was black.

Emily wondered who he/she used to speak on the phone when she scheduled the interview. The person who she just slammed the door on had a deep baritone.

She snatched up the interview sheet and balled it up.

Ding dong.

“Please tell me
It
did not forget something.” Sighing, Emily walked back to the door and snatched it open.

A six foot two, dark-haired, olive-toned man stood on the other side.

Her breath caught in her throat. “Can I help you?” Emily managed to get out before she could get lost in those big hazel eyes.

“Hi, I’m Antonio Moretti with Safe Guard Security.” He held out his hand for a shake. “I’m with the security company.”

“Hello, I’m Emily, and you’re twenty minutes early.” She smiled.