Pole Dance (8 page)

Layton Byron Jamison hated to lose, especially to men like Jake Stanton. Men that thought they were too good to use his bank and kept their funds out of town. Out of his control. Who made their money the way Jake did, peddling smut, even if Jamison did, on occasion, partake and enjoy that smut. Thoroughly.

Would've been different if Judge Everett and Walt Saltzman, the old Chief of Police hadn't been indicted for corruption. They were the perfect pair that rounded out the power base that included Jamison and Stuart McBride, attorney at law. Backed then, between the four of them, they could whatever they wanted from whomever they wanted it from with very little fuss. But with the Judge and Saltzman gone, plans had a way of getting away from him and Stu.

"Goddammit to hell," he muttered, banging his hand against the steering wheel.

He watched Caitlin's shapely silhouette outlined as she drew the drapes over the large windows that fronted her apartment before firing up his Audi 350C convertible and began his way to his soulless, loveless, desolate home.

Chapter Four

I ran my hands over Floyd's warm fur as he pushed and moved into my fingers. The familiar feel of rubbing Floyd helped calm my shaking hands as I remembered the feel of Jake's hand snagging my neck as he pulled me towards him after Jamison left.

I had kind of half-stumbled, half-stepped into him doing a face plant to his broad, hard chest as my hands clenched the t-shirt at his waist underneath his jacket as his other arm wrapped around my back, keeping me close. He didn't say anything for a while, but just held me.

And, God help me, I let him. It had been so long since anyone had touched me in any way, shape or form and being held by him felt so, so good.

So good, that I began to relax against him. As I relaxed, I felt my eyes begin to burn before the tears started to fall. I tried to stop them. I really did. I didn't want to humiliate myself further by bawling like a baby against this wonderful man, but what I wanted and what my body needed seem to be two different things at the moment.

"It's gonna be okay, Darlin'," he rumbled softly against my hair as he rubbed my back while I sobbed against him. Every time I tried to get a grip on my tears it seemed like new ones formed and, for a while there, I thought they'd never stop.

But, they did. Eventually. Thankfully.

When my eyes stopped watering and my breath was no longer hitching, I tried to pull back out of Jake's warm, wonderful embrace. But he wouldn't let me go.

"Settle, Darlin', yeah?" I heard and felt his voice rumble against me as his hand rubbed up and down my back. His other hand, under my hair, still held me close but his thumb began to glide softly over the skin behind my ear.

And he
still
kept holding me.

"Bad day, pretty girl?" he rumbled against the ear I had pressed to his chest.

I nodded.

He chuckled softly. "I bet."

I decided to get brave.

I pulled my head away from his chest, (although 'peeled my head away' would be more truthful as I had completely soaked his t-shirt with my crying jag) and tilted my head up to look at him and mumbled, "Welcome to my world."

The hand he had on my neck moved up to my face and I felt it glide down my cheek as I watched his face split into a slow grin before he gripped my chin.

"Always this exciting, Darlin'?"

"Not always," I admitted. And it was true. I had a lot of shit in my life, but usually it's spread out over a few days. Not all at once like today. God,
today
.

"Okay, here's how it's gonna go. If either one of those dirt bags calls, comes by or so much as glances at you from across the street, you call me, yeah?"

Jake used his grip in my hair to tip my head back until he could see my eyes.

"Got it?" he whispered, although my heart recognized it wasn't so much a query as a demand.

"Got it," I replied softly, lost again in his beautiful gaze. You'd think that I would've had a heart attack with all the erratic beating that had happened over the course of this day. But I could feel that it was just tha-thumping along, either faster or deeper depending on Jake. His gaze. His words. His attention.

"Be good, Darlin'," he offered before softly kissing my forehead and slipping his business card into my hand.

"Later, Jake," I called softly still feeling the imprint of his lips and echo of the warmth of his hands as I watched him leave. And it was the sound of the outside door thumping closing before I could bring myself to move.

Sighing, I gave one last scratch on Floyd before letting him have his way and dropping him back to the floor as I walked down the short hallway of my small apartment, pulling at and shucking my clothes as I walked. I was determined to get a shower, although I didn't have much hope that I was gonna feel clean for a long time. There were just too many layers of 'ick' on me after today's events.

I turned on the hot water tap and as I waited for it to make its heat apparent, I gazed at myself in the mirror.

I felt older somehow, maybe wiser, after my foray into the darker part of society (although my mind screamed, 'You tried to be a Stripper!'), trying to get my paycheck from a sex-fiend ("Wanna tell me why you've got your fuckin' dick out?") the impromptu meeting with my mortgage holder
in
my home
and all of it happening in the company of an previously unknown, hot, gorgeous champion. I couldn't actually
see
any discernible difference in my eyes, though. Just the remaining, the resounding feelings that echoed inside me. There was something that seemed to swim just below the surface of my blue-green irises. Though, it could've been just a trick of the weak light in my tiny bathroom. Or the reminder that I was going to have to do the two-a-day ramen diet for awhile in order to catch up on the mortgage.

Or because it had been an absolute shit day.

Worst day of my life outside of…well, you know.

It wasn't until after I had loofahed my skin raw and was on the repeat portion of the shampoo instructions that my carefully held walls came down and I began to cry again. My tears poured softly, soundlessly at first and then soon morphed into the hitching breaths and streaming eyes that signaled a full melt down. Eventually I found myself curled into a fetal-protection-position on my tiny shower floor, the pin-pricks on the now cool water pelting my skin as I sobbed out my disappointment, hopelessness and emptiness into the tiny pre-formed, fiber glassed cubicle.

It was after I was dried and blow-dried, tucked warmly in bed, and had my eyes closed that I found myself remembering the warmth of Jake's golden-eyes and reveled in memory of being cocooned so safely in his arms.

*.*.*.*.*

"Yo," Jake said into his iPhone after seeing the call was from Dale.

He was still slightly wet from the shower at his gym after his tri-weekly workout which he had indulged in after dropping Caitlin off.
His
gym meaning that he owned it lock, stock and barrel having purchased it in an estate sale a couple of years previously. Formerly a boxing studio, Jake had done minimal renovations, keeping a portion as training for boxers and the rest for those looking to work out without the singles scene. No lycra-pantied, cake-faced distractions were available or even wanted by his clientele and the monthly schedule never, ever included anything that included the words 'aerobic' or 'dance'.

"Got the report you wanted," Dale said, "It's on your desk whenever you decide to return, oh king of all that earns gold."

Jake couldn't help his lips lifting in a small smile as he heard his friend's words and being faintly surprised that the report was delivered in the space of a few, short hours.

"You get the rest sorted?" he asked trying to prevent any further jibes as he finished shoving his clothes in his workout bag.

"Am watching Fiona like a hawk and am expecting to, or actually bracing myself for, firing her shapely, demanding ass . Hank's settled but gotta say, man, we're gonna take a whack just to keep his particular ass on board." Jake could almost feel Dale's sigh through the phone. "Should I plan on seeing the place above Buxby's?"

"Yep, the realtor is waiting for your call. Think you'll like it."

"Good enough, I'll call first thing tomorrow. Anything else I need to know?" Jake could tell that Dale was already half out of the conversation and let him go with no further instructions.

A short ride uptown brought Jake to the parking lot of Fuego's where he pulled around back to the far corner where the space was reserved with his name.

Not in the best area of town, though not the worst, the club was one of many businesses that lined the street--a street that you had to have a certain desire to be on in order to rightfully find. Human Hieroglyphics, the local and best tattoo parlor in the county and Bewitchments, the best in the adult-toy trade, bracketed his club. It wasn't lost on any of the owners of all three establishments that they catered to a certain kind of clientele, the kind that had businesses on Main Street but got their kicks in spending their time and money on the 'shadier' side of the town.

He angled the Kia into the space marked, "Mr. Stanton" before shutting off the high-powered motor. He paused before exiting, thinking again of Caitlin's unschooled but erotic display that afternoon. He glanced at his watch and was surprised to see that it had only been twelve hours since he had watched her dance. Ten hours since he had stepped up for her against Mahmood, the shit. Nine and a half hours since he had pushed back at the piece of trash banker on her behalf.

Fuck.

Was she always treated like this?

Jake didn't get it. How could someone so clean and sweet
remain
so clean and sweet with all the shit she was up against? All those fuckin' pieces of shit that had a hand in her life; a hand that could make it better, but wanted to grab at her, taking her down with them instead of valuing the beauty of all that she was, was trying to be.

In spite of it only being a few hours, it still felt like an eternity since he had been with her. He couldn't get her off of his mind or out of his pants, if his current semi-hard was anything to go by.

Maybe I just need to get laid, Jake thought to himself as he beeped the locks.

But, the thought didn't hold even the glimmer of temptation. He had been one of the county's biggest a players in his youth, flirting and nailing most of the lovelies that other boys and men could only dream of having. But now, approaching his thirties, he was looking for more than just the friction of another body. Not that he was adverse to being cradled in the warm confines of creamy thighs. Jake had just become very particular of who's creamy thighs were doing the cradling and if the cradler's mind and personality were enough to keep his interest after they had done the horizontal bump.

Truthfully, owning a strip club, while making shit-load of cake, had also showed Jake the seedier side of sex. Like being seated in the front row of a theater, Jake was aware of the frayed hems and sweat stains of the costumes, the ill-applied make-up of the actors and the tape marks showing where they were supposed to stand.

It took all the magic out of the story as it unfolded.

There was nothing worse, in his opinion, than seeing one of the gorgeous, leggy headliners in the wings as she waited to go out onstage. Watching her rouging, then icing her nipples with a deadpanned expression before bursting on-stage with a forced enthusiasm. All in the hopes that if she is vivacious enough, hot enough, she would somehow, someway get the most tips possible and would be able to pay the daycare or medical bill for one of the kids at home.