Stay for Me
Authors: Carlene Love Flores
Evernight
Publishing ®
Copyright©
2015 Carlene Love Flores
ISBN: 978-1-77233-246-9
Cover Artist: Jay
Aheer
Editor: Lisa
Petrocelli
ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized
reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction.
All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
DEDICATION
In honor of the love of my mom’s
life, Cliff.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to
thank and acknowledge the talented, hard-working men and women who put together
the incredible shows that are Chippendales and Thunder from Down Under of Las
Vegas, Nevada. I was truly inspired by their work, both behind the scenes and
on stage, and by their commitment to putting smiles on people’s faces.
A
big thank you to my editor, Lisa
Petrocelli
, for her
support and enthusiasm and hugs to everyone at
Evernight
who continue to be amazing people to work with.
I hope that you,
my cherished readers, enjoy this story most of all!
STAY FOR ME
These
Three Words, 1
Carlene Love
Flores
Copyright © 2015
Chapter One
“Take
it all off!”
“Yeah,
baby!”
“
Ohmigod
!”
Somewhat muted, yet elated,
high-pitched screams hung in the space above her head as she walked down the
not-so-soundproof, private back hallway of Club
Mantasy
.
Her best friend’s
fate lie
in her hands. Well, that,
and a really heavy laundry basket topped with several cock socks of varying
sizes.
The cheesy name of their club made
Emma cringe as she ignored the female patrons’ desperate, horny cries.
Although, as assistant show manager, she gave herself a mental pat
on the back.
They were doing
something
right, no matter how many complaints she got against the new, no-tipping policy,
and yeah, the name. Okay, and the cock socks, too.
Geesh
.
Considering possible alternatives
for the club’s name—the only thing she was willing to bend on—she passed by the
towering door marked with the capital black
S
,
stopped, and considered it for a minute. Her shoulders sank then shot up, stuck
on a jerky repeat like a broken record. Hard, heavy plastic from the clothes
basket dug into her side the longer she stood there, aware she was breathing
too fast and shallow.
Here at the club, that letter was
supposed to stand for
good
S
words
—seductive, secret, sanctuary
.
Depending on the dancer,
sweet
even.
But there was nothing safe, and
certainly nothing sexy about the words the
S
conjured up for Emma.
Sit. Stay.
Stupid.
She could have, and probably
should have, been sacked for her indiscretion. But “luck be a lady,” as they
said in these parts, that hadn’t happened. The trusted individuals who knew
about her lapse in judgment at the hands of one very persuasive ex-
S
dancer had kept her confidence. For
that she was grateful.
Still, the reasons mounted for
why she had no desire to enter the private room a second time.
Liars, however, were weak,
horrible people, and Emma was tired of being one.
A soothing fit of warmth forced
its way out of that dark tunnel she’d fallen into. Stray thoughts of her best
friend always did that. Emma amended her “never” statement.
Unless
the next time it was with Sam,
the quiet boy her family had taken in halfway through the eighth grade. To this
day, she and Sam still scraped and ate every last possible lick of peanut butter
from the jar, and he was doing well. Through thick and thin times, he was still
her best friend.
Right now, he was out on stage
playing every woman’s sexual fantasy.
All grown, all chiseled, six feet
and two hundred fifteen pounds of him, combat veteran, and now male revue
dancer, he didn’t disappoint.
We’ll
be twenty-four this year,
she thought, amazed at all he’d accomplished and
okay with what she’d done.
But the warm and fuzzy proud
moment didn’t last as she forced herself to remember the professional action
that loomed above.
New floods of screams burst
through the walls to the private side as
“More!”
became the overwhelming chant of the man-hungry women. There would be no encore—they
had to get ready for the second nightly performance—but to make up for the
club’s new no-tipping policy, the guys gladly posed for flirty pictures in exchange
for cash after each show.
A select one or two ladies might
be asked back here to the
S
room for some extra special meet ‘n’
greet time with a dancer, but it wasn’t every night and it wasn’t something
they advertised. Totally up to the guy to make the invitation. For this, no
patron ever paid because that would have teetered on being illegal. To date, Emma
couldn’t recall any of her dancers being turned down for the complimentary meet
‘n’ greets. And to that brainchild policy of hers, there’d been zero
complaints.
Forgetting for a minute what she
had to do to Sam tonight, like a fool, she crept back to that dark tunnel of
indiscretion as she studied the curve of the large, scripted
S
.
If she’d only have
turned down Luka.
Jerk.
Parts of her sank just then at
her dirty little work secret. Her head pounded at the multitude of emotions and
reminders calling for her attention.
If
only things had worked with Sam, there would have been no Luka.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, she told
herself, and watched a cocktail waitress severely late for her shift skitter by.
The velvety red
S
on the back of
Marie’s short black romper went by in a whir. Emma was pretty sure she knew why
Marie was late—he had long hair and nipple rings and was a phenomenal dancer—but
she had decided for the time being to keep her mouth shut. Someone had kept her
secret. This was merely paying that favor forward for someone else.
She looked in the direction of
the doors that led to the performance room. Emma could feel Sam’s untamed, sensual
energy seeping through the club’s walls right now, touching her heart, teasing
her soul. His gray-green eyes and short, sandy-blond hair still weakened her
defenses, just the same as that day two years ago when he’d returned home from
the Army. Apparently, the way she’d kept staring at Sam that night at the
airport had made her truth obvious to him, too. Later, after a combined “Welcome
home from the Army and college” party at her parents’ house, twenty-two-year-old
Sam proved to twenty-two-year-old Emma just how much he’d noticed. Thank God
the feeling had been mutual, she thought now.
Emma hugged the laundry basket
too tightly into her ribs and groaned.
****
Unfortunately, his massive body
had been too much for her that night. The painful scream caught her by surprise
and killed the mood there on her trundle bed. He left feeling horrible and she
embarrassed.
They’d tried.
It hadn’t worked.
And that was it, their one time
at giving it a shot ended with them agreeing it had been a major mistake.
Neither of them could have
predicted the mocking work situation they’d come to be in within mere weeks. Emma
remembered it going something like:
Sam,
“So I just got hired to be a stripper and they need a manager. That’s
in your degree field, right? You can ride with me.”
Emma to herself,
Baaaaad
idea.
Emma to Sam,
“Cool. Let’s go.”
There may have been a fist bump
involved, sealing the deal.
They’d jumped on the back of his
motorcycle and driven the thirty minutes from Vegas to hole-in-the-wall Boulder
City, pretending nothing had happened. All the while, she’d wondered if his
insides were as jacked as hers as she hugged his back and they shared the heat
and vibration of his ride. If so, he hadn’t shown it, instead keeping calm and
collected, just like always. As they rode, there’d been a few relieved thoughts
where her school loans were concerned, but mostly she silently begged that her
feelings for him be whipped away into the wind and the desert’s night sky.
****
Emma blew a lock of hair from her
eyes, knowing her feelings hadn’t gone anywhere, and reached inside the laundry
basket still gouging her hip. The pieces and parts lay there flat and crumpled,
lifeless.
She looked at the security
monitor mounted above. Grainy and small, she could still make him out in the
group of four. His body was the widest and most muscled of the troupe, his
dance moves still the least polished.
Look
away, you silly girl.
The satisfaction she knew would come
from watching him also tormented her, as if to tease her into remembering how
her body had ached and cramped after their one and only attempt at intimacy.
Heart-wrenching sensations pinched
and pulled her apart, making her want to abandon the laundry basket and hold
herself together instead. She needed to stave the useless hopes off and will her
insides to ignore everything his presence sparked. That blanket of warmth that
magically took away headaches, chills, doubts, and left laughs and relief in its
place.
Instead, she stared on at the
monitor.
Like a bull-sized leopard on
stage, Sam stood there dressed as a military officer in navy whites. He moved
like a man on the prowl, taking precious, sweet time with the seduction. His large
hands popped buttons left and right, then slid down his chest, rubbing along
the middle of his eight-pack and ending with a clutch of his sought after, huge
bulge. Emma watched his chin tilt toward his chest as he gave himself another
squeeze, this time full-gripped and with illicit intentions written all over
it, before turning around and delighting the crowd with his masculine backside.
It was calculated, choreographed torture
for the women within arm’s reach who watched like fiends.
But that bittersweet torture
could be nothing compared to Emma’s.
She knew Sam Jason inside and
out.
She knew he wasn’t an expert
dancer,
rather, he put himself out there, real as they came.
Sometimes his routines came off as awkward, sometimes unpolished, but that was
his appeal. Ticket sales proved that. She’d never met someone more dedicated to
hard work.
He’s
too damn good for his own good.