Taking Jana (Paradise South #2) (8 page)

*

Jana’s mother didn’t get to the hospital until 4:15 PM because, yes, she’d opened the restaurant, despite Jana’s advice. What did it matter? Nothing would change. And Jana would have to hold her tongue about the finances of the restaurant for at least a few more days, waiting until her father stabilized. Let them play pretend until then.

And thinking about playing pretend, her father was, in fact, like a damn child. The force feedings of “healthy hospital slop” for breakfast and lunch were nothing compared to his behavior toward the staff. His rudeness toward the nurses was what really put her over the top. By the time her mother showed up, she had reached her limit. And her plan to attack her overwhelming dread about heading down to Newark had worked; Jana was motivated to be anywhere else in the world but in that hospital room, with the people who had given birth to her, even if the ‘anywhere’ was her old strip club.

CHAPTER 9

H
e’
d grown up
in a spiritual country, his superstitious, ritualistic, colorific Mexico.

So when his thumb bled from the thin paper cut given to him by the golden envelope, and then, at that exact same moment, his cell phone rang loudly from his pocket, he didn’t wonder who it was, what the contents of the envelope were, or whether any of it was leaning toward good or bad news. He already knew. An hour before he was to meet with Michelle for dinner, alone, he already goddamn knew.

“Did you—”

“Open it? No, Michelle. Not yet.” But again, did he really need to? The damn thing had already sliced him, maybe he should burn the fucking papers.

“I told the attorney not to send it. I was bringing it with me so I could explain, but his secretary…” she trailed off, probably knowing none of what she blathered mattered anymore.

So he stayed silent. She didn’t deserve his words anyway, not to cushion her guilt, not to ease her conscience.

“He left his wife for me. I want to marry him, Antonio. And, well, we’ve put the inevitable off for far too long.”

Inevitable? She’d been calling them “separated” for all this time. Why?

And how could he have let her infiltrate his
already-cracked
heart again? To think he’d even considered taking her back when he thought—hoped—she was meeting him to reconcile rather than to soften the blow of divorce papers. Either way, what the hell had he been thinking?

Those backstabbing cowards,
Gerald-fucking
-Simon and Michelle both. They deserved each other. They fucking deserved each other.

And thank God for small favors now. All the money in the world wouldn’t have cushioned the blow if he and Michelle had already started their family and
then
Michelle chose to betray him. Slaughtering his heart
and
their kids’. Just, thank God.

“Antonio, please…”

“Goodbye, Michelle.” He hung up and shut his phone off with his
still-bleeding
thumb. As if in slow motion, he pressed her out of his life. And the blood smear left on the home button was a perfect remnant of her, just goddamn perfect.

*

On her way to the bus station, Jana had the cab stop at a
down-home
mockery of a department store so she could buy and change into a cheap skirt suit. She grabbed a
knock-off
perfume at the register too. Hell, who needed a shower anyway? After all, she was diving back into the pit of despair; after one foot inside the club, she knew she’d want a
full-on
,
high-pressure
disinfecting shower.

God, this entire thing is
awful.

*

Her bus ride down to the Newark club was a blur. Her defense mechanisms had kicked in, keeping her brain calm. And having her thumbnail stabbing into the pad of her index finger helped yet again. She stared straight ahead, content to be in the numb zone between the hospital and the club. Lingering in limbo, a respite, however
short-lived
.

Because it was when she caught the cab from the bus station to the club that her breathing quickened, and her palms got moist. Her finger no longer feeling any pain, she bit her bottom lip instead with such force that in only minutes, she tasted blood. In the pit that was her purse, not a single tissue. She caught sight of a tissue box in front of the driver’s console.

“Excuse me? May I have a tissue please?” she asked looking in the rearview at the
orange-mustached
driver, Ryan Duffy, or so read his badge hanging above the radio.

With an indiscreet eye roll toward the road ahead, he handed the box back to her. She took three, gave him a
close-lipped
thank you, and then dabbed her lip clean, glad she’d caught it before it had gotten on her white outfit. She balled up the tissue into one of the clean ones, and, finding no trash bag at her disposal, decided to place it in her purse rather than trouble Ryan Duffy again. And when she looked back up, straight ahead the sign for The Wet Spot filled her view. They were there.

She checked herself in the rearview mirror around Ryan’s glares, and she quickly applied a thin coat of
nude-colored
gloss, smacked her lips, happy that the cut wasn’t visible, and then she closed her eyes to reset her increasingly panicked nerves.

Jana did a final smooth over of her hair then outfit as they pulled into the parking lot of her old stomping ground. The slightly seductive, yet professional—for a strip club—polyester skirt suit was snug enough to show Eddie she was still in great shape.

“Well, Mr. Duffy, wish me luck…”

But he didn’t. So she took the
four-leaf
clover hanging from his rearview as a sign of luck and then filled his upturned hand with his fare plus tip. Not the friendliest guy, but not a jerk like last night’s cabbie. And anyway, she felt it was good karma to give Ryan Duffy his due since she was heading back into the industry where the dollar bill is king.

She got out of the cab as Jana Park, and headed for the club’s main entrance as ‘Winter Snow,’ her
long-abandoned
stage name.

From the first tap of her high heels against the glossy black tile floor inside the club, a chill rose up her arms to her shoulders, then to the nape of her neck. Crossing her arms, sliding her hands over her goose bumps for warmth, she approached the bouncer. She shook her head, remembering how cold they kept it inside. “The lower the temperature, the harder the nipples,” Eddie had told her once. “That’s how the club’s patrons like their sundaes, with rock hard cherries on top.”

CHAPTER 10

“
J
ohnnie, sorry to
bother you, man, but this
ex-dancer
is here looking for Eddie…” Switched to a whisper, slightly muffled, like his hand was over the phone, “But she looks kinda
professional-like
. Selling something maybe? Like insurance or wine?” Then he raised his voice again. “You wanna see her? She says her name is Winter.”

Winter?
Johnnie froze. Then he turned to the surveillance monitor at the corner of his desk, clicked on camera one, the main door, and enlarged it to full screen.

He watched the screen, her luscious lips moving to answer his bouncer, Brandon, while he could hear her voice through Brandon’s phone. Johnnie realized he’d never heard her speak all those years ago. Her tone was confident and almost melodic, a
well-spoken
goddess.

“Yeah, Winter Snow. Eddie knows me. I transferred to the club in the City about five years ago. Amber and Charlene were with me here for three years before that.”

“She was at the—”

“I heard the answer, Brandon,” Johnnie said, quickly straightening his desk of the piles of financials and blueprints and remnants of white powder, then toggled the surveillance monitor back to the
thirty-two
-camera view on the screen. He chugged the rest of his water and tossed a few mints into his mouth. “Have Erin bring her up.”

He watched the screen as Winter made her way through each camera shot. The long, flowing black hair he remembered was pinned up in a messy bun, her firm yet voluptuous backside swayed in a little professional skirt, and her maintained physique made the outfit. Then her face; those cat eyes were to die for, not to mention her glossy lips, plump and lush. Picturing them around his cock got him steel hard in an instant.

And he remembered her lower lips too, fuck yes he did. Spread and pumping to the pounding beat on stage. And how she dominated the pole, like no other dancer could. And in his dreams, his hard cock was her pole, her luscious folds encompassing every last inch of his steel. Oh God, how her cunt still glistened in his fantasies, even after all these years, since his wet dream teens to now, as a
full-grown
and always hungry man.

He took his eyes off the cameras for a second to scan the office. A bit OCD, everything had to be sharp, straight, set. His wall, his shelves, the tech and wires, his filing cabinets, they were all as he needed them to be.

But what was that on the couch?
Shit!

Johnnie took three huge steps toward the brown leather loveseat that was
catty-cornered
to his desk and pulled the start of something hot pink and lacy out from between the cushions; a thong left by who knows who as there were too many to count, all a blur really. He tossed the thong back behind the ancient sofa and sprang back to his desk chair. Shifting his body for a more natural and relaxed pose, he felt his piece lodged in his rear waistband.
Shit!
He pulled it out, quickly placed the small pistol in his desk drawer and
re-tucked
his shirt as the knock sounded on his office door.

“Yes, come on in.” His feet were consciously planted on the floor. He tugged his black muscle tee down taut over the abs he’d worked his ass off for, and then placed both palms on the desk, ready to stand up for the woman of his fucking dreams.

“Hey, Johnnie,” Erin purred sweetly through the partially opened door, hiding his guest behind her. “A visitor for Eddie.”

Johnnie smiled his thanks as he rose, already hearing the usual underlying cattiness in Erin’s raspy
cigarette-riddled
voice. It happened anytime a new girl came in, even if she wasn’t competing for the same job. Even the scent of a chance for a
semi-hot
bartender like Erin to move up to the stage or a back room, and the unbelievable monetary increase that came along with it, brought the kitties’ claws out.

The club girls’ cutthroat and vindictive games came with the territory, he just never played into it. He didn’t have time for that shit, not while his father had him overseeing the new club’s construction on Long Island and running this place since Eddie had left. Or rather, since he had the douche ushered out for taking too big a piece of Johnnie’s drug action, told his father to use him as his own personal bitch boy or something.

But Johnnie knew that at the new club and at this older club—hell, any and all strip joints for that matter, whether it was
high-ticket
vag or
low-end
pussy, Johnnie had learned from his father that all the club kitties were the same.

Except, that is, for Winter Snow. As far as Johnnie’s years of observing went, Winter was worlds apart from the rest.

“Thanks, Erin,” he said, wanting her to make her exit already so he could see his target in person, his gorgeous, unknowing guest.

CHAPTER 11

W
inter’s image had
been branded into his memory. He’d been a
fifteen-year
-old volcano of hormones when he’d first set eyes on her. Picking up the weekend’s revenues every Sunday with his dad at their chain of strip clubs had been an amazing,
mind-blowing
privilege. No. Not a privilege. A right. Repayment. Yeah, his absentee dad had owed him. Johnnie’d been raised by his mother while his father had spent Johnnie’s entire childhood in Tampa, Miami, and Puerto Vallarta, the Demonte flagship clubs at the time. But when his father moved back up to Jersey to bring the family’s northeastern venues up to par, that was when Johnnie not only got his father back, but he got a magical,
eye-popping
, and
much-deserved
key to heaven too.

And it didn’t take Johnnie beyond the first visit to his dad’s Newark club for him to discover what his type was, his hot spot. Winter was it. And it wasn’t just an Asian thing, no. Top to bottom and everything in between, it was a
Winter Snow
thing. She was unique. It was the way she moved, rode the poll, handled the screaming dicks at the stage’s edge, and how she kept herself clean and pristine. No other girl had ever compared to her or what she did to him.

Erin turned on her heel to leave, almost knocking right into Winter, but she spun around again. “I almost forgot, do you need the bar levels from me? I can bring ’em up…after your visitor leaves,” Erin said with one lifted brow.

“I’ll come downstairs when I need them.” An awkward silence followed. Johnnie’s meaning: leave, now.

Erin shrugged and tightly circled Winter as she headed back downstairs.
Now kitty, play
nice.

Winter was finally left standing in his office doorway as incredibly sexy, sensual, and reserved as he remembered her. God, he could feel his
hard-on
throbbing to life again, within a moment of seeing her.

*

“Sorry to show up like this, but I was looking for Eddie? Eddie Cardell?”

She obviously didn’t recognize Johnnie. He didn’t blame her, but he had hoped.

Johnnie came out from around the desk to shake her hand in introduction, not caring if his erection bulged in his jeans. God, he hoped she saw how hard he was for her.

He took her hand in his while his left hand ushered her in with a delicate brush at her lower back. “You probably don’t remember me,” he said smiling evenly. “I’m Johnnie Demonte. My father, Jake, is the owner of—”

“Oh, wow,” she said with her head cocked slightly. “You’re not a teenage boy anymore…God, not at all.” She laughed as her cheeks went from café latté to cherry red in a heartbeat.

Oh, yes, he liked that. He liked her…and the start of their first real conversation.

“So, you are running the show for your dad now?”

“I guess when Eddie left, my dad looked to me. With my MBA and the blood ties, he trusted I could handle things. I’m here
and
overseeing the
build-out
of a new club on the Island while my dad’s doing some renovations at The Manhattan Sweet Spot.”

He smiled proudly. God, it was unbelievable that she was there, in front of him, within arm’s reach, and he was able to impress her, blow her mind. And God, would he ever blow her fucking mind.

“Busy man…”

“Yeah,” Johnnie smiled, catching himself staring at her pout, wanting to take the mere two steps toward her and bite down. “I remember—oh, here. Please, sit down and make yourself comfortable. I remember you. You were a goddamn legend on this stage. And I even caught you at The Sweet Spot a time or two,” he lied. He’d practically lived there after she’d transferred over. “It was so slammed, and they were all there for you. My father even remembers you for Christ’s sakes. With four clubs and counting.”

She smiled, her eyes down toward the floor. She was modest, fucking bashful almost. How he would pound that sweet shyness right out of her and make her scream for more. Yes, for him, she’d say and do sinful, dirty things. He would make that happen, no doubt in his mind.

Her voice woke him from his mental lusting. “You’re sweet. I actually really needed that, being out of the scene for so long. I mean, I’m an ER nurse now. I can’t believe I’m even here.” He watched her eyes close softly as she paused her words. A heavy, jagged breath followed. Something was wrong. It was as if she was there against her will. Desperate. Of course, all the girls who come in were desperate to a point. But this was a professional woman back for more. What trouble was she in?

And how could he use that to his advantage?

“Hey, can I offer you a bottled water?” He sprang from her side to the
mini-fridge
by the sofa, not even waiting for a nod in response. He just had an urge to get her comfortable, nourished, taken care of. Maybe in lieu of ramming her senseless with pleasure beyond measure, this was all he could do while he waited for that opportunity. He’d have to be patient. Extremely subtle and patient.

“Here you are.” Then he returned to his relaxed stance against the front of his desk. “If you don’t mind me saying, you look a little upset. What can I do to help?”

She smiled a thank you then took a huge breath in. Then, on the
out-breath
, she said, “I came to see Eddie about getting on the schedule.” Then she took a swig of the water he’d given her, her luscious mouth circling the rim of the bottle, distracting him for a second, but he quickly returned his full attention to her statement.

“
Part-time
?”

“No,
full-time
, every shift you can throw me, but especially the peak weekend nights, of course.” She maintained eye contact with him now, as if getting over the initial hurdle had allowed her to move into an
all-business
mode. God, he liked this side of her, too.

“But your schedule must be crazy, being a hospital RN. How would you be able to juggle both?”

“I had to take leave at my position at the ER at Manhattan Metro. My father had a heart attack last night, up in Fort Lee.” She stopped there and looked up at the ceiling as if she was holding back tears. And, from his take, maybe considering how much more she should tell him. God, he couldn’t wait to have her in his bed, telling him everything there was to tell. He would give it two weeks tops before he had his fantasy fulfilled.

“God, I’m so sorry. And he’s…recovering? Your dad?”

“Yes, he’ll be home by late next week.” She looked down at her hands. “Hopefully, that is. Hopefully, this will have scared him enough to change his habits, but in the meantime, I need to get a fast influx of cash for their bills. Long story, but I’ve gotta….” She paused there and swallowed back hard.

Oh Lord have mercy
, his cock was raging for her.

She cleared her throat and continued, “I’ve gotta get back in the rotation for a month…six weeks tops.”

Leaning on his desk, only inches from her seat, and inhaling her essence, a mix of exotic perfume he couldn’t name, summer sweat, oh God help him, and a hint of some floral shampoo. He was taken.

His mind was whirling. Having her dance at his club, the club he now ran, was a dream come true and a nightmare at the same time.

The dream of her coming back into his club, being near her every night and in his office, his private office, was surreal. The opportunity to get her the way he wanted her, it overwhelmed his senses.

But the thought of her dancing there on his stage for other men and in the private rooms, her grinding their
hard-ons
, them always pushing for more, men other than him, he felt hot daggers of jealousy stabbing at him from within, even before he’d made her his. His skull was screaming from a new pressure headache, and he almost couldn’t catch his breath.

He would have died to have her dance for him, though. But only ever for him.

He moved around to his desk chair in a flash, now sitting across from her, leaning into her over the tidy desk surface. He had a mind for this, formulating quick and dirty strategies to get to his ultimate wants and needs, a chess player with the wide angle and the patience to think it all through. He’d never admit that he ran the largest gambling ring his Ivy League campus had ever known, and he hadn’t ever even needed the money. It was just fun for him. He was proud but smart enough not to brag his way into a hole.

He could tell she was desperate, but also, she obviously dreaded the thought of dancing again. She needed money, as they all did. But he would rather pull directly from his family’s funds and give her whatever amount she needed than to know she was this close to him and stripping for the fuckers downstairs. And giving them lap dances. Fuck no!

He could easily afford any debt she might have. His father had all but given him the keys to the empire. But Johnnie sensed her pride. It was painted on her face like a diehard rooting for the underdog at the Super Bowl. So, no, he couldn’t just offer her money straight out. He’d more than insult her that way. He could tell that she wouldn’t be under any man’s thumb, not consciously anyway. Even if he offered her a loan, she’d be skeptical.

Yeah, she had become a nurse, and she must have done well in nursing school to have landed a spot at that Manhattan ER while working at his family’s
city-based
club
full-time
. No, she was a proud, strong, smart woman. Ambitious, too.

And she was not meant to be stripping.

She was meant to be on a throne, on a throne next to his, so help him.

*

He watched her eyes study the wall behind his desk, clad with his college degrees, his sports paraphernalia, and a few obligatory family photos.

She smiled and shook her head. “Groomed for this business, I see.” She eyed the shot with him and his dad in front of the family’s club in Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Sold a couple years back, much to his disappointment. He loved Vallarta. Pure paradise. Gorgeous pool of women from all over the world. But the Demontes didn’t venture down there anymore, for safety reasons.

“Yeah, I was six or seven in that shot. My father’s version of a family vacation for him and me. Three weeks every summer.” He smirked. “I’ve definitely known the club scene all my life, despite my mother’s best efforts. They divorced when I was five. My mom kept me pretty sheltered. She was
hell-bent
on my life being a hundred and eighty degrees from my father’s.”

“And here you are.” She smiled and tilted her head in question, as if challenging him and flirting with him at the same time.
Yum.

“Well, Eddie left my dad in a lurch. My mother is raging pissed but, you know, he’s my dad. I’m not gonna leave him stranded.”

She nodded like she genuinely understood. She searched his eyes for something, then said, “Eddie was a good manager, at least from the girls’ perspective. I tried calling him, but his number is disconnected. Was he okay when he left?”

“Not really sure of the details,” he lied and aimed to veer away from the subject, “but you know what, Dad was always too busy with the clubs to spend much time with me during my summer visits, so joining the business now, it’s a second chance for us.” Another lie. They hated each other, but money was a type of bond, right?

“I can imagine. And it’s a man’s dream come true, right? Strip club crown prince,” she said, teasing and obviously testing him.

She had no idea that it was really when he saw
her
dance that he thought he’d died and gone to heaven. The others, they were old loose pussy that he had way too easy access to. But Winter was a refreshing kind of different. No,
celestial-bodies
different. And a lofty challenge to boot.

“Stopping in at each of his clubs when I was a teenager, yeah, I’m not going to lie, that was pretty awesome for any hormonal little shit, but now it’s just the same old thing. For me, helping out now, Dad needing me and wanting me around, that’s the high. And I get to see my father in action, you know? I think he’s proud to have me with him, too.” Johnnie paused, thinking about the times Jake had introduced him to some of the
high-end
clientele, to managers, and to some of the girls as, “My son.” The feeling still sent chills up his spine. But he knew it was just surface bullshit. Most of the rest of the time Jake Demonte
second-guessed
him and berated the shit out of him. Bottom line, his father only cared about himself and, well, the club’s bottom line.

So Johnnie had decided a while back to follow in his father’s footsteps. And his bottom line had been to rake in the cash to buy pussy—a whole lot of pussy. But now, his eye was on Winter, and only Winter. She was his bottom line reanalyzed.

“And as for my mom, even though her worst fear was realized—
dun, dun, dunnn
—I’m still really close with her,” he added for Winter’s benefit. In truth, he hadn’t seen or spoken to her in months. “God, I’m sorry. I’m rambling on and on, boring you to death probably,” he ended, feeling his cheeks heat up. But he knew from the glint in her eyes that she was already becoming more relaxed, more comfortable. Per his plan, her mental checklist was being ticked off one item at a time: smart, educated, supportive of his family despite abandonment issues, and lastly, he cared about his mother.

“I thought you looked too young to remember me at all,” she smiled, obviously fishing for his exact age.

“I’m
twenty-four
,” he informed her. “I took a year off from school to do the obligatory Europe thing. I hated it, though. I was embarrassingly homesick,” he lied again. He’d actually fucked his way around Italy twice before even calling his mother to tell her that he had landed on the continent alive in the first place.

“Europe, huh? Pretty lucky.”

“I would have liked it better if I’d had someone to share the experience with, but that leads to another totally crappy topic. I’ve recently boycotted dating. My college girlfriend got really close with our econ professor behind my back. Again, too much information, sorry.” He shook his head at himself. That last part was true. His econ professor, Dr. Madeline Sands, was a fine and fit cougar with a taste for young freshmen girls. And Janey, the freshman he’d been fucking, apparently needed a better grade, so she went about licking their professor’s cunt good and clean. Then she introduced Johnnie for fun. He ended up taking them both together in her private office. Repeatedly.