Tiny Dancer [Divine Creek Ranch 13] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (3 page)

Drawn to her, and wanting to know what they were talking about, Quinten carried a case to the cooler at the end of the bar near where she stood. She chatted happily with the men, who all gazed at her with open affection, he noted with ill humor.

When Camilla noticed his presence, she beckoned and called out, “Quinten, I want to introduce you.”

He schooled his features as he joined them. She put her hand on the first man’s bicep with familiar affection. “These are friends and former coworkers from the Dollhouse. They all worked security. Cody Welsh, meet Quinten Parks, head bartender.” Quinten nodded as he shook hands with the tallest man in the bunch, who had wavy black hair that extended well past his bulky shoulders. The man nodded at him as he assessed Quinten with eyes so dark the pupils weren’t visible. His hand rested on Camilla’s shoulder, stroking her hair in an affectionate gesture that made Quinten want to grind his molars into dust.

“Heath Lindsey,” Camilla continued with introductions, gesturing to the second man, who had short-cropped blond hair and beard. He smiled easily and nodded at Quinten as they shook hands.

“And Spencer Ketchum,” Camilla murmured as she placed a gentle hand on the third man’s chest. The gesture carried a lot of fondness, and Quinten had to work to not give the guy with the short brown hair and beard the evil eye. Like the others, Ketchum was intimidating, but Quinten noticed the loving glance he shot at Camilla. The close connection she had with all three was palpable.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you—all of you,” Quinten lied as he shook Spencer’s hand.

He took in the way all three kept their affectionate gazes on Camilla. Unreasoning anger boiled up inside him as he was hit square in the face with reality, only to be doused by a wave of uncertainty and fear. Had all the work they were doing been too-little too-late? He watched them as they interacted and noted the way they focused on her every word. All three of those men were in love with Camilla. Or had been. He kept his thoughts to himself as he returned to work and she stood and chatted with her friends. The painful sensations in his chest only grew worse as he listened. Quinten had difficulty quelling the urge to pull her away from them.

“So you’re working as an assistant manager here?”

“Yeah, but I’m planning on opening my own club, one of these days. Hopefully soon.”

“Where are you planning on opening? Here in Divine?”

She slipped back through the opening at the end of the bar and laid out three napkins for them. “No, I don’t think Divine can handle another large club. I’m thinking San Antonio or Austin. How about you guys? Are you working security somewhere? Wanna come work for me?” Quinten’s heart did a free fall in his chest.
She’d really leave?
Up to that point he’d been in denial of that very issue.

The big, quiet one, Cody, spoke without hesitation. “Name the place, angel, and we’ll be there.” Quinten schooled his expression and stifled a territorial growl as the other two nodded in agreement without hesitating. “We’re subcontracting right now, so we have some flexibility.”

Heath chuckled. “We’d rather have you bossing us around, sweetie.” She rolled her eyes, the color of turbulent green seas, and giggled as they all nodded again.

She has them eating out of her hand, and she probably doesn’t even realize it!

“We’re mobile and still single,” Spencer murmured.

Feeling like baring his teeth at the titan, Quinten didn’t resist the urge to place his hand at the small of her back. The silky flesh between the edge of her shirt and the low waist of her shorts seared his palm. The urge to let his fingers slide farther south was nearly impossible to control. Perhaps feeling threatened by the prior claim these men might have on her heart heightened his emotions and his senses. The urge was powerful to kiss the satiny flesh in the dip above her collarbone, which was exposed by the open neckline of her little sailor top. He wanted to pull her close and make the men see they were too late.

The last thing he wanted to do was walk away from her but he was having a hard time controlling his suddenly Neanderthal need to mark his territory. Territory which technically wasn’t his. Nor did he want to upset her with an uncharacteristic possessive display. Ben would still be there to watch over her.

Taking a tremendous risk, Quinten allowed his fingers to do what he imagined doing with his lips, and slid them a little farther down and stroked. He heard her soft gasp and smiled when she froze and gooseflesh spread under his fingertips.

“Bar’s all yours, Camilla. I’ll see you this weekend.” She smiled and nodded at him, but the merriment in her eyes seemed clouded with confusion, and her cheeks were slightly pinker. He crumpled the box and turned on his heel. He looked back at the men and lied again. “Pleasure to meet you all.”

He glanced back at her right before turning the corner into the office Ben occupied behind the bar. He caught her troubled look directed his way and the furrow between her brows before she turned back to her friends and took their orders.

Ben looked up from his desk as Quinten swung the door closed behind him. “I’m heading back to the house to finish painting the bedroom and bathroom.”

Ben raised a quizzical eyebrow. “What’s gotten into you all of a sudden? You hate painting.”

Quinten explained the exchange he’d just been party to. Ben listened calmly until Quinten explained the way the three men treated her. “They’re all in love with her, or at least they were. Didn’t look like they’d mind exploring the possibility in the future. The really big guy looked at her like she was a goddess.”

Ben nodded and quoted her. “‘Work is work and pleasure is pleasure.’ They must’ve heard that line too. She has high standards. You’re sure they aren’t just old coworkers catching up?”

“Positive. My gut’s telling me they were all three in love with her. I don’t want to be the schmuck looking at her two years from now, wishing that I’d taken my chance sooner rather than waiting until it was too late.”

“Even if you finish painting, the bed and the rest of the furniture are going to be a few more days.”

“Yeah, but this is something I can do in the meantime. The only reason you can be calm like this is because you didn’t see the way they look at her—all three of them. We’ve got competition, and she doesn’t work with them anymore.”

“But they have potential to work for her. Keep that in mind. She won’t cross that line, not if it means she’d have top-notch security. I knew she wanted to open a club, but I didn’t realize she wanted to go that far away.”

“She’d have to move, Ben. She’d be out of here. With them. And they looked persuasive.”

“Fuck.”

“The fact that she’s wearing a barely-there outfit doesn’t help matters either. They looked like they wanted to eat her up.”

“Remember they’ve seen her in a lot less—”

Quinten put a hand up to stop him. “La-la-la-la-la! Not helping.” He wouldn’t be so casual once he saw how those guys looked at Camilla. The one thing he could say for them was that they looked as though they’d gladly kill to protect her. “She’s driving me crazy with those skimpy outfits. Did you see what she had on last night?”

Quinten recalled in Technicolor detail the skimpy outfit their tiny dancer had worn. Short-shorts, a skimpy top that was a cross between a bikini and a push-up bra, and flashy cowgirl boots. Camilla was so beautiful it made his heart palpitate—along with every other hot-blooded, single male’s in The Dancing Pony.

Ben groaned softly and rubbed his forehead with his palms before replying. “Yeah. I kept getting glimpses of that temporary lip print tattoo she stuck on her right butt cheek every time she put a drink on the bar.”

Some of the other waitresses had also gotten on the bandwagon with wearing costumes, but it was Camilla who was driving them crazy. Anytime Camilla joined Grace and the girls when they took to the dance floor, Quinten worried that some asshole was going to mistake her costumes as an invitation.

The outfits were too low-cut for his comfort level. And too revealing. Entirely too much of the woman they loved exposed—

Don’t go there. She’s not your woman yet.

Playing devil’s advocate, Ben added, “But she’s making a killing in tips. She brings in lots of customers, and she does a good job.”

“I don’t like that much of her showing while she’s working.”

“I know, but we don’t have a right to tell her she can’t wear them. She’s not doing anything that’s out of the ordinary in our industry. And face it, she’s hot. She was accustomed to wearing a lot less for work—”

Quinten held up a hand. “You gotta stop, Ben.”

Camilla had put herself through college by working as an exotic dancer at the Dollhouse gentleman’s club in Morehead. It wasn’t a traditional job, but she’d graduated debt-free, which Quinten respected.

One of his big concerns, however, was that a lot of the customers at The Dancing Pony knew she’d worked at the Dollhouse. With enough liquor in him, a man could forget that her work as the assistant manager at The Pony had different boundaries. He’d never visited the Dollhouse while she’d worked there, but he’d heard about her abundant talents from the nightclub patrons who’d been there. It pissed him off that so many of them knew what she looked like naked. But Camilla had been up-front and professional with them and with any customers who wanted to talk about the old days. She’d hung up her stripper heels for good.

The thought of Camilla in nothing but a G-string, high heels, strawberry-blonde ringlets, and a smile was enough to get his cock hard.

Damn it.

Ben nodded. “Sorry, now I’m thinking about it too.”

“I can’t wait for winter. It’ll be too cold for that little lacy-fringy-bra-thing with…” Quinten made twirly circles with his fingers as he pointed at his pecs. “With those little red cherries all over it.” Ben chuckled in amusement when Quinten unconsciously licked his lips.

“You go ahead and do what you need to do. I’ll keep an eye on things around here and check in with her in a bit.”

“Should we talk to her tonight? At least tell her how we feel?”

Ben mulled the question over for a few seconds. “She’s levelheaded, Quinten. She’s not the type to go off with guys on a whim, even ones she knows. You go do your thing. If I get the feeling something is up, I’ll talk to her. Let’s get the house finished before we drop this bomb on her.”

“Do you think maybe we’re putting the cart before the horse with all this renovation work?”

“The house was in dire need of remodeling anyway. You and I are both interested in sharing a woman. I think she’s the one. It’ll be time to sit her down and have a talk…once this work is finished.” Ben liked having all his ducks in a row.

Quinten sighed unhappily. “It’s getting more difficult to not tell her how I feel.” It was like trying to plug a hole in a dam with a piece of chewing gum when the whole thing was about to burst.

Quinten left the club not feeling any better about the situation, but at least he could take action at home. Ben could play Mr. Calm-and-Cool only because he hadn’t seen the adoration in three pairs of eyes, directed at the woman he loved.

Pain centered in his chest at the thought of losing her because they hadn’t acted soon enough. He hated the thought that they’d observed her boundaries about not dating coworkers so well that she really had no idea how they both felt about her. He’d dated other women while he’d lived in Dallas, before moving to Divine, and knew Camilla was different. Knew she was the one.

His last long-term relationship had ended in painful disaster when he’d discovered that he’d gotten the woman he thought he loved pregnant. He hadn’t known that until after she’d already ended the pregnancy. A fact that she’d shared with him only to hurt him in the midst of an argument. His life had changed that day. He didn’t know if she was telling the truth or not, but she’d even thrown in his face that it’d been a girl. He didn’t know if that was true or not, but it had hurt just the same.

His child would’ve started kindergarten that fall. Even though he’d never laid eyes on her, he’d mourned her just the same. He’d grown up in a family that placed a priority on relationships, and on never giving up just because life was tough.

Camilla wasn’t the type to give up either, of that he was certain. All the time she’d been working, she’d been saving her tips so she could pursue her dream of running her own club. He’d encouraged her but had never considered it would mean moving so far away. At night, he’d dreamed of her in his arms and in their lives. Camilla was the right woman for him—for them—and he was anxious to not waste any more time.

He entered the house and looked around objectively. How would she view their home? Quinten looked out the sliding glass door to the deck outside. French doors leaned against the wall nearby, which they planned to install after the painting was done. The old sliding glass doors were unwieldy, and Ben had worried they weren’t as secure as the new doors would be. They wanted her to feel safe.

When they’d decided to become roommates, the obvious choice had been for Quinten to leave his rental in town and move in with Ben, who had fifteen acres and a large ranch house ten minutes outside of Divine. Quinten had wanted to talk with Camilla right then and there, but Ben had wanted to make the house nice for her first.

Quinten had moved into one of the smaller bedrooms a couple of weeks before, and Ben had moved out of the master bedroom so the work could be done. They’d enlisted Grace Warner’s help, along with her numerous contacts, in planning the new master suite. She’d suggested that they leave the room available for Camilla to move into first, if it met with her approval—if
they
met with her approval.