One hand supported my ass while the other dove into my hair, twined it around his fingers and held me close.
After everything, the vulnerability of dancing for him, the overpowering sensation of breaking open against him, it was this hug that sank my heart to him forever.
There was no going back now.
I’d made a deal with the devil, tasted his brand of sin in hell and as the fables always said, once you indulged in the food of the underworld, you were stuck in its depths forever.
“Stuck with me,” I croaked, trying to be brave and strong and unmoved but completely unable to because how often does a girl live a dream come true?
He turned his lips into my hair and kissed me. “It’s you who’s stuck with me, little warrior. Not lettin’ you go now. Not fuckin’ ever.”
“Good.”
His chuckle vibrated through my body. “Not as easy as all that, jailbait.”
I pulled back from him enough to say, “The age of consent in the province is sixteen years old unless you’re an authority figure. You can’t go to jail because of me. Not again.”
His face softened into something so beautiful it made my breath catch and my heart stop beating. It reminded me that I hadn’t told him about the cancer coming back, about how I had chemo coming up. It reminded me that I didn’t want to because I was finally a woman to him, whole and sexy and filled with promise.
I wasn’t going to be the destroyer of my dreams.
“Wasn’t your fault, Lou, and even if it was, gotta say, I’d do it again. If I have to kill every single fuckin’ man on this goddamn planet to be with you, Lou, you better believe that I fuckin’ will and I’ll do it with a fuckin’ smile.”
I wish I’d known back then that his words would be tested again and again over the next few months and that, in the end, death would stalk me anyway.
Zeus.
Shoulda known it was comin’.
She’d been too good, too Louise Lafayette in a smokin’ hot bod wearin’ Loulou Fox’s tight, barely-there clothes. She’d been too content to straddle our sketchy line between devil and devotee. The girl was followin’ my rules, even the no touchin’, and doin’ it with a smile.
Shoulda known and shoulda braced for it but, fuck me, I was surprised.
Honest to Christ, never expected the girl to give me a damn strip-tease on the stage of The Lotus like she’d been takin’ her clothes off for a livin’ for years.
The second the lights went out and the spotlights cranked on, shoulda told my brothers to get the fuck out.
But then that fuckin’ song came on. “Sink the Pink” by my favourite fuckin’ band AC/DC. She’d done it on fuckin’ purpose, knew from our letters that I loved the band, listened to the lyrics and knew they’d mean somethin’ to me.
And they did.
So insteada kickin’ my brothers out or puttin’ an end to the whole fuckin’ thing like I shoulda, I was frozen when Lou went struttin’ out on the glossy black stage, wearin’ pink and blue light, a little girly skirt that barely covered her ass and a tiny bra with cherries on it.
How the fuck she’d known about the cherries was beyond me. It couldn’ta just been a good guess that she’d dress like a little girl. Had to have known my dick was a fuckin’ steel pole in my pants the second I saw ’er, so fuckin’ young and so fuckin’ ripe for the pluckin’.
She had to have known that I was fucked in the head ’cause the sighta her like that was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
Then she moved.
It was clear she’d learned some moves from her stripper sisters, but it was also clear as fuckin’ day that my Lou was a ballerina ’cause the way she flowed from one move to another didn’t just make my dick hard, it made my heart stop. She was so goddamn sexy and so goddamn pure it was like watchin’ two different girls up on the stage.
I wanted both. The princess and the sinner.
My mouth was drier than a morning-after hangover when she flipped upside down against that pole and dropped those long gold legs into the splits.
No man could withstand the sighta that.
Any man says different, he’s fuckin’ lying.
But it was over for me the second she reared up like some beauty on the bow of a ship and undid her bra. Her big round tits fell into the candy-coloured light like fuckin’ gumdrops.
“Out,” I tried to yell but my voice was gone probably ’cause my breath was gone.
The brothers at my booth, Nova and Bat, ripped their eyes away from Lou, blinkin’ like they’d looked too long at the sun
My fuckin’ sun.
“Out,” I growled.
Never seen Bat scared but he noticed the seriousness of my threat immediately and started to push Nova out the other side.
Nova—the fuck—tried to reason with me.
“She’s just a kid, Z, take it easy on her.”
Fury tightened like a fuckin’ collar round my throat as I turned my glare on him and watched him flinch, just slightly but it was enough fear to appease the beast in me. The beast that wanted to rip out his fuckin’ eyes for seein’ Lou anywhere near to fuckin’ naked.
“She look like a kid to you?”
Even in the dark, Nova paled and swallowed roughly.
“Fuckin’ out!” I roared.
Thank fuck my brothers knew me enough to know when I meant fuckin’ business. Within seconds, Curtains had the music and spotlights off and the club lights on, and the rest of my lingering brethren were makin’ quick for the door.
They didn’t dare look up at Lou as she slid from the pole and crossed her arms under those fan-fuckin’-tastic tits.
“Gonna have your hands full with this one,” Bat had muttered to me, clapping a hand to my shoulder as he moved past me. “Good fuckin’ luck, brother.”
I didn’t need luck.
All I had was the force of my fury carrying me forward as I took her over my shoulder. The force of possession makin’ me splay her out on my table and finger fuck her ’til she creamed all over my hands. And then only the force of my fuckin’ need for her when I dragged her into my arms and told her she was mine.
I’d cleaned her wet pussy with her broken panties before shovin’ them in my pocket ’cause I was sentimental that way. Then I’d sent her to get dressed and called Mute who’d been waitin’ outside the entire time like he’d said to give her a ride home.
I wanted to be the one to give her a ride home.
No, fuck that, I didn’t want her to go home.
Now that I had her, I wanted her at my side under my fuckin’ roof.
I wasn’t a patient man and I couldn’t see that changin’ now after thirty-six years of it, but I had more pressin’ concerns so I shoved thoughts of claimin’ Lou as my old lady and what that all would mean to her and me and my kids, and I slid into my role as Prez. I’d been at the club only as an alibi just in case anyone wanted to put up a stink about the disappearance of a fuckin asshole dealer. You never knew with the Entrance cops just how invested they could get in takin’ The Fallen down, so I liked to cover my bases.
Now though, and especially after what I’d just had with Lou, it was time for some fuckin’ vengeance.