Vivid, frosty blue. They pierced through me, and I felt she could see all my scars and doubts. I was good at putting on a confident façade, but Raelyn seemed to be the one who could break through with her innocence and awkward confidence.
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
I was open to whatever she had in mind if it meant she would stay in my room for a bit longer. I’d had instant attraction before, but it usually died off as soon as it happened. Two minutes with Raelyn and I wanted to know a whole hell of a lot more than just what she would feel like beneath me.
“I need help to find Billie Jean,” she cleared her throat, “and I’m willing to do whatever I need to for you to help me. Please.” She tucked the money back in her pocket and adjusted the glasses on her face.
How in the hell was Billie Jean related to this chick? And to find out she was her twin sister. That was fucking mind-blowing.
Billie Jean had worked at Skinz for two years as a waitress, and never, in a million years, would I have imagined this woman being her sister. Billie Jean was forward and a bit crass. Two things that worked in your favor when you were a waitress at a strip club.
Looking at Raelyn, I had to wonder if she had ever stepped foot in a strip club. She was all soft and innocent looking. The fact she actually had the balls to walk into the clubhouse was pretty fucking astonishing.
“What makes you think Billie Jean is actually missing and not just off on a bender with her latest girlfriend?” I didn’t know a ton about Billie Jean, but I had bailed her out of a pinch at the club a time or two. Drunk guys watching naked chicks they couldn’t touch sometimes made situations where they thought they can lay hands on the waitresses.
“Because I haven’t heard from her since Tuesday night. She called me right before she went to work that night, and since then, I haven’t heard a word from her.”
That really wasn’t that long to me. Hell, Mom and Dad hadn’t heard from me in probably a month. Four days? That was fucking nothing. “I’m sure she’ll turn up.”
Raelyn shook her head. “I know something happened to her, Playboy.”
My name rolling off her tongue sounded foreign. I could tell it was a word she had never spoken out loud before. At least, not before tonight. I folded my arms over my chest. “I don’t get why you’re knocking down my door for help. I’m not anyone’s hero, Raelyn.”
That couldn’t be any closer to the truth. I was here on the Earth for a good time and that was it.
“I don’t know what else to do.” Raelyn paced back and forth and ran her fingers through her hair. “I called all of Billie Jean’s friends and even went to the club to talk to the ones I didn’t have numbers for.”
“Wait, wait,” I interrupted. “You went to Skinz?”
Why did I have an urge to yell at Raelyn for putting herself in risk of getting hurt?
She nodded. “I only went inside for two minutes, though. I left because it was crowded. I just waited ‘til her friends came out, and then, I asked them if they had heard from her.”
Jesus. The parking lot of Skinz was not the type of place Raelyn should have been hanging out. “When were you at the club?”
“Last night. I was hoping to see you there, but then I realized I didn’t know what you looked like so I stuck with trying to talk to her friends.” Raelyn stopped pacing and turned to me. “None of them had seen her since her shift on Tuesday. They all said she seemed fine when she left at two-thirty and then, poof, she’s gone.”
“Why haven’t you gone to the police?” To me, that seemed like the first thing a girl like Raelyn would have done. Hanging out in strip club parking lots and walking into an MC clubhouse seemed a little out of the norm for her.
“Because all I can tell them is, I have a feeling she’s missing, but I have no actual proof that she is. And…adding in the facts that she works at a strip club and she’s been on the wrong side of the law a couple of times even though she always came out with a clean record.”
She could be right about that. Even I had said at first that she was just out on a bender. “Call her.”
Raelyn rolled her eyes but pulled out her phone. “I’ve called her at least a hundred times, Playboy. You think she is going to answer now that you’re here?”
It was a possibility, but that wasn’t why I wanted her to call Billie Jean.
Raelyn swiped a couple of times on her phone and then put it on speaker. It rang seven times, and then, it went to voicemail. Raelyn ended the call and shoved it back in her pocket. “She doesn’t answer.”
“But it rings,” I pointed out. “That means her phone isn’t dead. If she’s been gone for four days, she’s had to have charged her phone at some point.”
“Or someone stole her phone and knows not to answer when I call.”
Again, that was a possibility. “Or she’s out having the time of her life and doesn’t feel like answering her phone.” God knew there were days like that for me.
“She’s not,” Raelyn said through clenched teeth. “Something is wrong, and I need your help.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed, folded my arms over my chest, and looked up at Raelyn. “I don’t know how I’m going to help you.”
“You know people, and you’ve helped Billie Jean before,” she insisted.
“I don’t know what kind of people you think I run with, and I’ve helped her when guys get handsy at the club. Not when she’s fucking missing.”
Raelyn stepped toward me. “Four grand, you get whatever you want from me, and you help me find Billie Jean.”
I was going to let her proposition slide before because I didn’t think she really meant it, but she said it again. Women like Raelyn didn’t know the types of things I liked to do to women. “I don’t think you know just what you’re offering me.”
She took another step toward me. “I’m not some dumb girl, Playboy. Your name alone tells me what you’ll want from me.”
“What happens if I can’t find Billie Jean?” I had no fucking clue where to start looking for her, and I didn’t want to get Raelyn’s hopes up at all. “I know her from the club and have never hung out with her outside of there.”
“Just give me a week. If you don’t figure anything out, I’ll disappear and you’ll never see me again,” she pleaded. She took another step toward me and bumped into my knees. “Please.”
“Raelyn,” I spoke softly. “You’re offering me a lot for maybe not finding your sister at all.”
She stared at me and didn’t speak. Her eyes begged me, and there was no way in hell I was going to tell her no. And, I was a ruthless bastard anyway. Offering herself up to me twice was one more time than necessary. “Tell me everything you know.”
“Does that mean you are going to help me?” she asked, hopeful.
My gaze connected with hers. “One week. I’m not making any promises that I’ll find anything, but I’ll do what I can.” I wasn’t really offering her much. My connections could get me only so far and who was to say that they would know anything about Billie Jean. “You can keep your money, though.”