Chapter 12
CHAPTER
TWELVE
Zephyr
Having Beck in my proximity was a heady feeling.
It was his smell, the memory of his taste, and the surging need to step into his space and press my body against his.
All of it sparked a hunger so raw and ravenous it felt like my stomach might claw its way up my throat and emerge as a beast ready to devour him whole.
He stared at me, looking none too pleased, and I didn’t open my mouth for fear I would roar like some savage thing.
Or sink my fangs into him and tear a hole I could reach inside, find the core of what it was about him that felt so necessary.
So right. It was feral and frightening, and I shivered as every ounce of my conviction dissolved into mindless panic.
“Excuse me.” He pushed past, spinning me with the bump of his shoulder.
I pursued, trotting across the floor and staying right on his heels.
“What did he say to you?”
I’d been worrying since he’d gone into Maslow’s office. Nothing good happened in that room. The other dancers were called up there to “pay rent.” I had been exempt until my last encounter with Beck made me full enough to be emptied.
Beck didn’t slow in his stride, cutting a swift path toward the exit. “I’ll tell you when you’re older,” he muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Nothing. It doesn’t mean anything.”
He drew closer to the threshold I couldn’t cross, the gateway to the world outside.
The hellhounds who guarded the doors controlled admittance and exit, and they had explicit instructions: no dancers left the club.
So unless I was prepared to meet the business end of their infernal weapons, I had to stay inside.
But Beck… he had to stay too. To give me answers because I wanted them, but also because I wanted… I just wanted.
My hand shot out and caught his arm, squeezing tight. “If it was about me, I have a right to know.”
He could have brushed me off but instead, he stopped. A deep breath made his broad chest swell before he replied, “It wasn’t.”
“Then what was—”
Beck whirled around and my lips fell apart, eager to let him into any part of me. Then he said, “Listen, kid…” And my jaw clamped shut instead. “It’s business,” he said. “Mine, not yours. Okay?”
I released him with a frown. “I’m not a kid.”
“All right, junior.”
“I mean it,” I insisted, and Beck’s forehead creased.
“I said all right.”
The needy, lustful feelings lessened, overpowered by annoyance.
I felt small enough in this place. Weak and fragile.
I didn’t need to feel young too. I was plenty grown, and I’d been grown in my life before.
But black splotched my memories of the time and person who preceded this one, leaving only bright spots of recollection.
Happier times basked in the spotlight like I did onstage. It was where I felt most complete.
Across from me, Beck looked exasperated and ready to leave. I wondered why he didn’t. I wasn’t holding him here, and neither were the hounds. But as long as he would listen, I would speak.
“Don’t call me kid,” I said again. “Call me by my name.”
He heaved a noisy sigh. “All right, Cherry—”
I shook my head. “My real name.”
“I thought that kind of thing was a trade secret.”
It usually was.
Darby had been the first to call me Cherry, claiming I needed something to wear. Considering his penchant for fashion, I thought he meant it literally, but over the past few weeks, I’d learned differently.
Cherry belonged to the Dollhouse. He was a costume I could put on and take off. A barrier between the world and me.
But Beck had broken that barrier. He’d seen me laid utterly bare, and the idea that we’d shared something so intimate while he didn’t truly know me, gnawed at me. I didn’t want to feel like strangers anymore.
“It’s Zephyr,” I said.
Beck arched an eyebrow as if surprised I’d actually told him. “All right. Zephyr what?”
“Just Zephyr.”
His features pinched. “They didn’t give you another name?”
Who? The demons in Hell? Maslow?
No. I chose Zephyr because it was air, lightness, and freedom. Everything I wanted to have and be. And what was a name if not a wish?
I shook my head, and Beck leaned back.
“Well,” he said, “you might want to come up with something. Here on Earth, most people have a first and last name.”
The disparagement in his voice made me feel small in a way that was both humbling and terrifying. Of course he could do that; he was vast. Not just in size, but in presence. He was a force like gravity, pulling everything toward him and reshaping the room just by being in it.
I waited, eyes on my bare feet, wondering again why he hadn’t walked away.
And then he spoke.
“Listen, Zephyr—”
“I’ve been thinking about you,” I blurted, then blanched.
Had I said that?
Out loud?
My face went slack as I looked up at him. What did he make of my misstep? A pitiful bid to make myself matter, a tentative step out from behind the curtain. Beck’s yellow eyes gleamed as they caught mine, and I breathed through my next statement.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come back.”
“I didn’t plan to,” he replied, but his tone lacked the expected bite.
“But you did.”
I ventured closer, emboldened as the stage seemed to open before me. Inches away, I could smell the fragrance that had perfumed my dreams for days. The warmth radiating through his designer suit coat was the comfort I’d craved on long, lonely nights.
He shied back, but only barely, staying close enough I could have touched him. Or he could have touched me.
Please.
“I already said that had nothing to do with you.” Beck angled his gaze toward the upper level. We were out of view of Maslow’s office, worryingly near the club’s entrance, in an alcove that allowed for privacy in case the other guys came back to use the stage for practice.
My eyes followed his, recalling the panic I felt while they had convened out of sight. “You really didn’t tell him?” I asked.
“About the other night?” Beck verified, as if I could have meant anything else. “Why would I?”
I should have been grateful. I’d been spared unpleasant consequences. Granted undue mercy. But it felt like another dismissal, a reminder of how desperately I wanted to belong to someone who could erase me so easily.
“You asked me not to,” Beck reminded me.
“I did.” I took an unsteady step backward. “Yeah.”
Beck mimicked my retreat with his own, then his nose scrunched.
“Hey, look…” He glanced toward Maslow’s office once more. “That was my business, and I don’t mean to tell you how to do yours, but… this may not be the best place for you.”
The change of topic threw me, and I settled on my heels as he continued.
“Maz is…” His brows drew down. “There are other places you could work. You could do something else. Work somewhere else.”
He gestured to the closed doors a few feet away. The Las Vegas Strip lay beyond them as the wide, bright world I’d seen through my bedroom window. It seemed vast, crowded with people and lights and an endless stream of traffic ferrying visitors and residents in and out of sight.
“Like where?” I asked.
Beck rolled his shoulders. “A circus show, maybe? With the… silks and things.”
“There’s a hoop too.” I motioned toward the apparatus suspended in the hidden area above the stage.
“Right.” Beck nodded. “They have that other places. Places you could perform without taking your clothes off.”
My hands turned inward, brushing over my hips then curling across the bare expanse of my midriff.
I spent my nights at work in far less than this, prancing around in underwear and aerial boots, getting my ass pinched or my hair pulled by an endless stream of customers.
They gave me sips of lust, like shots of liquor but with far less staying power.
They weren’t enough, but without them I would be depleted.
I glanced up at Beck while covering my stomach. “You know I need it, though.”
He raised an eyebrow, and I swallowed before clarifying.
“I need to… take my clothes off. People like it.”
More than that, they desired it. Desired me the way I wished Beck would. Their appetites fed the demon in me.
“Do you like it?” I dared to wonder.
Beck shook his head. “Don’t ask me that.”
His eyes were darker now, pupils swollen over bright gold irises that swept over me. When he pulled his lower lip between his teeth, I let my arms fall away and opened my body to him.
The taste of his lust danced across my tongue, tingling and crisp.
I surged toward him, fisting his lapels and pulling him down for a kiss. Just a taste.
Instead, I hit resistance—his palm firm against my chest, his arm like a bar holding me back.
My eyes fluttered open, and I stumbled back, cheeks burning. “Sorry, I—I didn’t mean… I’m not really…” The apology tangled in my mouth, unfinished, as Beck seized my shoulders and spun me around.
Then his heat was on me, zipping up my spine and sending currents rippling through my brain.
“Go,” he said gruffly, pushing with one hand while holding on with the other.
“Where?”
“Somewhere your boss can’t see.”
I took off, navigating the club while giving a wide berth to the areas I expected the other dancers to be, including the bedrooms upstairs.
Beck’s hand never left my shoulder. I liked it there. A reassurance. A welcome tether.
Our journey wasn’t exactly casual, more of a rush-and-stumble through the halls. Turning the last in a series of corners, we reached a dead-end with twin doors bearing gender-neutral signs.
“The bathroom?” Beck groaned. “I don’t want to fuck somewhere that smells like piss and sick.”
I couldn’t smell anything but him. My senses were choked with his desire, so I knew he needed little encouragement to follow me the rest of the way. I spun, breaking his grip on me to take hold of him instead. When I cupped him through his slacks, his golden eyes flashed.
His body bucked toward me, and his voice came out gritty as he commanded, “Get inside.”
He shoved the door open, and I backed into the room with my fingers wrapped around his cock and no intention of letting go.