Chapter 18
Lovelyn
Day turned to evening. We’d exhausted my brothel list in our hunt for Dixie and retreated to Kane’s car, the heating on to combat the cold night.
He still didn’t close the window next to him, not until he climbed out to make a call. That fact lodged away with all the other things I found fascinating about him.
This evening was for the clubs, though only one publicly advertised strippers.
I hadn’t exactly come prepared for clubbing, but had a black bodysuit that emphasised my boobs and flattened my stomach.
Paired with my long dark-purple skirt and a full face of makeup, it would do.
In the car’s tiny mirror, I drew on cat’s eyes, added contour and pink lip gloss, then teased my hair into a high ponytail, leaving two long strands to frame my face.
Kane’s call was to Arran, clear as the overtones of their conversation reached me. Convict had passed on the message about what we were doing, something Arran approved of. I was glad. If Kane was kicked out of the crew, I was pretty sure he’d leave Deadwater at the next opportunity.
For Mila’s sake, I wanted him to stick around.
When he was done, I was finishing up as well and climbed out. He lifted his gaze from his phone and stared. Then swallowed.
This. The tiny reactions he reluctantly gave were catnip to me. There was no way Kane could find the words to describe all he’d conveyed in that single look. I doubted he even understood himself. But I knew.
“Need to change my shirt,” he managed.
“Boyfriend training. You compliment me when you see me in new clothes. Even the most basic of words will do.”
“You’re a fuckin’ vision, Lovelyn.”
I’d expected little, but damn, he did good. “Top marks. I need to call my mother quickly.”
“Did something happen? You said she wouldn’t go home.”
“No, she’s fine. I just want to check in.”
At the back of the car, and in the open, frosty air, he stripped. My turn to stare. Pressing Mum’s number, I didn’t hide my ogling. The sight of his hard body warmed me through.
Kane gestured to the phone. “Want me to tell her I’m taking care of you?”
“And give her big ideas over why we’re together? No, thanks.”
“She’d tease ye?”
The line rang out.
“Answerphone,” I said. “Mum? Just me. I’m out again tonight, with a friend. Yes, he’s pretty. A little feral around the edges, but it works for me. Miss you. Talk when I’m back.”
I hung up. Kane shrugged on a black shirt.
There were questions in his eyes, but he settled on one, his fingers moving through the buttons. “The two of ye are close, aye?”
“Very. I’ve told her all about you. Are you close to your mum?” I realised my mistake as I said it.
The shutters went down. He turned away and made a point of finding a skeleton crew bandanna, shoving it into his pocket. “Good to go.”
Conversation over. Got it.
Together, we walked to Heaven, a nightclub with a room reserved as a gentleman’s club, according to online sources.
Kane bypassed the line, and a muscular bouncer stopped him, making a point of looking him over. “Show your colours.”
I blinked at the request, but Kane reached for his skeleton print bandanna and tied it around his throat. Another point lodged in my mind. He never wore the bandanna across his face like the rest of the crew. Only ever around his neck.
Kane said, “Arran Daniels sends his regards.”
The bouncer narrowed his gaze. “Where?”
“Deadwater.”
Recognition ticked over. “Skeleton crew?” At Kane’s nod, the man waved us in, past the booth and the queue of people waiting to pay their entry and have their hand stamped.
At the rope, a second bouncer made way for us to climb a short flight of stairs.
I leaned in on Kane. “What was that?”
“The reason I rang Arran. He shares information with other venues around the country. He said I’d be challenged and he was right. Better to head them off.”
We reached the top of the stairs which opened out onto the wide main room of the club.
A wall of noise and humidity hit me, gold and silver lights twirling in the dark.
Thick with bodies, the dance floor heaved, and a pair of DJs directed the clubbers from their decks.
There were beautiful people everywhere. Women in tiny dresses, men ogling them.
I ran my hands over my waist, self-conscious of my curves.
Next to me, Kane took in the room then gestured to the left side where another doorman guarded a curtained door.
I nodded, and we wound our way through the corridor, passing couples in deep clinches in the shadows, to what I presumed to be the entrance to the strip club.
We were waved into another dark room, this one set up around a stage with a lower, more seductive beat filling the air.
Men sat in a row of seats close to the catwalk or further back at tables and gold-patterned booths, their focus locked on the performance.
For their entertainment, a bikini-clad dancer strutted on platform heels that lit up metallic yellow with each step she took.
Her moves were sinuous and timed with the beat.
At the end, she hooked an arm around the pole then dropped backwards as if falling, at the last second catching herself to spin around it, her legs spread.
I stared, dumbfounded, at the agility. If I tried that, I’d break my back. Despite all the times I’d been to the skeleton crew’s warehouse, I’d never ventured into Divine. This was eye-opening.
On her knees, the dancer crawled to the edge of the stage and reached out for the eager audience before rolling onto her back and rocking her hips up and down.
I stole a glance up at Kane. He was scoping the back of the room, not eyeing up the talented woman.
“We’ll try the bar,” he said.
I followed him down to the dark edge of the room to a low-lit hole in the wall.
A woman in a black uniform with gold embellishments rested a hand on the counter. “Table service here, folks. Find yourself a seat and a waitress will be over.”
Kane leaned in. “We’re trying to find someone.”
The woman’s smile didn’t flicker. “So are a lot of men, sweetheart.”
I held out my phone with the picture of Dixie on the screen. “This is my friend. She’s missing. Have you seen her?”
Just like with the woman in the brothel, and every other person we’d asked all day, she gave the photo a cursory glance then shrugged. “Sorry, can’t help.”
I deflated. This place was the only strip club in town. The last addresses on my list were basic nightclubs. It was possible Dixie could have gravitated to them, but that wasn’t my gut feeling. “Is there anyone else we can ask?”
She watched me for a moment. “Why is your friend missing?”
“I’m not sure, but we’re worried enough to have come all the way here from Deadwater. Is there someone who manages the dancers? Maybe she came in for a job?”
A waitress appeared next to me, and the bartender pushed away to grab a plastic pint glass.
“Go take a seat at the back. I’ll send someone over.”
It was better than nothing, but my belly tightened with an impending sense of failure.
Despite our all-day search, so far, we’d discovered no trace.
Dixie had come to this city, I was certain of that.
She’d abandoned her life and run, but that was weeks ago.
Maybe she’d hidden out for a few days, but after that, she’d need to work.
Then again, she might have moved on already. We could be too late.
In a booth in the back corner of the strip club, our view was blocked of all but the stage dead ahead.
The beautiful dancer was down to a tiny pair of knickers, her hands skimming her full breasts.
She held her audience captive, making sure to keep all attention on her as she crouched then simulated sex with the floor.
She was hot as hell, but when I peeked at Kane, he wasn’t watching her. At the edge of the booth, he white-knuckled the table, half off the seat.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He blinked and wandered his gaze down my body, trailing heat in its path. “Want to know how fuckable ye look this evening?”
I sat a little taller. Arched my shoulders.
Kane groaned and reached to brush my long ponytail over my shoulder. “You’re killing me.”
“Don’t die. I need a ride home.”
His lips curved into a smile that was entirely hungry predator. “Come here.”
There was two feet of space between us where I’d bumped to the middle of the booth.
When I didn’t shift, because my muscles had locked up tight, Kane inched in.
He rested an elbow on the table and turned to face me.
His hand came back up to wind my ponytail around his fist. A line furrowed his forehead as his gaze travelled over my face.
All I could see was him. His huge shape against the dark club. The tight curve of his jaw. He captivated me with his dark energy and powerful body.
“You look like you’re going to kiss me,” I breathed.
“I don’t kiss.”
Ouch. “You said that about beds and bedrooms, but that rule went out the window.”
The furrow deepened, yet he didn’t move away.
The intensity of his stare had me dropping mine to the bandanna around his throat, the skeleton print black-and-white cloth that he didn’t wear the way his crew did.
A thought took shape in my mind. Pieces of a puzzle sliding together.
Kane always had the window open in his car when we drove, no matter the weather.
In the lift in his Manchester apartment block, he’d held himself so rigid I’d worried it had been about to break down.
Then there was the open bathroom door. The white-knuckling the booth. The no kissing rule.
Words flew from my lips. “Are you claustrophobic?”
His eyes widened, and he untangled his fist from my hair. “How did you…? Why do you ask?”
I waited him out.
Kane’s gaze fled mine to the exit then off again in a heartbeat. The pulsing music got louder.
Through a locked jaw, he finally answered, “Yes.”