Chapter 18 #2
My pulse thumped out of time. Another tiny morsel of knowing him. A secret we shared, even if I’d discovered it myself. At every little reveal, another part of me clung to him. Other parts of me ached.
I held perfectly still. “If you kiss me, I won’t touch you back.”
A figure appeared at the entrance to our booth.
The manager of the strip club introduced herself as Bette, oblivious to the tension that held me in its grip. She peered at Dixie’s photo but shook her head.
“I can’t discuss individual staff members.”
“Can you at least tell us if she’s been here?”
“Like I said, we protect our dancers. Maybe she has and maybe not. If she wants to be contacted, she’ll authorise it.”
She was playing the corporate line. I needed to appeal to her human side. “I’m worried that she’s in danger.”
“Sure you are.” Her eyes held mine. “Want to know how many requests I get per night to talk to the girls? How many men want to take them home?”
Her gaze flicked to Kane.
“It isn’t like that. We aren’t clients. We just want her to be safe.”
“If your friend wanted that, she’d be the one to decide. I suggest you text her, but feel free to stay and enjoy the show before you go back to Deadwater.”
She tapped the table then turned and left.
“The staff are talking about us,” Kane said.
He was right, she’d name-checked our city. Another fact was certain: if Dixie had been here, no one was going to say.
I exhaled disappointment. “Work this through with me. If she was backstage, she would’ve heard our description. She’d know it was me and come out, wouldn’t she? Which means she decided not to. What are we supposed to do with that?”
Kane leapt up. I followed him across the room to a door in the back wall that Bette had disappeared into.
The bouncer guarding it folded his arms. “No entry.”
“Dixie, is she back there?” Kane demanded.
“Sorry, brother. Never heard of her, and you ain’t going in to see for yourself.”
Another man exited the backstage and stood shoulder to shoulder with him.
The first smiled. “Brother to brother, one more push, and I make a courtesy call to Deadwater. Don’t lose your man the goodwill he has with the circuit.”
Kane looked between them then at me. He was asking permission to throw down, but a pang in my gut told me it was the wrong move.
I retreated.
He followed. “They know something, aye?”
“I’m getting cover-up vibes. The manager was very clear to hold that line, but if they’d never heard of Dixie, why be so confrontative?”
Frustration tightened his features. “It means while we’re hanging around here, Dixie’s run out the back. She’ll be long gone. Fuck.”
Hopelessness washed over me, countering the rhythmic music and the warmth of the space. I hadn’t anticipated this. That getting close to Dixie might make us further away.
The energy I’d had for finding her evaporated. “We should go.”
In silent agreement, we skirted the room to the exit, then were back in the nightclub with its heavy sound and even thicker crowd.
The corridor around the edge was rammed with people threading their way around or up to other activities in the shadows.
Kane barged a path, and his hand came back to claim mine, keeping me close.
Even in my disappointment, I shivered at his touch. Being in such a crowded space couldn’t be good for him. But when we reached the steps, he paused. I stopped as well.
Agitation filled his eyes. He dropped down one stair then caught hold of my wrist, bringing me in so he could put his mouth to my ear. “What will it take to persuade ye?”
“Persuade me what?”
“To do what I described.”
My breath caught. He wanted to chase me. Did he mean outside tonight? I gulped, lost on the idea of release after hitting a low point. “For you to do the things I want.”
“Like what?”
“Kissing, romance, affection.”
Confusion mixed with challenge and a dozen other emotions in his eyes. It woke the part of me that thrilled when he’d described how he was a predator. A violent man who wanted to do bad things to me. The heat of his stare boosted the fire inside me until I was molten.
“I have no fucking clue how to do those things.”
I pushed my advantage. “You let me boyfriend train you and I’ll let you hunt me.”
His eyes flared with need. I felt it all the way through my body.
A shout made it through the music, and Kane lifted his gaze to something over my shoulder. The emotion drained from his features.
“What is it?” I peered back.
Through the crowd came a woman in a tiny gold outfit like the waitress and bartender had been wearing in the strip club.
Kane’s expression reset to his typical pissed-off scowl. “A problem. If ye want to boyfriend train me, start now. Make your claim.”
My claim? Oh, shit. My heart sank. He knew her. I took a second look, and the gorgeous brunette craned her neck to spot him then continued weaving through.
I swung my focus back to him. “Lesson one. Don’t use me—”
Kane dove his fingers into my hair and brought his mouth to mine. Shock stole my thoughts, or maybe that was the kiss. I’d craved this. I’d wanted his touch so badly. But not because a woman was about to interrupt us.
Those thoughts were fleeting.
His lips demanded every bit of my attention. He kissed me hard, his other hand coming up to cup my jaw and hold me exactly where he wanted me. His thick fingertips grazed the back of my head, and his lips parted mine for his tongue.
I opened for him, one touch shooting desire along my veins.
I whimpered with need at the taste of a man so decadently dark I’d never recover from his kiss.
Heat scalded me, and my skin came alive to soak in his touch.
Despite my overwhelming need to bring him closer, I kept my hands firmly to myself.
Instead, I followed his lead, slicking my tongue over his so he rumbled a groan.
That sound went straight to the centre of me. God, I needed more. More of his hold. More of the slightly clumsy way he melded his mouth to mine. It was the most perfect kiss I’d ever known.
He broke for a beat to whisper words. “I wanted that. I want everything.”
A hand tapped his arm.
He ignored it, backing me to the wall to make another attempt at destroying my mouth and my sanity.
“Kane?” The tapping started up again.
With reluctance, I tore my mouth away to take in the woman. She was younger than me, maybe in her early twenties. But it was the way she stared at him that made me want to claw her eyes out.
“Kane, it’s me, Karla.” She waved at him.
Inches from my face, Kane’s attention stayed on me. “Handle it.”
Damn him. I sucked in a shaky breath. “Can I help you?”
Karla shook her head, her curls dancing. “Kane? What are you doing here? I saw you in the club. Apparently you’re looking for someone?”
My brain reset. She might have information. I fumbled for my phone and held it up with Dixie’s picture. “This is who we came to find. Have you seen her?”
Karla peered at it then shrugged. “No clue, can’t help. Hey, Kane? You never answered my messages.”
“Her name’s Dixie. Is that familiar?” I continued.
She curled her manicured fingers around his arm. “Why won’t you talk to me? I was hoping—”
I saw red and pushed out of his hold and into her space, forcing her away so she’d stop touching him. “In case you didn’t get the hint, he’s not in the mood to talk right now. His lips were on mine just seconds ago, and I’m the one addressing you.”
Karla’s focus finally came to me. She dragged an unimpressed look up and down my body. “His lips have been a lot of places, and they’ll keep on moving. He’s not a keeper.”
I recoiled. “Don’t talk about him like that.”
“Just telling it like it is so you don’t get the wrong impression from a guy you somehow picked up in a club. I’m a girl’s girl, doing you a favour.”
“Keep your favours. Leave him alone.”
I turned to go. Kane stayed with me on our march down the stairs. If he nodded goodbye to the doormen, I didn’t notice, though I was sure to check that Karla didn’t follow. Annoyance had my back up.
I stomped down the street, Kane a shadow over my shoulder.
“Don’t think I’ve ever had anyone defend my honour before.”
“Karla was another hookup, I take it.”
“Once, in Manchester.”
I whirled around and stopped. “You mean you slept with her?”
He watched me carefully. “Yes.”
Bitter hurt spread through me, souring my memory of our kiss. “Then you decided to give me the task of chasing her away. I’m glad to save you the inconvenience.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why are ye upset?”
“I’m not.” I was.
“I don’t understand. I didn’t approach her tonight. I didn’t answer her call like the other time this happened. Are ye jealous?”
“No.” Also, yes.
“You’re attaching emotion to something that happened before I met ye.”
I mirrored his stance, folding my arms over the ache in my chest. “And you only kissed me to put her off.”
He’d seen her coming. He’d done the one thing he knew would stop me in my tracks.
He could’ve just let her chase us out and told her no himself, but it was easier to have me do it.
The ache inside me doubled down. To know that something which had meant so much to me in the moment had been a ploy killed.
Kane exhaled annoyance. “I kissed you because I wanted to. I asked you to handle her for two reasons. The more minor one was because she’s been persistent, and I’ve told her no without her listening.
I thought that her understanding I had someone else would finally work.
I didn’t mean to use you. That wasn’t the intent. ”
His ability to see how wrong he was had taken a trip to delulu land, to use Dixie’s favourite phrase.
Dixie. She was the reason I was here. Not for a flirtation with a man who messed with my feelings more than any other person on the planet.
Bringing up my phone, I tapped the next location, a small club just round the corner I’d had little hope for but needed to check, just to be thorough. And to give me some direction that wasn’t Kane. Ignoring him, I stomped on. He pursued me. Said my name. I kept going.
At the entryway, a narrow blue door in a nondescript building, the bouncer did the same check-in with Kane then waved us inside.
But the place was clearly wrong from the start.
Hip-hop blasted from the speakers, and a small crowd filled a sweaty room.
No side rooms. No pretty blonde Dixie in sight. A bust, just like the last.
The third was the same. Bigger, but solely a place for dancing and drinking.
I’d struck out. I’d researched where to look and tried them all. If she’d been around, she’d hidden from me, and I had nowhere else to try. Nor had Mila or Convict come back with any clues. I’d failed.
Back in the street, I turned to trudge back to Kane’s car. My ignoring him must have annoyed him into silence because he’d barely said a word in ten minutes. But the moment we were around the corner and on an empty road, he caught my wrist and tugged me against him.
“I kissed you because I wanted to. I don’t kiss anyone.”
I whirled around. He didn’t let go, his gaze dropping to my mouth.
“I don’t care.”
“Aye, ye do.”
The heat from the clubs still clung to my skin, or maybe it was my too-fast heartbeat keeping me warm.
My chin wobbled. “I want to go home.”
“You want a lot more than that,” he muttered. Kane curved a hand to the back of my neck and marched me on. “And I’m going to give it to ye.”