Chapter 20 - Santos #2
The men in the booth paid me no mind, as if this was completely normal, and continued to chat business. Nothing illegal, some financial jargon I couldn’t decipher. I knew for a fact these guys were clean cut, for the most part. At least when it came to their work.
I rubbed my hands against the velvet fabric of the seat almost ritualistically before I'd realized what I was doing.
That was nice velvet.
Five or six cops filled the club from the same hallway we just emerged from, pointing the flashlights at every John who’d been looking for a discreet show.
They earned themselves a few nasty looks and curses before the manager of the establishment made himself known to them as they huddled in for a talk.
Places like this didn’t abide by common law, they weren’t here to please the men in blue, but they knew they couldn’t piss them off either.
The manager attempted to direct the cops out of the strip club, trying to keep their clients’ privacy intact as they enjoyed whatever show they’d come here to watch.
At the same time the club got darker, and the spotlight turned a deep red hue.
Something dark and heavy came on the club speakers, the hair on my arms raised to attention, and every single person shifted their gaze from the police back to the stage.
My vision blurred everything in my periphery, my throat dried and my body temperature rose like a fever I couldn’t break no matter how much I’d try.
Everything moved so slow.
She appeared out of a dark corner as she stepped into the red light so sensually, her hips swayed as each foot took its place in front of the other.
She moved with the beat until her hand found the pole.
With all the grace of a prima ballerina, she pulled herself onto the steel, wrapping her legs around it in one fell swoop, dropping an arm behind her as she let her head drop backward.
She spun down the pole with a type of seductiveness I hadn’t seen from her before.
Sure, I’d heard her and Ronan screwing in the room next to me plenty of times, and a couple times I walked in on them doing it right in the living room.
But this was different. And the way her eyes were glued to me as she twirled around the pole made a heat grow inside me, Satan himself whispering in my ear that this was all for me.
She made taking off her shirt look like the Mona Lisa itself, if a painting could get you hard. If you had a thing for chicks without eyebrows, that is. She was a work of art, every curve on her body, and every hair on her head was intentionally put there by a God who knew no mercy for me.
Cecilia was a punishment. She was the harbinger of my agony, and I’d be forced to suffer until I left Ocean Valley and freed myself of Guillermo’s clutch. I didn’t spend a day wondering what I had ever done to deserve this kind of mystery.
I knew.
Being the right hand of the Devil didn’t make me any less guilty than the fallen angel himself. The invisible collar around my neck proved that I wasn’t man enough to find my way out of the mess I was born into. I deserved everything that was coming to me.
And falling for my best friend’s girl was the creator’s way of letting me know, I wasn’t out of his radar. No, I’d likely be forced to feel this way until my last breath, or until hers.
It was an unbearable torment.
An insufferable anguish.
To want, and never have. To love, but never speak it.
To hate yourself because of the thoughts intruding in your mind.
To want to swallow the barrel of a hot gun and blow my brains out all over this velvet booth so I wouldn’t have to see what came next.
But that top came off and the pants soon followed. She skulked around that stage with an allure about her, unminding that she was in nothing but see-through lacy lingerie as she laid on her back and threw her legs up in the air, doing things I couldn’t have ever expected or imagined from her.
I groaned and dropped my head to my hands, my elbow resting on the slightly sticky table in front of me and I heard a chuckle from one of the businessmen next to me.
“That’s a hot one for sure, haven't seen her around here before. I may have to order a lap dance and break her in.” He leaned into whisper in my ear but his words were loud enough for the whole booth.
“I’ll let you know how she tastes.” I clenched my fists together, fighting the urge to go up on that stage myself and drag her down before anyone else could see her.
She wasn’t mine, so why did I have this need to keep her to myself? To keep these lecherous men from staring into the only good thing I ever knew?
She shook her ass seductively and achingly slow but on tempo to the music and the stage filled with bills as the regulars ate her up.
While I swirled deeper into the chaotic void of my mind, Cecilia’s dance ended, and the cops shone their flashlights on her as she exited the stage.
I could hear the managers telling them they had no business talking to the talent they employed.
Either the owners here really didn’t care to appease any sort of law enforcement, or they didn't know who actually worked for them.
Either way was a win for us because we needed to get the fuck out of here ASAP and the jar of ecstasy bulging out of my cargo pants wasn’t going to help us right now.
They took advantage of the break between dancers on the stage and began to pass by every booth, questioning each patron about where they’d been before the most recent dance.
Cecilia made her way to our booth, still in nothing but her underwear as she casually ignored the officers who were stepping their way towards us.
“My lucky day.” The guy next to me chimed in with a creepy smile on his face. “How much for a private dance, sweetheart?” He asked her but she didn’t avert her eyes from mine.
“Sorry amigo.” She exaggerated her accent as she played a part I didn’t know she could. “Lady’s choice.” She straddled my lap and pulled the already lit cigar from the man’s hand.
She took it in her mouth and exhaled the smoke into his face.
She pointed to a neon sign on the wall that said, “lady’s choice lap dance” and I couldn’t fight back the chuckle.
How she noticed that and used it to her advantage was beyond me, but it was such a Cecilia thing to do that I couldn’t help but be amazed.
She was good at that.
Noticing things that most people overlooked.
She wasn’t like anyone else I knew. She was smarter, like someone had made sure she was always aware at all times of all the possible situations that could unfold from one scenario.
It was hot as fucking hell.
Handing the cigar back, she pulled me by the collar on my shirt to stand and pushed me toward one of the lone chairs facing the stage that were meant for lap dances.
“Hey! We’ve got questions.” The officer said to Cecilia, but she didn’t miss a beat and their lights in her face didn’t intimidate her one bit.
Damn, this E was good.
My pulse beat heavily through my jugular, and Cecilia matched the authoritative tone of the cop with her own,
“Listen, pendejo, unless you’re paying for my time, you’re not scaring my money away. Fuck off.” She spat at him, and the owner laughed a throaty laugh, exposing all the gold in his back teeth that reflected the shine off the even more gold chains around his neck.
“If you lose my girls any money, you will compensate them.” The guy warned the cops, and they mumbled a disapproving chorus together but resigned to their defeat, nonetheless.
That’s when the real torture began.
I was exposed. The ceiling was too tall, the room too big and open, the spotlights too bright, too revealing. There was so much space, but all at once there was nothing to put between us, nothing to keep us from one another.
I was a weak man.
And she was a bloody bird of prey who would swallow me alive with no mercy.
Her pupils were blown wide, but the dark of her eyes’ natural color made it nearly impossible to tell, unless you really knew.
I couldn’t quite make out the song that was playing, all I could hear was the thumping of the bass and the loud pummeling of my heart as the blood inside me thrashed against its ventricles in a frantic attempt to self-implode, so that this wretched feeling would end.
I could hear the bass of the song playing reverberating through the club as Cecilia worked me like a pro. Every time the curve of her ass came down on me, I died a slower death, time would freeze, and I waited for some savior to end this cruelty.
But no one came for me.
My cock was harder than it’d ever been in my entire life, and her torturous grinding made me think she knew just how painful this was for me. Or maybe it was all in my mind.
There was nowhere for me to hide.
But either the drugs had her somewhere she didn’t care, or she was truly focused on getting us out of here without steel cuffs and a high bail over our heads.
She grabbed her heels with her legs still straight as she folded over nimbly and her ass did something I’d never seen before except maybe in a music video. She straddled me again, this time using her index finger to push my jaw upward and seal the gap between my lips and she gave me a playful wink.
“Slide some bills under my bra, you’re not making this believable.” She hushed into my ear, reminding me of the serious trouble we’d be facing if we couldn’t shake the pigs on our tail.
“Morena, you’re making it too believable.” I muttered under my breath, but not quietly enough because she threw me a confused look.
“We need to get out of here, I think our best bet is sneaking out through one of the private dance rooms.” She shook her boobs in my face and I swear glitter-dusted in the air in front of me.
Where she found the time for that I couldn’t tell you, but it was pure genius. She grabbed me by the hand and led me out of the chair, a cop shouted for us, but she didn’t turn her head, her voice laced in confidence.