Chapter 2 #2
Still, if I could bring in more customers… maybe I could get done with Frank faster. If I could pull in a thousand dollars a night, that would mean in about thirty-five nights, or definitely in two months I could be done. That would be ideal.
Yeah, I could handle baring my breasts to strangers for two months.
Now, I needed to find a club that was hiring. After researching local clubs, I found one hosting an open audition the following Monday.
Punc
Punc had a love-hate relationship with auditions.
He loved the feminine excitement that filled the air, but he hated being back at work after just five hours of sleep and having to referee the occasional catfight.
He and Beast were manning the check-in table, while Tundra dealt with specific song requests and showing the women backstage.
After giving their completed application to Beast, Punc assigned each woman a number - though it was up to the dancer as to where she pinned the paper. The front vestibule was so crowded, after a while, most of the women blurred together.
For some reason, he glanced up at the next dancer in line who held her form out so carefully, he couldn’t tell if she was courteous or tentative to the point of reluctant.
Locking eyes with his sister’s best friend, Savannah, should have told him her actions were reluctant, but the resolve in her warm brown eyes sent a tremor through his body.
What the hell was she doing here?
When did Savannah go and get so damned sexy? She’d always been pretty. Extremely pretty. Looking at her now, the sight of her arrested him. Froze his lungs and caught him off-guard.
Like many gorgeous women, she carried herself like she knew she was pretty.
If he hadn’t seen first-hand how fucked up her family was, he’d have thought she was conceited, but he’d heard the way her mom spoke to her back in the day.
Saying shit like the only thing she had going for her were her looks.
He’d always wanted to tell her parents they were wrong, but he couldn’t deny Savannah’s beauty.
She had shiny, light brown, wavy hair that fell four inches past her shoulders.
Those brown eyes lit her face when she got riled up, and they went soft when she was around his nieces and nephew.
She had a huge smile that most movie stars would kill for, and it always knocked him for a loop.
With her standing right in front of him, he couldn’t help but notice how lush and prominent her curves were.
And as usual, he forced himself to ignore her incredibly long legs. She ticked all his boxes.
No matter how much he wanted to go there, he fucking couldn’t.
His sister’s best friend? Nope.
Hard pass, or it should be, because it just wasn’t done. Which was exactly how he’d missed how hot she’d become over the years.
In a split-second, he saw the recognition flash in her eyes, then quickly get replaced by embarrassed surprise. His gut said he was the last person she wanted to see right now.
Then again, he wasn’t too keen to let her through the doors.
A protective instinct he didn’t realize he had reared up and it was all he could do not to throw her over his shoulder and carry her out to the parking lot.
Whether or not he’d stop at her car or his bike was the wild card.
“What are you doin’ here?” he muttered, his voice husky, low, and stern.
The way she visibly forced herself to smile, he sensed she didn’t want to be there…and it angered him. He pushed aside his flaring temper.
“I’m here to audition, Ted,” she said. The tone of her voice had a genuine brightness to it, a brightness he feared dancing at Platinum’s would destroy.
He loved Platinum’s and loved working there, but he’d seen how the dancers changed - especially debut dancers. None of them were exactly innocent, but within weeks if not days, their demeanors would change, and it always seemed like a little bit of light left their eyes.
He forced himself to focus on the job at hand, ripping off a contestant number and handing it to Savannah. He held it out and arched a brow. “Puncture, not Ted.”
She froze, her eyes held his but from the blank look on her face he suspected she didn’t know what to do next. He stared up into her brown eyes. “Good girls like you aren’t cut out for this.”
“Keep it movin’, Punc. We don’t have all day,” Beast muttered.
Against his will he jerked his head toward the doors to the main room to signal where she should go next. He watched Savannah’s sexy-as-sin body ease inside.
As the glass door crept closed behind her, he heard Tundra’s voice.
“You can change or get your makeup on in there. If you got a specific song, add it to this list with your dancer number.”
Faintly, he heard her say, “Yes, hopefully you have ‘Cult of Personality’ by Living Colour.”
He refused to dwell on her song choice, even if it was a damned good one.
Fifteen minutes later, the last prospective dancer meandered into the club.
“You mind dealing with this folding table, Punc? Volt asked me to be the tiebreaker vote between him, Turk, Blood, and Yak. I need to get inside,” Beast said.
Punc stood. “Yeah, I got the table.”
“Cool.”
While he’d memorized Savannah’s assigned number (three-zero-eight-two), he couldn’t remember how many other women had lined up before her.
He didn’t want to see her dance.
He did not.
He’d never been good at lying to himself.
He couldn’t fucking wait to see her dance, but he wasn’t going to let himself do that.
Tundra wandered out, stopped short, and frowned. “What the fuck man? You still alive in there? Never seen you that spaced out. Don’t even have the table folded up and you’ve been out here almost five minutes.”
Punc shook his head and tilted the table on its side. “Yeah, man. I’m fine. Just need more coffee.”
While the auditions went on, he and Tundra checked kegs and liquor bottles behind the bar. They’d been at it for over an hour.
Punc hadn’t heard Savannah’s number yet, but he suspected she’d be on stage any minute.
Before he could make a break for it, Tundra said, “I’m hittin’ the john.”
Punc nodded.
The recorded voice opening of “Cult of Personality” came over the speakers and Tundra stopped mid-stride.
With a head shake, he looked over his shoulder at Punc. “We fucked up. Shoulda told Prime that during auditions, we cut the weird intros for certain songs…like this one. Fuck. I’ll send him a text message.”
Punc shook his head. “Nah, man. I’ll do it.”
It would give him a reason to move to the far end of the bar, outside the view of the stage.
With his head bowed to his phone, he texted Prime about editing songs.
As though his feet had a mind of their own, he’d stopped in the middle of the bar. The position gave him a clear line of sight to the stage. He was so weak he couldn’t even force himself to miss her performance.
He wanted her to bomb as much as he wanted her to shine.
A vague memory hit him of her and Alanis dancing and doing cartwheels in his parents’ backyard.
She’d been great then, and gorgeous, too, but he hadn’t given that a second thought.
Watching her execute a series of flips on the horizontal, metal bar in time to the hard-hitting opening guitar riffs of the song - it knocked him off-kilter.
Her hair, those eyes, and her athleticism - she was stunning.
His chest constricted and he felt winded.
Shit.
She was too fuckin’ good to be stripping.
Tundra sidled up to him half-way through the song. “Love it when I’m right.”
Punc couldn’t tear his eyes from Savannah twirling around the pole in the center of the stage. “Right about what?”
“I know when someone’s gonna hit from their song choice alone.”
Punc blew out a breath. “We’ve had other chicks audition to this and have epic failures.”
Tundra chuckled. “Well, she’s fuckin’ crushing it, man. She could tell me one and one makes three any day.”
Three fights brewed inside Punc at that moment: fighting against his cock getting hard (made worse after she flung her top off), fighting the need to haul Savannah off stage, and fighting the urge to punch his brother in the mouth.
With that much conflict raging, he did the only thing he could do, and got the hell out of the room.
Half an hour later, the busywork he’d taken on wasn’t enough to keep him from hearing Savannah’s number get called to the stage. Then, he heard the announcement that the even numbered girls were hired. Three-zero-eight-two was even. Not what he (or she) needed.
In the back hallway, Punc broke down cardboard boxes and timed it right to take the cardboard out when the newly-hired dancers hit the parking lot.
After a quick stop at the dumpster, he followed Savannah to a small vehicle marked with a cleaning company’s logo.
“Congratulations, Smythe,” he said, cornering her at the car.
Her shoulders lowered and he heard her let out a breath before she turned to him.
Her brown eyes were questioning and slightly heated. “Thanks, Puncture. But I wonder if you really mean it.”
He leaned a shoulder against the back driver’s side window. “If you wanted to dance, I’d mean it. But there’s something wrong here. Why are you dancing?”
Deep down, he wanted to get to know her again, and fuck him, he wanted to see that heated look in her eyes again when he said her name.
Only this time, if he got his way, he’d see it just before he kissed her.
The more she stared at him, the more he wanted that kiss, but there were cameras on the lot - even during the day.
Her lips quirked like she didn’t want to share. “Mom died almost two months ago. Money’s tight. I’m legal guardian of Catalina - so, this should help bring in more cash and…it seems I might be good at it.”
“Too fuckin’ good at it,” he muttered.
“What was that?” she asked.
He shoved a hand through his hair. “A woman like you has no business here.”
She crossed her arms. “That’s not for you to say, Ted. I haven’t seen you since Dalton’s birthday party.” She paused. “As fast as you came and went, I can’t believe you care.”
He sighed and moved closer. “I’d never let Alanis on that stage. I shouldn’t have let you up there either.”
“Ted—”
“Punc,” he corrected her. A thought struck him when he mentioned his sister’s name. “Does Alanis know you’re here?”
“No,” she snapped, panic lacing her tone.
His head twisted. “You two don’t have secrets.”
She shot him a devious smile. “I’ll tell her now that I’ve officially got the job.”
He dropped his chin. “You do that. I’m not keeping it from her for you.”
Her plump lips parted, and her mouth dropped open. “What difference does it make to you, Punc?”
That was a great question. It shouldn’t matter to him, but her being there fired up a newfound protective instinct.
“A woman like you doesn’t belong here. It’ll change you.”
She cocked a brow at him. “I can see that. It’s definitely changed you.”
He reared his head back at that. If he’d changed that noticeably it wasn’t because of Platinum’s, but because of his choice to be part of the Riot MC. Another reason she didn’t belong at Platinum’s.
She waved her hands in front of herself for a beat.
“Sorry. That came out wrong. But seriously, Punc. The past few months have already changed me. Mom dying, helping Catalina deal with that, moving into their house.” She nodded her head.
“I’m sure I can deal with whatever changes a job at Platinum’s is going to bring my way. ”
He shook his head. “You should figure out something else, Savannah. I mean it. You’ll be a temptation around here.”
“As if,” she scoffed. “There’s no way I’d be a temptation to you.”
He couldn’t stop himself from leaning toward her, his chest grazing her tits. “The hell you won’t be. You already are and I mean that. Now get out of here before I do something I’ll regret.”