Chapter 22 #2
Before I can argue, he’s already pushing the door open and the bouncer is waving us in.
Warm air and perfume hit me first, sweet mixed with smoke and sweat.
The club’s dim, lit by red and purple strobes.
A girl on the main stage moves seductively around the pole, body glistening, hair swinging.
Men in dark corners watch, drinks in hand, but no one looks as we weave through the tables.
The music pulses louder the closer we get to the bar.
The bartender spots us when we’re still a few feet away, her eyes flicking to Damon first, then to me, then back to him.
The easy smile she’d been wearing for the customers fades into something tighter, more guarded.
“Damon,” she says, wiping her hands on a rag. Her voice is low, smoky, carrying just enough edge to cut through the noise. “Didn’t expect you tonight.”
“Just handling some business,” he replies, tone even, but it’s obvious they know one another. Her gaze flicks to me and I try not to squirm under the scrutiny. “Arianette, this is Rikki. Rikki, Arianette.”
“Nice to meet you,” she says, offering a small nod. No hand extended. No smile.
“You too,” I manage, voice smaller than I want. I’ve obviously stepped into something here that I don’t understand.
Damon just stands there, offering no more details or context. His hands are shoved in his pockets, shoulders loose, but posture rigid.
An awkward beat stretches.
Rikki breaks it first. “You want a drink? On the house.”
Damon nods his head. “Sure. Beer for me. Something sweet for Arianette.”
She gets to work, uncapping a bottle of beer and sliding it across the bar to Damon. Next she fills a glass with gin, then dashes in something red, adding two cherries in with a plink.
“Thanks,” Damon says, grabbing both glasses and then leading me to a quiet booth in the back. He squeezes in next to me, our hips and thighs touching. I take a sip of the sweet cocktail. It does nothing to quell the feeling building in my gut.
“So how do you know her?” I ask, not liking the feeling in my gut. “An ex?”
He barks out a laugh. A real one that lights up his eyes. “Fuck no, Doll Baby.”
Now I just feel dumb and I start to shift away, to give us some space, but his arm slides over my shoulder blades and holds me against him. “You jealous?”
“Maybe,” I admit. He’s my Baron. Mine.
“Well don’t waste that emotion on Rikki,” he says, the beer in one hand while his other thumb strokes my shoulder. He smells so good. “She’s my mom.”
“Your mother?” I ask, the disbelief evident in my voice.
“The one and only.”
I look over his shoulder and watch Rikki pour another drink with a detached efficiency, like she’s been doing this forever.
I think about how Damon has never mentioned his family.
I know so little about his life before the Barons claimed him.
My gaze settles on the scar across his throat.
He’d told me about it before he fought at the Fury.
How he’d almost died that night, how he did die for a moment or two. We have that in common.
Death binds us.
“Did you know she’d be here?”
“Right now? No.” He shrugs, eyes on the stage where a new dancer is starting her set. “I knew she took the job bartending at the club, but I don’t exactly keep up with her schedule.”
“She seems tough.”
Damon’s mouth quirks, just the corner. “She is.”
He doesn’t elaborate.
The lights shift–strobes slow and the music drops into something heavier, sultrier. A new dancer takes the stage, long legs, dark curls, body moving like liquid under the purple glow. She wraps around the pole, hips rolling, every twist drawing eyes and dollar bills.
Damon’s hand slides to my thigh under the table, fingers tracing the hem of my skirt. His breath brushes my ear, warm and low. “You like watching her?” he murmurs. “The way she moves on that pole, slow and filthy…”
My pulse jumps. “Maybe.”
He chuckles, soft and dark. “Like when Hunter took you to Noir Sanctum? Or at the Fury… when the King had you on his lap, fingers buried in you while Payne and Bruin tried to kill each other. You liked that, too, didn’t you? Getting off in front of everyone.”
Heat floods my face. I’m surprised–more than I should be. “You saw that?”
“Doll Baby,” he says, voice dropping even lower, “I could smell it. The car smelled like pussy all the way home.”
My cheeks burn. I duck my head, but his fingers slide higher under my skirt, brushing the edge of my panties. He finds the ring in my clit piercing, flicks it once, and I jolt, thighs clamping together on instinct.
“Easy,” he whispers, thumb circling now, just enough pressure to make me ache. “Fuck you get wet so fast. Is it from sitting here watching her grind, or thinking about how hard you came when the King finger fucked you in front of half the Royals?”
I bite my lip, trying to stay quiet while the dancer spins above us, hips rolling in perfect time with the bass. “Neither,” I tell him. “I’m wet because you’re touching me like this.”
His finger toys with my entrance and it’d be so easy to let him keep going, but I glance toward the bar… Rikki’s still there, pouring a drink and laughing with a customer.
“Your mom’s behind the bar,” I say softly, half warning, half question.
Damon doesn’t flinch. His fingers still, but apply just a bit of pressure. “Is that where you draw the line?” he asks, voice rough but curious. “With her watching?”
I think about it… really think. The question settles in my chest like a stone.
I used to have lines. Rules that I had been taught as a child.
I was na?ve and immature, and there were things I thought were wrong, things I thought were too much.
But life with these men–Damon, Hunter, the King–has blurred every boundary I ever drew.
They push, they pull, they take, and somehow I keep saying yes.
Not because I have to. Because I want to.
Because the wildness they wake up in me feels more like freedom than fear.
“I don’t know,” I admit, voice barely above the music. “I’m not sure where the line is anymore. Or if I ever really had one.”
His eyes darken, something possessive and proud flickering there. He draws his hand back, lifts his fingers to his mouth and licks them clean, tasting me right in front of the whole damn club.
“I’d rather have you alone anyway,” he whispers, leaning in until his lips brush the shell of my ear. “I want to hear you scream my name, not swallow it back so no one can hear.”
He stands then, adjusting the front of his pants and offering his hand like we didn’t just spend the last ten minutes edging each other in a strip club.
I take it, legs shaky, heart pounding.
We hang the flyer on the way out, taped crooked to the doorframe like a dare.
And when we step back into the cold night air, I know exactly what’s waiting for me when we get home.
And I want it more than anything.