Chapter 5 - L.A Strip
I pulled my mouth from hers.
Lily kept her tongue against mine for one last filthy second, refusing to give up the kiss until she decided it was done. That was my wife all over. Jealous enough to fire grown men in my own club, bold enough to test me after I had already put her in her place.
When I stepped back, her blouse hung open and her breasts were soft and exposed. She watched my eyes drop. She wanted that. She always wanted to know she still owned my attention.
My boys would be back soon. Tedros, Abel, Reza, Darryl. Men she had thrown out again because some bottle girl smiled too long. I had a few minutes before they returned to the second floor.
A few minutes to get my wife ready for them.
I slid my hand down her body and pushed it under her skirt.
Her thighs parted before I told them to. That pleased me. Lily’s mouth stayed proud, but her body knew the truth faster than her temper did.
I found the thin red fabric between her legs, pinched it at her slit, and pulled it to one side until the soft folds underneath spread against my fingers. She drew in through her nose and pressed closer, her hips chasing the pressure.
“Still mad at me?” I asked.
Her eyes narrowed. “You’d like that.”
I tugged the fabric the other way, making her feel the pull where she was already wet enough to ruin it.
Her hand went straight into my pants and closed around my cock with that possessive little grip.
She stroked me slow at first, thumb working under the head, then firmer when I did not give her the reaction she wanted.
“You’re real calm for a man whose wife just fired his whole crew,” she said.
I caught one breast in my hand and squeezed until the tease left her voice.
“I’m calm because you’re going to fix it.”
Her lips parted. She liked the sound of that more than she wanted to admit.
I pushed her toward the center of the room. She took two quick steps in her heels to keep her balance, then turned to face me. Her arms dropped to her sides. Her blouse had fallen open so far it looked less like clothing and more like evidence.
“Strip,” I said.
Her finger touched her lower lip. A grin started there, small and wicked.
“You want me naked before they walk back in?”
“I said strip.”
She held my stare for another beat, still trying to make it her show. Then she lifted her chin.
“Say it like you mean it, Haile.”
I took one step toward her. “Now.”
That did it.
Her shoulders squared. The grin stayed, but her eyes changed.
The game narrowed. She pulled one sleeve off, then the other, making me wait just long enough to earn another warning.
The blouse came over her head in a slow drag that lifted her breasts before freeing them.
She twisted the fabric once around her hand and sent it sailing toward the corner like she was throwing away every woman downstairs who had ever looked at me too long.
“There,” she said. “Happy?”
“Keep going.”
Her nipple tightened under her circling fingertip.
She played with it for me, watching my face, then slapped her breasts with both hands hard enough to make them bounce.
It was not some club routine she had learned.
It was Lily being Lily, bratty and gorgeous, showing me she still believed she had the right to start wars over my attention.
She blew me a kiss.
I did not catch it.
Her back arched as she reached for the skirt. She turned before she pulled it down, giving me the full view of her ass while she worked the fabric over her hips. Slow and mean. Her hands slowed at her hips.
I looked past her to the club below.
The Cherry Room was packed wall to wall with people who had paid or lied their way through my door.
Women leaned across velvet booths with champagne flutes in their hands.
Men at the bar looked up between conversations, scanning the second-floor glass like they might catch a glimpse of power.
From down there, the tint hid her skin and gave them only a silhouette.
Long hair. Curved waist. Bare ass bending in my VIP room.
They would not know it was Lily Rose Getachew.
“Look down,” I said.
She glanced over her shoulder first, checking me, then turned her face toward the glass. Her hands paused at the skirt bunched around her thighs.
“They can see me?” she asked.
“They can see enough.”
Her throat moved. The skirt slid lower.
“Good,” she said.
That was the turn. Pride still had her spine straight, but nerves had found her hands.
She stepped out of the skirt with care, one heel and then the other, and stood in the red string bottoms I had bought her.
One finger hooked the strap at her hip. Her eyes came back to mine in a question she did not speak.
“Everything.”
She nodded once. No argument.
Lily bent deep at the waist. The bottoms traveled down her thighs, dragged tight for a second under the curve of her ass, then slipped past her knees.
She lifted each foot without catching the lace on her heels.
When she straightened, the red string hung from two fingers before she dropped it on top of the skirt.
Her hand went to the ankle strap of one heel.
“Leave those on.”
She lifted her head while still bent, looking at me through her hair.
I let my eyes run down the line of her legs. “This looks sexier. And I want you to look your best for the entertainment.”
Her fingers left the strap.
“Yes,” she said.
She rose to her full height in the heels, naked in the center of the room, with the curved couch behind her and the club underneath her.
Her hands did not cover anything. She set them at her sides, then widened her stance a little, giving me the view and giving the glass her outline.
She widened her stance and held my eyes.
The bass pushed through the floor. She felt it. I saw it in the tiny adjustment of her knees, the way she held herself still instead of fidgeting.
I checked my watch.
Minutes.
Her eyes followed the motion of my wrist. “They’re close.”
“They are.”
“You really want them seeing me like this?”
“I want them seeing who you belong to before they touch what I allow.”
Her mouth opened, then closed around whatever sharp thing she had ready. The bite of her bottom lip gave her away. She was scared enough to feel it now. Excited enough to stay exactly where I put her.
I crossed to the counter.
I opened the drawer beside the ice bucket and cut crystal glasses and took out the rope. Lily knew it as soon as she saw my hand close around it. Her shoulders drew back. She did not step away.
The rope landed against my palm with a short slap.
I walked back slow enough for her to think about every inch of it.
She looked at the rope, then at me.
“Haile.”
I stopped in front of her. “You done firing my people?”
Her jaw tightened. “You done letting those girls paw at you?”
I leaned close enough that she had to look up. “I have never touched one of them.”
“I know.”
“Say it like you believe it.”
Her eyes shone, angry at herself for needing the words. “You’re loyal to me.”
“That’s right.”
The rope dragged lightly over my fingers. “Now show me you trust me.”
She swallowed and lifted her arms before I gave the order.
I let the silence hold her there for one beat.
“Wrists crossed.”
Lily smiled then, smaller than before and twice as real. She crossed one wrist over the other and offered them to me, steady in the space between us, like a woman ready to be cuffed.