Chapter 6
HATCH
Ishoulder check him hard as I move past him, not wasting another second as I weave through the club. When I get up to the stage, I shove in between two drunk guys on stools.
“Hey man, watch it,” one slurs, looking at me cross-eyed through a fish mask—
—I grab him by the collar and slam him onto the stage, bashing his head into one of the hot lights beaming on Lucy and burning his eye socket with the bulb, exploding blood out like a burnt, popped grape—
The clack of heels high up in the air shocks me out of my daydream, and I blink.
The guy’s not even looking at me anymore, cheering on something on the ceiling.
Shit. What the fuck was that? I usually have better control over my little psychotic reveries, but since I realized Lucy was right here, I haven’t been able to get control over anything it seems.
Another clack gets my attention, and my gaze snaps up to find the object of my murderous protection holding on to the pole with just one armpit. That’s all she’s using as her legs circle in the air like hands on a clock then she hits her heels together again inches away from the ceiling.
My heart leaps to my throat, strangling the yelp of fear on my tongue. I’ve been to plenty of clubs and seen plenty of performances, and I’ve never once been scared to death over the other person’s safety. Guess there’s a first time for everything.
Fingers sweating, I grip the golden railing that lines the stage, holding onto it like a life raft as she acts like the death-defying feats she’s performing are just another day at the office. Which… okay, yeah, they are, but I sure as fuck don’t have to be happy about it.
Totally unaware of me, or that she’s giving me a heart attack, she grins coyly at no one and everyone, undulating against the chrome while unraveling the bow at the back of her corset.
It’s the last of the ribbons holding it together, and the whole thing pops.
She catches it in an exaggerated movement that looks like she’s clutching pearls to her chest, as though the whole ploy wasn’t on purpose.
The mock horror melts the shocked “O” on her face into something soft.
She bites her lip, looking around like she’s letting us all in on a secret she’s too shy to share.
Her stomach and spine roll as she lies back—upside down—until her head rests against the pole.
The beat crescendos and she rips the corset off, leaving her in only a thin, white pushup bra, all but useless since the red heart pasties covering her nipples show right through the fabric.
She lets the corset hang, elongating her body against the length of the pole.
From her tight thigh grip to the tip of the corset, her lithe form takes up half the pole—
—then she drops.
It happens so fast I don’t have time to react. But as quickly as she dives, she saves herself from splatting onto the stage like a bug on a windshield with a squeeze of her thighs and a smile.
Another cheer ripples through the crowd of men, cheering and tossing money. Meanwhile I’m still frozen mid-reach, a statue of the fool who thought he had the power to rescue her.
She lays her hands flat on the stage, softly landing in a handstand, then kicks off the pole to land in something I’m pretty sure one of my little cousins on the coast called a back walkover.
The cheering is all but deafening as she twirls on her heeled-toes at a speed that rips her white petticoat away, uncovering a white thong with a red heart resting between the Venus dimples above her pert ass.
Fuuuck meee. That’s sexy.
I shouldn’t be getting turned on, not over someone who can never be mine—in any sense. But I’ve never been this hard in my fucking life.
I don’t know how much more I can take of this dance. My dick is so hard it could break granite, and I’m sweating from nerves. If this doesn’t end soon, it’ll be a toss-up between coming in my pants or having a heart attack.
She lands like I’ve seen her do thousands of times in hundreds of performances, confidently with one foot out.
But then she slowly strides the stage in a sultry circle, scanning each of us, playing the game.
Her full lips are quirked in a flirtatious smile, but her shoulders are tense, and her lashes lower as she squints at each of the onlookers’ faces in the bright light.
Is she… looking for someone? Or maybe this is part of the act? Pretending like she’s searching for the perfect lucky bastard to give a lap dance? Whatever it is, her playful seduction is all but gone.
“Oh, looks like Alice is ready to eat one of you up, gentlemen,” the DJ croons and my heartbeat kicks up. “Who will it be, Alice? Still want a Frog in your throat?”
Her smile tightens as the crowd laughs and jeers, and my lips curl in disgust. And yet, at the same time, I’m a goddamn bastard because need floods my veins.
Even if I didn’t want to save her from Frog, the thought of her dancing for any one of these assholes has me wanting to jump on this stage, haul her over my shoulder, and carry her all the way back to Appalachia.
“Last call gentlemen before Alice picks which one of you to drink.”
Bills shoot up into the air while every man tries to entice her his way. Judging by the smirk on Frog’s face as he sits across from me like a king in his own right, he thinks he’s got this in the bag, not doing a damn thing but puffing on his hookah. Cheap-ass motherfucker.
It takes me a second to realize she’s slowing to a stop in front of a guy two stools down wearing a bowler hat and a bronze, steampunk style mask that looks sort of like mine.
He’s holding three twenties over the stage with one hand and his jean-clad cock not-so-subtly in the other.
Bending at the waist, she shows off her taut, muscled thighs and the curve of her ass.
Then she smiles and acts out stroking his masked cheek with the back of her hand but not actually touching him.
“Oh, ho, ho… do we have a winner, Alice?”
Wait… shit.
The guy in the steampunk mask beams up at her, and everyone groans their disappointment, making the DJ laugh outright over the deep bass of the house music.
“Well, you gotta make a better offer then. Alice is a hot commodity at The Rabbit Hole.”
“Fuck that! She’s mine!” Frog shouts over the steady beat of the music, making her jump. “Tell ’em!” He glares up at the skybox—up at Castle.
That spurs me into action. I’d almost forgotten why I was here, entranced by Lucy as she blatantly picks someone who isn’t me right in front of my eyes.
I wanted to make sure Frog doesn’t win, but…
fuck, I don’t want the guy smiling at her like she hung the moon to get a dance with her either.
And if Frog actually can get Castle to step in, we’ll all lose—Lucy the most.
The DJ chuckles nervously, “Uh, come on, Frog. You know the rules. You gotta make it worth her while—”
I snatch everything out of my wallet without looking and hold them up so they appear in her periphery. The movement catches her eye and her gaze darts from the hundreds in my fingers, down my arm, and landing on my face.
Time. Stops.
That was supposed to be a metaphor, but I swear everyone in my periphery freezes while my vision tunnels onto her.
My grip tightens on the railing like a life raft, but the rushing sound of my pulse fills my head like water, muffling sound.
The metal under my palm vibrates from the bass I can’t hear, dragging my heartbeat under until I can barely breathe from the pressure.
I don’t know what the hell is going on, only that something in my chest is trying to claw its way out to get to her. My vision has blurred on everything but her, my hearing’s gone to shit, and yet underneath it all is… calm.
What the fuck?
All my focus is solely on her, and everything I’ve been burying for six months claws its way to the surface—the need to go to her, to be the only one in this room she sees, to be at her every beck and call.
Oh, and to murder every son of a bitch thinking they have the right to look at her right now.
I’m not normally a jealous bastard, but if she asked me to, I’d happily paint this stage in the dark red blood of any man who’s ever even given her the time of day. Hell, I can feel the smile splitting my lips thinking about it.
Goddammit.
I’ve felt this once. The night Lucy and I danced before everything went to shit. I’d smiled for real, then, for the first time in nearly a decade. Not the fuck-all-y’all smirk that I usually wear, but something pure and… hopeful.
This is what the “Fury peace” feels like—the curse King says every Fury suffers when we meet our soulmate.
Of course, he doesn’t call it a curse. Or suffering.
He and Orion say it’s salvation, the only thing that’ll bring the calm to the furious storms that rage in our bloodline.
I didn’t believe in it at first, but I saw them succumb to the madness.
It makes sense that the universe would give us something to balance out the death that flows in our veins—I mean, we’re born with birthmarks that look like literal skulls, for Christ’s sake.
But that night I thought she might could very well be mine after all. Watching her now, knowing different… fuck, “peace” feels more like beautiful, delicious, agonizing torture.
As she looks me over, her breasts catch mid-rise in a sharp inhale, lips parted in surprise.
Does she feel it too? Are our pulses syncing?
Does she sense the air growing taut between us?
I almost believe it, until her eyes roam over my mask.
Something like recognition sparks there, and cold dread flushes through my veins, freezing the desire flooding through me.
Does she… does she know who I am?
That’s impossible. Right? The Furys have made painstaking efforts to keep a low profile, carefully staying off social media.
Every news article, arrest, death—none of it exists digitally after it’s published.
Yes, our feud is more infamous than the Hatfield and McCoys, which means Dash can’t stop reporters from obsessing over Wilde-Fury exposés.
But as soon as they appear online, my brother expunges them from existence.
We don’t exist. And the last time she saw me, I wore a masquerade mask and a suit that covered my tattoos instead of my leather jacket.
Still, did I blow my cover?
No, I don’t think so. Something about the way she nibbles her pouty lip with curiosity makes me suspect otherwise.
Her eyes dart between me and the scrawny guy with the similar mask one final time, like she’s literally measuring him up. After the slowest beat of a song, she shakes her head at him with an apologetic smile and leaves him sputtering his disappointment into the loud music.
The DJ says something I couldn’t be fucked to listen to as she zeroes all her attention on my face.
Then, ignoring the money confetti littering the stage like a millionaire’s birthday party, she kneels on all fours and… Crawls. To. Me.
My mouth waters as I follow the seductive sway of her hips and the way her tits all but spill out of her bra. She stops in front of me, becoming all I can see, and I try to swallow but a whisper escapes instead.
“Goddamn, you’re perfect.”
Her gaze drops to read my lips, and her cheeks, already flushed from exertion, somehow get rosier.
A small, shy smile that I’m pretty sure isn’t fake spreads across her face.
Then she swings her legs around and over the golden railing, spreading them slightly and giving me the perfect view of the apex of her thighs.
My free hand clenches the railing to keep from touching her, and my other fists the hundreds I used to get her attention.
But it’s almost like she doesn’t give a shit about the money as she leans in past it.
Her unique cherry scent that I’ve only smelled once before wafts over me.
I inhale deep as she cups my bare jaw and asks a breath away from my lips.
“You want a dance, Hatter?”