Prologue 

Laura 

 There are many things I have wished for in my life.  

I’ve always wanted to win the lottery. I think that at some point in their lives, everybody has. If you were to ask anyone on the street what they would do if they won a million dollars tomorrow, they would have an answer ready to go.  

I’ve always wanted to wake up one morning to find out that I’ve secretly been a princess my whole life with a kingdom to run and a bevy of hot men that want to carry me away from my otherwise mundane life. Who wouldn’t? That sort of money could change anybody’s life overnight, for better or worse. There had been times when I thought that I was willing to do or give anything to have access to that sort of funding.  

I guess I should have been more specific about the terms I was willing to agree to. Something with a little less danger, maybe, less threatening to my general health and mental stability.  

I guess it is exciting, though…having somebody so obsessed with me?  

A tremble tremor runs through my whole body as Pietro’s hand brushes softly down my cheek. It’s not an affectionate gesture, but something warm curls low in my belly. Pietro’s piercing eyes are trained on me – carefully monitoring every minute shift in my expression as he holds my face firmly in his other tattoo-covered hand. He knows how terrified I am….just as he knows how impossibly turned on I am by his authoritative tone.  

His thumb brushes across my bottom lip, feeling the full skin there. I try to pull away and wrench my face backward and away from him. He’s hurting me, and he knows it. He tightens his grip on my face as he pulls me closer. I can’t look away from his emotionless gray eyes. How can he still be ideally in control in a situation like this?  

I need to fight him. I need to hit him, kick him, or attempt to snap my head forward and bite him – that’s what a sane person would do in my situation. He must not think that I am a threat to him.  

I don’t care how badly I want him…. if he thinks that I will roll over and do what he says. I am not some meek girl who will cower and submissively obey him.  

I grind my teeth together and brace my hands against his chest. His eyebrow arches, waiting to see if I’ll manage to summon the strength to fight him. He wants me to fight him. The sick bastard probably gets off on it.  

“You belong to me now, Laura, and there’s nothing you can do to escape,” his voice is pure sex as it washes over me, the deep vibrations making my skin erupt in trails of goosebumps. The sensations culminate as it fans the flames of desire threatening to consume me.  

I scoff and try to appear braver than I feel. I don’t want him to think that I am intimidated by him or how wet his nearness makes me. One of my hands wraps around the wrist he uses to hold me. I know what is likely to come next. I try to keep him from shifting his hand lower as I push him away. How is he so damned strong?  

“So what? You think I’m scared of you?” I say as I force a laugh through my teeth.  

His hand drops from my jaw to clamp firmly around my neck. He moves so fluidly I didn’t have the chance to stop him, and he knows it.  

“But, out of curiosity,” I choke out while attempting to pluck his fingers from around my neck. “What…what would happen if I had managed to get away?” 

I quickly change tactics, grabbing his wrist as I try to pry his fingers off my neck, but it’s no use.  

He chuckles darkly, arrogance and controls practically ooze out of every pore as he yanks me closer to him until his lips are an inch from mine. I can smell the sweet almond scent on his breath from whatever he had been drinking earlier. I can only think about how badly I want to taste him. I want him to pull me closer so that I can wrap my legs around his waist, closing the distance between us. I want to lock our bodies together and ride him until I’m too exhausted to hate him.  

“You know the answer to that, Laura,” he says in his tightly controlled voice – my proximity is starting to get to him.  

His gaze drops to his fingers around my neck and then to the space where the thin strap of my camisole has slid down my shoulder; I probably look like a ravished mess. “If you try to run from me again, I will kill you. Not in a slow, merciful way, honey…I will kill you in every way that you have ever feared…I will draw it out again and again until you beg me to finish you off.” 

I will beg. I can’t stop the dark smile that spreads across my paling lips. I know it’s messed up that I instantly think of him forcing me to beg for something far more pleasurable than death. I know he’s telling the truth. I know he will have no mercy for me if I run away from him…or even attempt to. This is a warning, plain and simple.  

“That’s hardly the threat you think it is,” I gasp and manage to get my knee up between us and push with all of my might while I bring one arm up and over his arm so that he has no choice but to let go of his chokehold on me.  

I scamper a few paces away from him while rubbing my back and coughing. My lungs feel like fire, and I know that there will be nice aggressive bruises on my pale neck come nightfall.  

I force myself to stand up straight and meet his contemptuous gaze. It should be a crime to be that damned attractive. How can I hate somebody with every single part of my being…and want him so much at the same time?  

“We both know that I would be so much better off dead than in your hands.” 

Pietro straightens and rolls up his sleeves, his rage simmering into something so much colder. Terrifying. “Alright, honey. Have it your way.” 

Chapter One 

Laura 

Buzz, buzz.  

Buzz.! 

I can’t tell if the buzzing sound is inside or outside my head. Somewhere in the edges of my mind, I can tell that my cell phone is buzzing against my nightstand…or the floor. It’s buzzing against something solid, at least. Then again, it could be the vibrator that I was using right before I fell asleep…or was that yesterday? Everything has been blurring together this week. I am not the sort of girl who likes to admit when I might be in a little bit over my head…but this week? I am drowning.  

Every morning I wake up and tell myself, “One more night, then I’ll be free.” Just a little longer, and I will be able to take a very well-deserved break. I have one more tuition payment to make with a quickly approaching deadline. I’ve been working my ass off this week to reach my goal. I feel confident that I will get it so long as the money is the same tonight and tomorrow. It has to be. There is no other option. My arms feel like rocks, but I start to fumble blindly in the darkness of my tiny studio apartment for my cell phone. I hear the thing vibrate once more and then take a tumble sideways off of my nightstand to wedge itself between my small twin tiny and the nightstand.  

“Grand,” I mutter bitterly to myself as I stuff my arm into the space until my fingers slip off the corner of the phone, and the stupid thing goes skittering across the bedroom floor. “Shit shit shit,” I groan and try to push myself upward on the bed. I forgot to take off my work clothes last night before crashing. The insanely high heels that I dance in hit the floor awkwardly. My ankle rolls the moment I misjudge the depth of my step, and down I go – face first, right beside my phone.  

Thoroughly pissed off and sorer than I was, I clutch the phone to my chest and place my thumb on the fingerprint scanner. I hist at the brightness of my screen and recoil from the migraine-inducing light when I see the three missed calls and four text messages.  

‘Where are you?’ 

‘Are you almost here? I can’t wait around all day, you know.’ 

‘Okay…now you’re starting to piss me off, and I’m going to spit in your coffee.’ 

‘Five more minutes of ignoring me, Laura, and I’m calling and reporting you as a missing person….and spitting in your coffee.’ 

“Mmm, coffee,” I sigh, and the timestamps on the messages finally register. “Shit…I’m late…I’m so late.” adrenaline bursts through my chest, and I’m forced awake and into motion far too suddenly. It feels like I’ve been electrocuted.  

I move in an erratic pattern around my dorm room. I do not fully realize what I’m doing until my brain wakes up enough to register that I need to scrub all of this glitter off my face and get dressed into something that doesn’t have my small left breast out on full display.  

I start yanking the strappy top off, sliding out of the high-waisted thong-style underwear. I practically fall into the closet, but that turns out to be a good thing as it manages to snap the strap on my heel, helping me get out of them. I pull on clean boyshort underwear and some jogger-style sweatpants, slip into my sperrys and yank a t-shirt down over my torso at random. I grab my cross-body bag and fling it over my head as I dash into the bathroom to scrub wildly at my face.  

‘I’m coming, already on the way. You wouldn’t believe the traffic. Don’t worry, babes, not a statistic yet!’ I text my best friend Maxine quickly and brush my teeth before I dash out of my small apartment.  

When I get to the coffee shop that I was supposed to arrive at over thirty minutes ago, Maxine is nowhere to be found. My shoulders slump in disappointment.  

Maxine is too important to me to risk disappointing her. She shouldn’t have to wait on me. Besides, she just got back from her honeymoon, so it’s not like she doesn’t have a million and seven things that she needs to be doing right now. It was only because she’s a literal angel of a human that she was willing to wait around for me in the first place. I was looking forward to her telling me about all of the adventures she and Dalton had gotten into on their lavish island excursion. That is assuming they managed to make it out of the bedroom long enough to make it to the beaches.  

“About time you showed up.” Maxine’s voice comes from a table across the way.  

` I spin almost too quickly to see her. No wonder I didn’t recognize her. Usually a pale beauty, Maxine is tanned to golden perfection as she has lived on the beach for the last two weeks. She probably has. I make a happy squeal and run over to her. I know she’s not much of a hugger, but I can’t help it. I practically throw myself into her lap and wrap my arms around her.  

She’s the only person who has been able to put up with me constantly over the last three years. Now that we’re in our fourth and final year – I have no idea what I’m going to do once I graduate and don’t have a reason to bother her every day. Things have been so awkward since she left. Her new husband, Dalton, was one of my managers at the Leonessa club, and I like to credit myself in some small part for having set the pair of them up together. If I hadn’t gotten so sick that fateful night that MaxiMaxine offered to fill in for me, I would never have come across Dalton! I’m a firm believer in fate. Clearly, Maxine was precisely where she needed to be at the pretended to be there.  

“You look ah-may-zing!” I curl her hair around my fingers and don’t bother to remove myself from her lap as I grin at her. Something in my chest pulls as the burden of missing her lessons. Growing up, I never had any close female friends. Mostly because my mother never wanted to have anybody around that could be competition for her someday.  

Friendship with Maxie means the whole world to me.  

“Tell me everything! How was the honeymoon! How are things going with Dalton? Holy crap…look at your ring,” I push her torso from mine as I yank her hand into better view, turning it this way. I saw her engagement band before she left, but this is a whole other another you like it? I just got it back from the cleaners. All of the ocean water wasn’t awesome for it.” Maxine shrugs humbly. “I swear it still seems like it grows every that I look at it.” 

“At least you know that should things with you and Dalton go south, you can pawn it and run away to your private island somewhere and live comfortably for the rest of your life!” I grin and tap her softly on the nose. I slide sideways onto the chair beside her and sit with one foot up on the chair. I lean forward so that I can rest my head on my knee. “Did you spit in the coffee? I don’t think that I care; we’ve shared stranger things before, babe,” I shrug as I tease her.  

“Actually, I haven’t ordered yet. I figured you would be late, but I didn’t want to wake up your new roommate by just showing up with coffee in your room or anything.” 

 “Oh, no, roommate, feel free to stop by any time. I won’t ever say no to coffee,” I wave my hand dismissively. I hate that I have a reputation for being late. I used to blame it on being a night owl or stripping. Even if Maxie has always been sweet about it, it’s something I’ve been working on fixing about myself.  

I laugh a little too loudly and have to catch myself. If I don’t dial it back a little bit, she will know that I’m faking it. Maxine has the senses of a bloodhound when it comes to those sorts of things, and she doesn’t like to see I’m suffering. She’s a great person. She won’t let me struggle…but I can’t let her help me either. I’m not her problem anymore.  

“What do you mean no roommate?”  

She lifts a perfectly manicured eyebrow at me, and I can’t stop staring at how good she looks. Her tan, the glowing skin, her professional blowout…she went full Pretty Woman on me, and I can’t be anything but happy for her….and a little jealous, like 95% happy and 5 % jealous…most of the time.  

“Just haven’t found a girl that has stuck!”  

“I know how expensive it is to have a room all to yourself. I know how difficult those campus placements can be. Do they just have everybody already assigned…or?”  

Maxine presses good-naturedly and starts to wave for a barista to come over. Panic starts to set in. I don’t want to be that friend, but there is no way in hell that I can afford to buy coffee and breakfast right now. After work closes for the night, Buffet leftovers are just about the only food t can manage. Since Maxine left, things have been more challenging than I want her to know. 

“Well yeah, but I want somebody as awesome as you to replace you or no dice. They have sent over a few different girls, but they don’t ever seem to last long,” I laugh and shrug again. “Guess I’m just not as easy to love as I like to think!” 

“Laura!” Maxine cuts through my playful tone with one of seriousness. “You can’t just push them all away! What about the boyfriend? Is he still coming around? I know that it’s unorthodox, but maybe they would let you go the co-op way for the last semester or so?” 

“We broke up. I don’t wanna talk about it,” I look down at the table in front of me. The sting of everything is still fresh in my mind. I shift uncomfortably in my seat and hope that she is willing to take that as enough explanation. She had gotten along well enough with him at the time, so she might not drop the subject quickly. This isn’t how this reunion is supposed to be going. It’s supposed to be light-hearted and fun. We’re not even supposed to be talking about me at all.  

Maxine wants to ask what happened, but the barista interrupts.  

“Hey, ladies! What can I get for you?” 

“Another latte for me, please, caramel?” Maxine orders and then turns to me expectantly.  

“Water for me!” I know Maxine will question my order, but the water is free. “A slice of the blueberry loaf if you have it?” I know that they don’t. The barista shakes her head. “Damn, okay…hmm, the pretzel bagel?” I know that they don’t have that either, and she’s sad for me to the beautiful barista’s credit  nothing, st the water – thank you so much!” 

The barista walks away, and Maxine locks her best protective, worried ‘mom’ gaze onto me. “No coffee? Who are you, and what have you done with Laura?” 

“I’m a touch hungover this morning; the water is perfect. No worries,” I lie.  

“Why did you and boy- Markus break up?” 

“It’s not that serious. I guess he just wanted to find somebody that he t have to take care of or something. Found him cheating on me with one of his fellow med students, and that was that! No big deal, I’m used to it. He wasn’t that great in bed anyway,” I am doing everything in my power to make it sound like it doesn’t matter . to me 

“It’s for the best. Now I have no excuses but to focus on the study and the work thing and then with a little bit of luck I will be able to focus on the graduation and then…whatever else comes next.”  

I had thought that I was in love with him. Markus might not have been the most thrilling man. We certainly did not have much in common outside of the bedroom. But, he had been so in love with me (or so he said) that I thought when he made me lofty promises of our future together, he might sincerely mean them. I think, in part, I wanted a ticket out of this life. Something like what Maxine got. I should have known better.  

The barista comes back with Maxine’s coffee and my water and leaves. My mouth starts to water at the sight of her coffee. I had to skip out on the meal package because it was too much money. The powdered coffee cut the hunger for a while, but they started charging for that too. Bastards.  

“…Laura, coffee is on me. I am the one that invited you out here, after all. Please, order anything that you want. My treat.”  

Maxine is genuinely the sweetest person I have ever met in my horrible life… and I would never take advantage of her.  

“It feels like yesterday we were sitting on your bed counting our quarters for laundry, and now look at you. That stunning little sundress is designer something or another, isn’t it? Aren’t you glad that you went to the Leonessa now?” I wink and breeze right past her offer to buy me things. Thankfully, she drops it too.  

“No more talking about sad things!” I lift my glass of water to toast her coffee. We’re here to talk about her, and I want the distraction for a bit longer. I certainly need it. “To your honeymoon! Tell me everything.” 

Chapter Two 

Laura 

It would be a lie to say that coming to work after Maxine had such fantastic luck didn’t suck a little bit more than it used to. I have to remember the reasons that I started. I love dancing. I love being a stripper, and I sure as hell love working for the Leonessa club. Without the place, I certainly wouldn’t have the ability to pay for college. I would have had to drop out a long time ago, and I absolutely would be living on the streets under some bridge somewhere. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that going through all of this and enduring these struggles is for the greater good.  

During my entire childhood, my mother always told me that I would never amount to anything. She told me time and time again that I was going to be a stripper and live the rest of my days in and out of deadbeat boyfriends’ houses. To her, there was no higher place that I could achieve than the Kitty Kat club and all of the redneck scum that frequented it.  

That was her life.  

I made a vow at a very young age that I would never grow up to be my mother. I never wanted any of those things. I certainly didn’t want to be content living in a single-wide trailer in some RV park with a revolving door of boyfriends and baby daddies that I practically have to prostitute myself out to.  

On the days when I’m feeling down on myself, it’s easy to think that I have escaped one small-town life to trade it for an equally lousy version of that life here in the big city. Of course, that’s not true. I’m making a bigger, better future for myself. Some days it’s just harder to summon my inner girl boss than others.  

I’m super happy for Maxie and her new husband. Some people have all of the luck, and I am not one of them. My mother always said that if I didn’t learn how to control my loud mouth, then I was never going to go anywhere in life…and I am about one more verbal sparring away from negating all of the progress that I have made since I left her double-wide trailer home and conned my way to the city.  

Growing up in the sort of situations that my mother routinely put me in, my morals might not line up with many other peoples. Still, it also makes working here a hell of a lot easier given the shady business dealings that happen down in the basements that I’m not supposed to know about.  

“Laura? You’re up in ten!”  

Ismenia pops her head around the corner to the booth, where I’m getting ready to signal that it is time for me to finish setting my face. On any other night, stage work would be my favorite. I make the most money there while I’m shining, doing my thing…but tonight, it is harder to shake the exhaustion from my limbs and get myself up there where I need to be. I have a new dance that I’m supposed to be trying out, and I spent all weekend practicing it. I’ve been saving it all week for tonight, Friday night because that’s when all of the lawyers and higher-end clientele break out their wallets and let off steam from their long, hard weeks.  

I can’t get Maxine out of my head. She’s an inspiration to me. Somebody to look up to, she always has been. She’s the sort of friend who always has her head on right. I just don’t know how I’m supposed to go about doing it. The men that would offer me a path into that life don’t go for girls like me. They go for girls like Maxine, sweet and demure with that girl’s next-door vibe. I’ve always been a touch too loud and outspoken for a lot of men. They don’t know how to handle me. I’ve always wanted a strong man to take control. But I’m fine handling things myself until the unlikely time comes that I find one.  

Suck it up, buttercup. I think to myself. It doesn’t matter. Thinking about things like that isn’t going to help my tired ass get through tonight. I polish off the last of the coffee Maxine forced into my hand on the way out of the coffee shop and stand.  

I rotate in front of the mirror to see how the dress’s fabric that I’ve chosen tonight clings to my curves. I made sure to wear my most scandalous black strappy dress so that nobody would notice the wholesaler heels have a strap that has been glued back together. I pick up the closest perfume and spray away.  

I look passable…but the bags under my eyes are getting harder and harder to cake makeup onto. I give myself a bright, winning smile and grab for my things…but my bag is missing.  

Shit. Where is it?! I turn in a small circle, pushing the largely teased strawberry blonde curls away from my face and behind my shoulder as I look for the small hobo-style bag, I always carry to work every night. Without it, I don’t have anything to collect my tips. I know and trust almost all of the employees that doesn’t mean I would leave large stacks of cash lying around without clearly marking them as my own.  

Nobody else had been in here with me, had they? I can’t be that out of it. No. Absolutely not – oh, there on the floor by the door, it must have fallen off the peg. I bend down and scoop the fallen contents back into the bag and hope that later tonight, it’s going to be a hell of a lot heavier than it is now.  

“Five-minute warning!” they call around the corner to me.  

Room key, pack of gum, wallet…where’s my purse? No, no, no. I check the floor and under the bench, but it’s not there. I can’t go out on stage without my wallet! I have to find it!  

The door to the dressing room cracks open once more, and I can hear the sounds of my song intro starting up. Panic bubbles up the back of my throat. Dread and anxiety start to settle deeper as I frantically look for the wallet that isn’t there.  

Deep breaths, Laura, calm down. It’s not like there’s any money in there, just your I.D.  

I can go out without it, I guess. It’s not like there is anything that can be stolen…not really. Every last dollar and cent that I have made went straight to the tuition department like it always does. If I don’t make this song tonight for my long set, I’m not going to cover my last payment…the humiliation of being kicked out of college right before graduation? I can’t fathom it. I will have to find it after because there is no way that I can miss my song.  

I remove my small personal belongings and shove them into the closest wooden cubby beside the door. I wad up the rest of the bag I use to collect my tips into my hands and start to run out in the direction of the stage – and collide firmly with a huge, very sturdy man. His hands clamp onto my hips to keep me steady and keep me from falling over as I nearly bounce off him.  

Good going.  

Like a deer caught in headlights, I stare at him through my long stage lashes. For a moment, I’m transfixed by the strong cut of his jaw and the firm line his full lips are pulled into. The low club lights dance off of his skin and well-tailored suit. The man glares down at me with the coldest look that I have ever seen in my life. It doesn’t even occur to me to tell him that he’s not supposed to be back here, and I know everybody who works at the Leonessa club, so he’s absolutely not an employee here.  

“Sorry!” I blurt out of reflex. I don’t even try to pull out of his grasp right away, not until I get a better gauge of his temper and how this interaction will go.  

This man is devilishly handsome and looks like he’s walked out of a fantasy. He is tall and broad. I can tell that he’s well-muscled even through the suit that he’s wearing. If I wasn’t about to go on stage for my set right now, I might be thinking about trying to find a way to talk him right back into the dressing room. There are quite a few things that I could do to a man who looked like that for a few hours. Hell, even better of an idea, I might be able to talk him into accompanying me into the back rooms of the club. He looks like he can afford it easily.  

“Shit…I’m so so sorry…so sorry, I misplaced my wallet, I was looking for it…lost track of time, and now I have to get on stage…rushing around like an idiot. I’m so sorry…,” I ramble as my hands run down the man’s chest.  

His suit doesn’t appear wrinkled, and for a moment, he doesn’t do anything to attempt to stop my roaming hands either. He simply watches me with a grunt of disapproval…and doesn’t let go of my hips for anything. His hands are warm, the callouses catching on the blended fabric of my dress as I smile brightly.  

“There you are, good as new,” I wink for good measure…but it doesn’t do anything to crack into that touch exterior that he’s got going on.  

Slowly, his brow arches as he looks down at me. He removes one hand to dip into his back pocket and pulls up the exact thing I was looking for. “This wallet?” 

“Hey! My wallet!” I repeat with a happy chirp and move to reach for it, but he pulls it out of my reach. It’s not hard to do; the man is huge. The happy mask that I’m wearing slips a little.  

“I thought that it must belong to somebody who works here. You ought to be more careful with where you place your things…the barman didn’t even know who this was from your picture,” he flips open the wallet to show my driver’s license. “How do I know this is really  

“Well…they don’t let you wear wigs in the DMV pictures, and the picture was taken long ago,” I reach for the wallet again. “Hey man, you’re being really weird a wallet.” small red warning bells start to go off in my mind. I don’t know why he won’t give me back my property. Is he trying to get a reward or something? Like with most other things, I ignore them quickly and change tactics.  

“This is some ploy to get yourself a finders fee, isn’t it?” I shift my weight onto one hip and twirl a curl of hair around my finger as I bat my lashes up at him. Maybe he’s just looking to play the role that most men who come here assign dancers like me. I’m playing into what men stereotypically want me to act like while in the club. Pretty, overly interested, with the illusion of being easy. All oWe at the Leonessa are supposed to be walking, talking fantasies for the clientele.  

“You could have just said something. It’s not like giving you a free lap dance will be hard…,” I grin suggestively. “Or maybe it will be.” 

I thought that maybe that was what he was hoping for…but the idea seems to repulse him slightly. That hurts. The sting of rejection doesn’t usually hit that hard. I drop the act and look up at him expectantly. I wiggle my fingers to emphasize that I would like my property back. 

He finally pushes my wallet back in my direction, and I snatch it back to my chest.  

“Thank you anyway?” I try, but that doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on him either. What a strange, overly handsome man. He nods in my direction. 

“Laura!” Ismenia barks from down the hallway, and the sudden sound of her voice makes me jump on reflex.  

I whip around to see her waving at me frantically from the other end of the hall. I turn around to tell the man to thank you again and that I have to go… but he’s nowhere to be seen. How can a man like that move so quickly?  

“Girl, now!” Ismenia nearly shouts, and I take off running in her direction.  

I can’t risk putting myself on the shit list here. I need this job too much. I thrust my wallet at Ismenia without explanation while she fumbles to catch it as I sprint past her. I run as quickly as I can to the back of the main stage and slow to a walk right before I start to sway my hips and ascend the three steps onto the stage’s platform. The spotlight warms my tired skin, and the music kicks in.  

Showtime.  

This is the easy part. This is the part where I can pretend that in another life, I am a real dancer, maybe a ballerina somewhere up on a fancy stage where people pay hundreds of dollars for tickets to see my graceful moves alone. Up here, I can be anybody that I want to be, and everything else fades away.  

Nothing matters for the length of my song as I revel in the movements and focus on the fantastic things that my body is capable of. No men gawking at me, hoping to see something more than what they are paying for. No worries about food or how I’m going to make payments – just me and the music.  

Maybe it’s silly, but it’s my happy place. The stage is the place where I can allow the bright lights to make all of the rest of the world simply fade away until there is nothing else but the vibrations of the music and the movements of my body.  

I close my eyes and allow the feeling to consume me.  

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