“Damn it all.” Sean gripped the table, looking ready to combust. “This three minutes is taking for fucking ever.”
Thorpe couldn’t agree more. “It will end.” It had to.
But would it before they lost their minds? He wasn’t sure about that, especially when the shirt slipped from the crooks of her elbows and onto the buckled stage, leaving her top half clad in nothing but a nearly sheer lace bra. When she turned back to the audience, there was no mistaking the pinkish cast of her plump nipples.
Callie arched her back, running her palms down her breasts, over her flat belly, then pressed her fingers toward her pussy. The audience started whooping at decibels near frat-party levels. Thorpe began to sweat. Jesus, he knew what her sweet pussy tasted like, and his mouth watered for another chance to make a meal out of her. Of course, every man in this room wanted that opportunity. One started pounding on the stage. Others joined in, slamming the wooden surface to the beat of the music, demanding more of her.
Fuck, this was getting out of control, and it took everything Thorpe had to stay in his seat.
A man in a cheap suit with a pimp moustache and a shaved head crowded closer. He thought he was the shit, clearly. With a confident leer, he leaned across the corner of the stage, holding up a hundred-dollar bill. He said something to Callie that Thorpe couldn’t hear over the music. Her eyes widened. More disquiet filled her face, but she danced in the dude’s direction.
With a shimmy, she lifted her skirt in front of him and circled her hips, spinning around until she backed up to him. Then she crouched, wiggling her ass seductively in his face. Her eyes slid shut. To anyone who didn’t know her, she might look as if she were in the midst of passion, but Thorpe saw differently. He had no doubt her skin was crawling and she was barely resisting the urge to run like hell.
Just because she wasn’t enjoying herself, however, didn’t mean she was going to escape punishment. She had a protector and a Dom, both of whom would do anything to help her. Had she trusted either of them? No. She’d just left. Sean, he sort of understood. Hell, Thorpe hadn’t trusted the man himself until . . . what? Maybe yesterday. Or the day before. His days were running together. But Callie had known him for four fucking years. In all that time, she hadn’t learned that he cared, that he would do anything to help her?
She was damn well going to learn now.
Obviously, she had panicked. He understood that—to a point. But he refused to accept excuses from Callie. She was going to learn to rely on the men who loved her. Whatever happened next, whether he never got to lay another hand on her after her punishment tonight, he would teach her once and for all to look to him if she ever found herself in trouble again.
The slime ball with the skinny black tie and the C-note in his hand shoved the bill into the back of her thong—then copped a long caress of her ass. With the other hand, he brushed his way up her thigh, looking at her like she was a particularly prime cut of filet.
Thorpe felt steam coming from his ears and fucking lost it.
As he jumped to his feet, Sean was right beside him, fists clenched. Thorpe kicked his chair out of the way and prowled toward Callie, shoulder to shoulder with the other man.
Callie leaned away from the letch feeling her up, cringing back. Trying to cover her reaction, she sent the man a little smile over her shoulder, then danced away. Thorpe felt his fists tighten with the need to beat the fucker to death.
Sean was faster, grabbing the son of a bitch by the back of the neck and snarling something in his ear. The thug tried to fight back, but the fed proved himself all kind of badass, blocking the guy’s every move, then slamming the creep face-first onto a nearby post. Thorpe raced over, more than happy to help. He was gratified when Sean yanked the skunk back to reveal a broken, bleeding nose. In fact, he hoped Sean had done permanent damage to the asshole for daring to touch Callie.
Frantically Thorpe looked for her again. And he found her, damn it. Her trim back and undulating spine told him she now courted the men on the other side of the room, still holding her skirt up and wriggling her hips until a few more men shoved more bills in the string of her thong. They howled as she enticed them, and more guys approached the stage with money in fists, just wanting the chance to get close to Callie.
While Thorpe had been distracted by her, Sean and the letch got into a scuffle. Apparently, the fed had been busier watching Callie than the greaseball’s elbow to his gut. As Sean grunted and dodged the guy’s flailing fists, Thorpe approached. So did the bouncer.
“No fighting,” he shouted over the music. “Take it outside.”
“Yeah, get your fucking hands off me, prick!” said cheap suit. “I gave the pretty slut some money. So what?”
Oh, that was it. Doms sometimes called their submissives “slut,” but as a form of endearment, however odd that seemed to others. Not everyone understood, but that was true of the whole lifestyle. Even if he would never call Callie his slut, no other random dick was going to malign the girl when he didn’t know her at all and had no idea how far from the truth that was.
“Don’t touch her again.” Sean looked ready to kill.
“Get over it,” the lowlife ranted on. “You don’t own her.
“Actually,” Sean tossed back, “I do.”
Thorpe threw a punch, hitting the fuckwad square in the jaw and sending him reeling to the ground with the force of the blow, out cold. The bouncer turned to him with a menacing glare and reached to throw him out the door.
Fuck, he should have held his temper. He couldn’t afford to get tossed out.
Thorpe turned back to Callie. She whipped her gaze in his direction to decipher the commotion. Their gazes connected, and electricity fired his veins. Shock widened her eyes and bleached the color from her cheeks. Then her gaze zipped over to Sean. She gasped as if she’d seen a ghost.
Despite the fact that she hadn’t finished her number and the music still played, she turned and darted for the curtain and the back of the club.
The bouncer rightly put keeping the talent working above restraining a few guys from fighting, so he ran after Callie, catching her in his beefy grip just before she could slip backstage.
She struggled and cursed, demanding to be let free as the crowd collectively booed her retreat.
“Show us your tits!” repeated a man in the front row with a one-track mind.
The bouncer dragged Callie back toward mid-stage, then stood between her and the curtain. “Finish your damn number or Marty is gonna fire your ass.”
Predictably, the moment the big beefcake released her, she made another run for it, this time darting for the stairs that led to the club floor. She valued her freedom way more than this piss-ass job.
But Thorpe was one step ahead of her. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, blocking her exit off the stage. And in those shoes, jumping down five feet to the ground would be impossible.
They had her surrounded.
Sean quickly assessed the situation, then leapt onto the stage and reached into his pocket to flash his badge to the hunk of beefcake. “FBI. Unless you want trouble, give the girl to me.”
The big guy stiffened as the music screeched to a stop, his eyes narrowing as he took in Sean, then his badge. He stepped back and tossed his hands in the air. “We just hired her, man. We don’t want any trouble. Take her.”
Callie tossed Sean a defiant glower and over the din of the crowd, she warned, “You stay away from me.”
“Not going to happen, lovely.” The words were a vow, spoken as Sean prowled closer, but his expression was pure warning. He meant to assert his will.