2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Lucy...Present Day

"A nd then what happened?" I ask, leisurely taking Aaron Dwyer's dick out of my mouth and running my tongue up the bottom of it. I look at him with doe eyes, hopeful he'll finish the rest of his story. At least I'm entertained when I suck him off.

Aaron runs his hands through my long, auburn hair and gathers it at the top, holding it and thrusting a little into my face. He inhales and tilts his head back on the couch. He really shouldn't do that. No telling how many greasy, bald heads have been on that upholstery tonight and sweating all over it while they get their balls licked.

"That's the end of the story, Lucy," he whispers. The sound is husky, a cross between a moan and a sigh. I love the sound of his voice, even after all these years. "The guy was dead. Throat slit. No forced entry. No motive. Ex-wife is across the country with an alibi. No friends he owed money to. No wives he slept with that we can find." He swirls his hips and looks back down, his eyebrows furrowed. "Why are you so interested?"

I smile at him and bat my eyelashes as I flick my tongue over the head of his cock. "Do you know why I love sucking your dick, Aaron?"

"It's your comfort dick since you've been sucking on it for close to fifteen years?" he says, smiling that damn grin that lights up a room. The dimple in the middle of his chin pops out.

"Funny," I say, taking a long, slow bob down his cock and pulling off again with a popping noise. "There were several years when your dick was nowhere near my mouth or any other part of my body."

He's not wrong about the on-and-off dick sucking. Aaron Dwyer was my high school boyfriend. We broke up when we went to separate colleges. He met his wife. I met my dirtbag ex-husband because I was depressed when I broke up with Aaron. I moved to nearby Chicago, and Aaron stayed in our large suburb and had two kids with his wife. He had the perfect house with the picket fence, kids, and even the golden retriever.

Perfect until his wife died of a congenital heart issue a year ago, that is.

Me? I had other things happen. Things that weren't so perfect – a push down the stairs or a black eye when dinner wasn't on the table when Beck got home. There was no use explaining to my husband that he didn't let me know when he was coming home. How could I possibly know, down to the minute, when he would walk through the door? I'd get a slap across the face if I made a wrong joke at a party, and I'd get a kick to the ribs if I didn't have the dutiful housewife smile on my face at all times.

He had clients to impress, and he did that by letting them fuck me while he held me down.

Nice guy.

I learned to fight back, but the YMCA self-defense course only went so far. I left when I could, hiding with friends until I needed to go home for something I owned. That was back when I still had friends and before he scared them off. Then, he was waiting for me with a glare and a punch to the back or a kick to the ribs. When I fought back, blocking his punches like they taught us, it only angered him more and made it worse. A broken arm once. Six stitches where he ran a knife down my ribcage, and I told the hospital I ran into a door. I soon learned it was better if I played possum and stayed on the floor after the initial hit. If I was compliant and took my beating, he'd leave me alone faster. I switched up my workout routine to increase my core strength so I was better conditioned to survive a swift kick to a body part. How fucked up is that? Most women work out to maintain a certain weight or even feel comfortable in their own skin.

I worked out to condition my body to have my ass kicked.

Every. Fucking. Day.

I eventually started tracking his phone without him knowing and was able to whip something up for dinner if I saw him leave the office. I knew when he was looking for me if he was driving around my friends' neighborhoods. I knew he followed me to the grocery store, probably worried that a produce guy or cashier would hit on me.

Unfortunately, I also saw him go over to Ellen Quarry's house after work more than once. He was fucking her. It was obvious. I couldn't ask the produce manager about banana prices, but he could shag his coworker's wife.

"Speaking of your other body parts, can you pull the top down? Or does that cost extra?" Aaron asks. I know he's joking with me by the smile on his face. He forgets that I know him better than I ever knew my husband.

"You're a fucking pig, Aaron," I say, taking his cock into my mouth again and sucking on it like it's lifeblood. I guess it is since I'm in deep with paying for my own place now and owing the mafia.

A stripper can't be too choosy, and there are worse dicks to suck in this joint if my mouth wasn't spoken for by the dick I'm more than familiar with. Sure, I don't have to suck dick. I could just work the pole. The difference between the two jobs in this joint is that one gets singles stuffed in the G-string. The other gets hundred-dollar bills stuck to your face with cum afterward.

Truth be told, I sigh with relief when Aaron walks into the joint. It's not just the fact that he keeps me from having to blow or dance for other men, and it's not just that he would never disrespect me by sticking a bill to my face.

I miss his hands on me. His mouth. He's the only client I'd ever kiss if we could get away with it. It's hilarious that the club lets me suck a dick for extra cash if we're in the VIP room, but I can't give the man I still love deep down a goodnight kiss at the front door.

I let him touch me while I go down on him. Most men have to keep their arms on the top of the couch. But Aaron's hands are free to roam wherever they want.

And his fingers enjoy roaming to my face, trailing a finger up my jaw, and swiping my hair back like he did before cheerleading practice years ago.

"If it's any consolation, sweetheart, you're the only woman who really knows how to suck me off," he moans, leaning forward a little and stroking the hair he was just fisting. He could be leaning to speak to me so Sheri, if that's her real name, won't hear our business as she blows another customer in the next cubicle. More than likely, he's just reaching for my tits.

I huff and pull my halter tank top down, letting him palm my breasts while I suck him. "You want a tit jack?"

He laughs and a bit of spit lands on my cheek. I used to kiss this man every moment I could, so it doesn't bother me the way it would if another man's spit landed on my face. "Blow jobs are better. Everyone knows that."

Aaron tweaks my nipples, and I yelp with the exquisite pleasure of it. Fuck this man and his memories of just what I like. He knows exactly what to do to drive me insane. My body hums under his hands, and I suck harder on his cock, using my tongue on the spot just under the head that drives him bonkers.

"Fuck, Lucy," he grunts. He grips my face along my jawline and bucks into my mouth.

I move to his balls, pulling the left one in my mouth and humming around it as I look up at him, watching his expression. I will always love his face right before he comes. He's a lip chewer. He gnaws at his lips and moves his mouth in a circle when he's close.

He throws his head back again as his chest heaves. He's still wearing his work uniform, but his three bottom shirt buttons are undone, revealing a happy trail I'd idly lick if he wasn't paying me to focus on his dick and balls.

He slouches in the seat and pulls his pants further down so I can really get after his balls or even lick that spot just under them I know he likes. "Anyone going to come in?"

"No. Even if they did, is anyone going to cause a ruckus with the sheriff if I'm not kicking up drama?"

He laughs, and I've missed the sound of his chuckle. It's low. It reminds me of the way he used to growl when I did something really naughty or when he'd chase me and throw me onto the bed before kissing every inch of me.

I push his thighs further apart and tongue the head of his dick. "Tell me how the victim was murdered. I'm curious."

"You're a ghoul. You know that, right?"

I bite my lip and wink before lifting his leg a little and sucking his left ball again. He reaches for his knees and pulls them to his chest into an unholy position a pillar of the community would never want to be caught in, especially inside a strip club. That's a headline from hell.

"Indulge me, Aaron," I drawl. "I'm curious. Besides, it's not like anyone in the press will talk to a stripper."

It only takes one flick of my tongue over his taint spot and up his sack before my ex-boyfriend sings like a fucking canary.

George Cannon. Age fifty-two. Divorced. No kids. His dog was well-fed and even given fresh water by the attacker. Aaron thinks that's odd. After all, why would a murderer give the dog water? Cannon was tortured before his throat was slit. Rope burns were found on the man's wrists, indicating forced restraint while the attacker carved his arms and torso apart. The initial forensics say the man's fingers were removed one by one before death. There were no signs of forced entry, so he knew the attacker.

"Right fucking there," Aaron moans, breaking me out of thoughts of his latest murder case. His thighs tremble on either side of my head, and he adjusts his grip on his knees. He pulls himself wider and allows a whine to come from his throat with little concern for an audience.

"I know, Aaron," I coo into the center of him. "I know how to do this for you."

My hand moves to his cock, and it takes two jerks before a warm spray of cum coats the webbing between my thumb and index finger. I drag my tongue up his balls and over my hand. Opening my mouth, I show him what I just picked up off my skin and swallow it with a smile.

He bites his lip and looks at me with kinder eyes than I deserve, still panting from his orgasm. He laughs a little and bends to situate his pants into a decent position as I stand and pull my halter top down. I watch him dress while I take a swig of water from a bottle on a nearby table and marvel that this is probably the millionth time I've seen this man pull up his pants. It's hard not to admire the sculpted biceps and the wide shoulders I used to wrap my legs around. They're wider now. He lifts more than he did when we dated.

Then again, he's different now. His hair is darker, if that's even possible, and it curls at the nape of his neck. There's a lock of hair that curls at his temple, and I itch to lick my fingers and push it back. His jaw is more defined, and there's a new scar at the top of his forehead. You have to be close to see it, and it's small, but I wonder if he got that from police work. There's so much I missed of his life in the last decade, and it seems a pipe dream that I'll ever be close enough to Aaron Dwyer again so I can learn how he got it.

"Same time next week?" he asks when his pants are buckled. The static from his police radio crackles through the low beat of the music being played for whatever girl is on the pole downstairs.

Aaron's been here twice a week since I moved back and started stripping. I have no idea how he found out I work here because Peter said Aaron never came to the club before. He was an upstanding city leader and a widower before I got this job and dragged him down to my depravity. But he was here the second week of work with a smile on his face, dollars in his pocket, and lust in his eyes.

I swallow the water and push a lock of hair back from my face. "Of course. But I'll charge you double for the ball play and the taint spot lick next time. Don't make me tell Peter."

I'm only joking. I have no desire to tell Peter I'm licking the sheriff's balls. There are just certain things you don't talk about with your cousin.

Aaron's already paid me and tipped me an extra fifty bucks, but he throws down an extra twenty-dollar bill on the cushion he just vacated like he's tipping the sofa. He looks at the floor, but I know his face. He's sad.

"Thanks, Lucy. Always a pleasure to catch up with you."

I don't take it right away. I won't give him the satisfaction of seeing me lurch for money from my high school boyfriend like a starving person served the first meal they've seen in weeks. I won't dare grab that twenty while Aaron watches. I'd rather die than show him my desperation.

"Don't call me that here. I don't call you Sheriff Dwyer when I suck your dick."

"To be fair, you didn't call me Sheriff Dwyer when you sucked my dick a long time ago."

"Well, you weren't the county sheriff then, were you?" I ask with a grin.

He smiles back and reaches out his index finger, tilting my chin up so I can't look away. "What should I call you when I come to see you, Lucy?"

"You need to call me by my stage name, especially if you ask for me. Peter will know, but the other girls won't know me by my real name. I don't want random guys to overhear it, either."

His face softens, and I know that look. Protective. He doesn't like me working here, and he doesn't want other men to know my name. "What's your stage name?" he asks.

"Copper. You need to call me Copper here."