3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I had no answer for my internal monologue as it sharply questioned my choice of action. I simply watched Cassie happily snatch the dollar bills that Tommy had extended to her and tuck them into the strings of her bottoms. She mouthed, ‘Thank you,' and the dialogue in my mind silenced itself.

Tommy laughed disbelievingly, shaking his head as he called to her, "Come back to me once he's done with you!"

She rolled her eyes, but her smile remained as she threw him a gentle wave, curling her fingers in his direction. Cassie grinned at Shawn, who had disbelief and glee written across his face, and as she strolled past me, she shot me a questioning glance. I didn't get a chance to respond—as I was sitting on the end of the booth, Cassie had whipped herself around it to stand behind me, a hand grazing my chest as she moved.

She leaned down, whispering in my ear, "Fancy seeing you here. "

Vanilla. She was so close to me that I could smell some kind of vanilla-scented shampoo that lingered in her hair. God dammit.

All I could think to reply with was a softly chastising, "I thought you were an accountant."

"And I thought you had perfect eyesight, yet here we are," she teased me, grabbed my glasses on either side of my face, and pushed them up so they sat on top of my head.

"Astigmatism," I clarified. "I use them for driving at night and computer glare— ah!" I audibly gasped as Cassie's nails raked gently from my chest down to my ribs. "Fuck, I'm ticklish-don't-do-that, Cas."

She laughed, and her breath ran over my neck. "You learn something new every day."

"Feeling like you're avoiding the topic at hand," I retorted quietly. "You work here?"

"Yeah…Liam doesn't know I'm a stripper," she stated plainly. "And I'd rather that he continues not knowing this tidbit about my life, if you know what I'm getting at."

"Mum's the word."

Cassie pushed on either of my shoulders, standing up straight, and spun around the edge of the booth to face me. Without hesitation, she placed a knee on either side of my thighs, her hair brushing against my shirt as she looked down at me .

Her hips rotated above my crotch, and I swallowed through a large lump in my throat . "You don't have to actually give me a dance."

We both continued to speak to each other in hushed tones, our conversation a private one not to be heard by others.

She cocked her head to the side. "It is my job—if I don't dance, I get reamed," she admitted in a mockingly dramatic tone. "There are cameras everywhere. Boss-man is always watching. So…I could make my way back to your friend who paid me, or…"

"Not my friend," I muttered back. "Was just trying to save you from him being an obnoxious ass."

"Ah, chivalry isn't dead, then," she murmured, and I couldn't help but let out a soft breath of a laugh through my nose. "So— dance? Or no dance?"

I considered the sight of her writhing on top of Tommy for less than a second.

"Stay."

Her smile was blinding, as usual. "'Kay." Cassie then rocked herself above me. I glanced down to witness the glory that is her body, squeezed my eyes shut for one tight blink, and she noted, "You could at least pretend like you're enjoying yourself, though. Put your hands on my ass. "

If my mouth hadn't been stripped dry by this interaction, I would have choked.

"What?"

She laughed. "You look like you're in pain. Don't be so stiff. Just imagine I'm someone else."

"Fuck, that's impossible…I thought we weren't supposed to touch the dancers?"

Cassie grabbed my empty beer out of my right hand and glanced at Shawn, who had scooted down several feet to give us a wide berth.

She asked him, "Can you hold this for your friend?"

"Yes!" Shawn grabbed it from her almost immediately, his amused eyes twinkling at the sight before him.

Cassie stated, "Gas Lamp is dancer's choice as long as it's not too groping," and grasped both of my wrists. She placed the palms of my hands on either side of her hips, the glowing strings to the bikini bottom and the dollars tucked away there grazing my thumbs. Her skin was soft on my fingers, and I couldn't stop myself from giving the area a generous squeeze.

"There you go," she crooned.

Her tone—her confidence —tempted me. Called to me on a level that made excitement thrum through my veins—attempted to force the fa?ade of my disinterest in her to fall the wayside as she was inviting me in. The feeling was dangerous, and I wanted with everything in me to fall right into it. To say that, fuck, I was in Rome—and I was to do as the Romans do and allow myself to relish in the feeling of her body on mine for as long as she would remain here.

Cassie's eyes sparkled as she rose up on her knees, brushing the tip of her nose up the side of my face until the fabric of her top was staring at me. The small, gentle curves of her breasts were but an inch away from my mouth, the freckled makeup spatters on her chest shining in the blacklight, and I had the burning urge to bite at the string that held the bottom of the two triangles of material together. Her hands tangled in the hair on the back of my scalp, pulling to angle my face up to hers, and any joking disposition that she had fell away. Cassie looked down at me; her hair shielded us from the world like a curtain, and suddenly, we were in a universe that was all our own. The movement of her hips stopped, her fingers flexed at the roots of my scalp, and her doe eyes turned serious. Our breaths mingled together within the confines of her beautiful, dark tresses, and it was there.

A connection.

A locking of eyes that felt as though it were tying me to the ground itself .

I had felt it before—not with Cassie, until just now—with other women in the past. It would have typically sent my heart racing, I'd yearn to deepen it all with the seal of a kiss or the clashing of our bodies, and I'd fall. Hard and quick. That was how it always happened for me when I'd feel… this. I hadn't experienced it in a long while—years, probably—but the connection I had with Cassie at this instant didn't send me reaching for the stars as it usually did. Instead, because of the boundaries I had set for myself combined with the raging sexual tension that I constantly experienced with her, it brought me some sort of twisted grief that I couldn't come to terms with, and I needed it to end.

Now.

My voice was hoarse as I said, "Get off me, Cas."

"What?" she whispered. "Why? I haven't finished. We've got more time in the song—"

"I don't want it. You're right—this is painful," I gruffly stated and quickly lied, "I don't want you on me. I shouldn't have even spoken up before. I wish you didn't fucking work here. Please fucking get off of me."

Cassie blinked rapidly. Her prior confidence—the one that she always wore—wavered, and my stomach sank because it wasn't my intention to be a gigantic asshole. I didn't mean to curse at her in an odd tone that made me sound as if I were being actively burned. It all just…fell out of me…and if there were any opportunity for me to pick it all up and shove it back in my mouth, I would have.

Her eyes darted away from mine. " Shit, um, sorry."

"Cassie—"

Cassie flipped her hair back, exposing us both once more, and her demeanor immediately shifted. She wore a soft smile, but her eyes had hardened—she traced her fingers down my chest, but she was stiff.

"If it looks like we're arguing, you'll get escorted out," she muttered with a brief flash of her teeth.

"I don't want to argue."

She returned sharply, "Then don't."

Her hands left me, she shifted slightly to gracefully move her body off of mine, and I couldn't stop— wouldn't have stopped even if I had the ability to do so. One of my hands whipped out to grab her wrist, and though she halted her actions and smiled down at me with what would have been a smoldering, enticing expression, all I could see in her gaze was…sadness. And that hit me right in the gut.

"I didn't mean it like that," I said just loud enough for only Cassie to hear. "I'm sorry."

Cassie pulled her wrist from mine in a subtle act that came across as her coyly waving me goodbye, and she stood .

As if our interaction had never happened, she strolled away from me casually, and I stared blankly as she sauntered her way over to Tommy. Though comical to note that his teeth—which I had no doubt were cheap veneers—were glowing light purple under the blacklight, any trace of humor I could have had regarding that was whisked away. Cassie had bent at the hips slightly, placed a hand on Tommy's chest, and he tipped his head so far back that his sunglasses looked to the ceiling. Her touch traced its way up to his neck, and she spun to face away from him.

Our eyes locked, and for just a moment, I saw her anger. Her hurt at my unnecessarily harsh words. The expression washed off of her face, replaced with a mask of general seduction, and she lowered herself to brush the back of her body against his. My jaw clenched as I watched her. Watched her angle her face to his and whisper something in his ear. Watched her hips circle to the left and right on top of him. Watched his hands reach for her, find her ribcage, and squeeze.

He wandered, one hand up to her right breast and the other down to her left hip, and I felt my gaze widen, focused on his touch on her chest. Cassie's free hand flashed out to remove his hand from where I was glaring. She placed it pointedly against her other hip and continued on. One sashay to the right, one sashay to the left, and the grip that she had moved was gliding from her hip down to her inner thigh. It grazed along the seam of her bottoms on her crotch, and I was certain that my nostrils flared with the jagged breath that I took at the sight.

Cassie mouthed what I could barely make out as, ‘Stop,' Tommy's fingers flexed into her skin, and the metaphorical colored tinge of my sight shifted rapidly from green to red.

Jealousy foregone, I could feel blood boil through my veins as Cassie's seductive little smile was wiped from her lips and replaced with annoyance. She grabbed at each of his hands, pushing them aside as she clearly was moving to make her way away from him, and he wrapped around her tighter. One grip back on her top, his other arm reached across her lap and pulled her onto his.

"Tommy, she said stop," Shawn called to him, but it didn't appear to reach his ears.

Cassie tried to scramble to her feet, having toppled off of them and onto Tommy, and she chastised him in words that I couldn't hear. She twisted her body sharply away from his hand on her chest, his grasp on the fabric remained strong, and her breast was exposed as it was yanked aside.

"Tommy!" Shawn yelled this time, and by the time his name left his mouth, I was standing .

I rushed to them in a matter of two steps, grabbed his fingers that were touching her, and yanked, twisting them backward with enough force for the digits to touch the tops of his hands. I heard multiple satisfying cracks, and Tommy responded angrily:

"AH, the fuck is your problem, Turner?!"

I grabbed Cassie by her upper arms and pulled her to stand.

"Jay," she spoke to me in a warning as she gathered her balance, quickly adjusting her top. I ushered her behind me, ignoring her call of my name.

I leaned down to Tommy's eye level. "She said fucking STOP!"

It came out in a scream that reverberated through my vocal cords, and before I could say—or do— anything else, I felt her hand on my shoulder.

"Jay—" Her words to me were cut off short, and she spoke to someone else, "Where the fuck were you?!"

I stood straight, staring at Tommy with an unspoken, ‘Don't move.' It didn't appear that he was intending to at any time soon, though, for he was grimacing at his fingers that looked to be immobile. A man replied to Cassie from my right.

"I was helping Skylar," he noted. "We good? "

"No," she retorted angrily, "we are not good, Trevor." I saw her throw a hand toward Tommy in my peripheral vision. "Fucker yanked my tit out."

Tommy grumbled, "We were gonna see them eventually—"

I couldn't stop myself from saying, "Tommy, I will fuck you up."

"James," Cassie admonished me.

"Alright, alright," the man, who I assumed was a bouncer, spoke again, and I glanced his way to see a bald man around my height and approximately one hundred pounds heavier than me. He held up a hand at us all. "No fights, guys—time to go."

"Yup," I replied quickly. "Let's get out of here—Shawn?"

"Uh huh," he immediately returned, pushing himself to his feet. "Leaving. Got it."

"Don't leave. You're my ride," Tommy complained.

"You're getting kicked out, guy," Trevor, the bouncer, told him plainly.

Shawn scoffed at Tommy. "I'm not your ride anymore. You can get yourself back to wherever you're going. Jay—leaving? "

He clapped me on the shoulder, and I huffed out a breath. "Yeah, ah…" I looked at Cassie, and she muttered a forcedly casual:

"See you 'round, Jay."

I pressed my lips together tightly, and nodded. "Bye, Cas."

Shawn and I walked on without a look back at Tommy, I genuinely hoped that Trevor would throw him out the back door and break his sunglasses in the process, and we shoved past the men who crowded the various other dancing stages as we made our way out of the establishment the exact way we came in.

The moment that we hit the chilly air of the outdoors, Shawn asked, "What the fuck just happened?"

"A lot," I replied succinctly. "I'm gonna find a way to get Tommy fucking fired." I pointed at Shawn accusatorily as our steps took us into the parking lot. "You had to take his suggestion. It had to be a strip club. It had to be fucking this one—"

"Okay, let's back up," Shawn interjected with a hand held up. "First off, I heard Tommy's fingers crack—if he comes to work with casts on his hands, he could say that you assaulted him. I'm with you. I'll fill out paperwork vouching for whatever you say, but getting him fired may be out of the realm of possibility with whatever you were planning since he's injured."

"I don't fuckin' care," I griped. "I'll make something else up. Management likes me. Whose side are they really gonna be on?"

"That aside," Shawn continued, "who was that stripper?"

"Dancer," I corrected him.

"Dancer. Who was that dancer?"

"Ah." I glanced at him, saw that he was looking at me with raised eyebrows, and I spoke as if it were a question, "I don't know?"

"She knew your name," he remarked. "Had a little private conversation with you before she got off of you just as quick as she had hopped on. Called you Jay, not James—several times. You called her Cas."

"We exchanged names when she jumped on my lap and started grinding on me," I lied in a bitterly sarcastic tone. "Jay's a common nickname for people whose names start with," I gasped dramatically, "the letter J."

"Come on, man."

I groaned loudly, slowing my steps as I arrived at my car. When I turned to face Shawn and realized that he had no intention of letting down, I rattled off :

"My brother's girlfriend's old roommate? We had a… thing… a very brief thing a few months back."

"Uh huh," Shawn replied hesitantly. "You told me about her—Zoey, yeah?"

"Yeah. We called it quits; you know that. She's dating someone new— that guy's little sister? Is Cassie." I threw a hand back toward the building. "Dancer Cassie."

His eyebrows pinched together. "Oh. Are, uh—you guys even close?"

"Yeah." I immediately corrected myself with, "No," and then stammered, "It—it's complicated. I don't fuckin' know."

"From the look on your face earlier, you didn't know she worked here?" Shawn guessed.

I laughed sardonically. "No, I didn't know! I wouldn't have come near the place with a fifty-foot-fucking- pole if I knew that!"

His head tipped to the side. "You have a problem with her being a stripper?"

"Dancer," I corrected him for the second time.

"Dancer."

I sighed. "I—no?"

Shawn smiled. "You don't seem very confident in that answer."

"I'm not. "

"What's the deal, Jay?" He asked and waited for me to respond. I couldn't find it in me to do so, and he finally deduced, "Oh, you're into her."

I rested my backside against the tailgate of my car. "She's driving me fucking insane."

"It would appear so." Shawn leaned in a similar fashion on my vehicle to my left.

I glanced at him. "I was a dick to her earlier."

Shawn's head bobbed backward. "You ripped Tommy's hands off of her, and it did not look like she wanted them there. How's that being a dick?"

Of course, he hadn't heard our quiet exchange. Between our hushed voices and the loud music around us, our conversation had fallen on lost ears.

"No, no… before that. She was on top of me, and it was all…I don't know… intense for a second…and I snapped at her."

"Snapped at her?"

"JAMES!"

I closed my eyes and sighed. "Shit."

I glanced toward the source of my shrieked name and saw Cassie walking toward the both of us with intent. An oversized black hoodie swallowed her, hanging down to her upper thigh. Flimsy sweat shorts just barely poked out from the hem of it, the sky-blue material blowing in the light breeze with every step she took. Her heels were gone, replaced with her usual black high-tops, which were absolutely stomping their way to us. Arms crossed over her chest and eyes narrowed in an accusatory stare, it was all too apparent that she was pissed.

Shawn had pushed himself to stand, but he remained stuck in place as he watched her approach me with wide eyes and a high brow.

I asked, "Why are you out here, Cas?"

"Why am I here?" she retorted as she stopped her steps in front of me, hands now on her hips. "The fuck do you mean why am I here? Why did you come here?"

Her outright anger made me initially stammer, "I—um—Brooks—"

"I dragged him out," Shawn quickly spoke. "He didn't even want to—"

Cassie held out a hand, palm facing outward to him. "You seem nice. You do, so…y'know, don't take this the wrong way, but shut your trap. Give us a minute."

"Easy, Cas," I attempted to assuage her, but she steamrolled on.

"Don't easy Cas me," she snapped, her squinting eyes now locked on me and bringing my attention to her makeup. The once glow-in-the-dark freckles were a light blue without the help of a blacklight, and I couldn't stop my gaze from tracing each one of them. "That was fucking. Mortifying. James."

Her admonishment hit me in the gut. "Cassie, I'm—"

I intended to apologize, but she interjected with a single index finger in the air, "No, no— I'm talking now. You show up to my work. You ask for a dance. You asked for it, Jay. I start to give you one...you freak the fuck out, tell me to stop, and fuckin' berate me for doing it in the first place. You tell me you wish I didn't work here." The hurt leaked into her voice at the last sentence, and she paused before sneering, "Is that what you wanted? Was that your plan? You find out I'm a stripper and show up to my work just to embarrass the shit out of me?"

"No," I replied, aghast. "God, no—I had no idea you worked here at all; I didn't mean to…" I thought back to how I had spoken to her earlier and exhaled heavily. "I didn't mean to be such a dick, Cas. I'm sorry."

"If you're gonna go all protective brother on me and get pissed over what I do for work, then don't ask me for a goddamn dance!"

Protective brother?

I blinked at the phrasing, allowing it to settle over me, and heard it once more in my mind.

Protective. Brother .

It forced my spine to straighten, and my tone dipped down deep as I questioned aloud, "Protective brother?"

Shawn, who had slowly backed away from our conversation yet was still watching from several feet away, muttered to himself, "Oh, boy."

"Yeah," Cassie returned sharply, "if I wanted that, I would have told Liam what I do for a living. And I'm glad ya cared enough to be bothered about the jackwagon that kept feeling me up, but—"

"But there are bouncers for that?" I interjected with grit in my voice. "Ones that were moving way too slowly, and I caused a scene? Yeah, I'm aware that I caused a scene, but it was not because I was feeling fucking brotherly." Her big, doe eyes blinked slowly while she took in my statement, and the words that were on the tip of my tongue fell right out of me. "And I could show you exactly what I mean by that. I could make how I feel about you as clear as crystal, Cassie, but I'm not—"

"How you feel about me?"

The sentence could have been interpreted in several different ways when I spoke it, but my tone—my tone held an undercurrent of emotion that couldn't be misconstrued. My chest panged as the sentiment between lust and adoration hung in the air between us, but it appeared that Cassie had thoroughly missed the memo. Her reiteration of my blurted words was sneered in the same fashion as the rest of her side of the conversation, and I looked upwards as I questioned what to say.

Shawn called out, "Jay! Come on."

He stood three cars away by a small, red hatchback—a vehicle that I most definitely knew was not his—and his eyes were wide and disbelieving as he stared at me with a look that screamed, ‘The hell are you doing, Turner? Fess up.'

"Brooks," I warned him, "now is not the time. Stop eavesdropping; I'll see you at work on Monday."

He rolled his eyes so hard that his head followed them. "James."

I bit out, "Shawn!"

Shawn nearly flinched at my yell of his name, and I saw his shoulders sag. "Fine, man—Monday."

He began to walk away, and Cassie complained, "So, you're just being a dick to everyone right now, or what?"

I spoke to the sky, "No! I'm trying here, Jesus!"

"Trying to be nice?" She asked with a cock of her head. "Well, you're doing a shit job at that…if you just flat out dislike me, then say it."

"No!" I groaned. "I don't dislike you, Cas. But fuck, it would be easier if I did. "

She squinted at me. "What…what in the world does that mean?"

I shook my head. "Nothing. I'm being a dick—just take that at face value."

"I'm not just gonna say, ‘Oh, well…Jay's being an asshole. That tracks!'" Cassie scoffed. "That doesn't track for me because you're not. So…unless something else crawled up your ass and died, and you're deciding to take it out on me for some reason, that leaves me with me being the problem."

"Okay, fine. It's you."

Her brow pinched together as if she hadn't heard me clearly, and she laughed a quiet, "What?"

"I said, ‘It's you,'" I repeated bluntly, and her face fell. "It's you that gets under my goddamn skin. There is no other explanation. It. Is. You. And I don't want to get into it because this conversation won't end well. It just won't. So, please, just…go back to work."

She uttered, "James."

"I can't do this anymore, Cassie!" I snapped. "Go back to fucking work!"

I didn't even get a chance to catch her expression to my outburst. Cassie's hair fanned out behind her as she spun on her heel and stormed her way back into the club.

My stomach twisted as I watched her walk away .

I went too far. Way too far. The aggravation of constantly having to hold my tongue around her had caught up to me, and it was no excuse. But that, combined with her sheer presence, the pull she had on me that I had to continually deny, and her questioning my behavior…it was too much, and I broke.

Maybe I was just a dick.

With that thought and a crushing weight of guilt, I began to make my way home. My thoughts swarmed me as I drove, and I made no effort to ward them away. The radio remained off, and I allowed the berating within me to continue, the silent punishment of myself one that I knew was warranted. I was unable to escape it—the scene of me cursing at her simply played over and over until I began to feel as though my self-retribution had left me battered and bruised.