Chapter Four

Soldier is appropriate. My body is at war with my mind. My brain sets fire to my legs, and my skin strangles my throat. I must move or scream.

But it's not my teaser night. So, I wait in the man cave, irritating Dex, who's sits in a sexy police costume and studies a textbook on finance, because he has a future.

It's a tough crowd—for Teddy. He doesn't know how to work a room. I hover waiting for Jamie's cue, hiding in the shadows when I'm dying to shine. Then I step too far.

And there he is. At the bar. Leaning on his elbow, chatting with Jude, whiskey sour in his gloved hand, angled toward the stage, his eyes on Teddy. Jealousy mixes poorly with my superior sex appeal. Damn it. Let's show some restraint.

I burst out of the dressing room.

Dex slams his book shut, then he realizes. "Ted's got another two minutes."

I pass the bouncer. Then Jamie—because they are an angel of improv—brings the lights up on the cave. The crowd notices and cheers loudly reacting purely to my moves and confidence. I ignore the path of Jamie's lights and saunter toward the bar.

Such a bad idea.

Dex hurries out to take the path through the crowd to the stage. Jamie moves fast to cue the bar lights. Jude desperately makes room, waving at customers to grab their plates, and running a dry rag over the shining surface.

Three people scrambling to keep up with my bullshit.

The bar's crowded, wet, and sticky. Food isn't supposed to be served when there's going to be a dance. But as I swing up in my soldier costume and my rainbow-colored combat boots, I don't give a fuck. Neither do the customers. They might have to hold their drinks, but there's Chard Stagger in the flesh dancing around their abandoned French fries. Everyone goes apeshit.

Everyone, of course, except Laur. He looks furious.

But he's looking at me.

My camouflage shorts are stuffed with cash by the time I reach his end of the bar. His face is stoic, unamused when I crouch in front of him, putting my cock level with his pockmarked face and swiveling further down.

Someone slaps my ass and I give him enough attention to warrant the twenty he stuffs in my shorts. Then I turn back to Laur and tease him with the cock end again.

Jude, pissed as she must be with me, can't help but laugh at her friend's predicament.

"Come on, Laur, don't make him beg," Jude says in her MC voice.

Laur smiles—at Jude, not at me—and reaches into his pocket and pulls out a single.

I drop to my knees, absolutely begging, grinding in the air too close on the cramped bar. He slips the bill in my shorts, not through the waist, but through the leg, sliding his hand up my thigh and pushing up until the bill pokes out the top of my shorts again.

Jude says over the thrilled squeals of the crowd. "That's inappropriate, Larry. I might have to throw you out."

"Meh, I outrank you."

"It's my damn bar!"

Of course! He's a soldier. Jesus fuck, I'm a moron.

****

Back in the man cave after the teaser, Dex gives me a glare that could make an intern cry then grabs his backpack and beats it downstairs into the revue. Teddy lingers like a puppy that's been kicked in the nuts and Jude stands by the kitchen door, arms crossed, like she's not done kicking.

I offer Teddy the jar full of cash Jamie gave me. "Sorry about crashing your number, man. Take my share of the tips."

He doesn't take the cash. "I will, thanks. But Jude told us about … special attention for a veteran, that was … he must have had a hell of a time. I'm glad you were here tonight to do it."

It's exactly the kind of shit that would soothe things over with the other Cuties.

Thank you, Jude.

"He usually sits at the high-top," I say by way of explanation and push the cash at him again. "Take it. Because of the surprise. Split it with Dex too, so he'll talk to me again someday."

Ted chuckles and finally takes the cash, then shrinks and flees downstairs. Not stripper energy.

Jude clears her throat and gestures with her head to the alley door.

Fuck, oh, fuck.

I follow her into the cool night air. My gut roils with shame, even through the beat of adrenaline. I have to focus, to look contrite, to not run away. He might already be on his way upstairs .

"Chard, I can't believe I had to leave the bar for this shit. A minute forty early, crashing the new guy's number, and you jump on a full bar."

"I got carried away. It won't—"

"It better not," she interrupts. "There are rules for a reason, Chard. Common courtesy to your fellow performers."

"I made it up to…" I can tell I missed her point and shut up.

"How about food and health regulations? Safety regulations? If you tripped on a piece of ice or we had a health inspector in…"

She doesn't like my eye roll either.

"Hey! This is my operation. I don't wanna get shut down because you can't control yourself. Just because you're my top earner does not mean you can walk all over the other Cuties or that you can break the rules."

This is going to haunt the fuck out of you once you come down.

" Chard, you're great ninety percent of the time."

Try to remember she said that too.

"But you've got to get a handle on that other ten percent or take the night off when I give you the chance. I don't want to fire you."

My earnest nod doesn't placate her, but she needs to get back to the bar. And I need to get upstairs. Facedown. Ass up. Wearing a blindfold and handcuffs and nothing else. To be in my bed where he expects me.

****

Time and I have never been on speaking terms, but now it seems to be moving slowly on purpose. It's a particular kind of torture, asking me to hold a pose. Especially when I'm alone in the room.

I shift into a different pose, legs spread wider. Handcuffs a little higher.

Maybe he won't come. Maybe the soldier costume…

Why hadn't I realized that immediately?

Pissed him off. Maybe Jude told him how I'd endangered her business and he went home to punish me.

Maybe not even two minutes have passed and the chemicals in your brain are misfiring?

No. He's doing it on purpose.

Something shuffles in the room. I turn toward the sound, but thanks to the blindfold I see nothing. There's no other sound. I must have imagined it. I would hear the door open when he came in. Even with the nightclub in full swing, that door creaks like hell.

Then the scuff of a boot dragging. If he is here, it's uncanny how quietly he moves.

"Laur?"

I actively resist pulling off the blindfold. This is a test and I'm determined to wait him out. He already has too much power over my mind and imagination.

A hand brushes my hair and he asks, "So, tell me what's in the pillbox?"

"Jesus Christ, man!"

How had he not only crossed the room, but nosed around in my bathroom without me being certain he was there?

Laur chuckles and puts a hand on the back of my neck. I keep the pose, forehead pressed to the pillows. It's his left hand, an infinitely comforting grip. "Is it catching or a heart condition?"

"Oh … no. Uh, not like that." Probably not wise to talk about this in detail yet, but how did I avoid—

"Glad to hear." His right hand trips over my spine. "So, when I fuck you, it won't kill you?"

My cock twitches violently from where it's squeezed between my knees.

"Oh, I forgot." The humor, the comfort vanishes from his voice. "You only want blowjobs from me, isn't that right?"

He's never gonna let that go.

He slaps my ass and commands. "Turn on your back."

I twist my arms so I can flip over and breathe in the darkness of the blindfold.

He trips his fingers around my nipples. His hand is cold and slightly damp. "Full disclosure. I was already in the apartment."

"W-what?"

"Saw my buddy talking to you in the alley. Seemed like a pretty important conversation, so I kept heading up the stairs and invited myself in."

Hadn't I locked the door? Did he know how to pick a lock?

"I figured the fake plant was there for a reason."

To hide my spare key. Right.

How had I not noticed him? I lived in a studio. I had taken a shower! Where had he been hiding? What had he been doing?

Something crunches and the sound terrifies me. Like bones or stone grinding together.

The hell is going on?

Then Laur's mouth surrounds my cock, just the head. This time it's not maddening. This time it really is torture. I'm so hard, so hot, so ready for him and the thing he'd crunched … ice.

"Fuckin' Hell!"

He sucks more of my cock into his throat and rolls the ice shards around my shaft while I writhe. They melt fast and my cock throbs harder. He attacks my dick with the same ferocity he had the last time and it's not long before I squirm. I don't want to come too soon … again.

"Laur ... don't spoil me too much. I'd like to fuck you this time."

His mouth pulls away from my cock slowly. I can feel the disdain. "Presumptuous little shit."

I smile innocently. "It's my charm and good looks. I get away with everything."

He smacks my thigh. The sharp slap rings in my ears and on my skin. "I'll make a deal with you. I'm gonna fuck you."

He pushes at my hips and I roll back to where I started, facedown, ass up.

What's the rest of the deal?

"If you can hold off until I've had my fill of this ass." He grips my cheeks with both hands and fails to jiggle the solid muscles. "Then I'll let you fuck me."

"That's not very fair." I curl my legs closer to my chest to offer him better access.

"Fair? I don't believe in fair." Something cold and wet presses against my pucker and just as I'm catching up to his games, he's stuffed a whole ice cube into my ass. I flail from the shock until he grabs my hair and pins my face to the pillow.

"Stay down."

I whimper at his domination. Not that I'd never been domed before, it's a mainstay in the revue, but he's so good at it.

"Who would have thought a built guy like you would be so damned tender?"

I dare to lift my head to speak. "I don't suppose it matters, but it's been maybe ten years since anyone has played around with my ass."

That's probably a lie. I did a lot of stupid things before I stopped drinking and I don't remember them all. Probably been more like two years. But when he starts squeezing at my cheeks now wet with the cold water…

"I feel so privileged." He nudges my legs wider, then kneels between my thighs. "Practically a virgin, then. Should I go slow and gentle?"

"Please?" I'm relieved he cares.

He shoves another ice cube into my ass, neither slow nor gentle. This time I grit my teeth and refuse to squirm.

Laur is amused. "Fast learner?"

I try to agree, but the sound is much more wavering than I intend. I clench my hole tight to stop from dripping.

Laur drizzles a piece of ice over my back, letting the heat of my skin melt it and making my skin flinch and dance from the chill. The puddle catches in the indent of my spine until I arch my back like a cat and it rolls down my sides.

The man hisses, appreciating the sight. One finger of his right hand teases the edge of my pucker, poised to penetrate. "Guess how many more of these I have?"

"I don't know and I don't care."

In his left hand, he cradles one of the ice cubes and rubs it over my nipples and then down my stomach. "This might even up the deal. Get you some of that fairness."

I know what's coming, but my body still roars in protest when his hand and the ice cube crush around my cock. The softness of his fingers. The unyielding chill of the ice. My poor dick is in completely alien territory and doesn't know if it hates or really likes what's happening. I sob and grind my head into the pillows unable to understand or deal with the roiling lust.

When I'm nothing more than throbbing heat, damp chilled skin, and the panting beat of my heart, he announces, "That was the last one."

"Oh, good." I relax a little.

He takes advantage to shove another in my ass.

"Fucking Christ, Laur!" A well-timed cheer from the nightclub below swallows my shout.

"Should I fuck you now?" Laur runs his fingers, wet and cold, across my lips and I suck the chilled water off the tips. "Or is that unfair?"

"Give it to me. I can take it."

He whistles appreciatively. "Good answer, kid. You were born to be broken."

Then he disappears.

There's nothing but the pulse and beat of the nightclub, the wet sheets between my knees, the chill in my ass, and the throbbing of my tortured cock. I stay perfectly still, straining to hear.

He left. You won't believe it for another ten minutes. So you'll stay here like a total loser, handcuffed and blindfolded, with ice melting in your ass and your cock hard as hell because you're a broken shell of a man who nobody will ever love.

Plastic crinkles behind me. Oh, a condom. How thoughtful.

That's the only warning I get before he sinks his cock to the hilt. His sharp tool squeezes the cold water out and pushes what had not melted deeper. I howl from the chill and the pain.

Not thoughtful!

"Fuck, that's a tight ass," he growls in my ear, crouched behind me, like a demented goblin riding my back, controlling my every movement with the jerk of his cock. "I did not know that about you, Stagger."

I gasp for breath, fighting through the pain and into pleasure. "I don't give it up to every man who slips a dollar in my shorts, you know."

He makes a disbelieving "meh" sound. Then hammers me with such ferocity that for a moment I think maybe I can outlast him. Maybe he'll get carried away and come first. He won't honor any deal he's made, but I can make him. Grab him by the shoulders and pin him to the floor. Use actual lube, like a fucking gentleman.

"Every time I've watched you shake that ass in a man's face, I imagined him fucking you. Even before you deigned to speak to me." He wraps his arm around my throat, choking me.

When I panic, he switches tactic immediately, releasing my throat and gripping my shoulder hard to keep me down. I fucking love that. He holds his weight over me and I can feel the missing digits, the surprising sharpness of knuckle bones too close to the skin.

"The way you spread your legs on stage and offer it up like that. Had no idea this piece of meat was just for me."

Yes. Just for him.

He slaps my ass and fucks harder and the cheap handcuffs clatter together.

"You know the worst part of a striptease?"

I moan in answer, past the point where I could say anything more complicated than "please" or "slower" or "fuck me."

"These boys get you so hot and bothered, and I bet not one of them has the goddamn common courtesy to give you a reach-around." He takes my cock in his left hand.

The mere presence of his fingers makes me croon with delight and sends a surge of lust to my cock. He strokes as hard as he fucks, and I have no defense against him. No hope of holding out.

"But you know what, Chard?" he coos in my ear. "Next time I see you strut across that stage and hump some drunk bitch, I'll remember."

He slaps my ass with his right hand. "Just for me."

I pant my agreement. So close. Hovering on the brink of total sexual annihilation.

"Say it."

"Just for you," I promise in a desperate pant, and with that for a cue, my cock twitches and releases. It douses the bedsheet and happens so fast and so powerfully, I'm briefly lightheaded. I marvel that no one below had any concept of the ecstasy happening over their heads.

"Yeah, go on and come, you little bitch. You don't get to fuck me." Laur growls and pumps my cock in the same brutal rhythm he pounds my ass, not relenting an inch just because I've surrendered to my pleasure.

Just when I was worried he'd rub my ass and shaft raw, he pulls out. I hear the shuffle of his boots, the ragged exhale, the snap of a condom. I stay down, overwhelmed by the force of my orgasm, dripping and weak in the knees. He grunts and his cum splatters on my back.

I'm not certain I like this. Like the faceless bottom in a porno. Not a person.

"Good job, slut, I had fun, I guess." He slaps my ass one last time.

I definitely don't like the sound that escapes me—a little too prissy, too close to a sob.

"Everything you expected?"

"Nothing I expected." I twist the release on the handcuffs and free my hands.

He's zipped up and by the time I ease my broken ass into a sitting position, he's across the room and buttoning his coat. I stare at him, his close-cut hair choppy from sweat, his face a burning red above the thick beard. He's the first man to fuck me since … to fuck me that brutally ever, and I hadn't seen any more of him than I had the week before. And even sitting in a puddle of cum and ice water, I'm desperate for more.

"Would you think less of me if—"

"Probably," Laur said. "But, yeah. I'll come back and fuck you again."

Not what I was going to ask.

Wasn't it?

"Next Tuesday?"

"Naw. I don't think so." He walks over again and crouches down to look me in the face. It's a feral movement, like a big cat or a demon. He grins. "Oh, I'll be here Tuesday. I always come in for my whiskey sour and cheesesteak on Tuesdays. But this … I'll hold off on a while."

He runs his left thumb over my lip.

Please kiss me.

I need a kiss, wanted just enough affection to not feel…

"I like a desperate whore."