“I came here to talk to you, Keelyn, not to Honor. I know the difference.”
I let out a bitter, broken-sounding laugh and pushed some of my short, basic brown hair back behind my ear. “Do you?”
Honor was the stage name I used when I’d danced at the Point’s most popular strip club, Spanky’s. Honor was beautiful. Sexy. Strong. I was none of those things anymore, by choice, but the reminder of the life I had left behind and the woman that flourished there still stung. Spanky’s was a hive of illegal activity. It was run by mobsters. It was a den of sin and debauchery. It had been home. I refused to miss it or the girl who had grown up there, but with Nassir right here in front of me, that was much easier said than done.
“I always did.” His accented voice got a little rough and I almost bolted out the front door when shivers tap-danced down my spine. “I have a business proposition for you, Key. I want you to come home.”
I put my hands on the edge of the table and leaned closer to him. I felt like I was drowning in his scent and being pulled in closer and closer by his unwavering gaze. We were almost nose to nose. I was breathing hard and could see the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down the nearer I got.
“I. Am. Never. Coming. Back.” I pushed off the table, snatching up the coffee carafe, and pointed a finger at him. “Go away, Nassir. This is a nice place. This is a nice life. I’ve never asked you for a goddamn thing, but I’m asking you not to screw this up for me.” I’d never asked him but he had always shown up and done what needed to be done regardless.
When other girls had to fight off the advances from the handsy club owner or risk losing shifts, I never worried. When other girls got so desperate for money they were willing to turn tricks and work on their backs, the thought never crossed my mind. When I got sick and had to miss work for an extended period of time, he made sure I saw a doctor and got the proper medical treatment, and I knew he was the only reason I had a job to go back to when I was better. Strippers that couldn’t dance weren’t of any use, and since Spanky’s was one of the few clubs with a guaranteed clientele, I knew I could be easily replaced. It was smart for women to stay inside after dark in my old town, but I had never been trapped indoors and hidden undercover. Nassir pulled strings I never even knew were tied to my life, and because of him, the Point always felt like home, even when it tried to kill me.
If I hadn’t been so aware of him, so attuned to his every movement, his every breath, I wouldn’t have seen his hands tighten into fists on the cracked tabletop. Nassir wasn’t the type to show any kind of emotion, so that tiny little movement showed me he was hearing what I was saying to him. And he didn’t like it.
He uncurled his fingers and started to tap them on the table. His eyes glimmered with hellfire and his sexy mouth tightened. He wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t going to push me. He gave a nod that was just the barest tipping of his chin and then started to slide out of the booth toward me. I knew I should move away, that I needed to keep space between the two of us, but I stood stock-still as he got up and took a step forward so that we were toe-to-toe. He seemed even taller than he had been when I left, more imposing. I had to tilt my head back to continue meeting that amazing gaze.
He reached out and I thought he was going to run the backs of his fingers over my cheek, but the tricky bastard went right for my heart. Unerringly, his palm landed high on my chest and off to the side right where a bullet had torn through me. Right where it had flayed me open and finally shown me that the Point, and the things that I loved in it, were going to be the end of me no matter how tough I was. My heart tried to jump into his hand, and I gasped a little as he smiled at me. A real smile. One that made his sharply angled face softer, made his eyes melt like soft candy. No, my devil wasn’t going to push me . . . he was going to do what devils did best. He was going to tempt me.
“I think this life is too easy for you. There’s no challenge here. I waited for months because I thought you were going to get bored. You don’t belong here, Key, but if you’re happy here, then I won’t be back. Things are changing in the Point. You should be a part of that.”
His hand felt like it was searing into my chest. It seemed like the ugly scar the bullet had left behind would magically vanish and the print of his hand would mark me there in its place.
“The Point always changes, and it’s never for the better. I need you to go.”
I took a step back from him and it felt a million times harder than all the steps I had taken to get my ass out of the Point and away from him in the first place. Nassir looked down at his expensive watch, gave me one last smirk, and then disappeared out the front door. It should have been easier to breathe with him gone. I should have felt solid, safe, but like he always did, Nassir shifted the world around him.
The pretty cop was at my side again, and this time the concern on her face couldn’t be ignored. She was looking in the direction in which Nassir had disappeared, and I would bet good money everything inside her was screaming that he was a bad guy. That she shouldn’t let him walk away.
“Ex-boyfriend?”
I sighed and waved at a table of customers that were making air gestures at me for their bill.
“Not even close.” My relationship with Nassir was beyond complicated, but we had never so much as held hands. I went out of my way not to touch him, not to accidentally brush up against him, and the only time he had ever had his hands on me was when he was trying to stop the bleeding when I got shot, and then today when he placed his hand on the same spot. “We used to work together. He’s an unwelcome blast from the past.”
She waited on me while I cashed out a few customers and refilled some drinks. I got a new table, and by the time I got the new customer’s order started, she was leaning against the front door. I didn’t have to keep talking to her, but she was sweet and she knew nothing of my life before, so there was no judgment in her chocolaty-brown gaze as she watched me scuttle around.
“I have to go . . . my shift starts in a few.” She smiled at me and lifted one of her rusty-colored eyebrows. “I know we aren’t exactly friends, but I am a trained observer and I know a thing or two about the kind of guy that oozes trouble and secrets like that one does. You can totally tell me that I’m crossing the line, but I feel obligated to tell you to be careful.”
I gave her a weak smile in return. It was so funny that anyone thought they had to warn me about anything. I used to be the girl that was the warning. Don’t end up like Keelyn. Don’t make the same choices Keelyn made. Do you want to be a stripper like Keelyn? What does Keelyn have to show for a life of hard work and fighting to survive? I had me and I was bound and determined to hold on to her until my very last breath.