THE CLUBwas packed. It was New Designer Fashion Week or some shit in Miami, and we were definitely feeling the surge ... in a good fucking way.
Sampson held the back door open for me; he’d driven me over to the hotel and waited while I checked on the day’s progress. Place was almost done. Once we’d leveled the lot, shit went up quick with Asher paying top dollar.
“I’m going to check on the front, and then see what Staci needs, okay, boss?”
I nodded, and Sampson split off down the hallway while I went to my office. I wasn’t needed on the floor at all. Staci had the place running tight. Last month, Playboy called to interview her. She was officially the youngest woman to run a gentleman’s club. It didn’t hurt she had Asher and Lila backing her, but still ... I couldn’t help but be proud.
Speaking of pride, my dad was right proud of me. In a few months, I was going to follow in his footsteps and be a hotelier.
With no one or nobody waiting for me at home.
Congratulations, Michael Anthony Wind! Not even a college graduate and a rich motherfucker, a soon-to-be hotel proprietor and heir to the Wind hotel fortune. Hell, heir to your mother’s family money too. You’re one fucking amazing guy.
Asher had told me to be patient and happiness would come to me. What the hell did he know about doing that? He’d blasted into Natalie’s life and never left after he found out her kid was his. He was no Oprah.
Seated behind my desk at the Wave, I checked the monitors. Every couch and seat was full. I caught Sampson chasing Staci around the floor until his palm met her lower back.
“Fuck,” I grumbled to myself. Those two were involved ... I fucking knew it. I’d thought it for some time.
Oh well, she needed a big man at her side. At six five and three hundred pounds of muscle, Sampson wasn’t going to let anyone get in her way. So, there you have it. The strip club owner marries the bouncer, or some shit like that.
Hey, I was a bouncer for the last decade or more. Yeah, now I owned the joint and was building a hotel, but I’d always be a protector at heart. I’d wormed my way in with Asher years ago, showed up on the Tunnel’s doorstep, and now fucking look at me.
Only thing missing was my lady, who wouldn’t only not look at me, she wouldn’t give me the time of day.
I got that she’d been through hell, slept with a bunch of johns and had been Girl Number One to some freaking rich-ass sheik. I still wanted her, no matter how broken she was. I’d put her back together, stitch her up inside and out, and love her until she was whole.
Didn’t she get that?
Yep, it was that time of day when the melancholy took over ... another thing Asher warned me about. He’d fished me out of the bottom of a bottle many a time; now he didn’t want me deep diving into Jack anymore.
I pulled a bottle out of my drawer and grabbed the shot glass from the corner of my desk. I tossed back two shots of my main man and leaned back in my chair. I’d let my hair grow long again, so I shoved it out of my eyes and squeezed them tight.
Behind my eyelids, there she was ... Lynx. Pretty, serene, her braids let down, her eyes sparkling. She was smiling at me.
I lost myself in the vision ... and then my office door banged open.
“Please stop sending people to check on me.” Lynx tripped through the doorway, not tipsy but full-on loaded. Her ass hit the floor and she curled up into a ball, the flimsy white tank she wore hugging her figure. “Please,” she repeated from the fetal position, her dark nipples poking through the tank.
Shit, she wasn’t wearing a bra.Did she just walk through the club like that?
My mind warred with my body. I wanted to stomp out to the club floor and smack anyone who’d looked at her like that.
Sampson poked his head around the door. “Sorry, boss, but she shoved her way to the front of the line and demanded to see you. Luckily, I was there. Brought her through the back, but she slipped away from me.”
“It’s fine.” I stood from my chair and walked toward the broken woman on the floor, now half-crying, half-laughing. I picked Lynx up and ran my hand down her back. “Shhh, babe.”
She squirmed for a beat or two and then settled her head on my chest. “It hurts when they talk to me about you,” she muttered.
“Go ahead, shut the door,” I told Sampson. “I don’t want to be bothered.”
He nodded and walked out.
“I want you to move on,” she murmured. “But there you are, always looming.Mike’s not doing well. He’s worried about you. Mike puts on a tough face ...don’t they know your name is Michael?”
Although slurred, her words warmed me up, coating me in a parka I didn’t know I needed.
I sat on the sofa, keeping Lynx in my lap. She smelled like tequila and the beach.
