I could still feel the burn of that red line on my wrist. I couldn’t let it stopme, though.
Because if I stopped now, if I slowed down…
I’d have to start asking what comes next.
Sweat tickled my cleavage as it rolled down into my sequined lingerie. I’d just come off stage and settled into my vanity chair to de-cake my face after a sub-par dance. It was hard to dance when I could still smell the embers of hell-fire that clung to Lucifer’s shirt when he held me.
The dark circles under my eyes had deepened, made worse by my semi-permanent grimace.
“The stage hands are still collecting your bills, Ivy.” Nova said behind me, her eyebrows dancing in the reflection.
I wiped the feelings off my face and replaced them with the three essential S’s for strippers: sexy, sly, and sassy.
“It’s not me,” I argued. “There are a lot of big spenders out there tonight. They were really digging the ‘come hither’ finger tonight.”
“Ew,” came a voice sweet as sugar from the back entrance.
I turned to see Caramel hanging up her coat.
What the fuck?
“Carm?” I asked, my stare following her every move until she sat on the bench beside me.
She didn’t look at me, though. Rather, it almost seemed like she was making an effort to avoid me. She fluffed her hair to create those signature messy curls before pulling makeup out of her bag.
“Uhm, Earth to Caramel,” I said, waving my hand in front of her face. “Why are you here?”
“I work here, Ives,” she answered while applying bright red lipstick.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Carm.” I turned to face her fully. “What happened to your hot date?”
She paused, only for a second, but I caught it. Something wasn’t right. The protectiveness I felt for her, for all of them, put tension on the demonic rubber band where my soul used to be, and it was waiting for the word to snap.
“Ended sooner than I thought.” Carm leaned closer to the mirror and focused too hard on perfecting her eyeliner wing. “Passion waits for no man, Ives. He was on me before we made it home, and all those biscuits my momma made rounded me out in all the right places.”
“Are you telling me he nutted so fast that it ended your date early?” I said skeptically.
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Not every man is built for a marathon. I take it as a compliment.”
“I can’t believe the twins left us hanging tonight,” Nova groaned off to the side. “Maybe they got a man or two who lastedtoolong.”
“Yeah,” Sapphire huffed a small laugh in agreement. “They probably ran off with Joe flirting with them the other night and double tapped the barrel too hard.” Darcy threw a suggestive eyebrow waggle our way.
“Oh come on,” I said, still keeping one leery eye on Caramel. “Are you telling me that two twenty-year-olds got dicked down hard enough to be out of commission for a whole day? Two days?” Honestly, I’d lost track of time.
“They probably just got in over their heads with stripping and never came back.”
“Probably,” Carm agreed.
Then I saw it.
An angry patch of discoloration hid beneath an orange patch of foundation on her neck, and it wasnotthe nice round shape of some dumbass sucking the life out of her.
No. I knew those marks intimately because I could still remember staring at their twins on my own skin from strong hands wrapped around my neck while Callen forced himself on me.
Rage slithered through my veins like snakes ready to strike. “What happened,Carm?”
“Nothing,” she shook her head and smiled dismissively. “Just a little rash I don’t want to show. You know how unflattering those lights can be out there sometimes.”
