K. Tucker - Four Seconds to Lose

“Already swung by. Had to get fresh food. The other stuff went cold. She’s good. Clear-eyed. Looks like it was a straight booty call.”

I roll my eyes but let the smallest breath escape me. One of small relief that she’s not back into the blow and, that with that guy behind bars, his “booty calls” won’t involve pretty girls like Cherry for a long time.

“See you tomorrow, Nate.” After a long pause. “Thanks for your help.”

“Yeah, boss. Try to keep out of trouble.”

The second I hang up with him, I hit my speed dial.

“Unusually hot, even for July,” Vicki croons, her four-inch heels clicking against the marble. My eyes follow her swaying hips as she struts through the foyer and into my spacious kitchen. She’s a thirty-year-old platinum-blond stockbroker who thinks I’m a twenty-nine-year-old investment banker. Because that’s what I told her. Women of her caliber want socially acceptable men.

Strip club owners are not socially acceptable men.

And I’m clearly successful in the field of investment banking—based on my spacious two-floor corner condo overlooking the Miami waterfront, in one of the most sought-after buildings by the bay. Really, it’s because of a great investment banker that I have all that I have. Aside from that lie and my address, she knows nothing about me.

Well, she also knows my favorite positions.

There can be no doubt about what I want when my number shows up on her call display. There’s never any guilt. Not on my part, anyway. Vicki is a smart, successful businesswoman who knows—and gets—what she wants. She probably devours male egos for breakfast. She made it clear from day one that she doesn’t have time for a boyfriend or a husband; she’s more focused on being the first female VP at her company. That’s fine with me because I don’t do relationships. In truth, I don’t know how to do a relationship.

But I do know how to fuck.

And with Vicki, that’s exactly what we do.

“Yeah . . .” I push a hand through my damp hair—fresh from a shower—as Vicki turns to settle green eyes on my bare chest. I didn’t bother putting on a shirt. She likes to shamelessly stare at my body and the various tats that adorn my skin. I had them done years ago, in the thick of my other life. I’m just relieved that I opted for tribal designs rather than skulls and rabid animals.

“How was your day?” she asks with a coy smile. We both know that neither of us really cares how the other’s day went. Her attention flitters over my injured hand for a brief moment, which is now wrapped within a bag of peas.

I hand her a glass of Chianti. “Been better.” I’m not much of a talker. I think she likes that about me. She once made an offhand comment about wanting to gag her male co-workers because they loved to listen to their own voices.

Vicki doesn’t ask me what happened. She makes a cute tsking sound and then offers, “Well, then . . . how about you relax and let me take care of you,” as she leads the way out of the kitchen. I pick up my habitual glass of cognac and follow her to my sparse cream-and-gray-themed living room that overlooks the bay through a double-story window.

Taking a seat in my leather chair, I quietly examine her tall, fit body as she draws a long sip of her wine. She told me once that she’s at the gym by five a.m. every day. Judging by those shapely mile-long legs that disappear into her dress and everything rock hard that I know is beneath it, I don’t doubt her.

Setting her purse and wineglass down on the end table, she methodically pulls a strip of condoms from her purse and lays them out. She likes bringing her own. It’s a control thing. I can’t help but chuckle. “A little ambitious?”

“A girl can hope,” she purrs as she reaches up to unfasten the strap around her neck. Her dress slides down, revealing small, firm breasts and the flawless dip of her tight stomach. I was already hard, in anticipation, but a new surge of blood rushes to my groin. With the windows uncovered and the lamp next to me on, I wouldn’t doubt that anyone with binoculars in a nearby building is getting a good show. I’m sure Vicki has thought of that too, and she doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, I think she enjoys the idea. She oozes confidence. Given how hard she works at it, she deserves to feel good about her body. I’m not sure how confident she’d be if she knew I was surrounded by naked mind-blowing twenty-something-year-old bodies every day, with the ability to have any and all of them if I wanted. That kind of knowledge knocks even the most assured women down a notch. But I have no reason to ever tell her that, so I don’t. I just sit quietly and enjoy the view without a shred of guilt as she kicks off her heels. The dress follows closely.

And I’m hit with a flash of a yellow dress hitting my office floor and the perkiest round breasts in front of me.

Charlie Rourke.

Back to taunt me, hours later.

Vicki’s hands move to the waist of my track pants. I help her by lifting my body up so she can tug them off. “It’s been a while. I’m glad to see you’ve missed me,” she teases seductively, her hand wrapping around my length as she begins to stroke.

“I’ve been busy.” It has been a while. To be completely honest, I’ve been getting bored with these nights. There’s nothing wrong with the women. This all just feels so . . . vapid.

Either way, Vicki isn’t the one eliciting this response, but if she wants to lay claim, so be it. It’ll make us both happy. I tip my head back and close my eyes, a deep groan escaping my lips. And I recall the visual of the brown-eyed beauty in my office today. I let the memory consume me, figuring this is the best way to get Charlie Rourke out of my system before I have to watch her dance tomorrow.

I’ll have to watch her dance tomorrow.

My eyes stay closed—the image of Charlie without her dress firmly in my mind’s eye—as Vicki sheaths me, climbs onto my lap, and guides me into her.

We burn through her supply of condoms.

“Little mouse, you’re perfect for this job,” he says with a large hand squeezing my shoulder. “No one will suspect you.”

“Are you sure?”

His warm smile speaks his promise. “Of course. We make the perfect team, you and I.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

“Things are good? You’re enjoying Miami?”

I pick at a loose thread on my bedding. It’s early, it’s sunny, and I barely slept last night. I have yet to decide if I’m more worried about the act of pole-dancing topless on a stage in twelve hours or what will happen if I’m not any good at it.

I need this job. Sin City gave me a taste of what straight-out prostitution would be like and I can’t bring myself to do it. So, this is it. And working at Penny’s feels as right as it possibly could, under the circumstances.

“Yeah. Things are great.” I keep my voice airy. Non-suspicious. Right now, I have his trust. I need to keep that.

“Spending a lot of time on the beach?”

“Yup. That and the gym.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re enjoying life. Any theater groups down there for you to join?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Theater group . . . doesn’t quite live up to Tisch School of the Arts, where I was supposed to be enrolled this fall. After what happened, my stepdad made me defer for a year and shipped me off to Miami to “be safe.”

The reality is I’ll never get to go, and that burns me with disappointment. “Good, good.” There’s a long pause. “Obviously, you’ve received the package.”

“Yup.” Like clockwork. Every Monday morning at nine o’clock a small parcel arrives at the extended-stay hotel where I’m supposed to be living. Kyle—the cute twenty-six-year-old security guy who has a thing for me—holds onto it in exchange for a coffee and a fifteen-minute flirt session.

Each package has a new phone with a new number. A new phone each week means no legal wiretaps, which means no incriminating evidence.

And Sam is all about no incriminating evidence.

Of course, my explanation to Kyle doesn’t involve burner phones or why I might need them. Instead, I fabricated a lovely modern fairy tale—that my mom likes to send me care packages each week but they have to continue arriving at that address or my father, whom I’m now staying with, will go into a blind rage.

I had a hard time getting that lie out with ease. If Kyle’s attention were on my face and not my breasts, he might have caught on. Mom can’t send me care packages because she died ten years ago, due to rare complications during childbirth, along with my unborn half-brother. It’s a sad story, really. As a high school dropout and mother by fifteen, Vegas stripper by eighteen, Jamie Miller was sure her luck had turned when she caught the eye of the much older, wealthy New York businessman Sam Arnoni.

Or, as some know him, Big Sam.

I was six when they got married—after a whirlwind three-month affair. We moved out of our two-bedroom Vegas apartment and into his sprawling Long Island house. The day we moved, my mom sat me down and told me to listen to Sam. That if I was a good little girl for him, he’d give us a good life.

I was eight when she died, leaving me alone with my stepdad. He’s all I’ve had ever since. In truth, he didn’t have to keep me. No one would have faulted him for hunting down my real father—who didn’t want me—and dropping me off on his doorstep. I mean, why burden yourself? But he didn’t. As long as I was an obedient little mouse, Sam told me that we’d be together.