Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
“Not into that?” he teased, brushing his lips lightly over the top of her foot instead.
“Are you?”
“No, it was a test.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sure it was.”
“After that dominatrix outfit you wore on stage, you have to have some sort of kink buried deep down inside you.”
“I’m pretty vanilla,” she confessed. “So, while you’re doing that, talk to me. First off, I’ve been dying to know why your nose is crooked.”
Both eyebrows rose. “That’s what you want to know about me? I’ve gotten into a fight or two in my life.”
“Huh. I find that hard to believe.”
His face was the perfect mask of innocence. “I know, right? I’m such a damn angel. And I never say shit I shouldn’t.”
“Okay, now I understand why your nose is crooked. You must’ve earned yourself a punch dead center in your face.”
“Actually, it got broken while trying to apprehend a suspect. We got in a tussle and I got kicked in the face.”
“Damn,” she whispered.
“In the end, he looked worse than me.”
“Are you talking police brutality, Officer Alvarez?”
He shook his head. “Nope, it’s called restraining a man resisting arrest after he tried to kick my ass.”
“But you prevailed?” she asked.
“With a little help from my sidekick named taser.”
“Ouch. How shocking!” She added a widening of her eyes for dramatic flair.
“I said a few stronger things than ‘ouch’ when he broke my nose. And he certainly found my response shocking.”
A giggle slipped from between her lips. “Well, it gives you some character.”
“I was already a character long before that.”
“Not surprising.” She closed her eyes again. “Do your parents mind you being a cop? Do they worry?”
“My father was proud. My mother prays every day for me to stay safe.”
“Your father’s no longer around?”
“I wish he was,” Rez murmured.
Her eyes popped open again to search his face but she could only see his profile since his head was tipped down and his eyes were aimed at her feet in his lap. “What happened?”
“Bad ticker.” His voice was thicker than usual when he said that.
Damn. “Sorry.”
He pulled in a breath and squeezed her foot in response before turning to meet her gaze. “And your parents? Do they mind you getting naked on a stage in front of a crowd of horny men?”
“Well, who wouldn’t be proud with that kind of description of my job?” she asked tongue-in-cheek, then sighed. “Let’s just say that they were a little disappointed in my choice of career.”
“Not the table they took you to during career day in high school?”
“No,” she answered on a laugh. “They wanted me to follow in my father’s footsteps as a dentist.”
When he wrinkled his slightly crooked nose, it was so damn cute. “And your mother?”
“Alive and well and, thankfully, now fully embraces what I do.”
“I meant what she did for a living,” he clarified with a snort.
“Made my father’s life a living hell for not accepting my life’s choices.”
“Damn,” he whispered.
“They’re now divorced. She’s actually a teacher in Somerset and happily remarried. My stepfather is wonderful. He’s accepting, loving and supportive. What a real father should be.” She saw her mother blossom once she met her current husband. If Sapphire was ever going to settle down, she wanted to do it with someone who loved and doted on her as much as her stepfather did her mother.
Sometimes divorce wasn’t sad, it was a new opportunity to chase happiness.
“That’s good she found someone like him. I wish my mother would find someone. But I gotta hand it to her, she’s content being by herself. She always claims my father was her one true love. I don’t remember them ever being unhappy together. Of course, they had their arguments but I think they did it purposely so they could make up. If you catch my meaning.” He pressed deeper into the heel of her foot. “So… Somerset. She’s not too far away. Going to assume you spend more time with your mother than your father, then.”
“My father married a woman twenty years his junior and moved across the country. He has no desire to keep in touch with his whore of a daughter.”
A muscle in Rez’s cheek jumped and his expression turned scary when he growled, “He called you a whore?”
“Among other things. That was the most mild, actually.”
“But that didn’t stop you from following your dreams.”
“Dancing onstage was my dream. However, I failed as a ballerina. I also learned the hard way that I’m horrible at hip hop. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t get a call-back from the Rockettes, either. And of course, the Steelers don’t have cheerleaders.” She lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “So here I am, a headline dancer at The Pit. Living the dream.”
He jiggled her foot. “You loved your job before the Demons took over, right?”
“I did. While I love dancing, I loved my job at The Peach Pit because it had more to do with the atmosphere and who I worked with. We were women supporting women. Now with Taint and his lovely sidekick, Cookie, we’re nothing more than a piece of meat to make them money. No sense of family at all. That, besides the loss of customers, is why the majority of the original women left. If Laura had started another club in the area, all of us would’ve followed her. Now, we keep our fingers—and aching toes—crossed Mel will be able to pull it off.”