Arran’s Obsession (Body Count, #1)

My plan was working. I’d got past the bouncer by saying I was applying for a job, falling into a short line of people waiting to be admitted to an office. But now, it was my turn, and I was facing off with a room of men in goddamned skeleton masks.

I hated masks.

It scared me that I couldn’t see their expressions. Or recognise them again if we ever met. Anyone could be behind them.

Across the ultra-masculine dark-wood desk, the men watched me silently. The office was wide with an industrial feel, the walls of the red-brick warehouse left uncovered. Nothing soft. No pictures, no couch.

Not much light either. The men were half in darkness while I was bathed in a spotlight. My skin prickled in awareness, and my stomach tightened in trepidation.

Then a woman to the side asked a question. I’d barely noticed her, so freaked out was I by the masked men.

“You’re looking for work. What exactly do you want to do?” she said.

I swallowed. “I’m open to anything. I need the money and I work hard.”

“Go to the bar next door. They have vacancies,” she commented.

“What about the strip show?”

The four of them stared. Only a few hours ago, I’d snapped at Arran, the stranger in my home who I’d somehow seen half-naked, about women who took their clothes off for money. I wasn’t a prostitute, and I wasn’t a stripper either. I didn’t have the skills.

All I needed was to walk through the building and find the woman my dad was hanging out with.

He might even be here, somewhere, though I didn’t think that likely. It was over a week since he’d last been home, and the money would’ve run out, surely.

The man at the desk leaned back, one of the others stooping for a short exchange of conversation I couldn’t hear. He was the boss, I took it, the one in the chair. Big, and muscular. All of them were, the two supporting guys heavily tattooed as well.

The one he’d spoken to lifted his chin to me. “Ever stripped before?” he said in a Scottish accent

I winced. “No. At least not for money.”

None of them laughed.

The boss man steepled his hands. “Yet here you are in a strip club. What makes you think you’d be any good?”

His voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I didn’t have an answer for him. I could hardly say I’d only come here to find someone. They’d throw me out faster than if I’d yelled cop. “Surely there’s a place I could start out.”

The one who’d addressed me first replied. “Perhaps. Everyone who works this side of the warehouse has to audition. Are ye prepared for that?”

Audition? Shit.

My mouth dried. Thinking fast, I scrabbled for a way out of this that didn’t involve taking off my little black dress. “Would it be okay if I had a quick tour of the place? I know I can be what you need, but I’m new to this. Just give me a chance to orientate myself.”

They’d say no. I could already tell. I had a backup plan of hanging around outside and asking people as they came out if they knew Sydney, but that was weak. I really wanted to get one of the women alone.

To my utter surprise, the boss man tilted his head in agreement. He gestured to the woman who came to him and listened to his quiet instruction.

She smiled and pointed a beautifully manicured finger my way. “I’ll take you. It’ll be short, then we’ll return here. Don’t waste my time, Jenny.”

I jumped up, ready to go, not even caring that she’d mangled my name. I was Gen to my family but only them. Genevieve to everyone else. Jenny was leftfield completely, but I’d wear the name if it helped me find my dad.

Outside the office, I breathed a sigh of relief from being away from the skeleton scrutiny but waited to speak until we’d passed the bouncer and had moved deeper into the club. “That was intense.”

“Working here’s no walk in the park.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

She slid me a look. “Alisha.”

“Have you been an employee long?” I really wanted to find someone who knew all the women.

Alisha didn’t reply. She tapped on a keypad then pushed open a door that gave way to a dark hallway, the walls decorated with thick pink fabric that continued underfoot. It muted the pulse of music that came from the other end. Either side of the hall were closed doors.

“Private rooms for dances.” She indicated left and right.

At the end of the space, the door opened, lights whirling and bodies in view through the narrow slice. A stripper in only a tiny pair of knickers led a much older man whose gaze was fixed to her chest. The old dog was practically drooling and barely noticed us as the woman directed him into a room, shutting the door.

“Do you offer…” I picked over my words. “More than the dancing?”

“Do you work for the police in any capacity, whether employed or contracted?” Alisha stopped dead.

I opened my mouth. “No. I deliver food.”

She appraised me. Compared to her, and the woman I’d just seen with a client, I was severely under-styled, despite the fact I’d curled my blonde hair and dabbed on smoky eye makeup. Alisha’s appearance was exaggerated but seriously impressive. Red lips, heavy fake eyelashes, hair extensions to her ass, all impactful.

She tapped her fingers on her thigh as if making a decision then indicated for me to follow her. At the room the stripper had entered, Alisha flicked back the cover to an eyehole.

“See for yourself what the expectation is.”

I peered in. Sprawled on the couch, the old goat client gazed up at the dancer, his knees wide and his hands gripping the couch cushion. In front of him, and with her back to me, the woman wound her hips in a tight circle, timing her moves to the beat of the music. Her hands were at her breasts, her feet bare on the carpet, and her straight black hair tumbling down her naked back, following the path of a line of Chinese symbols down her spine.

As the beat changed, she said something to her client, and he shifted so both arms were on the back of the plush sofa, then the dancer leaned in to brace herself over him, her tits in his face, millimetres away from touching him. She undulated to and fro, so close to him. His hand came up, but she arched away, waggling a finger. His chest rose and fell. Mine did the same, my breathing coming harder.

This was seduction in action. A woman earning her cash. It was hot as fuck, and she’d barely begun.

The man dropped his hand to his very obvious erection that strained at his pale chinos. He stroked himself, his features twisted in a need I’d never seen on the two boyfriends I’d slept with.

The stripper eased her fingers into her thong. Stripped it.

“Have you ever fucked anyone for money?” Alisha whispered in my ear.

I jumped and broke my gaze on the act. “No.”

“Ever put on a show for a boyfriend?”

My cheeks warmed all the more. “Not really.”

“Huh. You don’t say.”

“Everyone’s got to start somewhere,” I babbled, my mind still half on the hypnotic scene in the room. I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t sexy enough. “You must’ve trained people before?”

Alisha walked away down the hall, calling back quietly, “Yes, we can train people, but usually if someone’s here, it’s because they started this line of work themselves, or were made to do it, if you catch my meaning.”

She opened the big doors to reveal the wide room of the strip club, floor lights marking the edges and spotlights on stages. Tables and booths were packed with groups of men, and a line of occupied chairs mirrored the shape of the main stage.

I scanned for Dad among the punters. No luck.

Onstage, a woman peeled off her micro dress, revealing neon underwear. Then she dropped backwards, belly pointed to the ceiling and the apex of her thighs to the audience. In a move worthy of a gymnast, she put her full weight onto her hands, arching back so her legs were over her and open in the splits with only the barest scrap of her pink thong covering her core.

The men roared and whooped.

My host tapped my jaw closed. “Have you even been in a strip club?”

I shook my head, and she gave a more sympathetic smile.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Clean little thing, aren’t you? It’s odd for me to meet someone from the other side of the tracks. My whole world is this place.”

I didn’t know exactly what my side of the tracks looked like to her, and I didn’t get a chance to ask as a man in a suit hustled over and spoke in her ear, urgency and apology in his expression.

Alisha listened then rolled her eyes. “I need to go fix a backstage disaster. I’ll be right back. Someone will take care of you.”

She left me in the middle of the club. The perfect opportunity.

I snagged a passing waitress in a cute, skimpy serving uniform and with a tray of empty glasses on her hand. “Hey, is Sydney here?”

“Sorry, hun, I only just started so I don’t know everyone yet. Ask Clem at the bar?”

She wheeled away, and I trotted after, her steps leading me to a brightly lit bar.

An older woman with deep ebony skin pulled pints in plastic cups, her sizeable chest stretching an identical uniform to the waitress. She noticed me and smiled. “We do table service here, darling. Go sit down and someone will be with you.”

“I’m not a customer. I’m trying to find Sydney. Is she around?”

The barwoman frowned. “Not familiar with that name. Is she staff or does she dance?”

Moniqua had said stripper, I was sure. “She’s a stripper. A dancer, I mean.”

“I know all the girls on my floor, and she ain’t one of them. Not here, not upstairs.”

A strange warning swept through me with a shiver of cold. “How do I get upstairs?”

“If you don’t know that, I’m not telling.” She placed the pint of amber beer on a waiting tray and narrowed her gaze. “Who are you here with?”

Someone tapped my shoulder. I turned to find a woman about my age waiting, her outfit the same black and pink as the other staff. There was a logo on her waistcoat. A black-and-white skull, just like the men in the office had worn.

“You Jenny? I’m Lara. Alisha asked me to show you back to the offices. Follow me.”

Damn. This was all going wrong.

Lara took me back through a different route than the one I’d come, along another hall. Her short brown hair flashed in the light, pretty pink metallic strands woven into it.

The shade reminded me of Cherry’s pink. I hadn’t seen her earlier this evening, but I’d make a point of checking on her once I got home.

Around the corner, we passed a stairwell behind glass. From the lower flight, a man strode up the steps, taking on the next set purposefully to jog out of sight upwards. He wore a suit but had the same expression of need as the private room client I’d watched earlier. What was down there? I tried to picture the exterior of the warehouse. We were right on the river, so it could have another entrance, a lower one around the back, more private for those who didn’t want to enter the public way.

As they might if they weren’t here for the dancing side of the club but something else. An even more taboo offer.

My pulse skipped.

“Lara, can you show me upstairs?” I asked.

“Um, no? Sorry. Alisha just said to take you back.”

“I’m trying to find someone called Sydney. I think she’s up there.”

“If she is, she’s busy.” My escort linked her arm through mine, making it clear I wasn’t going off alone. “It’ll be even busier here tomorrow.”

“Saturday night,” I mused.

We neared a door off the main floor marked Private. A bouncer held it open for us. Ahead, two women entered what appeared to be a changing room. A clipboard hung outside. A rota? My pulse picked up even more. I needed to see it.

“That, sure, but they’re running the game. It gets a lot of attention, and men flock in. Some women, too,” my escort continued. “Even if they restrict entrance.”

She talked on, but I stopped listening, slowing to scan the list of names with urgency. Bonnie, Maeve, Dixie, eight more. Damn. No Sydney. Not that I could see.

Then we were back at the office again, and dejection filled me.

Alisha caught us up. “See all you needed to?”

I sighed because no, I really hadn’t. Not much more than a paying customer. Inside the big room, the three men in skeleton masks waited. I wished it was brighter in there, but the room was set up to intimidate people on the wrong side of the desk, judging by the lamp shining in my eyes.

“It’s an amazing setup here,” I lied. “I’ll do it. I’ll strip. I can learn.”

I needed that second opportunity to come back.

The boss angled his head, drawing his focus up and down me. Something in his eyes caught my attention.

“So you think you understand what it takes to work here now. One walk around and it’s all clear.”

He was going to refuse me. I took a guess. A wild burst. “If it works out, I want to move to the floor upstairs. To sell my body.”

All four people in the room sharpened their attention on me. But it was the man in the middle who kept the floor.

“To fuck for money?”

“Y-yes.”

He flexed his hand, his short nails on the desk surface. “What makes you think that happens here?”

“It does, right? And I want to work doing that.”

His intense stare didn’t let up, a hunter toying with his prey. “If such a job existed, there would be rules for new staff.”

“Of course. I’ll obey them.”

“They’d have to fuck me. To be available when and where I need them. They can’t say no if they want to work here.”

Horror sank through me.

One of his men laughed.

My jaw trembled. “I can do that.”

“You’re giving me permission?”

Recklessly, I nodded. If I couldn’t find Dad, I couldn’t sort out the rent, and we’d lose our home. Besides, if I was called in to sleep with the boss, I’d quit and run. He wouldn’t make me straight away.

“You’ve agreed to fuck me, but what about anyone else I order?” he asked. “Like right now. Get on the floor. Take off that dress.”

“W-what?”

But as I stuttered, an awful, icy recognition suddenly hit me.

That voice. The shape of him. I’d touched that rounded shoulder. Heard him say nicer words in a gentler tone. He’d tended to my injuries and returned to check I was okay.

I stood on shaky limbs. Crept forward to the desk so I could see beyond the blinding light and confirm my suspicion. The soulless grey eyes over the mask held mine.

Arran.

The man I’d spent two nights thinking about. He’d told me he worked in management. Liar. He led a fucking gang.

Outrage had my mouth dropping open, anger bubbling up. Reality quickly followed, my skin crawling from the hostility of the room and the wall of gang members.

Arran kept that steady gaze fixed on me. “You heard me. Prove yourself if you want me to believe a word you fucking say. You want to spread your legs for money? Get ready to be fucked.”

A wave of overwhelm eclipsed every other emotion.

Again, I fled the man and didn’t look back.