“You shouldn’t be here. I don’t want you here.” I hated that my voice dipped. I was never a very good liar and I never wanted him to know he was my greatest weakness even though he had never hidden the fact that I was his.
His dark eyebrows lowered over those golden eyes and the smirk fell off his too pretty mouth. Luckily, another table called me over and I had to run back to the kitchen. It gave me a much-needed minute to get my head back on straight. I should have known that just the sight of him after all these months would be enough to throw me totally off my stride. He was that impressive. That consuming. That hard to quit.
I was headed back toward his table with a mug and a pot of coffee when a light hand landed on my arm. I looked at the pretty redheaded cop that came in all the time. Sometimes with her partner or other cops, but more often than not with her boyfriend. They must have lived close by because she was often going to work when he was getting off. He ran a bar, or a couple of them, here in town, so their hours were opposite, but they seemed to be making it work. At first I couldn’t believe someone that looked like her carried a badge on purpose or that she seemed to be genuinely interested in being my friend. She mentioned that we had a mutual acquaintance that had asked her to check up on me when I first got to town, but now she seemed to be curious about me all on her own. She was so lovely and fun, plus her man was a charmer. Blond and way too handsome for his own good, he reminded me of an old flame I had back in the Point. I was intimately acquainted with men like him, only the pretty cop’s boyfriend didn’t have the same kind of ruthless edge the Point bred in the men I was familiar with. But the southern charmer had his own kind of dangerous and sexy aura that led me to believe his story would be an interesting one if he bothered to share it.
“Are you okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.” She was sweet but she was looking at me with cop eyes, and there weren’t enough hours in a day to try to explain to her all the things that were wrong with Nassir sitting at that battered little table in this run-down diner in Colorado. He should be anywhere but here.
“Yeah, just busy.” I gave her a weak smile and stopped to fill up a few more cups of coffee before going back to Nassir’s table with resolve. I took the mug, set it in front of him and filled it up. I nudged it toward him with a scowl.
“Coffee’s on the house. Drink it and leave. I don’t have anything else to say to you.”
He looked at the coffee and then back up at me. His eyebrows shot up and the smirk returned to his mouth. It was such an arrogant look. I wanted to smack it off his beautiful face.
“Well, can you sit down for a minute? I have plenty to say to you.”
I shook my head before he was even done speaking. “No. My section is full. I’m working. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. The Point is dead to me. You’re dead to me.” My voice dropped again as I threw the words out. I really should be a better liar. I used to sell the illusion that I wanted sex, that I loved grabby hands and clawing fingers all over my body every single day, and I did it with a purpose. I could be whoever I needed to be as long as it benefited me in the long run. For a while I told myself that once I had enough money saved up, I would do something good with it, something that would help girls like myself that had no other options, but instead I took the coward’s way out and ran. I was so scared of losing me that I didn’t give a second thought to the good I could do or to the women that needed me back home. Convincing this man and myself that I hated him was a battle I had never been able to win. “I left Honor behind, Nassir. She’s six feet under.”
He leaned forward in the booth and that sexy, expensive scent that seemed to naturally be a part of him almost brought me to my knees. I wanted to inhale him, to absorb him . . . and that was the problem.
“I came here to talk to you, Keelyn, not to Honor. I know the difference.”
I let out a bitter, broken-sounding laugh and pushed some of my short, basic brown hair back behind my ear. “Do you?”
Honor was the stage name I used when I’d danced at the Point’s most popular strip club, Spanky’s. Honor was beautiful. Sexy. Strong. I was none of those things anymore, by choice, but the reminder of the life I had left behind and the woman that flourished there still stung. Spanky’s was a hive of illegal activity. It was run by mobsters. It was a den of sin and debauchery. It had been home. I refused to miss it or the girl who had grown up there, but with Nassir right here in front of me, that was much easier said than done.
“I always did.” His accented voice got a little rough and I almost bolted out the front door when shivers tap-danced down my spine. “I have a business proposition for you, Key. I want you to come home.”
I put my hands on the edge of the table and leaned closer to him. I felt like I was drowning in his scent and being pulled in closer and closer by his unwavering gaze. We were almost nose to nose. I was breathing hard and could see the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down the nearer I got.
“I. Am. Never. Coming. Back.” I pushed off the table, snatching up the coffee carafe, and pointed a finger at him. “Go away, Nassir. This is a nice place. This is a nice life. I’ve never asked you for a goddamn thing, but I’m asking you not to screw this up for me.” I’d never asked him but he had always shown up and done what needed to be done regardless.
When other girls had to fight off the advances from the handsy club owner or risk losing shifts, I never worried. When other girls got so desperate for money they were willing to turn tricks and work on their backs, the thought never crossed my mind. When I got sick and had to miss work for an extended period of time, he made sure I saw a doctor and got the proper medical treatment, and I knew he was the only reason I had a job to go back to when I was better. Strippers that couldn’t dance weren’t of any use, and since Spanky’s was one of the few clubs with a guaranteed clientele, I knew I could be easily replaced. It was smart for women to stay inside after dark in my old town, but I had never been trapped indoors and hidden undercover. Nassir pulled strings I never even knew were tied to my life, and because of him, the Point always felt like home, even when it tried to kill me.