Page 1 of Juno

Juno

Juno was the stable one in her group of friends. At least, that was what everyone thought. She had always been the good girl of her little group and that wasn’t something that she planned on ever changing. As far as she was concerned, Vixen, Phoenix, and Rebel could go on believing that she was an angel. That’s what they called her—the angel of the group, and it used to piss her off, but now, she kind of liked it. Even if it wasn’t the truth.

Once Juno graduated from high school, her parents gave her an ultimatum—work a full-time job or go to college or trade school. The last thing she wanted to do was go back to school after graduation. Hell, if she had her way, she would have left like Phoenix had years ago and never looked back. But her friend was always so much braver than she was.

Juno had used her savings to buy herself a used car and damn it, even that old thing was practical. Her friends liked to joke that she’d be by to pick them up in her grandma car, but she found that to be less funny than they did. Her car got her from point A to point B and it was reliable, unlike most of the people in her life. Sure, her girls were always there for her—even Phoenix once she came back to town and hooked up with Riggs. The gang was all together again, and that should make her happy—not stress her out. But it did. The more time she spent with her girlfriends, the more chances they would have of finding out that her full-time job wasn’t on the up and up—at least, not by their standards of her. If the girls ever found out that she was an exotic dancer, she’d never hear the end of it from any of them. They’d be impossible to live with—even Phoenix who admitted to the group that she used to dance and strip for money to put food on the table for her daughter, Lydia. No, Juno’s good girl reputation wouldn’t allow her to have anything scandalous in her past—especially being a dancer down at the local club. As far as everyone was concerned, she was a secretary at a law firm, two towns over, and that was the story she was sticking with.

She had found ways to keep her identity a secret, her costumes, and a little imagination. Juno thought that it was hilarious when she found an angel costume and used that on stage for a while. But her boss, Bruno told her to ditch the good girl routine and find another costume. He said that guys don’t want to fantasize about a good girl in the sheets—they wanted the bad girl, and she did as she was told. The thought of losing her job wasn’t one that she wanted to entertain. The tips were good and there was no way that she’d make that much money as a receptionist or in any other full-time position. So, she ditched the angel costume and opted to dress as the devil for a while. Bruno was right—her tips increased when she went from good girl to bad girl on the stage, not that she’d admit that to him. He’d ask for more of a cut, and there was no way that she was giving his fat ass any more money than she had to.

Her costumes changed throughout the almost four years that she had worked at the club. Right now, she was playing a black widow, and the regulars at the club seemed to like the idea of being killed off by her. They were all idiots, but those idiots paid the bills and allowed her to move out of her parents’ house, and that was her saving grace.

Juno loved her mom and dad, but they were very religious, and her lifestyle would never mesh with theirs. She never dared tell them about her choice of jobs knowing that they’d probably freak out. Every time her dad asked her how she was affording her new apartment; she’d tell him that she got a raise or a bonus of some sort, and he seemed to buy it. Juno wasn’t sure how many more raises and bonuses she could possibly get, but that was a problem for another day. For now, she was happily living in her own place, under her own rules, and that was a good feeling.

“Honey, you’re on,” Bruno called from the hallway. He always did like to micromanage the girls, but a part of her wondered if he just liked hanging around to watch them all get dressed. A few of the girls said that he had made passes at them, but he left Juno alone. Maybe she wasn’t his type, and that worked for her. Hell, she didn’t seem to be anyone’s type, and while she sometimes wondered what it would be like to have a boyfriend who doted on her as Phoenix and Vixen had, she knew that sooner or later, she’d have to tell him about her job, and that would most likely end her “relationship”. Honestly, it had never become an issue for her since most of her dates never evolved into a relationship. Even in high school, boys seemed to avoid her like she had the plague. The good girl image didn’t seem to appeal to any of the prepubescent boys who didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.

“I’m coming,” she grumbled more to herself than her boss. If he thought she was talking back, he’d give her more shifts and that was the last thing she wanted for the weekend. The Harlots were having a big party at the club to celebrate finally raising enough money to build their own clubhouse. Savage had given them a parcel of land that he owned nearby, and they were going to be able to break ground in just a few months. A lot of the Royal Bastards had guys in various trades, and they offered to lend a hand to save some money. Juno was going to miss hanging out at Savage Hell with the Bastards, but it was going to be nice for the Harlots to have their own clubhouse to call home. Extra shifts would mean that she’d have to come up with yet another excuse to tell the girls as to why she wouldn’t be able to hang out with them again.

“What was that?” Bruno challenged. She looked him over and pasted on her best smile, deciding that it wasn’t worth fighting with him.

“Nothing,” she insisted. “I said that I’m ready to go on, boss,” she lied. He made a humming noise in the back of his throat that let her know that he didn’t believe a word she had just said, and she giggled as she walked past him.

“Have a good show,” he grumbled.

“Oh, I will,” she insisted. She walked out onto the stage, her signature song playing in the background. She had chosen it because of the slow, sultry beat that hummed through the club. It seemed to put her at ease somehow, knowing that it was just her and that song out there. Juno was able to drown out all the prying eyes of the horny men watching her, and she just danced. It was freeing and something that she had come to love about her job.

She didn’t bother looking out into the darkness as she danced her way around the stage. She knew that there was nothing out there for her. Instead, she thought about her grocery list and what she was going to make for dinner that night. If the guys in the club could only read her mind, and stop watching her body, they’d be in for a rude awakening. There was nothing sexy about grocery lists or making dinner, and that thought always made her smile. She finished her routine as the guys around the stage clapped and tossed money at her. It was something that she had gotten used to, even if it was hard to crawl around picking up the cash from the dirty floor when she first started dancing. Every bill she picked up was a chance for her to buy her own place and get out of her rental. That was her goal and if the suckers watching her wanted to help fund her new home, so be it.

Juno dipped down to take a twenty from one of the guys standing at the side of the stage. “Juno,” his deep voice called. When she looked at him in his dark blue eyes, she couldn’t help her gasp. Guys from the club had been in before and never recognized her, but Saint had. He was Dare’s older brother and one of the guys she tried to steer clear of. Saint was the new Sergeant at Arms for the Royal Bastards, and he wasn’t someone to get mixed up with.

“I’m sorry, but you have me mistaken for someone else, sir,” she whispered. She dropped the twenty he had handed her and quickly scurried off the stage, not wanting to give him any extra time to talk to her. She had blown her cover, for the first time in almost four years, and that was going to be her undoing. If anyone ever found out about her working at the strip club, she’d never live it down. Juno hated to admit it, but her only recourse was to talk to Saint and beg him not to tell anyone that she worked there. Hopefully, he wasn’t as rough around the edges as she had heard, because he was her only chance at keeping her secret.

Saint

Saint wasn’t sure that it was Juno up on the stage dancing until he looked into her green eyes. She had worn a costume, complete with a mask to hide her identity, and even though she seemed familiar to him, he couldn’t be sure. That’s when he decided to walk up to the side of the stage and hand her a twenty. Up close, he might be able to tell if his hunch was correct—not that it mattered. She was his new sister-in-law’s best friend, and he figured that made her off-limits. Especially for what he’d want from her.

Most of the guys down at the Bastards saw him as boring. He was an accountant by day, but at night he was the club’s Sergeant at Arms, and he felt like a complete badass. He liked being an accountant, as boring as that seemed. He had chosen to go to college for it and when he took the job at one of the largest accounting firms downtown, he felt pretty proud of himself. He was sure that his parents would have felt the same way about him—or at least he hoped that they would have. Losing them at such a young age and having to take care of his little brother, Dare while working his way through college, was a challenge, but one that he didn’t mind doing. He had always been the responsible one, and maybe that’s why he loved being a part of the Royal Bastards. They made him feel reckless and carefree—two things that he’d never felt before in his life.

Waiting for Juno wasn’t something that he planned on doing, but he found himself sitting outside of the shitty club where she worked for almost thirty minutes. When she finally came out, she looked nervous as hell and when she spotted him in the back of the lot and headed straight toward him, he knew that she was probably going to give him hell. The self-preservationist in him wanted to lock his pickup truck doors and take off, but there was something about the look in her eyes that had him sticking around.

She opened his truck door without asking or invitation, and when she jumped up into the passenger seat and shut the door, he knew that he had made the wrong decision about sticking around. “Um, can I help you?” Saint asked. Sarcasm was his go-to move when he felt out of his element and for some reason, Juno made him feel that way.

“We need to talk,” she insisted. She was a natural beauty but right now, he found everything she was doing to be adorable. That was something that he’d keep to himself though because Juno didn’t look like she was in the mood to hear something like that from him.

“Isn’t that something that you’re supposed to say after we’ve been going out for a while?” he asked. Her gasp filled the cabin of his truck, and he couldn’t help his smile. He liked that he seemed to be able to knock her off her game a bit. From what he knew about Juno, she was considered to be a good girl, but that was only what he had heard around town and down at the club. She and her friends were a bit younger than him and Saint didn’t know them in school like his younger brother Dare did.

“Very funny, but can you try to be serious for just a minute?” she asked. That wasn’t something that made him comfortable—being serious. He had spent so much of his day being serious, he really didn’t like to act that way after hours.

“Probably not,” he admitted, “but I’ll try.” She rolled her eyes and looked around the parking lot as though making sure that they weren’t garnering any extra attention. “What can I do for you, Juno?” he asked.

She turned in her seat and looked at him again. This time, her eyes were less angry and if he wasn’t mistaken, she looked worried. “No one can know that I work here,” she almost whispered. “I’ve never told anyone about this place or what I do for a living.”

“Ever?” he questioned.

“Not ever,” she said.

“What do Vixen and the others think that you do for a living?” he asked.

“They think that I’m a secretary for a law firm two towns over,” she admitted.

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