Page 4 of Daddy Issues

“I prefer participation.” Then I caught Puck’s gaze. “Or being watched.”

Jester shrugged and lounged, tossing both arms over the back of the booth. “I’ve got all night, by all means.”

My giggle was the first sincere thing to spill from my mouth since they’d come in. I relaxed a little, bumped his leg with my hip, and gave him a saucy wink. “Pretty sure I’d cost more than these ladies.”

“Oh, I think you’d be worth every penny.” He leaned forward, ran a hand up the back of my thigh. This wasn’t a handsy customer, this was Jester. His fingers were light and teasing, thrumming against my skin. “Those pouty lips and that pretty little mouth. I get hard just thinking about it.”

My nostrils flared, my nipples turned to little pebbles, and warmth spread low across my groin.Jesus.I closed my eyes, inhaled, and reminded myself where I was. Unlike the woman in the slinky dress, I didn’t make money if I started fucking customers—even if they were someone I’d known forever.

Jester caressed the back of my thigh, applying gentle pressure, not stopping until my knees bumped the edge of the booth, and I was almost on his lap. He nuzzled the side of my neck, and I opened my eyes.

Puck focused. Something about the way he tilted his head slightly in question made my skin heat unbearably.

I shivered and Jester chuckled against my skin.

Between Puck’s stormy look and the way Jester’s fingers inched closer to my ass, I was barely in control. Then Jester shifted, raising his knee so that his thigh pressed tight against my groin, and nipped my neck. That control snapped and Igroaned. When I rolled my hips, he nipped me harder, and my entire body heated to an unbearable degree. The snap of pain that one thing I couldn’t say no too, the one thing no one understood.

Jester wasn’t the only freak.

A pretty dancer, topless, with dark curls perched on Puck’s lap as Val held Sloane’s hand and led her to the stage. I hadn’t learned the other woman’s name, but I liked Sloane and she could move like nobody’s business. She had talent I couldn’t begin to compete against.

Another hovered close to the velvet couches, preening to get Merc’s attention. The Desert Kings were popular. But this crew, especially. The bearded brooding one with clear blue eyes, one with his boyish grin and fighter reputation and, the one who looked like a fucking Viking come to life.

“Need anything else?” I watched Puck’s hand move up and down the woman’s thigh and jealousy flared in my chest. Not that he was mine, or that he wanted me, but he was only doing that to—what exactly? Get back at me for flirting with his friend.

Disgusted with myself and with him, I looked back at Jester.

His gaze followed mine between topless dancer and Puck then back to me and grinned. It was the sort of twisting of the lips that made women want to crawl all over him.

“I could be better.” He cupped my ass, moving it so that I was rubbing my pussy against his thigh. And oh God, the thick denim pressing against my clit piercing sent waves of delicious sensation through me.

Jester had more than a reputation as a brawler. There were other things, darker things, that had called to me in a way I knew would get me into even bigger trouble. Or maybe I just hadn’t been laid in damn near a year and never in a way that I truly craved. More than likely, it was that Puck hadn’t given me this much notice ever and it turned me on.

The more I flirted with Jester, the longer I held the big guy’s attention. The dancer was chatty, rubbing her full breasts all over Puck’s cut, but still he watched me.

Closing my eyes for a ten count, I let myself lean into the dark part of me where my future didn’t matter. What happened to other people didn’t matter, all that was important was that very moment. It wasn’t a place I’d visited in a long time, and it welcomed me with a warm arousal that licked at my core.

I loathed and loved that part of me. Loved because of how freeing it was, loathed because it made me just like my mom. The woman who’d given into her cravings and ruined both our lives because of it.

My eyes opened and my gaze landed on Puck. The noise around me stopped save for the roar of blood in my ears. His nostrils flared, and he ran his index finger suggestively around the rim of his glass completely ignoring the woman on his lap.

The movement of his long fingers made me imagine what they might feel like running across my skin. Puck had great hands, wide palmed with clean, blunt nails.Damn. I’d revisit all my dark corners over and over if he’d touch me. If he’d never stop looking at me like I was good enough to eat.

But he wasn’t the only one eyeing me with devilish intent.

Testing the waters, I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth, stuck my empty tray under my arm, leaned in, and pressed my chest against Jester’s.

“We’re all about customer satisfaction here at The Black Cat.” Sound rushed back in as his grin grew wider, his caramel eyes darker.

“That so?”

The wicked expression on his face made me think of all sorts of dirty things. I cast a quick glance at Puck, who seemed to be thinking the same. I shivered.Damn. Flirting with Jester wasgetting a reaction out of Puck I’d tried for, for years. Puck lifted his brow, as if to ask me how far I’d go.

“What about you, big guy?” I asked Puck, forcing him to do more than just look at me. “Has your service been satisfactory?”

“Yeah, baby, has it?” The dancer stroked his beard now, kissing his jaw.

Before he could answer, Jester shifted so that he could pull my leg all the way across his lap. The tray dropped to the couch, and I straddled him fully now. The positioning was more intimate than how the dancer perched on Puck’s lap, as was the absent way he made circles on my skin with his thumb almost in time to Puck’s fingers on his glass.

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