Page 16 of That Girl is Trouble

“I hope you’re not expecting a friends and family discount,” I say with a small smile.

“I hope that’s a joke.”

“Of course not. I take my job very seriously.”

He lets out a deep sigh. “So this is what you are now, Kat? A fucking stripper?”

“We prefer the term dancer.”

“Call it what you want. Doesn’t change what you are.” His eyes drop down my body. A heavy stare. A ghost of a kiss brushing against me. Stripped down. Spread out. Bare. Axe does that—undresses me—with one fucking look. “And you look ridiculous in that fucking outfit.”

“I think we both know I don’t.”

“If this is about money—”

“It’s not.”

He pauses, watching me. Another stretch of silence. He’s doing it on purpose. Forcing me to stew in the words not said between us, letting me suffer in the quiet.

“No,” he says, cocking his head. “It wouldn’t be about money with you, would it? This get your heart beating, Kat? Is that it?”

I narrow my eyes. “Why are you here, Axe? And what do I need to do to get you to leave?”

A low chuckle rumbles in his chest, and he sidesteps me as he wanders the small room, observing, inspecting, hands dug deep into the pockets of his jacket. His attention slides to the silver gleam of the pole before moving to the black leather couches. “Gotta be it, right? A silly little thrill. Something to sate all the obvious daddy issues you got goin’ on in that sweet little head of yours.”

If he feels the ice of my glare, he doesn’t let on. Daddy issues. Right. I didn’t have a father, so it must be why I do the things I do, why I crave the touch of men like Jesse and Axe—men who are wrong for me, who are too old. Who do bad things but who look so goddamn good in leather. Men who make me feel. Men who live loud.

And what the hell is wrong with wanting that?

I never met my father, not really. I was barely walking when he died. But Triss is ten years older than me. She has all kinds of memories and experiences to keep her company. She knows what his laugh sounded like, how his pancakes tasted. We look like him, she says, and my mother thought so too. Triss says that’s why she couldn’t look at us, why she pretended we didn’t exist.

“Axe,” I grit. “Tell me what you want or fucking leave.”

“Easy, Kitty,” he says, his voice another low growl. His eyes lock back on mine, the weight of them making me shift uncomfortably. That stupid stare and that stupid face that I really want to fucking punch. “So, what? You were just gonna take your clothes off for that stupid little fuck? What the hell would you have done if I hadn’t come in here?”

I snort. “The same thing I do every time I’m up here. That’s what these rooms are for.”

There’s a tic in his jaw, and he clenches his fist, eyeing that couch again. “Show me.”

“Sh-show you… what?”

“Show me what that asshole would have gotten if I hadn’t walked in here.”

My heart drops into my stomach. “Now who’s joking.”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “I take strippers very seriously. Sorry, dancers.”

It’s a bluff, obviously. And he assumes I’ll back down. But Kat Danforth never backs down.

Mimicking his posture, I lift my chin. “I don’t work for free.”

Axe dips his hand into the back pocket of his dark jeans, pulls out his wallet, and slides out a hundred-dollar bill. I stare at it, waiting for him to concede, to wave a goddamn white flag and fucking leave. But like me, he doesn’t let up. That’s not the kind of man he is.

Axel Donovan never backs down.

“Show me what you’ll do for a hundred bucks, Kat.”

His arrogant tone should offend me. Tell me how much of yourself you’ll sell. That’s what he’s really saying. Show me how little you think of yourself. Show me how far I can get. It should piss me off. But then that thump in my chest is back. That hitch in my breath, that high. The one I’ve never been able to resist chasing. Even if he’s the one making me feel this way.

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