Kat Martin - Against the Night

The Kitty Cat was his favorite. According to the bartender who ID’d the photo Johnnie had shown him, a guy calling himself Ray Conners had been in the club both Wednesday and Thursday nights. Johnnie had come in on Friday and again tonight but so far hadn’t seen any sign of him. Not until now.

The black padded vinyl front door swung open, letting a thin slice of street noise into the club. Recalling the photo, Johnnie recognized Ray Carroll as he ambled over to the bar. He was an average-looking forty-year-old, with thinning brown hair and the kind of greasy smile you’d expect to see on a creep like him. He sat down on one of the black vinyl bar stools, and the bartender, a tall, spare, good-looking Hispanic guy named Dante, flashed Johnnie a heads-up glance before taking Ray’s drink order, a double Grey Goose martini on the rocks.

A cocktail waitress walked past. The girls who performed also served drinks, though for that they wore a few more clothes. This one, a brunette, was tall and svelte, dressed in a little blue satin two-piece number, the bottom cut high on the sides, a built-in push-up bra shoving her heavy cleavage nearly over the top. Not indecent, but definitely less than the old bunny outfits they wore at the Playboy Club.

Johnnie sipped his beer, his attention fixed on Ray, who stared with fascination toward the stage. The dancer, Angel Fontaine, being not much bigger than a kid, was Ray’s favorite according to Dante. He watched as she dipped and swayed to the music, the red sequins on her nipples flashing in the spotlight, the light changing color to the rhythm of the music.

Johnnie tried to look away, but found himself as mesmerized as the drunks at the tables. Like the rest of her body, her breasts were perfectly formed, not too large, not too small and tilted provocatively upward.

Her face wasn’t perfect, he had finally gotten around to noticing. Her mouth was a little too wide, making her pouty lips a little too pronounced. Her cheeks were as flawless as rose petals but her chin was a little too pointy.

She was the sexiest woman Johnnie had ever seen.

She turned, thrust her pale, luscious ass into the air and wiggled it suggestively, and his groin tightened. If he didn’t make his move soon, he wouldn’t be able to walk, let alone make a collar.

Ray came off his stool just then and started toward the stage. Johnnie noticed the folded dollar bills in one hand as he approached the little blonde.

Another man beat Ray to her, leaning over and stuffing a ten-dollar bill into Angel’s sequined G-string, the scrap of red barely covering the spot every guy in the place dreamed of touching. Angel whirled away from him and smiled, mouthing a thank-you. When she turned her back, raised her arms above her head and began swaying to the hard rock beat, another man stuffed a bill into the glittering strip of red around her waist above that sweet little ass.

Ray moved closer, hovering as Angel approached the edge of the stage. He leaned toward her, stuffed the money into her G-string. He was grinning when he turned away, his mind on pussy instead of escape.

Johnnie made his move, slamming into Carroll, knocking him over an empty table, both of them crashing to the floor. Ray struggled as Johnnie caught his arm, cranked it behind his back, lifted and hauled him to his feet. Johnnie caught sight of the club’s big Asian bouncer moving toward them, but he didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. Guess he’d got word about the pervert, too.

Carroll squirmed in his grasp. “What the fuck? Who the hell are you?”

“I’m your worst nightmare,” Johnnie said, cranking the arm a little higher, eliciting a satisfying grunt of pain. “I’m the guy who’s gonna make sure you get back to Houston safe and sound.” Ray stumbled a couple of times as Johnnie’s heavy frame propelled him forward, slamming him into the wall beside the door. “I’m the guy who’s gonna put your sorry, sick ass back in jail.”

The moment the song ended and she stepped down from the stage, Amy started to tremble. Angel, she reminded herself. Angel, not Amy.

“You okay?” Her roommate walked toward her, Babs McClure, Sugar Babs, she used as her stage name. She was five foot seven with a curvy figure and chin-length dark brown hair she sometimes covered with a hot-pink wig.

Amy managed to nod. “I will be in a minute.” It was one thing to be out there beneath the spotlights, dancing almost naked as Angel Fontaine, another entirely to be just a normal woman again. Onstage, she could fool herself into thinking she was Angel, a woman who enjoyed every catcall, every wolf whistle from the men she danced in front of without her clothes. An illusion she worked tirelessly to achieve.

But it didn’t last long once she stepped out of the spotlight.

“That was quite a scene.” Babs cocked her head toward the side door where the brawny, dark-haired man had just hauled a scummy-looking customer out of the club.

Amy followed Babs’s gaze. As if she hadn’t noticed the brawl just a few feet in front of the stage.

“Dante says the creep that guy busted is into kiddie porn.”

Amy shuddered. “He certainly looks the part.” She crossed the backstage area and started up the stairs leading to the studio apartment she and Babs shared above the club. “So I guess the other guy is a cop or something.”

“Or something.” Babs fell into step beside her, pulled off her pink wig and ranked a hand through her dark hair. “He was in here last night, too.”

“I saw him.”

Babs grinned. “Hard to miss a guy who looks like that.”

Amy grinned back. “No kidding.” Six feet of solid muscle, barrel-chested with a thick neck and shoulders. As he’d walked—more like swaggered—toward the stage, she’d noticed a tattoo of an eagle on his very impressive biceps. Every move he made spoke of power and strength, and in a rugged, masculine way, he was handsome.

“I asked Tate about him,” Babs said. “Says his name is John Riggs. He’s an ex-Army Ranger. Does P.I. work and pretty much anything else he can make a buck at.” Babs rolled her eyes. “What a hunk.”

Just hearing the words brought his image to mind: dark brown hair and eyes such a deep brown they looked black, strong jaw roughened by the shadow of a beard. He was the kind of guy who should have Dangerous stamped on his forehead.

Amy’s mind slipped back to her performance onstage and the way he had looked at her, his eyes following her every move. She had never felt a gaze so intense.

It was late, nearly closing. Amy blew out a breath, suddenly exhausted.

“You look like you could use a cup of coffee,” Babs said as they reached the small apartment they shared and Amy unlocked the door. There were other small apartments down the hall, cheap places for the girls to live. “I put on a fresh pot before I went downstairs.”

“Sounds good.” The rich aroma filled the room as she stepped inside. She and Babs hadn’t known each other long yet Babs watched out for her. She was Amy’s only confidante, the only person who knew the truth, knew she wasn’t really an exotic dancer, had never done anything in her entire life remotely as wild as what she was doing now.

She wasn’t a stripper, a pole dancer, a lap dancer or anything the least bit similar. She was a schoolteacher from Michigan, a woman who had absolutely no business being naked up onstage.

They crossed the studio apartment: two single beds, a kitchenette, and a small living area with a sofa and chair. Babs went to the kitchen counter and took down two mugs, pouring coffee into each one. Amy grabbed her robe from the hook beside the door, slipped it on and breathed a sigh of relief once she was more decently covered. Babs was still wearing her dark blue satin cocktail waitress costume, sexy but no worse than the bikinis women wore on the beach.