Good Girl Gone Bad (6 page)

As she counted out change for her book, Phil smiled. Her only satisfaction thus far was remembering Ty’s massive erection. He couldn’t hide that or the fact that it was she who had instigated it. It pleased her to know she had that effect on him, but even better was Ty’s ignorance of what he did to her. Her cheeks warmed at the thought. She’d die of shame.

The music changed to a low, driving jungle beat, the lights dimmed around the bar, and the floor lights softly illuminated the polished chrome furniture.

Ty’s deep voice grabbed her attention. “Okay, ladies and gents, we’re open for business.”

The set of double doors swung open and regulars and newcomers alike entered the club, stampeding for the prime seats at the wraparound bar encircling the stage. One or two men slowed enough to ogle her and paid for it by getting pushed aside.

“Hang on to your hat, honey. The moon’s full and it looks like we got us some winners,” Bud called from behind the bar.

She looked across the flood of bodies and met Ty’s eyes. The intensity of his gaze stilled her beating heart and the magnitude of the operation hit her hard. There were lives at stake, including hers. She nodded in understanding, silently vowing not to fail.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Y
ou’re going to pay for that love pat, mister, with a fat tip,” Phil playfully chastised the grinning man who copped a feel every time she passed by with a loaded tray.

“You’re going to pay, all right.” Ty’s deep voice cut through the grinding beat of the music. He hauled the man up by the scruff of his shirt. “How many times have I told you, Otis, no grab ass. I’m a floor manager, not a pimp.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it, I just wanted to make sure if I was going to pay for a lap dance nothing jiggled.”

“That one doesn’t do lap dances,” Ty informed the regular.

Otis’s face fell. “Now, that’s too bad. She has a nice ass and I like the way she moves.”

Ty eyed Phil as if ascertaining for himself the truth of Otis’s words. Phil winked at her lieu, barely managing to hide a smile when he cocked his brow in surprise.

Like a seasoned vet, Phil leaned over, giving him the full Kat show, and served drinks to Jase and two other men at the table next to Otis’s.

“Here you go, boys.” She smiled into Jase’s dark eyes and he grinned back.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asked.

Counting out change, Phil fluttered her long lashes. “Kat, as in
pussy
cat.”

The man sitting next to Jase looked so much like a beat cop hiding in civvies he didn’t need a cop sticker on his forehead to announce it. He grinned and leaned toward her. “I like pussy.” When he slid his hand up her thigh, she slapped it away.

“My pussy bites strays. You don’t want a case of cat scratch fever, do you?”

The man’s jaw dropped and Jase snorted, thumping his friend on the back. “Tommy boy, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

Tommy boy recovered with a leer. “I don’t mind a little rough play.”

Phil leaned in, giving the boys another free shot of her cleavage. “Tommy boy, there wouldn’t be anything left but a bloody stump when I got done with you.”

The smile faded from his lips. “Are you saying I can’t handle you?”

Phil flashed a smug grin and stood up straight. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Flicking her hair over her shoulder, she pivoted and held the tray up over her head, working her way through the crowd. She heard one of the men meow, and then the three of them laughed like sailors in a whorehouse. Shaking her head, Phil headed back to the bar, keeping her eyes alert and body prepared for the unexpected.

She needed to tip out for the hour. Bud told her to keep her change book light so as not to get pickpocketed by one of the clients. She figured she’d already cleared a good hundred bucks and the first dancer had yet to make her appearance. If the clients were generous and she made them feel special, she could walk with maybe three hundred bucks after tipping out the house. It didn’t seem fair that the cocktailers and dancers who were doing all the dirty work should have to pay for the privilege. But in most circles, the money after tipping would be considered good. It was no wonder so many of the girls at the Kashmir put up with the maulings.

Her feet were killing her and she’d only been on the floor an hour. She looked out at the other cocktailers with respect. They went about their jobs in heels higher than hers and without complaint.

The last few hours blurred in her mind. She was not the same woman who filled out the application that afternoon. After catching a glimpse of herself earlier in the polished floor-to-ceiling mirrors, she’d blinked several times before she made the connection. The beautiful cocktail waitress in the skimpy uniform was her.

Something had happened to her when she took her first drink order and felt the first palm slide up her skirt. After shaking off the initial shock of a stranger touching her so intimately, she’d become Kat. In doing so, she allowed herself to cop an attitude in response to the unwanted petting and the innuendo, because inside the club, Kat was who she was.

The amazing part was she liked it. Not the men touching her, but the freedom Kat gave her. And the power. She didn’t have to hide behind her parents’ preaching. She didn’t have to tell herself that nice girls didn’t. Phil was a nice girl who didn’t, but Kat was a naughty girl who did, and if she wanted to succeed in her cover she had to become Kat, body and soul. In becoming Kat she was able to put herself out on the floor and watch.

The unexpected perk of sensual emancipation was heady stuff. In the club, in her uniform, in her new skin, she could be and do whatever she wanted, all under the guise of doing her job. She told herself she would leave the guilt of her actions and the scintillating feelings said actions incited at the door.

Ty caught her eyes a few times, seeming to magically appear each time one of the patrons got too frisky. Jase sat with his bunch of cronies. She knew from his earlier communication that they had no idea she and Jase were undercover. Reese kept to himself, a loner, in the high, dark corner behind the bar, his eyes ever watchful.

Jase ordered JD straight up, but Bud gave him iced tea. While his buddies were feeling the effects of their drinks, Jase stayed cold sober. She felt protected with the men around her. While she could handle herself, she knew they would have her back no matter what the situation.

The DJ called for the room to quiet and introduced Sable, the first dancer of the night.

The first moment Sable strutted onto the stage dressed as a shepherdess, Phil stood as transfixed as the men surrounding the stage. Sable was big, black, and absolutely gorgeous. Her mahogany skin glowed like polished wood.

Little Bo Peep never looked so…exotic.

Sable used her staff as a humping rod, and as she stripped off each of her petticoats, the wolf whistles became deafening.

“Hey!” the pervert next to Phil screamed. “Get me another round.”

Phil fought down a scowl. Remembering the asshole drank the cheap beer, she nodded and hurried to fill his order.

“How’s it going, Slick?” the bartender asked her.

“It’s going, Bud. Give me another one of those cheap beers for my big spender over there.”

She jacked her thumb over her shoulder. The old man grinned, following the direction. “I didn’t think you had it in you, sister, but you work those slobs well.”

He twisted the cap off a bottle, then set it on her tray. She winked at him. “I’ve got a lot more where that came from.” She turned and sashayed back into the throng of whistling, groping, aroused men.

As she set the bottle on the table, she said, “Eight fifty.”

Without taking his eyes off Sable’s coconut-size breasts, the guy tossed a five at her. “I want the change, Toots,” he grunted after guzzling half the bottle.

Of course he did. Guys like this drank the cheap stuff, catcalled and hooted to the dancers, then went in the john and jerked off. So much for Klub Kashmir’s claim to catering to the more discriminating males. She leaned in. “Well, that’s real sweet of you, mister, but you still owe me three fifty.”

He flashed her a glare. “I gave you a ten.” He looked back up at Sable’s gyrating thighs and grabbed his burgeoning crotch.

“You gave me a five.”

The man sneered, obviously not liking the fact that she was distracting him, and gave her his full drunken attention. “You ripped me off!”

Phil grabbed the nearly empty bottle from his hand. “I didn’t rip you off, buddy, you ripped
me
off. If you want the rest of this bottle, cough up the three fifty.”

He lunged across the table. Phil saw that train coming. She smacked him hard on the head with her tray. A strong arm grabbed her from behind and lifted her clear off her stilts and out of reach of the drunk, who had regrouped and was ready for his second attack.

Ty didn’t waste a second on diplomacy. He grabbed the drunk by the scruff of his shirt and the back of his pants. As if he were taking out the trash, Ty marched to the front door, handed him off to Milo, the mountain-size bouncer, and the drunk was disposed of.

Watching it all happen so quickly and effortlessly, Phil had to admit Ty’s commanding presence and fluid disposal of the asshole impressed her. The man didn’t break a sweat.

Ty strode back toward her and the smile froze on her lips. His dark brows formed a V between two very angry green eyes. He was not amused.

He grabbed her by the elbow and steered her away from the crowded tables toward an alcove in the back of the club.

He turned her around and backed her into a corner.

“Rule number one. We do not brain our clients with our trays.”

“But he accused me of ripping him off!”

Ty’s lips twitched before they formed a hard line. “How does it feel to be accused of something you didn’t do?”

Phil hissed in a breath. “That was three years ago, Lieutenant. Let it go.”

His fingers tightened around her arms. When she twisted, his grip increased in pressure. “You’re hurting me.”

He loosened his fingers but still held her. “If you assault another client, I’ll have no choice but to let you go. I can’t let you beat up clients and not allow the other girls the same pleasure.”

“Well, maybe you need to inform your clients they can’t cheat us hardworking cocktailers.”

Ty’s face softened. “Phil, ah, Kat, don’t take everything so literal. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

She didn’t try to ignore the hard underlying scent of the man who stood so close to her, nor the way his eyes kept dipping to her exposed cleavage and the way said cleavage suddenly grew heavy with tension. Her nipples stiffened and tingled. What had become a familiar heat flared between her thighs. “And what do the Romans do in Klub Kashmir?”

Ty grinned, flashing white teeth. “They act like Romans who do what they need to, to keep their jobs.”

Phil leaned back against the hard smoothness of the wall. She was glad when Ty followed and glad Kat took over. As Kat she could admire his imposing build, the hard sinew of his arms, and Ty’s undeniable maleness. Making her feel every bit a woman and feel no guilt or shame.

“And how do I go about keeping my job?” she asked.

Ty infiltrated her space so thoroughly, his heat penetrated her skin, warming it hotter. He smelled good. Clean, woodsy, strong. His chest brushed up against her. They both felt the jolt the contact elicited and they both pretended it didn’t affect them. Bending down so she could be sure to hear, Ty said, “Keep strutting your stuff and cockteasing, minus the aggression.”

Phil would have taken his bait as an insult. Kat took it as a compliment. Kat pressed her full breasts against Ty’s chest, dragging them in slow temptation. She caught her breath when he pushed back, hiking up the friction. Her skin sizzled and her nipples strained hard against the fabric of her uniform. If he weren’t so close, her knees would have buckled. He barely touched her, but being so close to him, she felt like a piece of warm putty in a sculptor’s hands.

Wanting control, Phil struggled for composure. Tilting her head up, she stood on her tiptoes until she came almost eye-to-eye with him. Ty’s lids hooded his dark green eyes in sexy languidness. She sucked in her bottom lip, then licked it. It gave her supreme satisfaction to watch his full lips tighten and hear the subtle hitch of his breath.

“Mr. Masters, I aim to please.”

CHAPTER SIX

“O
fficer Zorn, are you coming on to me?”

The heat in Phil’s eyes told the truth, but he wanted to hear it from her lips. He was more than intrigued—he was fascinated.

Phil shook her head, sending her hair cascading down her back. Her full breasts bobbed against the confines of her skimpy top. He visualized his hand slipping up and tugging the fabric, spilling her fabulous tits out for his hands and mouth to ravage. His blood quickened. And not for the first time that night he wasn’t picky about location, only about what he wanted to do to her.

“No, sir. That would be against general orders.”

He inched closer, so close he felt the lurch of her heart against his chest. Dipping his mouth to the smooth skin of her neck, he whispered, “GO doesn’t apply to undercover.” He knew he played dirty the minute he ran the length of his tongue up behind her ear and nipped the soft flesh there. She moaned, arching against him. She tasted warm and sweet, like honey. His cock twinged hard. He couldn’t resist running his fingertips across her taut belly and toying with her belly button jewel.

“Mr. Masters, please, I’m working.”

Very reluctantly he retreated an inch, grinning at her pretend coyness. “You’re working all right. Working me into a lather.”

He stepped back from her and the rush of cool air reminded him he had a case to solve.

Phil got a quick grip. While she’d like to pretend that as Kat she could play no holds barred, pragmatic Phil wielded her way into the equation. She wasn’t so sure how she felt about the interloper.

Ty’s hands slid up her arms, then down before releasing her. In painful awareness, Phil realized his release was the last thing she wanted. That fact astounded her. It must be the hormones bouncing around the club. Somehow they’d gotten under her skin.