Two days had passed since her encounter with the strange man at the bookstore, but it was still fresh and hot in her mind. She tried everything to get the incident out of her head. She picked up extra shifts at work, threw herself into her studies, and spent more time reading; but no matter how hard she tried to distract herself, thoughts of him lingered in the back of her mind. And when she collapsed into bed exhausted at night, he invaded her dreams.
Those dreams both terrified and thrilled her. There was something so dark, so powerful about him that even in her dreams she found it difficult to resist him. The way he touched her, so gently but with so much passion, his lips caressing every inch of inch of her, his deep brown eyes staring into hers with barely contained excitement, her skin became heated and she would wake up breathless. The presence of him in her dreams made her more acutely aware of her waking loneliness. She almost regretted her harsh response to him. He had been so....
"Rowan? You okay doll?" The voice of the head bouncer, Greg, broke through her musings, snapping her back to the reality of Mac's. Both Greg and the bartender, Alex, were looking at her like she was crazy,
"Yeah, what did I miss?" Alex responded,
"We're about to open up, you ready?" Rowan shook off the last of her daydream,
"Absolutely, let's go"
***
Kai had not left his rooms for two days except to go pilfer food from the kitchen. He hated to admit it to himself, but he was hiding. Twice his father had come banging on his door, demanding to speak with him, and both times Kai had studiously pretended not to be home. He hated feeling like a coward, but he needed time to clear his head. The girl, Rowan, was constantly in his thoughts. He needed to see her again, but was at a loss for how to do so without scaring her. He needed to make it seem natural. He thought about visiting the bookstore again, but she was probably avoiding that place like the plague. Trying to catch her at the bakery would be too close to her home and that might freak her out. She looked like a student, so he might try the university library. He turned the idea over in his mind. He could take a seat next to her at one of the tables, maybe strike up a conversation, and perhaps offer to buy her coffee, ask her out on a real date, dinner, possibly dancing, and then back to her apartment....
His mind lingered on the idea of her, beautiful and warm; she would moan his name at first, and then scream it, her soft body pressed against his as she writhed beneath him....
Knock. Knock. Knock. The quick rap at his door startled him from his reverie. He growled in frustration. Judging by the tone of the knock it was not his father, so that was at least some consolation. He opened the door to find his best friend, Wes, standing in the hallway.
"Dude, where've you been? I've been trying to call you for hours," Kai sighed heavily. Wes was great and all, but he really just wanted to be left alone.
"Sorry man, I've had my phone off," Wes looked confused,
"Why?"
"I've had a lot on my mind," he briefly considered telling him about the girl, but decided against it.
"That's why I came over here, I know just the thing to get your mind off that shit with your dad," Kai arched his eyebrows apprehensively. The last time Wes knew "just the thing" he ended up spending the weekend in jail.
"This isn't going to end with my pants in a tree again, is it?"
"Probably not; look, Scotty's mating ceremony is tomorrow, right? So a few of us are going out to celebrate, you in?" Kai's first instinct was to say no, but his friend's enthusiasm was contagious. He grabbed his wallet and was out the door.
"A strip joint? Really, Wes?" Kai rolled his eyes at the clichéd destination.
"I believe the PC term is 'Gentlemen's Club' thank you very much. Come on, lighten up. So we go in, have a few drinks, look at few babes and call it a night, it'll be great,"
"As long as nothing catches fire this time,"
"That only happened once.it was a long time ago; we were young then, stupid. Look, I promise not to burn down a striper, ok? Can we go in now?" Kai grinned at his friend,
"I believe the PC term is 'Entertainer' thank you very much," Wes punched him in the arm and they climbed out of the car, and went inside to meet their friends.
**
Rowan's heart stopped dead when she saw the man enter the club. Her breathing hitched up a notch when she saw him crossing crowded room toward an empty table in her section. Fortunately, he was hailed by a group of men sitting in another waitress' section. She let out a sigh of relief even as she felt a slight pang of disappointment in her stomach. You'll be fine, she told herself, just act like he isn't even here. Hoping that he wouldn't notice her, she turned her back to him and took a customer's order. She managed to make it halfway through her shift without anyone noticing her distraction. In fact, except for a few slaps on the butt and some not-so-smooth innuendo from the customers, it was a fairly uneventful shift. On her one- millionth trip to the bar that night, Alex asked her to bring a case of water back to the dancers. This made her nervous; she would have to walk straight past Kai's table to get backstage. She tried to think of a decent excuse not to do it, but nothing came to mind. She pulled herself together and reluctantly agreed.
She was carefully picking her way through the crowds, when one of her patrons flagged her down. She approached the table and set down the case of water, pulling out her notebook in case they needed to order something else, "How can I help you gentlemen?" One of the men, obviously their leader elect for the evening, asked,
"How much to get some private time with her?" drunkenly pointing in the general vicinity of the stage where her friend, Annabelle, was crawling on hands and knees toward a sweaty man in a cheap suit,
"Forty-five dollars gets you two dances, and she doesn't do groups"
"No, no, no. How much to get some real alone time with her?" Rowan tried not to roll her eyes,
