If he thought me a whore, I was going to give him a whore.

Before strutting on the stage in nothing but a red G-string, my nipples decorated with red rhinestones, I found Sparky, the club’s resident deejay, and put in a request. When the familiar chords sounded, the lights above the platform danced across my body as I gave the performance of a lifetime, fully aware that Xavier sat at the bar nursing a tumbler full of dark liquid.

With the angry discordant sound of Courtney Love’s voice pumping through the speakers, all eyes were on me as I gyrated, spun and dipped. The angrier her voice got, the angrier and wilder my dancing became.

I perfected a particularly hard spin on the pole with my legs suspended in the air, something I had been secretly practicing in the confines of Candy’s living room where she had her own personal pole—why I didn’t ask.

Whistles and catcalls started around me as I slid down the pole, gracefully landing on my back on the stage. I writhed on the stage, vaguely noting several dollar bills landing around me where I lay. As her final taunt for her jerk of a lover to go on and take everything faded out, with my arms stretched out over my head, I arched my back, my left leg cocked, a perfect silhouette of a woman looking to seduce a man. That’s when the lights turned out over the platform. I hadn’t planned for that dramatic ending—Sparky must have been feeling theatrical—but I was going to take it.

Clapping sounded around me, the sound growing until it felt like a pressure pushing in on my chest. There were a lot of men there tonight, which meant a lot of women, seeing as how it was a Friday evening. Now that the anger I had been nursing had leaked out of me during the angry song, I felt naked and vulnerable up on the stage.

Rising to my feet, I moved swiftly to the side of the platform, passing Cherry and her disapproving gaze, and started down the stairs. Candy pulled me into a quick hug as soon as my feet hit the wooden floor of the barroom.

“That was ah-ma-zing, sister!” she cried out in delight. “Every man in here was drooling at the sight of you up there!”

“Uh… thanks,” I mumbled, wanting… no, needing to get out of there. I had only wanted to show Xavier what he was missing. Show him I was better than his nasty insinuations. All it did was leave me stripped bare and feeling like I’d given him a bigger chunk of me than the one he had taken the night before.

“You should be more excited,” Candy said with a discerning eye trained on me.

Not wanting to explain my uncharacteristic display for attention, I plastered a fake smile on my face and linked my arm in hers, drawing us towards a group of men who looked rather eager to see us heading in their direction.

“Let’s find ourselves some men,” I told her, reminding myself I was here for a reason and it was high time I made good on that reason.

“Jesus,” the masculine voice groaned in my ear, punctuated by a twist of his hips. “So tight,” it continued.

“Fuck my pussy,” I breathed.

The heavy weight over my body shuddered at my dirty talk, and he plunged in a little harder on his next thrust.

It was exactly what I needed.

My insides tightened and my nails dug into his back seconds before my orgasm slammed into me, pleasure spreading throughout my body. My limbs tightened around him, my arms around his shoulders and my legs wrapped around his back.

He lifted his head, and warm chocolate-colored eyes held mine as he drove into me one last time before coming on a strangled grunt of satisfaction.

With his head buried in my neck, he settled his weight over me and struggled to catch his breath. My hands absently ran over his back as I stared at the ceiling and allowed myself a small smile.

Not only had I broken a very long dry spell by having sex with a client, but I had successfully managed to find my release with him as well.

After the show I’d put on, Candy and I had approached a group of men. On our way to their table, I’d discreetly eyed the bar where Xavier was sitting only to find his chair empty. Deciding to ignore the pang of regret that caused, I’d plastered a wide smile on my face and began flirting my ass off.

Satisfaction had swept over me as the men wasted no time praising my dancing skills, making me feel prettier and more worthy of attention than I had in weeks, thanks to all the rejection I had faced.

To appease each man, Candy and I had taken our turns moving from lap to lap, giving them each the thrill of having our asses grinding into their crotches. It was mind numbing, and my heart hadn’t been into it at all. The only thing I’d been able to think about was how Xavier had left without giving me the satisfaction of seeing his reaction to the message I was sending him.

It had been when a man named Roger asked me if I’d be willing to do a threesome with him and Candy that I noticed a man sitting by himself off to the side of one of the platforms. He’d worn a navy blue suit with a pale blue shirt, its top few buttons undone and showcasing the thick column of his throat, and salt and pepper in his hair. His face was distinguished, almost aristocratic with its sharp angles and lines. It wasn’t his good looks, but rather his haunted eyes though that had spoken to me.

Excusing myself from Roger and his threesome—something that I found the idea of oddly thrilling, just not with Roger—I’d made my way over to where the solitary man sat. He’d looked startled when I’d pulled the chair out in front of him and sat down.

After striking up a conversation while sipping a glass of wine that he’d insisted on buying for me, I’d learned that the man’s name was Tony. He was a widowed man of fifty-two, his wife having died of cancer a year and a half ago. His partner at the small law firm he ran had suggested he try The Den to break his own dry spell. It seemed Tony was having trouble moving on from the woman who for all intents and purposes sounded like his soul mate.

Once Tony had arrived at the Den, he couldn’t bring himself to approach anyone, so he’d just watched from a distance, wishing life were different.

I admired his strength and the fact that he had been so honest with me. Not many men would allow a woman to see into his emotions. Most would consider it a sign of weakness to let a woman know how fragile they were.

Decision made that Tony would be the first man I would take to bed, I’d risen from my chair and offered him my hand. He’d studied it for several seconds before looking up into my face with a questioning gaze.

“It’s been a long time for me, too,” I’d admitted on a whisper.

After contemplating my words, he’d placed his hand in mine and allowed me to lead him towards Ghost’s post at the secret door.

“Tony would like an hour of my time,” I’d told Ghost with more vibrato than I’d actually felt. Not only had I been nervous about actually giving my body to a client, I had been hesitant about how Ghost would react to my request. I’d have been fooling myself to think Ghost wasn’t still enforcing Xavier’s hands-off policy for me. Why he even had that policy was beyond me. It wasn’t as if he wanted me for himself.

“Not going to happen.” Ghost had crossed his arms over this chest and leveled his gaze on me. I’d swallowed hard but didn’t give up.

“You know this isn’t right,” I said in an imploring tone. “You can’t let him do this to me.”

Tony had squeezed my hand, and I’d turned my attention to him. “It’s okay, Aurora. This was probably a bad idea anyway.”

When he’d moved to pull his hand from mine, it had been my turn to tighten my grip on him. Tony needed someone who understood loss, who understood pain, to help him heal. I would be damned if Xavier would take that from him. Or me.