By a Thread: A Grumpy Boss Romantic Comedy

The applause was ringing in my ears when I gingerly stepped off stage. I’d had to fight the urge to pick up the cash I’d basically rolled around in. But in Faith’s club, dancers didn’t touch the money. Walking away from the money was more badass and powerful than crawling around on stage, trying to pick it up.

Shirtless guys with push brooms came on stage between each act and swept up each dancer’s earnings.

My knees were shaking when I stumbled into the empty dressing room. Faith was off probably encouraging the audience to spend more money. I dropped into one of the spinning salon chairs and waited for my broom money. Even if it was all ones, there had to be at least $200 there. Add that to the $150 I made at Rooster’s earlier, and I was getting closer to my goal.

“Please. Please. Please,” I chanted.

There was a knock, and then the door opened. “Hey, New Girl, you got a private dance in the VIP room,” Vance said, spreading his hands and then rubbing those big palms together. “Guy took a likin’ to ya.”

I shook my head vehemently. My stomach clenched. Even desperate, I wasn’t that kind of girl.

“Not interested,” I said, looking around for my clothes. I was going to take my money, drink as much free alcohol as I could get, and go home to set this outfit on fire.

“You didn’t even hear the best part. Guy’s offering five grand,” he said.

I stopped in my tracks and slowly turned. Five thousand dollars?

“Club splits it fifty-fifty,” he said. “Not so bad, right? No touching. There’s a security button in the room and a bouncer right outside the door. He pre-paid.”

Twenty-five hundred dollars cash. On top of whatever I won tonight? That would cover the rest of the month. That would earn me two, maybe even three days off. I could buy the rest of the goddamn drywall and have those shots.

All I had to do was sell my soul to the perverted devil waiting in the VIP room.

I wanted to cry.

“It’s only three minutes and twelve seconds,” Vance said. “He picked the song.”

“Twenty-five hundred?” I repeated.

He nodded. “Cash. Tonight. On top of those tips, and you’re definitely placing in the Top 3. Some poor geology major cutie pie just fell offa the stage out there. So I’d say Top 2.”

My sigh was so heavy it moved the wispy strands of hair on his forehead.

Five grand. Five grand. Five grand. It wasn’t even a choice at this point.

“Yeah. Okay,” I said, swallowing hard. “But if I see a dick, I’m breaking his face.”

He crooked his fingers for me to follow him. “You see a dick, sweetheart, you hit that security button and let Chauncey break his face for you.”

I nodded rather than answering because I was two seconds away from barfing.

“Oh, hey,” Vance said, stopping outside a red leather paneled door. “You want any special lights on in there? I can do disco ball, strobe. We got this pretty pink filter that makes everyone look ten years younger.”

“Dark,” I said grimly. “Make it as dark as possible.”

“You got it, sweetie. And remember, he gets inappropriate, you push that button or just yell. The walls are thin.”

Three minutes twelve seconds. Three minutes twelve seconds.

Vance fiddled with the lights and gave me a cheery thumbs-up.

I took a deep breath and stepped into the room.

Into hell.

Into Dominic Russo’s personal ring of hell.

Humiliation burned my cheeks. Rage replaced the nausea.

He’d gone too far. Too damn far. My desperation wasn’t a joke. This wasn’t just playful teasing. Coming here to witness my damnation was cruel.

“What. The. Fuck, Dominic?”

“I paid for the dance.” His voice was gruff and low.

I stalked toward him, ready to rearrange his face. I was going to take my half of his five grand and shove it down his throat until he choked on it.

And then I saw it. His face was hard, as always. That beautiful jaw in its perma-clench under the unfairly sexy five o’clock shadow. But it was his eyes that stopped me. They weren’t cold. They weren’t mocking. They were fiery. Fierce. Hungry.

Had he finally snapped? Had I won?

I stopped a foot from him.

His intake of breath was audible.

I forgot about the money. The shame dissolved. I was here for one reason. To make Dominic Russo regret this night more than I did.

“No touching,” I snapped.

“Do what I paid you to do,” he demanded, his voice had a gravelly abrasion to it that gave me as much pleasure as dread. Even in the dim light, I could see he was hard. It was worse now that I knew what his cock looked like.

The music started, and I frowned when I recognized the song. It was a number from the dance studio. I wanted to ask him how he knew. But he flashed me that hard, smug look, and I made it my mission to wipe that expression off his perfect face.

I placed my palms on his thighs and thrilled when he stiffened at my touch.

“You said no touching,” he rasped.

“You can’t touch me.” I sank between his knees, spreading my own wide. I used his legs for balance, for contact, to inflict misery. His jaw was so tense I hoped he’d need a dental appointment next week. I skimmed my hands higher, bouncing, twisting, gyrating. Grinding.

If he wanted a dance, I’d give him one he’d remember for the rest of his life. We both could remember the night I sold my soul with shame.

The music built.

I rose, snapping my hips back and bending forward into his space. My hair hung in a short curtain over one eye. I could feel his breath on my face. His gaze burned onto my breasts, just inches from that mouth. His lips parted just enough to draw in a thin stream of air.

I felt the beat pulsing in me. This was my fuck you to the cards I’d been dealt. I would survive. I would make ends meet. And eventually, I would go back to not giving a damn about money.

But first, I would make Dominic suffer like he made me suffer.

With a hand to his chest, I pushed him back against the tufted vinyl banquette, stepping over his legs to straddle him. I wasn’t even settled on his lap yet, but his erection was doing its best to tear its way through his trousers. I could feel it flex through my embarrassingly thin underwear. The man was ruining more pairs of my underwear than I cared to think about.

His fingers flexed in the air, wanting to touch me. Needing to. But still that obnoxious self-control reigned supreme.

Undulating just above the ridge of his hard-on, I looked at him through my lowered lashes. He was wearing another goddamn vest. The sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to the elbows to reveal the tattoos on both forearms. So proper and polished on the outside, but underneath, ink and a hungry monster of a dick.

What did his denial get him? Or me?

Talk about life being unfair.

“Do you want me to stop?” I whispered in his ear.

“No.”

I rose high on my knees, brushing the curve of my breast over the scruff on his jaw. Instinctively, he turned toward me, his mouth open.

“Uh-uh-uh. No touching.” His hands clamped around the edge of the bench, and I was surprised it didn’t rip in two.

I decided to make it much, much worse. I brought my fingers to the knot in my shirt and felt his breath catch. I loosened it, and he swallowed. Tugging it free, I held the material to my breasts, pushing them together before whipping the shirt open.

His groan was pained, eyes glued to my breasts. I felt his erection flex under me.

“Why are you here, Dom?” I breathed, leaning in and nipping at his ear.

The song. The dark. His mouth so close to mine. It was intoxicating.

“Because I can’t fucking leave you alone.” His breath was labored.

My heart rate was through the roof. My hormones careening through my system, making demands I couldn’t meet.

“Why?”

I couldn’t help myself. I swooped in and bit his lower lip, hard.

He growled, an unholy, inhuman sound, and I realized I’d finally pushed the man too far.

Those big hands of his released their grip on the cushion, and then his meaty fingers were sinking into my hips. He yanked me down against him. His erection spearing between my legs.

“I have no fucking control around you.” To prove his point, he thrust against me.

“From where I sit, your control has been annoyingly admirable,” I whispered breathlessly, gyrating against him. The song was reaching its crescendo, and it was now or never. As much as I regretted this entire night, I wasn’t willing to add one more regret to it.

I shifted my hips, driving them forward, up his cock through his pants.

“Don’t fucking do it, Ally,” he warned.

But I didn’t listen, and he didn’t stop me.

“Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me you don’t want me in your lap riding you.”

I was rocking my hips back and forth in time to the beat that I felt in my bones, in the pulse of my very empty, very needy pussy.

“Lie to me, Dom. Tell me you don’t want me, and I’ll stop right now.”

Faster and faster. I was jerking him off with my still-covered lady parts. And I wasn’t going to stop until either he said no or he was the humiliated one.

He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back, burying his face between my breasts. “I hate how much I want you,” he whispered brokenly, nuzzling at the curves, nipping at the pasties. “I despise the fact that I can’t think of anything else but you.”

My breath was coming in shallow pants, and I was painfully close to an orgasm. But this wasn’t about me. This was about him. We should both have something to be ashamed about from tonight. Some dark secret to keep hidden from the light.

I ground down on him harder, faster, and pulled his face into my breasts as I rode him.

“Ally,” he rasped. “Baby.” One hand in my hair, one on my hip, he gripped hard and grunted out a low, guttural sound. He went completely rigid under me, and I didn’t know what had happened until I felt the warmth beneath me. The growing sticky wetness. He held me tight, bucking and shuddering against me, giving in to his shameful release.

“Ally,” he said again, thrusting against me. Using my body to ride out the orgasm.

I was on the edge of my own climax and held back on principle. I wasn’t going to give him that piece of me. He hadn’t earned it. And if I had a first orgasm with Dominic, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be in a strip club on amateur night.

I didn’t need champagne and candlelight, but I did need to not be paid.

He was vulnerable, powerless. I’d won.

But it felt like just another loss. Because now I only wanted him more.

I’d just made Dominic Russo, my boss, come in his pants at a strip club.

I didn’t know whether to go jump off a bridge or pat myself on the back. Maybe I’d do both. After those shots.

I decided a hasty retreat was required immediately. I slipped off his lap and out of his reach before he could reel me back in and make some crazy demand that made me think he cared.

“That’s two you owe me, Dom.”

And then I walked out.