Despite my surprise, I smiled. It was good to see her. “Hey, Bright Eyes. What are you doing here?”
In the dim light of the club, I could still see the way her cheeks flushed at the old nickname.
“April, come on, you’ve got tables—” Marlene was suddenly there but stopped talking midsentence when she saw I was the reason April was distracted. “Hey, boss. I see you met April, our new waitress.”
“Yeah, we’ve met before.” I gave her a sidelong glance. “Marlene, take over for April. We need to talk.” I took the empty tray from April’s hands and gave it to Marlene.
April seemed stunned and unsure of what to do. She looked to Marlene, but the woman was already following my orders and had walked away. She was smart enough not to question me in front of another employee, but I didn’t miss the questioning look she shot my way before she disappeared. I gestured for April to follow me to my private booth. After a moment’s hesitation, she did. Thankfully, none of the guys were there waiting for me as usual.
Seeing her had stirred up all kinds of mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was fucking thrilled. It’d been over fifteen years since we last saw each other, and there had been a lot of unfinished business between us.
Still, I didn’t want her anywhere near the shit I got into. I was already fiercely protective of my girls, and I fucking knew I would be of April, too. It was impossible not to be considering our history.
I offered her a seat, and she took it. “So, how the hell did you end up working here?” I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
She waved a hand. “You know, saw a job posting. Submitted an application. Interviewed. Got the job. The usual way it goes.”
“Still a smartass, I see.”
April quirked a small half-grin. “Would you expect me to be any other way?”
“Nah. Not at all.” Leaning back in my seat, I fixed her with a stare, still not sure what to make of all this. “All joking aside, it’s great to see you again.”
She smiled a real smile this time, shoulders relaxing as tension seemed to leave her body. “It’s great to see you, too. I had no idea this was your place. I mean, I knew the owner was somebody named Joshua Vorn, but last time I checked, your last name was Varjak. Did you change it?”
“Vorn was my granny’s maiden name. I haven’t gone by Varjak in a really long time. You seriously didn’t know this was my place?”
April shook her head. “Not at all. What are the odds?”
One in a million.
I couldn’t wrap my head around seeing her again. She’d crossed my mind so many times over the last decade, I almost thought I was imagining her. But my imagination wasn’t that good. She was here, in the flesh.
“Have you ever thought about me?” By the surprise in her eyes, I wondered if I shouldn’t have asked the question, if I’d been too quick.
“Maybe…I mean, now and then, it’s been a long time.” She hesitated with her reply. “Have you?”
“Sure, almost every day.” I saw no reason not to be honest.
She gave me an “I don’t believe you” look.
“So…you’ve got experience dancing?” I asked. “That’s surprising.”
April seemed taken aback by my question and assumption based on the expression on her face. “How did you know that?”
I waved my hand toward the girls on stage. “Marlene wouldn’t have hired you if you didn’t already have some experience working in a strip club.”
“Fair point.” She gave me a curious look. “Why is that surprising?”
“If memory serves, you had a really strict dad. I highly doubt you dancing anywhere was approved by him.”
Her demeanor changed at the mention of her father. He’d been the whole reason we had to split up to begin with, and I doubted she liked to think about him. When I met him, he’d been a total asshole. I could only imagine the shit she had to put up with, aside from him moving her out of state just to get her away from me. Maybe she’d gotten into dancing just to spite him, her brand of “fuck you” to the overprotective cage she’d felt trapped in for so long.
“I don’t give two shits what is and isn’t approved by him.” She leaned back in her seat, her tassels swinging. My eyes wandered to her voluptuous tits, and I felt a twitch in my dick. Fuck, she was still as beautiful as I remembered. “I gave that up a long-ass time ago.”
“Glad to hear it. You look good by the way.”
She smiled back. “Thanks, you do, too.”
It dawned on me that she was now my employee, and I reeled in the familiarity, not wanting to give her or Marlene the wrong impression. I’d already been too informal and close with her. I had to remember myself.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to work. Marlene’s a good manager.” I got to my feet. “She’ll teach you the ropes.”
April followed my lead and did the same, her tits bouncing and tassels swinging. “Yeah, Marlene’s great. I appreciate her bluntness. It’s definitely refreshing from the passive-aggressive shit and bosses I’ve dealt with in the past. I don’t want anything to do with that—trust me—or any other men that could get me in trouble.”
Is she trying to say she doesn’t want anything to do with me? It sure sounds like it.
“Yeah, you won’t really find any of that here. At least not from management. I like my employees to be honest, and I do the same for them. If you need anything, let me know.”
She nodded. “I will.”
I watched her walk away, her fucking sexy-as-hell curvy ass swaying, trying to wrap my head around her reappearance. It was rare that a ghost from your past suddenly showed up on your doorstep out of the blue. There was a lot we needed to talk about. But it wasn’t the time and definitely not the place.
So, I turned my attention away from April and focused on my own work.
April
Oh. My. God.
Oh. My. God!
Nobody ever expected to come face-to-face with a ghost from their past. Especially not on the first day of their undercover job at a notorious strip club. And especially wearing next to nothing. For some odd reason, though, I felt sexy, and the heat I’d felt in his gaze had certainly not discouraged my confidence.
But it was him.
Him.
I wanted to turn and book it all the way home, but that wasn’t exactly an option. I had to keep my cool and get the job done. I could freak out later. And I definitely would.
Of course, it was easier said than done. My brain couldn’t focus on anything else other than the fact that the man I was writing an article on, the man who was possibly the leader of the Hell’s Seven, was my teenage crush.
Well, crush was putting it mild. I was head over heels for him. He owned the room (and I mean, he owned that room like nobody’s business!), in his darkness, he was sex personified with a magnetic aura that drew me in. No description could do this male specimen justice. Was he even real? He’d collected many more tattoos since the last time I’d seen him, and I felt myself wanting to reach out and touch them. Lick them. See where those tats trailed off to. Damn, I’d never thought tattoos could be so sexy, but Josh wore them well. I wanted to see all of them. Feel them…