Page 10 of Four Seconds to Lose

And I’m hit with a flash of a yellow dress hitting my office floor and the perkiest round breasts in front of me.

Charlie Rourke.

Back to taunt me, hours later.

Vicki’s hands move to the waist of my track pants. I help her by lifting my body up so she can tug them off. “It’s been a while. I’m glad to see you’ve missed me,” she teases seductively, her hand wrapping around my length as she begins to stroke.

“I’ve been busy.” It has been a while. To be completely honest, I’ve been getting bored with these nights. There’s nothing wrong with the women. This all just feels so... vapid.

Either way, Vicki isn’t the one eliciting this response, but if she wants to lay claim, so be it. It’ll make us both happy. I tip my head back and close my eyes, a deep groan escaping my lips. And I recall the visual of the brown-eyed beauty in my office today. I let the memory consume me, figuring this is the best way to get Charlie Rourke out of my system before I have to watch her dance tomorrow.

I’ll have to watch her dance tomorrow.

My eyes stay closed—the image of Charlie without her dress firmly in my mind’s eye—as Vicki sheaths me, climbs onto my lap, and guides me into her.

We burn through her supply of condoms.

chapter four

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CHARLIE

“Little mouse, you’re perfect for this job,” he says with a large hand squeezing my shoulder. “No one will suspect you.”

“Are you sure?”

His warm smile speaks his promise. “Of course. We make the perfect team, you and I.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

“Things are good? You’re enjoying Miami?”

I pick at a loose thread on my bedding. It’s early, it’s sunny, and I barely slept last night. I have yet to decide if I’m more worried about the act of pole-dancing topless on a stage in twelve hours or what will happen if I’m not any good at it.

I need this job. Sin City gave me a taste of what straight-out prostitution would be like and I can’t bring myself to do it. So, this is it. And working at Penny’s feels as right as it possibly could, under the circumstances.

“Yeah. Things are great.” I keep my voice airy. Non-suspicious. Right now, I have his trust. I need to keep that.

“Spending a lot of time on the beach?”

“Yup. That and the gym.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re enjoying life. Any theater groups down there for you to join?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Theater group... doesn’t quite live up to Tisch School of the Arts, where I was supposed to be enrolled this fall. After what happened, my stepdad made me defer for a year and shipped me off to Miami to “be safe.”

The reality is I’ll never get to go, and that burns me with disappointment. “Good, good.” There’s a long pause. “Obviously, you’ve received the package.”

“Yup.” Like clockwork. Every Monday morning at nine o’clock a small parcel arrives at the extended-stay hotel where I’m supposed to be living. Kyle—the cute twenty-six-year-old security guy who has a thing for me—holds onto it in exchange for a coffee and a fifteen-minute flirt session.

Each package has a new phone with a new number. A new phone each week means no legal wiretaps, which means no incriminating evidence.

And Sam is all about no incriminating evidence.

Of course, my explanation to Kyle doesn’t involve burner phones or why I might need them. Instead, I fabricated a lovely modern fairy tale—that my mom likes to send me care packages each week but they have to continue arriving at that address or my father, whom I’m now staying with, will go into a blind rage.

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