Page 42 of Marked
I turn to Lilah. “What happened?” I demand.
She frowns. “They grabbed my arm on the way back. I couldn’t get past ...”
I scrub my face with a harsh exhale. Damn woman is a beacon for assholes. Myself included. “Okay,” I say. “Give me your hand.”
She raises it slowly. I clasp her fingers again and pull her with me past Prisma, through VIP, and down the hall for the donor stalls and private shows.
At the first empty door, I urge her inside. “Sit.”
She collapses on the leather couch. “Am I in time-out or something?”
My eyes roll. “Or something. Just hang here for a minute.”
Though her bright blue eyes seem more puzzled than angry, I point at her. “Stay.”
She snorts, but folds her arms and leans back. I flit back to VIP and put in an order for more drinks to be brought to us. Davin grins, but I ignore him and head back.
Lilah studies me as I walk inside and close the door. “Ruin, what are we doing in here?”
I shrug. “Figured you could use a minute of quiet.”
She watches me. “Oh.”
When she looks away, I can breathe easy again. Her gaze is soul piercing. Hot. And just because my soul was stained a long time ago, it’s still not something I want her to see.
The lights dim and the wall across the room rolls up to reveal one-way glass and a scantily clad woman in white lace.
My head whips over to the green light above the door.
Shit.
Wrong type of room.
Lilah looks at me. “Ruin...”
I lean back against the wall. Far from her and the couch. “It’s a short show, Lilah. This was the only empty room. You don’t have to watch if you don’t want to.”
Her dark head darts back as the woman begins to sashay to synthesized rap. I ignore the almost naked woman for the one on the couch.
Lilah shifts. Her legs cross and uncross at the knee, the long line of her thigh peeking from under her skirt. The woman behind the glass reaches for the lace covering her smaller breasts and Lilah makes a sound. “Ruin. We can’t watch this.”
I walk across the room and drop next to her on the sofa. “Why?” I ask. “Underground staffs on a volunteer basis. She used to work as a stripper at a dive three counties over, but a stalker customer set her on the run. She wound up here, bleeding and broken in more ways than one.”
“Raina offered her a job, Markus offered her protection. Now she dances four nights a week and is happily married to Prisma.” At Lilah’s look, I smile. “The big guy at the rope.”
Her eyes widen, but she peers shyly back at the woman behind the glass. “Does she know we’re here?”
I shake my head. “One way glass. When the light comes on in her office, she can choose to dance or not.”
Lilah shifts again, and I glance down as her plump thighs clenched together.
“Does it bother you that she’s dancing, or does your reaction to it bother you?” I whisper.
She licks her lips. “I don’t know.”
I draw my knee up and gaze at her. She is focused on the other woman, her chest heaving slightly and her pulse pounding. That delicious lilac scent pours from her skin, hardening me into stone.
Once again, I curse Raina and Markus for this. But I curse by body for its reaction more.
