Warlord (Anathema Book 1) (23 page)

“Christ, you are
a virgin.” She tossed me a plaid school-girl skirt. “Leave the panties, drop
the bra.”

“Are you sure?”

“My other girls
are in g-strings. Play the fucking part.”

I hated the pink
curse on my cheeks. A sheer blouse fit over my shoulders, but Lyn batted my
hands away before I buttoned it. She shoved me into a pair of black heels.

“Don’t say
anything to anyone. Head right to Thorne, dance, and warn him. Then get the
hell out of there before this place turns into the OK Corral.”

I glanced at the
walking bundle of sex in the mirror. The skirt was too short, the heels too
high, and the shirt way too revealing. Lyn pulled it down off my shoulders, and
the swell of my breasts peeked into the air.

“Christ, I hope
Brew and Keep don’t kill me for this,” Lyn said.

“Me too.” I ignored
the tips of my hardening nipples in the air-conditioned chill. “Let’s go.”

Lyn guided me
backstage, but she frowned as she peered around the curtain. Shannon distracted
two of Ex’s men closest to the stage, but Thorne and the rest of Anathema waited
on the opposite end of the club. My brothers loitered in the middle. Patrolling.
Watching the dancing. Just waiting to catch me and lose their minds.

“Be quick,” Lyn
said.

My stomach eroded
before I even stepped foot onto the floor. I didn’t have the curves to strip,
and I didn’t have the courage to slip across the club without trembling before
making it to Thorne. Lyn pushed me. I grabbed her before she ducked away.

“Where are you
going?” I hissed.

She pointed to
the bar. “I have to warn Luke.”

“
Warn Luke
?”

“He might be our
only shot at stopping this bloodbath.” Lyn’s voice cut like a knife. She dared
me to argue. Crossing the club in a thong was safer than opening my mouth. “Go.”

My almost-nudity
shouldn’t have destroyed my confidence, not when singing in front of strangers demanded
more talent and skill and risk than just shuffling off my clothes and shaking
my hips. But what remained of my pride discarded on the dressing room floor,
and my stomach threatened to do a dance of its own.

But my modesty
was worth protecting my family.

And I already
stripped it for Thorne.

I slipped from
behind the curtain and fluffed my hair in front of my face. No one shot me. Or
pulled a gun. Or waited to bash my brains in and finish Ex’s job.

At least I’d
have a head start before blundering into the light at the end of the strip
club.

For the first
time in my life, the music didn’t distract me. Not the thick command of the
bass or the whining drone of a guitar. The song pulsing over the club played on
every radio station every hour of every day and I couldn’t remember a single
word.

I had nightmares
about times like this—when my guitar strings would snap, the microphones would
short out, and the audience’s jeers boo’ed in time to my set. Stage-fright
crippled most performers, but I didn’t think it had ever killed anyone.

Yet.

The first
whistle rattled my bones. The second nearly cost me my composure.

No one ever
complimented me like that while singing. Figured. The tiny skirt bounced as I walked,
and the blinding white of my panties brightened the room more than the zapping
pink light glowing over the bar. I hurried past the three men clustered around Shannon.
One touched more than he observed, but Shannon didn’t mind, and it offered me a
chance to dart past without too much notice.

I dared to look
around the club.

My first
mistake.

Luke sat at the
bar, separated from the hooting of his men. He knocked back a shot before either
recovering his bike or assassinating his former president. The drink in his
hand stilled. My eyes darted to Thorne.

His did too.

I swore and
braced to scream, but he broke first, reaching into his vest. It didn’t matter
how far he sat from Thorne, or that Keep stood in the direct path of his shot. The
Coup didn’t care how many men they needed to kill to take out Thorne.

But he didn’t
pull a weapon. Only a glowing iPhone. He lowered his gaze and read the screen.

Frowned.

Searched the
faces of his men.

Lyn was a woman
of her word, but I had no idea which words she gave Luke. She wanted to warn
him as badly as I needed to warn Thorne.

And Anathema had
no idea how badly her loyalty twisted.

I slipped into
the shadows, edging far from my brothers. Keep and Brew faced away from me,
distracted by the slow seduction of a girl in a black thong and nothing else. I
wanted to shoulder the transparent blouse, but a fully clothed dancer attracted
more attention than someone showing off a perky chest. Then again, not many
strippers blushed top to bottom pink.

Gold was the
first one to catcall as I approached. His smile transformed into a cowl of
absolute horror as I shook my head and hissed for him to stay quiet. His eyes
asked a million questions, but his experience in the Marines taught him all he
needed to know about a war zone. He leapt from his seat, adjusted his jeans,
and hurried to my brothers’ side, facing them away from Thorne.

Scotch crossed
himself and turned away. I wondered if it was possible to bleed shame or if the
fairy-pink glow of my blush revealed enough. I dashed to Thorne’s side, grabbed
his cut, and dodged a backhand that would have shaken dollar bills loose from
any dancer who dared to wrinkle the leather. He stopped his strike in time.

Stared at me.

Enraged.

“You get a dance.”
I gritted my teeth. “On the couch. Now.”

Thorne’s eyes
blazed a fierce gray—the gun-metal darkness cocked, fired, then melted under
the pressure of his own stare. I didn’t flinch as his attention shifted down.

The primal heat
of his gaze nipped over my neck, slipped over my shoulders, caressed the gentle
swell of my exposed breasts, and tickled over my tummy and what he imagined
under my skirt. My skin prickled with goose bumps. The raspberry pink of my
nipples betrayed me. They tightened. Hard. Harder than they should have for the
air in the room and revealing entirely too much for the warning I intended to
give.

My nudity should
have frightened me more than Thorne’s approach.

It didn’t.

His very being
existed to break me. His size. His stare. His desire. And I had nothing to
protect me.

His steel-tipped
boots thudded next to my delicate heels. The denim of his jeans clashed against
the softness of my legs. My flared skirt hid nothing. His leather belt hardly
contained what strained the layers between us. My breasts, flushed and pale,
exposed to him.

But his cut—the dark
uniform of strength, brutality, and power—revealed more. The hardness of his
muscles. The vulnerable chest where Exorcist would aim his gun. Ragged
breathing. Desperate tension.

Feminine and
frightened combated against masculine and violent. Thorne didn’t take his eyes
from me. His deliberate steps treaded back, and he collapsed on the leather
couch behind Anathema and beyond the sight of The Coup’s distracted members.

“The fuck are
you doing?” Thorne’s fury warmed my shivering skin. “You’re out of your mind.”

“Probably.” I
crossed my arms. “I had to talk to you.”

“Jesus Christ.
Call
me.” He stared at the curves I couldn’t hide. “Holy shit.”

“Look, you’re in
danger—”

“Dance.”

“What?”

He studied the
club behind me. “Fucking
dance
.”

I closed my eyes
and offered a slight wiggle of my hips, the most my bruised pride and churning
stomach could offer. Thorne swore.

“You’re in
danger,” I said.

“Take off your
shirt.”

“No!”

“The Coup is
watching every damned move I make.” He tightened his jaw. “Take off your shirt
before they recognize you. Dressed or not, they’ll still disembowel you for
stealing Knight’s bike.”

My legs locked
up, and my wiggling turned into an unsteady wobble. I gripped the blouse and
bit my lip.

“Christ, Rose,
you think I haven’t seen a pair of tits before?”

“Not mine—”

“Take it off
before I fucking rip it off.”

It wasn’t how I
imagined stripping for Thorne. Not that the thought had even crossed my mind
before last night. Any illusion I had of seduction, any fantasy I created of
passionate, animalistic enthusiasm vanished in the trembles that shook the
blouse from my shoulders. I seized a suffocating breath.

Thorne released
his in a profanity.

“Fuck, I’ve
never been so glad to be in danger before.”

He made it
impossible to feel ashamed of my body, but I still couldn’t will my hips to
move. Closing my eyes only made it harder. I needed to see where he looked, and
how soon the guns would be pulled.

“Get on my lap.”

“Thorne—”

“Dance or get on
my lap.”

The night would
only get worse before it got better. Brew whistled behind me, and I almost
envied Thorne for the weapons aiming at him. He gathered me into his arms and
pulled me into his lap before my brothers realized just how well I blended into
the MC.

My legs
awkwardly bent, and he grunted, slamming my hips down to meet his. I gripped
his shoulders, but that only pushed my breasts higher, offering them for his
appraisal. I shifted, and the hardness in his jeans pressed against my panties.
I blushed. Thorne didn’t apologize.

“I’m the only
one who can see you,” he said.

“Yeah...thanks.”

“You’re going to
make one sexy corpse.”

“I needed to
warn you.”

Thorne’s hands
moved upwards, resting against my sides. He accidentally gripped as I shifted,
instinctually pulling me into place over his hardness. We both flinched. What
parts of me hadn’t been frightened into sickness now warmed into inappropriate,
undeniable need. His cock flexed under me.

“Better keep
dancing.” Thorne’s voice lowered. “Wouldn’t want someone to get the wrong idea
about this rescue.”

Like I had
any
idea what I was doing. I shimmied against him, slowly. Methodically. His
fingers gripped harder against my hips, and I sighed as the warmth trailed
along my sides, down my legs, and centered directly between my spread thighs.

“They’re going
to hit you tonight,” I whispered. “I don’t know when. We have to leave.”

“How do you know?”

“I...I just do.”

His fingers dug
in. Hard.

“They sent a note,”
I said. “Something to taunt me. Luke doesn’t know. This is all Ex. You
have
to get somewhere safe.”

“They sent you a
fucking note?” His voice thickened with a brutal threat tempered only by heavy arousal.
“What the hell happened when they grabbed you?”

I shook my head.
The dancing came easier with his hands guiding me. My hips rolled over his,
forth and back, rocking my body over his waist and grinding a warming part of
me over his excitement. I shivered, my mind blanking to all but the roughness
of his jeans, the cool air whispering over my breasts, the threat of his gaze
venturing beyond where his hands touched.

“Nothing
happened.” The lie came easier while I rubbed against him.

His hands tightened.
We both stilled, but I didn’t know how much longer it could last. The hardness
strained in his pants, and my trembling transcended fear and warmed with
irresponsible lust. My fingers traced over his cut. The word
President
tickled my fingertip.

It was the first
time the title excited me.

The music pulsed
harder. I never thought I’d like R&B so much. The drums, the sexy bass, the
noise
. I leaned in close as the thumping melody deafened me to
everything but my heartbeat.

His wild leather
scent made the whisper more my pleasure than his warning. I brushed my chest
against his vest.

“Lyn and I have
a plan. I can short-circuit the electronics. Make a lot of smoke and maybe
scatter everyone. Then you can get my brothers and get somewhere safe.”

“I’m not leaving
you,” he said.

“I don’t want
anything to happen to you.”

Shadows crossed
behind us. Keep shouted to Thorne.

His hand gripped
my hair, and he pulled me onto his lips.

This wasn’t part
of the dance. It wasn’t part of the rescue. Or the warning. Or the plan.

But I seized his
kiss as if it were the first, last, and only pleasure I would ever receive. His
lips crushed mine. A bruising, ferocious conquering that stole my breathless
apprehension and demanded something greater. Something hot and pounding and
harmonizing that bound me to him in flesh and promise.