Come a Little Closer (Kadia Club Nights Book 1) Read online

  She’d have to remember to take that with her when Marcus was done with her.

  Marcus filled her with his fingers again. Keesha groaned and watched the young businessman down on the second floor. She could tell he was looking for her. His eyes were fixed on the third floor overhead, and he even stretched to the tips of his toes to peer over the heads of others.

  He had two drinks in his hand.

  Watching his desperation as he looked for her in a crowd of hundreds of other beautiful women turned her on more than she expected. Marcus fucked her hard and fast as she watched her admirer out in the club, and as she came again, he slid his thumb into her ass.

  Keesha shrieked with pleasure.

  Marcus reached around and gripped under her chin, applying pressure to the blood vessels in her throat. “Hush,” he grated.

  He pulled out of her and left her empty. Keesha whimpered and wiggled her ass for him. She didn’t have to wait long before she felt the swell of his cock brushing against her. She pinched her bottom lip between her teeth and craned her head back so she could watch him. He still had a firm grip on her throat. He knew she liked giving him all the control. She liked the dizzy rush and the fuzzy feeling that washed over her just as much as she liked how good it felt to take his full cock inside her.

  Her eyes rolled back. “Yes,” she croaked.

  Marcus fucked her like an animal and she knew in that moment that was all it was for him—a release. He needed it, and so did she, so she let him drive himself wildly inside her. The sounds of her wet pussy filled the room and Marcus released her throat. She dropped her cheek to the back of the sofa and looked over her shoulder at him.

  His pants were around his thighs and his shirt was still on.

  This definitely meant nothing more to him than a quick easy fuck.

  Keesha told herself she didn’t care. She’d never been able to say no to Marcus, and even though she hated him forty percent of the time, she knew she’d always care for him, too. Maybe more than care. But if she couldn’t have more of him than this?

  So be it.

  Marcus slapped her ass and growled. Keesha yelped and pushed back against him, encouraging him to make her scream. He responded in kind by gripping her hips and pulling her down on him. As she worked closer to another orgasm, he leaned over her, pulled her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck, and pressed his lips to her ear.

  “Come for me, baby,” Marcus demanded. “I want to feel that pussy grip me one last time.”

  Keesha trembled.

  Marcus tightened his grip in her hair and twisted her head to the side so she was facing him. His lips crashed against hers once more. His tongue invaded her mouth as she came. He kissed her deeply as she lost control, and seconds later, he did too. His hips bucked wildly and Keesha moaned against his mouth.

  When he finished, she longed for him to stay inside her like this. To kiss her some more and be sweet with her after a rough fuck like he always used to—to brush her hair off her face, run his thumb over her lips, and tell her how good of a girl she was.

  But he didn’t do those things. He pulled out, stepped back, and pulled his pants up.

  13

  Marcus

  Keesha got off her knees and stood from the sofa as she tucked her wondrous tits back into her skin-tight little outfit. She collected her hundred-dollar bill from the table and put it back in place. She turned to him as she ran her fingers through her sex-tousled hair.

  “What was that all about?” Keesha’s nose and cheeks were bright pink. She looked like she’d been fucked halfway to hell.

  He liked to think she had been.

  “It might be a while before I get to fuck a babe like you again,” Marcus said.

  Keesha frowned. “What does that mean?”

  He didn’t answer. How could he explain it to her?

  Don’t worry, baby. I’m just going into the Lion’s Den to face off—alone—with Adam Cooper. Nothing I can’t handle.

  Keesha moved toward him. “Marcus, tell me what you mean. Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  He laughed. “Trouble? Baby, I’m always in trouble.”

  Keesha rolled her eyes and adjusted the strip of green fabric between her thighs. “Yes, but I mean real trouble. The sort of trouble you always used to lie to me about because you thought you were protecting me?”

  Smart-mouthed little hellcat.

  Marcus didn’t like when Keesha asked him questions like this—like she deserved an answer. She didn’t. There was nothing between them aside from sexual chemistry. Would she ever get that through her head? There was more out there in the world for her than him.

  He’d fallen in love once before and it ruined him. He refused to do it again, especially with yet another woman who would be signing up for a life of less if she hitched her wagon to his.

  Keesha moved toward him. He turned from her and dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “I’m not doing this with you,” he said. “I needed a fuck. That’s it. Don’t go getting it in your head that this was anything other than that.”

  Keesha paused. “Marcus, talk to me. We were friends before we were ever lovers. I never wanted that to change.”

  Marcus resented the vulnerability that washed over him. “We both have secrets.”

  “Of course, we do. Ten years is a long time.”

  Marcus studied the redheaded woman before him. She’d been all fire and ice back in their old life when they used to sit on the front porch out front of her old house and talk about what life might be like if they were ever to get out of that shitty town.

  Neither of them had ever said they wanted to work in a New York City night club, but there they were.

  “Were the years good to you?” Marcus heard himself ask.

  Fuck. He shouldn’t be asking questions like that. He should leave it alone. It wasn’t any of his business, and if he wanted her to keep her nose out of his shit, he should do the same to her.

  Keesha swallowed and bowed her head. “Not all of them.”

  Obviously, otherwise, why the hell would she have ended up taking her clothes off for a living?

  Marcus turned to the door, but he looked back over his shoulder when he heard the leather of his sofa creak softly. Keesha had taken a seat. She had her knees pinched together with her hands resting lightly on top of them.

  She stared hard at his coffee table. “Turns out my mom was right after all those years. I did end up with a bad man. I made poor choices. Selfish choices. And it nearly cost me my family.”

  He couldn’t kick her out now, not when she was opening up to him.

  Marcus ran a hand over his bald head. “I’m sorry, Keesha.”

  Why the fuck was he apologizing? Why did he feel guilty? She’d made her own bed, just like he had.

  “It’s not your fault,” Keesha said, echoing his thoughts.

  I should have been there.

  “I chose a man I knew I couldn’t trust,” she said simply. “And he ruined my life.”

  Marcus sat down beside her. “Who was he?”

  She smiled sadly. It was obvious to Marcus that she still carried the scars of her old relationship. A surge of anger rolled over him and he took a steadying breath to clear his thoughts. Whoever he was, he wasn’t in the picture anymore. Keesha had found a way out of her own mess, it seemed.

  Marcus respected that.

  “He was a charming man when I first met him,” Keesha began. “But, of course, they always are in the beginning. He was sweet to my mother. He got along well with my brother, too. They used to go golfing on Sundays together. They’d have a beer. Talk about stupid stuff. And then he’d come pick me up and we’d go home. Everything was… I don’t know how to explain it. I really believed in that first year that he was going to save me from myself. I believed that he would be enough to stop me from making shitty choices. I thought he was my redemption. And I assumed I’d marry him.”

  “But things changed?”

  Keesha nodde
d slowly. Her eyes got a far-off look and Marcus knew she was reliving a dark memory. “It started right after the one-year mark. We went away for the weekend for our anniversary. I never dreamed I’d be the sort of girl a man took away for a weekend, Marcus. Truly. But he worked hard for his money and he set enough aside to take me someplace nice. Naively, I thought maybe he would propose. He didn’t. He…” She trailed off and stopped talking.

  Marcus instinctively reached over and put a hand on her thigh. “You don’t need to speak of it.”

  She swallowed hard. “No. It’s not that. I’m not afraid to talk about him. I won’t give him that power over me. On our second night, he had a bit too much to drink at dinner. We stumbled back to the hotel together. He harassed a couple guys on the sidewalk and got in a fight. You know me, Marcus. When shit starts, I can’t keep my nose out of it. I wanted to protect him because he was getting his ass kicked but I also knew it was his fault. So I got involved. I told the guys off and they left it alone.”

  Marcus nodded. He knew exactly this side of Keesha. She was as fierce as they came. If someone she cared about was getting hurt, it was impossible for her to stand on the sidelines and not get involved. Hence why she’d taken matters into her own hands with that sleazy customer a few weeks back who’d put hands on her.

  It wasn’t good for business but Marcus respected the hell out of her for being able to keep her chin up and hold her ground.

  “He was angry with me,” Keesha whispered. “He said I’d made a fool of him. He said I should have just let him lose rather than letting the two guys think he needed his girl to save him. I was so confused at the time. I couldn’t make sense of it. And I pushed back and tried to tell him how I felt about it and he… he…”

  “He hit you?”

  Keesha finally met Marcus’s eye. “Yes.”

  Bastard. “I’m sorry,” Marcus said. Fuck, he was saying sorry for a lot of shit that wasn’t his fault.

  “He hit me so hard I fell on my ass. There were people walking by. They did nothing. Then he picked me up and carried me back to the hotel. And I was alone with him in the room for eleven hours until checkout. We never slept. He just… well, he took his anger out on me. I ended up getting away from him and locked myself in the bathroom until he passed out.”

  “And then you left him?”

  Keesha shook her head. “No. I stayed. I don’t know why but I stayed. Slowly, he distanced me from my mother. From my brother, too. They didn’t know what was happening behind closed doors. They thought our relationship was perfect. It hurt them that I no longer prioritized them in my life, and to this day, they still don’t know how bad things got with him.”

  “What ended it?” Marcus asked. He had a hard time wrapping his head around this version of the Keesha he knew. The Keesha he knew would never stick around with a guy like that. Hell, he figured she was more likely to slit his throat in his sleep than stay with him.

  Keesha sighed. “Elizabeth.”

  He frowned. “Your daughter? This guy is her father?”

  “Yes. When I found out I was pregnant, the first thing I wanted to do was terminate the pregnancy. I couldn’t imagine raising a baby with him, and I knew if he was so willing to hurt me, a child would never be safe in the same house. Abortion seemed like my only option. So I drove down to the clinic. I sat in my car for three hours staring at those doors, trying to work up the nerve to go inside.”

  “But you couldn’t do it?”

  Her bottom lip trembled. “No, I couldn’t. And as I sat there, I came back into myself. I realized I had more options. I realized I had to go home and leave him. So I did.”

  Marcus wondered how paralyzing it must have been to sit there and make that decision and come to terms with where she was in her life. Had she cried? He’d been there when Keesha cried and it felt like the world was being ripped apart at the seams. Had she cried like that? Like she was coming undone and untethered all at once? Like she was breaking into pieces?

  Probably.

  “I called my mom as I drove home and told her everything,” Keesha said. “I begged her to forgive me and she told me she would call me right back. I thought she needed time to process everything I was saying. She didn’t. She called Robert. He was at the house when I got back and he helped me pack up my things. My mom showed up fifteen minutes later and they were both there when he came home from work.”

  “What was his name?”

  Keesha gave Marcus a suspicious look. “No, Marcus. I’m not telling you. I handled this myself. He’s in my past. You don’t need to know his name.”

  “Fine,” Marcus grumbled.

  He thought he saw a smile tug at the corners of her lips. “Anyway, my family was there when he came home. He was embarrassed. Thoroughly embarrassed. Robert broke the windshield of his truck and told him if he ever came within a hundred feet of me, he’d be back to beat his skull in. My mother went up one side of him and down the other, too. I’d never seen her so furious before. All the while, I kept my head down and kept loading stuff into the back of my brother’s truck. When I got in the front seat and drove away, I broke down.” She smiled in earnest. “Robert took my hand and said, ‘welcome back, sis.’ Then he started crying right alongside me and apologized for not realizing what was happening. For not checking in on me and doing his part as a brother to protect me.”

  Realization dawned on Marcus. “That’s why he came down to the club in such a rage.”

  Keesha nodded. “He’s protective, Marcus. He saw the bad spot I’d put myself in once before and he thinks I’m doing the same thing here at Kadia. I can’t blame him for it. I just wish he’d understand that I can handle myself now. I got out. And I don’t ever plan on putting myself in a bad position like that again. I can’t afford to. Not now that I have Beth.”

  Marcus stroked his chin. This was a lot of information all at once. He’d been curious about Beth’s father since he found out Keesha had a daughter but he certainly hadn’t expected a rough history like this. It hurt him to know the road Keesha had stumbled down after he left New Orleans.

  After he left her.

  How different could thing have been if he’d stayed? Would they have been together? Would he have been spared the pain of loving Kate?

  Perhaps.

  “So stripping,” he said slowly.

  Keesha shrugged. “It’s an escape for me. It’s something that’s mine. It gives me control. Power. Independence. I know it can be rough, but let’s be honest. I can handle rough.”

  Marcus flashed her a smile and squeezed her thigh. “Yes, you can.”

  She giggled softly. “Robert hates that I strip. So does my mom. They just don’t understand it and I realize that. From the outside looking in, it’s complicated. I know it’s fucked up but nothing makes me feel as strong as dancing does. And Kadia? I make enough money here to be the kind of mother Beth deserves. Minus the nudity part.”

  Marcus chuckled. He respected the hell out of her. “You’ve always been a fighter, Keesha. You know in your soul what’s worth fighting for and what isn’t. Your moral compass has always been truer than my own.”

  She sniffled under the compliment and wiped her eyes with her thumbs. “Thank you, Marcus. That means a lot to me, especially coming from you.”

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  She shrugged. “Crying feels good. It’s a release, just like sex.”

  He smirked. “Those two things are not the same and nothing you say will make me think otherwise.”

  She laughed and shook her head at him. When she fell quiet and studied him, he knew something more serious was about to follow. “Will you be careful, Marcus? Whatever this is, I know you can handle it. But please, be safe.”

  Marcus didn’t say anything.

  She searched his eyes and closed her hand over his on her thigh. “Promise me, Marcus.”

  “You know that’s a promise I can’t make, baby.”

  14

  Keesha

>   Keesha’s mother, Renee, pressed a plastic straw into the lid of the child-sized apple juice the waitress had just dropped off. She handed the red cup to Beth, who waited patiently in the wooden highchair pulled in close to the side of the table between the two women. Keesha sat on the sticky plastic bench seat while Renee sat across from her on a wooden chair with armrests that didn’t quite tuck under the table.

  Renee stretched her neck to peer around the casual family restaurant. “Where are they with our food? We ordered half an hour ago. How long does it take to prepare a salad and a wrap?”

  “It hasn’t been that long, Mom,” Keesha said, already triggered by her mother’s impatience. Renee had been known to make a scene or two over waiting for food like this. She was never out and out rude, but she would express to the waitress what she thought was an unreasonable amount of time to wait for a meal. The waitress or waiter would always politely smile and nod and acknowledge Renee’s concerns while Keesha rummaged in her wallet looking for cash to add to their tip.

  Her mother wasn’t the best tipper, either.

  It was a quality Keesha wasn’t a fan of. You couldn’t expect fantastic service but tip ten percent. The two things didn’t go hand in hand. If you wanted better than average, you should tip better than average.

  Perhaps Keesha felt this strongly because she worked in the performing and service industry and tips were the bulk of her income, just like she knew it was for the men and women waiting tables on this Saturday afternoon.

  She decided to distract her mother and hopefully buy the kitchen a few more minutes to pull the meals together. “How was your night on Friday? Did you end up going out with your old high-school friends?”

  Renee nodded and clasped her hands together. Between them, Beth sipped quietly on her apple juice. Her big green eyes slid back and forth between her mother and her grandmother as they spoke.

  “I did,” Renee said. “It was lovely. We shared a bottle of wine on my deck and talked about the old days. And our children, of course. As mother’s do.”