F*ck Club: Con Read online

  “I’m not up to—”

  “Stop it.” He closed the distance between them and lowered his head. In her ear, he said quietly, “I had a feeling there was something going on, but I thought maybe I was just being paranoid. However, Julia pegged you pretty quick, and she’s an expert at seeing through masks. You’re up to something. How about you just tell me what it is?”

  Straightening, he studied her, waiting.

  “I’m not…” She sputtered to a stop, a nervous laugh escaping her.

  “Fine.” Turning on his heel, he circled his car.

  Unlocking it with the fob he held, he was about to climb in when Shawntelle swore, then said, “Wait. Stop. Damn it, I suck at this undercover thing.”

  “Undercover?” He felt cold now. Chilled to the bone.

  “Oh, don’t worry.” She rolled her eyes and gave him a charming smile. “I’m not a cop.” She came toward him. “I’m a writer. I’m doing a piece on male prostitutes and…well, my research led me to the three of you. I wanted some…” She touched her tongue to her lips and let her gaze roam all over him. “Hands-on learning.”

  Chapter Three

  He studied her, the candid expression in her eyes, the naked curiosity.

  Just that look was enough to make his dick swell again.

  Not willing to let her see how she affected him, he casually slid into the car, despite the fact that it put some serious pressure on his erect cock.

  Bringing one knee up, he put the keys into the ignition, then hit the control to lower the top on his convertible. “A writer,” he said slowly, turning those words over in his mind.

  Did he buy that?

  “Yeah.” Her words were closer now, spoken almost into his ear and he turned his head slowly, saw that she had approached and bent down to brace her elbows on the door and was smiling at him.

  Her lips, once more painted that lush, bitable red, curved up as she leaned in closer. “I do freelance pieces. My sources are always anonymous. I’ve already interviewed a number of women who tell me how a male escort…helped them. One told me that she’d never even climaxed until she went to a pro. Once he helped her learn her body, she was able to teach her own lovers how to pleasure her better.”

  Shawntelle’s gaze dipped to his mouth, lingered. Then she looked back into his eyes, the soft brown now just a thin ring. She looked like she wanted to kiss him, like she wanted him to kiss her.

  Damned if he wasn’t tempted.

  But…

  He curled a finger at her, waited for her to come even closer. Once she did, he hooked that finger in the vee of her shirt and tugged her down until he could whisper in her ear.

  “Bullshit.”

  She tensed, jerking back to glare at him.

  “You think I’m lying?” Now those golden eyes glowed—with fury. She grabbed her phone and after a few seconds of her punching at the screen, she shoved it at him. “Look. My Twitter page. There’s a link to my website and it lists some of the articles I’ve had published. I’ve been featured in so many magazines, it might make you weep, pretty boy.”

  “Nah.” He flicked through the account’s feed. The avatar was, without a doubt, Shawntelle. Unless she had an identical twin out there. She wore glasses in the picture—a sexy pair of cat-eye frames that made him think of naughty librarians. It was a shot that featured her from the shoulders up, and her shoulders were bare. He wondered if she wanted people to think that those glasses might be all she wore, and decided, yeah. That had been the intent. It somehow conveyed sensuality and seriousness, something the typical amateur photographer couldn’t pull off.

  Her name really was Shawntelle, although the last name she’d given them on their application didn’t match her Twitter bio.

  “You write under a pseudonym or did you give us false information?” He tossed the phone back at her and wasn’t surprised at all when she caught it easily. “Just want to know if I can fire you for misrepresenting yourself.”

  “How can you do that?” She gave him a slow, taunting smile. “You needed a part-time bartender with experience. I have experience. I gave legit references for the jobs I worked.”

  “When did you have time, being so busy writing enough articles to—how did you put it—make me weep?” The sun beat down on him so he turned on the air.

  As he did so, he saw a trickle of sweat roll down Shawntelle’s temple, but he didn’t offer to let her sit in the car. There was more to her story than what she was telling him. He could feel it in his bones.

  “I worked my way through college, honey.” The drawl in her voice was thick and smooth as honey. “First, I waited tables. Then, once I was old enough to serve booze, I moved behind the bar—made better tips and didn’t have to dodge quite as many hands.”

  A streak of anger shot through him, but he smothered it, kept his casual smirk in place. The thought of a man putting his hands on a woman without invitation pissed him off, no matter what.

  But the thought of it happening to Shawntelle…

  Yeah, he didn’t need to think about that. Especially considering the cool smirk on her lips and the way she held herself, carried herself. He had a feeling she was more than capable of dissuading the typical asshole.

  The woman infuriated him.

  And he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anybody.

  That just made him even madder.

  “So…you going to have a sit-down with me?” She continued to watch him, her eyes unreadable.

  Looking away, he reached for the sunglasses he’d left on the dash. With studied casualness, he slid them into place. Then, putting the car into reverse, he smiled at Shawntelle.

  “Sure. When hell freezes over.”

  Without another word, he checked the rearview mirror and started to back up.

  She said something.

  He turned up the radio, determined to ignore her.

  That woman—she was bad for his mental health.

  * * * * *

  “You’re joking.”

  Shame and Riley stared at him. Riley sat behind his desk, his face a frozen mask. Shame had gone rigid, his entire body turning to stone. He’d been caught in a media spotlight before, barely six years earlier, when his father had been put on trial for the sexual assault and molestation of Shame’s nephew, the son of Shame’s sister.

  Shame’s older sister Tiffany had turned a blind eye, just like their mother and everybody else had, when Shame had been the one being abused.

  Then Tiffany had arrived at her father’s house two hours earlier than planned to pick up her son and walked in on an atrocity unlike anything she could have imagined.

  But she should have known—had known—and Con knew it.

  He’d seen the guilt in her eyes too many times when they were growing up.

  Shame had gone to the trial and sat there, watching in silence, every day.

  The media had pounced on him. Shame’s father, Samuel Schaeffer, had been one the town’s scions, a fine, upstanding business owner, had volunteered to coach Little League and so many other noble pursuits. Why hadn’t anybody seen this coming?

  That was when the whispers started and people would stare at Shame.

  The vultures had circled.

  Shame had shut down in a cold, unyielding silence.

  Con hadn’t been able to reach him.

  “We’re not talking to her, Shame,” Con said now, something hard and ugly settling in his heart.

  For the longest time, Shame didn’t speak. Finally, he looked back over at Con, his ice-blue eyes even more frigid than normal. “This ain’t about me, Con. She decided to focus on you. Look after yourself, okay?”

  “If she decides to do some sort of write-up, it could affect all of us.” Con lifted his chin, daring his friend to lie to his face, tell him he wasn’t worried about it. “And don’t tell me you’d be just fine with that.”

  Shame chose not to answer. He rarely lied. At least to his friends.

  As Shame went back to sta
ring at the rows of books that lined the shelves of Riley’s bookcase, Con looked at Riley.

  Riley had finally processed what Con had told him and was plugging away at the internet.

  “Why in the hell would she want to do some think piece on male prostitutes?”

  Con didn’t bother to respond to his older brother. The question had been self-directed.

  Circling around, he stared at the computer screen over Riley’s shoulder and saw that he’d pulled up Shawntelle’s website. It was sleek and elegant, focused on the essentials. No bells or whistles and that much more compelling in its simplicity.

  She’d won some awards—one had been on a piece that had hit upon the problem with modern day slavery, taking place in the typical American city with the common American citizen completely unaware.

  Another had been a hard look at how bullying was changing the lives of students—and too often ending them as some of them committed suicide to escape their tormentors.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Riley muttered a few minutes later, closing a window. He’d just finished reading her latest piece—how students at a southern college were fighting against racism. “She takes on big causes. We aren’t a cause.”

  Con fought the urge to look at Shame, still standing rigid across the room.

  “She’s not writing some humanities piece or whatever in the hell you’d call it, on us.” The hand he’d rested on the table closed into a tight fist. “I don’t know what she’s up to, but there’s something more to her story.”

  “Why?”

  It came from Shame.

  Looking up, he met the man’s gaze.

  Shaking his head, he struggled for a way to explain it without sounding stupid. In the end, he decided he’d just risk sounding stupid. “I don’t know. I can’t explain. There’s just something about how she…handles herself. It’s like she’s holding herself all tight, locked down. She’s digging for something and whatever it is, it’s important. She’s hiding it behind this lazy smile and those tight jeans…” He stopped, wishing he hadn’t let that part slip out. But it was there and it wasn’t like Shame or Riley were blind. They would have noticed that excellent ass, her legs. “Shit. Anyway, she’s playing it cool but she’s not cool. Not at all. Whatever this is, it’s got her worked up. So it’s big. It’s important to her. It can’t be us. She doesn’t even know us.”

  Riley stared at him for a hard moment then went back to his study of her website.

  After a few seconds, Shame muttered something under his breath and left the room.

  “What do I do?” Con asked softly.

  “Not much you can do.” Riley clicked on another article. “I guess we could always fire her, but what good will that do? Sooner or later, she’ll get bored and leave.”

  “Yeah.” Con snorted. “Sure.”

  Chapter Four

  “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  She appeared out of practically nowhere.

  Con jerked upright at the sound of her low, husky voice, slamming his head into the shelf.

  Pain bloomed.

  He swore.

  “Ohhh…” Shawntelle made a sound of sympathy in her throat.

  He spun around and glared at her, thankful there weren’t two of her. “What the hell?”

  As he rubbed at the goose egg he could already feel forming, he dropped the clipboard. He’d come back here to do inventory, and get a break from her.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be handling the bar?” He still glared at her.

  “One of the guys has it for a minute. I just wanted to tell you that you had a phone call.” Her eyes moved to his head, then back down. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “I wasn’t— You didn’t…” He stopped, realizing he was about to start sputtering. “I’m fine. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “So you’re jumpy.” She lifted a brow at him.

  Instead of answering, he moved over to the phone that hung on the wall and picked it up. As there was only one line flashing, he didn’t need to get the information from her. Pushing the button, he turned his back to her. “This is Con. How can I help you?”

  “Hi, Con. It’s Detective Hally Chance. How are you?”

  The throbbing in his head fell to the wayside.

  The scent that had been threatening to invade him and turn his entire body to lava faded away to nothingness as his awareness focused on one thing, and one thing alone.

  The cop on the other end of the line.

  Turning, he looked at Shawntelle and met her eyes. “This is private.”

  “Of course.” She offered him a dazzling smile. “I hope you don’t have too bad of a headache.”

  She backed out slowly and he shut the door the second her toes cleared the doorway.

  Lifting the phone back to his ear, he said, “Sorry. How can I help you, detective?”

  * * * * *

  Seeing red, he emerged from the inventory room nearly ten minutes later.

  Detective Chance’s final words were still echoing in his ear as he rounded the corner just in time to see Shawntelle hurrying away from the table in the break room. Eyes narrowed, he watched as she strode by him, head up, shoulders back.

  If he hadn’t looked at her, he wouldn’t have seen the subtle movement she made as she reached behind her back, just as she drew even, then pulled her arm around her front.

  Something about how she did, how smoothly practiced it was had his paranoia shrieking.

  He followed her into the main area of the bar, his eyes zooming in on the phone cradle that rested behind it.

  It was empty.

  Without thinking, he pulled his phone from his back pocket.

  She still wasn’t looking at him.

  It was quiet in there, only three o’clock. Too late for the lunchtime rush and too early for those who came in for dinner. The low hum of music and what few customers they did have wasn’t enough to drown out the sound of the phone as it rang.

  Shawntelle stiffened just as he drew even with her, his phone pressed to his ear.

  Furious, he disconnected the call, then held out his hand for the phone she still held. Dropping it down into the cradle, he dipped his head until it was closer to her ear. “Listening in on my conversations, Shawntelle? That how you get insights on whatever fluff pieces you write?”

  She jerked back to glare at him. But to her defense, she didn’t deny that she’d been listening.

  He’d attributed the bad connection to the fact that Chance had been using the speaker app on her cell phone.

  But it had been a little more than that—a third party.

  That third party lifted her chin.

  “It’s not like anything was discussed that can’t be discovered on its own,” she said coolly. “At least, once the ink is dry on the paperwork. He’ll probably take the deal.”

  “Just what do you know about Mobley?”

  She waved a hand through the air. “You know, I get that this is a small town and that I’m kind of an outsider…but people talk. Even to me.”

  She turned and went to empty out a load of dishes.

  He debated whether or not to call her on the bullshit and decided to let it go. “Sooner or later, you’re going to get bored. I’m not telling you shit. Neither will Shame or Ry.”

  She slanted a look at him. “Then you don’t tell me shit. Won’t be the first time.”

  * * * * *

  They were busy.

  Seriously fucking busy.

  He’d ended up calling Shame in to help and Con was about two seconds from throwing an apron at his little sister, Charli, and telling her to help bus tables.

  She sat at the end of the bar, looking exhausted. He felt kind of bad, thinking about putting her to work, but hey…exercise sent oxygen to the brain and would help wake her up enough for the drive home, right?

  When he had a bit of a break between orders, he worked his way down to her.

  “How many days you worked thi
s week?”

  She made a face at him. “I won’t be a resident forever.”

  “Sure.” He shrugged and nodded as one of the servers came by and started rattling over orders. By rote, he went about filling them, his mind still on his kid sister’s face, all but white with weariness. “It will end even sooner if you drive into a tree.”

  Their parents had ended up dead, thanks to a car crash. It was a sore spot for them all—and a low blow to her. He knew it. But he was worried about her. Pausing in the middle of mixing up a margarita, he looked at her. “Don’t drive into a tree, Charli.”

  She caught the worry and gave him a wan smile. “I won’t.” She lifted the glass of wine to her lips and took a sip. “I’m going to finish this, then go home and go to sleep.”

  Her eyes strayed over his shoulder then and something darkened them. He knew what it was, and who had caused that look. Need, love, longing. He kind of envied her, even as he was glad it wasn’t him. He wished he could tell her to move on.

  Con knew what Riley didn’t, what Shame didn’t.

  Charli had been in love with Shame probably since before she was even fully old enough to understand what love was.

  And Con also knew that Shame’s ability to love was probably broken. Oh, he could form bonds—he had one with each of the Steeles, including Charli. He was loyal to the bone and he’d defend those he saw as family. And that’s how he viewed Charli. As family.

  It would never be anything more.

  But he couldn’t get her to see that.

  Instead of trying to distract her or point out the obvious—he suspected she already knew—he focused on filling the orders. When he had another break, she’d finished her wine and laid a bill on the table. He had told her he’d take care of it, but Charli was stubborn. He didn’t feel like wasting his breath.

  She smiled at him and rose onto her toes, half leaning over the bar.

  He gave her a kiss on the forehead.

  “Damn, boy. Kiss her better than that,” somebody slurred.