Body Shot (Tapped Out) Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the food chain. And I’d be in control. I’d say who got to touch and who didn’t. I’d have everyone’s eyes on me .
    The girl in the shadows would finally be in the spotlight.
    “Yeah, yeah, come in,” a woman called.
    Rubbing my clammy hands on my thighs, I walked inside the office.

4
    Giovanni
    “ Y ou okay , sweetheart?”
    Brenda wiped her mouth and blinked up at me, clearly surprised. I imagined there weren’t many men here who asked if she was all right after she performed the back room service she’d been paid for. These kinds of things weren’t supposed to take place, but everyone knew they did.
    Now Carly did too.
    Revulsion slickened my gut, tasted like fire at the back of my throat. How had I become this man? I’d just had an orgasm, but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t thinking about the lovely, unnerved young woman between my thighs. I was focused on Carly.
    Again. Still.
    I imagined her walking out the door and heading back to her battered car in the lot down the street. It had been a risk allowing her to follow me, but I’d seen her at the fights too often lately and I couldn’t allow her childlike interest in me to stand. Snuffing it out quickly and painlessly was the kindest thing I could do for her.
    For us both.
    “I’m fine.” Brenda stood up unsteadily and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. Knowing she could still taste me brought a flush to the back of my neck. If the circumstances had been different, knowing that would’ve filled me with a possessive, masculine pride. But they weren’t different, and the fact that my intentions were to save one girl didn’t detract from the fact that I’d just taken advantage of another.
    It wasn’t enough that I’d fucked her between her soft, pale lips. Toward the end I’d gotten rough. I’d tried not to. Every time my fists tightened in her hair, I’d fought to gentle my hold. But she was skilled, and it had been a while since I’d had a release. With as much time as I spent in this club, and with the women at the fights who brought me the kind of attention I needed to be seen, I still didn’t sleep around indiscriminately. That part of my nature hadn’t changed, in spite of the trappings of my new life. I wasn’t perfect, and I definitely had taken my share of lovers, but I also didn’t have a revolving carousel of them. Even if I had, it wouldn’t have diminished my thoughts of Emilia.
    Or Carly.
    “Here.” I fumbled out my wallet and pressed a sheaf of bills into Brenda’s hand. She made a low noise in her throat, and I dug for more. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, hating the shame that burned through my skin. My mother would be so hurt to know I’d sunk to this level. Nothing would excuse it.
    Though perhaps even that was wishful thinking. My mother had been gone for so many years. She’d walked away from the life my father had given her when I was small, saying a boy needed his father. She hadn’t been ready to be a mother. I’d known that all along. The nannies my father had paid for had helped fill in the gaps. My father hadn’t been willing to let her go, but eventually he had. She’d started over again somewhere far away, and she hadn’t left a forwarding address. Cards and packages had arrived for a while, until those too had stopped. I was no longer a boy, and no longer needed my mother’s censure to tell me I had sinned. I knew it every moment I looked in the mirror.
    “No, no, this is too much,” Brenda breathed, and I wondered if she’d ever said those words before either. I doubted most men were nearly generous enough for what she gave them.
    “Take it,” I insisted, pressing more cash into her hands. I didn’t know how much I’d given her. Five hundred dollars, maybe. It still wasn’t enough. I wasn’t rich, but I got by. And she deserved so much more than this. “Thank you for being here tonight,” I said, meaning it genuinely.
    If not for Brenda and her kind eyes, I might not