Woman Named Red Read online

  Her eyes widen in shocked pleasure and she chokes a little, her breaths coming in quick pants.

  “You know you want it.” I soften my voice and nuzzle her neck, giving her ear a quick bite. “Just ask and I can give it to you. Look at where we are. You can’t get much more public than this. I know how much that turns you on.” I’m crooning now. Seductive as the fucking devil. Pulling her in, deeper and deeper. I’m not going to be the only one lost down this goddamned rabbit hole. I’m dragging her down with me. “Just ask and let me give you what you need,” I whisper and then suck her ear in between my teeth.

  Her pants get even heavier and I probe her netherlips with my cock in time to the circling of her clit, and, not so coincidentally, with the heavy, sultry beat of the song that’s just started.

  Probably against her will, Scarlet’s body has started moving to the beat. I pay attention to her every nuance. She holds her body wound so tight, even here at the heights of pleasure. But it’s like she has to let it out somewhere and that’s her hands—she has them balled into fists clutching at the hem of her dress. Anyone watching might think she’s doing that to hold it down, but fuck, I know that’s not it. She does that when she’s getting close to coming. She grabs something in her fist, any bit of cloth she can, because it’s like the bliss is getting to be too much and she has to ground herself somehow.

  I want it to be my hand she grabs. I want it to be me she fucking tethers herself to. That she marks. Fucking stubborn woman. Even in this, she’s still holding back.

  But Christ, it’s getting hard to think. She’s so slick and hot against the head of my cock. Christ. I grind my teeth.

  Because I’m going to hold out against her. I’m trying to prove a fucking point. But goddammit, she feels sooooo fucking good. I alternate my massage of her clit between hard circles and the gentlest of touches and finally she grabs my wrist with her hand and turns her head to me.

  “Get that giant cock inside me right this second or I swear I’ll fucking dice you with my nine-inch hollow ground slicing knife.”

  I pause, then smile. “Say please.”

  Her glare turns murderous again and my smile edges into a grin as I shove all the way home, deep enough that my balls nestle up against her ass.

  Her glare immediately disappears, replaced by a look of shocked bliss. Then her eyes dart around, like she’s suddenly realizing we’re really doing this—fucking in public. And a look like a cat that ate the cream comes over her face. She bites her lip and leans her back against me, throwing an arm up and around my neck like many of the other women grinding on their men are doing.

  Except that, holy shit, it’s hitting me, too—I’m fucking her right here on the dance floor. Chandelier has a full capacity for nine hundred people and with how crowded it is and this being a Friday night, I’d say we’re getting near to hitting it.

  You can’t get more fucking public than that.

  I shift my hand a little to make sure the front of her dress still falls and covers what I’m doing to her. At least mostly. As tight as I am at her back, anyone close enough could definitely see what we’re doing. Just the thought makes my cock harden even more, though I wouldn’t have thought that was fucking possible. I ought to get down to business. Everyone knows that the first rule of fucking in public is to get it over with quick.

  Except that now that I’ve got her like this, the last thing I want is a fast fuck.

  No. That might be what she’s expecting, but that’s not what I’m giving her. I swivel my hips back, pulling my cock out. Her inner muscles clamp down and fuuuuuuuuuuuuck me, I’ve never in my life felt such a tight grip. In spite of my determination to go slow, it’s like she’s determined to milk me.

  Still, I draw her close and do a bunch more half slides in and out along with the beat of the music. Aw, Christ, that feels so good.

  The music changes to a slightly more upbeat song but I still take it slow. There’s a deeper groove to be found in any beat and I catch that one. I close my eyes, hold tight to my woman, hand like a bar around her waist, cock buried deep inside that hot, hot pussy and we dance and fuck dirtier than I ever have before in my life. I just lose myself in her.

  Scarlet’s getting wetter and wetter. I circle and tease at her clit. She jerks and arches her back against me as I continue the tortuous glide of my cock in and out. A sweet little whine of pleasure escapes her mouth. It’s swallowed by the loud music, but I hear it.

  And she starts going wild on my hand. If I’m finding the slow groove in the music, she’s wiggling to it double-time.

  Aw fuck, my girl wants to get off. Little nympho angel. She’s so eager for it. I swirl harder and then it comes. Her muscles go so tight around my cock. And with her face turned to the side and back toward me, I can see her features scrunch tight in ecstasy, eyes squeezing shut.

  “That’s right, babe. You’re so fucking beautiful when you come.” I thrust in and out at a slightly more elevated pace.

  “But I’m a greedy bastard and I want more,” I demand in her ear. “That was just the start. Give me another one.” After giving her a brief pause while she came, now I start rubbing her clit again. I’m gentle at first, but insistent, especially when she tries to pull away.

  “I can’t,” she whispers, looking around us like she’s suddenly realizing where we are. Then she tries to glare at me. But she fails because I can already see the pleasure working on her again. “Just come and we’ll get out of here,” she says.

  “Not until I take you high again.” I lathe her ear with my tongue and then bite it. “Higher than before.”

  She shakes her head but I keep at it with my fingers and a shudder works through her body.

  “That’s right, babe. Give me your honey. I want it dripping on my cock.” She shudders again at my dirty talk, so I keep it up. Oh, my girl likes it filthy, doesn’t she?

  “You feel me ramming your sweet little hole? I’m fucking you right here in this room full of people. Any one of them dancing just two feet away could look over and see what we’re doing. And I bet it would turn them the fuck on.”

  I keep up the steady commentary in her ear and swear I can feel her juicing even more all over my cock. I slide in and out with so much lubrication but still, she grips me, Christ. Christ. I wanna blow, but I got to keep it back. Get her there first. Just get her there first—

  “If anyone sees us, it’s all they’ll be able to think about for the next week. Hell, for a month. When they’re fucking their boyfriends or their wives, when they’re jacking off to shitty porn, they’re going to be thinking about that couple who dared to live out the fantasy that everyone has. About the man who saw the hottest fucking woman in the room, shoved up her red dress, and buried his cock so deep in her cunt, she won’t stop feeling it for days. So deep she’ll never be able to stand the touch of any other man ever again. Only him.”

  This gets another high-pitched whine out of her. Her grip on the bottom hem of her dress is so tight, I swear she’s going to rip the fabric. And then all of the sudden I stop fucking her and my fingers pause their assault.

  “Say please,” I whisper in her ear.

  “Please!” she all but shouts.

  And I fuck the shit out of her while giving her clit all the attention I can.

  She comes so hard I feel it not only around my cock but all throughout my entire body.

  I let go at the same time. Red. Everything goes red. My vision. My whole fucking life. Everything was gray and colorless before her and now it’s exploding in—Brilliant. Fucking. Scarlet.

  I growl into Scarlet’s hair and hold her tight as I release. I thrust several more times, clinging to the feeling and to her.

  It’s only in the aftermath that I realize just how tight I’m holding her and loosen my grip. But considering how limp she is, maybe it was a good thing I was holding her so tight because she’s not looking too steady on her feet.

  I blink, looking around us. Everyone’s just partying like usual.
The DJ’s shouting at the crowd and they’ve all got their hands in the air again, yelling out frenzied responses. No one’s looking at us.

  I feel like an earthquake just rocked through my fucking world and no one even has a second glance for us. I shake my head and look back to Scarlet. She’s leaning over, hands on her knees like people do when they’ve just finish running a marathon. Sort of appropriate. That was kind of a marathon sex session. In the middle of my club’s dance floor.

  Yeah. Holy shit. I shake my head as I lean over surreptitiously, pull off my condom, tie up one end and, for lack of anything better to do with it, wrap it up in the handkerchief I always carry with me, and put it in my pocket. I’ll dispose of it as soon as we get off the dance floor.

  As soon as I’ve got it taken care of, I turn back to Scarlet. I reach out my arm to tuck it around her waist. Part of me is afraid that, in true Scarlet form, she’ll pull away from my touch—even after we just shared that intense intimacy.

  But she doesn’t. She looks up at me with eyes that are a little lost. She allows me to lead her through the thick, crazy crowd and off to the side of the floor.

  Which is right where we run smack into Tony Yang.

  He’s hard to miss. He’s a man of slight stature, but he always wears tailored three-piece suits. Today’s no exception. He’s perfectly groomed from his slicked-back hair all the way down to his wingtip shoes that are, shit you not, plated in gold. He also has a toothpick sticking out of his mouth. He’s perpetually chewing on those damn things.

  “Special K, where you been?” He grins at me. “I’ve been looking for you. But now I’m glad I came to chat in person. That was quite a show. Better than a porno. Who’s your hot piece? She for rent? I like them big titties. What you say, bitch? Two hundred and you suck my cock real nice.”

  My arm rears back to deck the motherfucker, Chinese mob boss or not.

  Chapter 9

  “Hey,” Xander’s arm comes around me, pulling down my arm in the same motion and holding me back. “I was just trying to find you to tell you Mr. Yang was here in person.”

  I try to jerk away but Xander has an iron grip on me. Guess my club manager isn’t as much of a pussy as I thought.

  And shit. What was I thinking? Yang doesn’t just run Chinatown. He has Triad ties that extend back to Hong Kong and beyond. I relax in Xander’s arms and put on a genial grin. “It’s cool,” I say out of the side of my mouth to Xan and he lets me go.

  “Tony.” I give a small bow of courtesy, even though I still want to kick the fucker in the face for what he said to Scarlet. Speaking of, she’s standing off to the side, watching me smile at Yang with an incredulous look on her face. I try to take her hand so I can pull her to my side. I need to make it clear to Yang she’s not just a side piece of ass.

  No, she’s claimed. He better step the fuck off.

  Except instead of allowing me to tug her close, she crosses her arms over her chest, looking pissed the hell off while she glares at Yang. Then her eyes come back to me like she expects me to do something about the creep.

  But it’s not exactly as if I can call a sidebar and explain the whole sordid bit about why this bastard is here in my club expecting me to drop everything and talk to him. In spite of the fact that he just insulted my date to her face. Or why I have to humor him instead of booting his ass. It’s all so much more complicated than that. There’s history and—

  At my continued silence, Scarlet huffs out an angry breath, turns on her spiked heel and strides away furiously.

  “Angry kitten,” Yang chuckles, head turned, watching her go. Aka, he’s eyeing her ass and I want to rip his eye sockets out of his head. “You need to clip those claws, my friend. Or let me do it for you. My Geisha House is always happy to accept new trainees—”

  “What do you want?” My voice is clipped and my jaw tight, but that’s better than what I really want to do, which again, is to deck him. Him talking about his Geisha House always turns my stomach. In addition to being a gun and drug-running piece of scum, he’s a pimp. As well as, I suspect, a human trafficker. Those geishas of his—sure, everyone says they’re high class as hell—but I’ve heard from other sources that the Geisha House is like a prison. There’s no freedom or ever getting out. It’s little better than slavery for the girls.

  Geishas were a Japanese thing, not even Chinese, but Yang counts on the fact that ignorant Americans confuse all things Asian together, liking the oriental and subservient feel of the girls.

  Whole thing’s fucking disgusting.

  Which makes me, what?

  Because it didn’t stop me from taking his money as an investor in my early restaurants. Or rather, bringing him in to deal with my other earliest investors who were becoming problematic.

  “Don’t jerk my chain,” Yang says. “Take me to VIP.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek but nod. “Of course. Nothing less for Chandelier’s own very important person.” I bow again and hold out a hand for Yang to lead the way. He walks the perimeter of the crowd, two of his beefy bodyguards who tower at least a foot and a half taller than him pushing people out of his path as we go.

  “Make sure the woman who was with me has a ride home,” I growl to Xander before following after Yang.

  He’s surefooted as he takes the stairs two at a time. He wields so much power it’s easy to think he’s older than he really is. But I doubt if he’s even forty yet, and unlike many of his peers in his business, he doesn’t seem to indulge in much except his suits and occasionally, his girls. He’s not soft around the middle and I’ve never seen him be anything but sharp. He doesn’t stop at the first landing but continues to the second floor.

  Again, I find myself grinding my teeth. I haven’t had him up here on purpose. And yes, it’s been a statement. I’m getting the feeling that he’s here to make one of his own.

  He pushes through the velvet curtain and toward the couch Jackson Vale sat on not an hour ago. He sits down, props his gold-tipped shoes up on the sleek glass coffee table, and spreads both his arms out wide over the back of the couch.

  “Little birdies are talking in my ear, Special K.” He examines me critically. “And they tell me you are buying The Sutler building. But you know what I have not heard?”

  I shrug coolly. “No clue.” I keep up my affable smile.

  He holds a hand up to his ear. “I’ve sent men to contact you, yet I hear nothing back from my good friend Special K.” His eyes turn hard and focus on me. “Now, why is that? Here I am, thinking that me and my Special K have this close relationship. After all, when you come to town, I help you with that trouble you are having with those 12th Street Boys. You got into bed with them to get your first restaurant off the ground but then when they start making trouble, who helped you?”

  “You did.” My voice is steady as I say this but internally, I’m recounting all my many fuck-ups.

  It seemed like the only option at the time. I had nothing when I came back from my apprenticeship in Paris—nothing but a skill-set and a dream. No one was going to give a bank loan to a nobody with no formal education, no matter how my coq au vin melted on your tongue.

  I knew I could make a go of it. Or die trying. For a while there, I was okay with either option.

  So to me, it didn’t matter where the money came from. I’d pay it back. Or you know, the dying option. So I took on the 12th Street Gang as my investors. Small-time hustlers, though no less deadly. It was a crazy roulette chance, especially with something as fiscally risky as a restaurant. I was a crazy twenty-year-old fuckhead with nothing to lose, so I pulled the trigger.

  We had a good location. I knew that—it was why I was so determined to get that particular building. Right on the top of Nob Hill. It was some dive place before I bought it, just on the edge of going under. I waited them out until they were foreclosed on and then bought it from the bank on the cheap.

  Then I was just lucky. I mean sure, I cooked my ass off, and I’d been strategic as hell when we�
�d overhauled the place. I wasn’t going for the hipster, cheap-ass clientele. No, I aimed for the client who lived the life I wanted. Rich fuckers. I required a suit coat to get in the place and provided one if men showed up not wearing one.

  We started getting word of mouth. Then the right reviewers stopped by.

  The rest is history.

  I was able to pay back the 12th Streeters, including the interest I owed, which of course ended up being about double the amount of the loan.

  I thought that meant I should be free and clear of them.

  They had other plans. They had a stake in my business, they said. So they thought I should continue paying them to ‘protect’ the business.

  And if I didn’t, well, then, they’d be happy to provide some motivation for me to keep paying. Most likely in the form of broken limbs.

  What to do when a shark is circling?

  Find a bigger shark.

  And no one’s bigger in San Francisco’s underworld than Yang and his boys. I’d learned my lesson this time, though.

  So I approached Yang face to face like a businessman, as equals. I wasn’t a nobody anymore. I made him a business proposition. I didn’t ask for a loan. I presented him an investment opportunity. I offered him a stake in Benson’s House South and eventually the east location as well. The original site was bringing in a rich clientele and Yang was attracted to that kind of class and gentility. Or at least the appearance of it.

  And he was willing to take care of my 12th Streeters problem.

  I agreed a little too readily. I admit that now. I was still young and green, even though I thought myself so worldly.

  I didn’t foresee that Yang would want to use my legit business as a way to launder his gun and drug money. Because of course he would. He didn’t threaten broken bones like the 12th Streeters. Nothing so crass.

  He just started laundering the money without me realizing it—he’d initially argued that since he had a thirty percent share in Benson’s, his people should work in management at one of the restaurants. That’s where I was stupidly naïve. By the time I realized what was going on, my businesses were mired too deep. I couldn’t do anything to Yang without destroying myself and everything I’d worked so hard for.