“You need to get waxed… everywhere. Simon requires it.”
Crap. I hate getting waxed. Hurts like a bitch, but I also know in this line of business, it’s the easiest way to maintain a well-groomed crotch line.
“Fine,” I grit out. “Anything else I need to do about my appearance?”
“Just try to remove that steel pole out of your spine and I think we’re good.”
I don’t rise to his goading and instead give him a sweet smile. “Consider it removed. Now, let’s get to work so we can bring this son of a bitch down.”
Chapter 5
Wyatt
Christ, I’m nervous.
Not once in the past four months have I had an attack of nerves, but fuck if I don’t have them now. I take a sip from the can of Pepsi sitting in front of me, and then surreptitiously wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans. One of the dancers I had interviewed yesterday is on the stage. A beautiful girl named Amy with mocha-colored skin and small breasts that she more than makes up for by the way she can twerk her hips.
Club music is thumping, but the lights are all on brightly, not affording them subtle mood setting to go along with their routine. She’s spinning on the pole as I watch her with shuttered eyes, my nerves doing a twerk of their own because Andrea Somerville is up next.
Fuck, she better land this audition for Simon or we’re screwed. I won’t have time to get another undercover plant in place before Simon is ready to make the next sell.
With a quick glance to my left, I see Simon and Lance with their heads angled in toward one another, quietly discussing the girl up on the stage. Their eyes stay pinned on her while they talk in low voices about her performance. I hear words like “looks too proud” and “she’ll be a fighter,” and based on those snippets, I’m sure she won’t be offered the job. While Simon can use the extra talent up on stage, these auditions are strictly for sex slaves, whether those poor, unsuspecting girls know it or not, and “proud” and “fighter” don’t make for easy marks.
I am pleased to hear this, though, because while Amy’s social background is perfect for what Simon is looking for, I knew that the haughty tilt of her head and the pride in her eyes would make him uneasy. He wants marks that, while beautiful and sexy, won’t make trouble for their soon-to-be captors. I figured just such a girl thrown into these auditions would increase the likelihood of Simon choosing Andrea.
As long as she could dance.
Fuck… more sweat on my palms and I wipe them again.
I’m not only nervous over the possibility that Simon won’t hire Andrea. I’m also nervous over the possibility that Simon will hire Andrea, because the minute that happens, she’s going to be in danger.
Serious fucking danger.
My plan is tentative and still needs some thinking, and all of this hinges on my ability to be present at Andrea’s sale. But as long as that works out, then the plan is just to take them down right then and there with a carefully concealed weapon and a surprise reveal of my law enforcement status.
But there is a huge unknown, and that is I don’t know what to make of Andrea. I just couldn’t see her being a stripper, and about the only thing I felt she had going for her was a sweet, southern accent that was not faked. That fit in nicely with her backstory. But past that, she screamed law enforcement from the clear higher education in her voice to the military-like stiffness of her posture to the confidence brimming in her eyes.
She was going to have to do a world of great fucking acting to pull off this charade.
And Christ… I hope to God she can pull sexy off. She came off as a bit of a plain Jane to me when I met her in the wee hours of this morning, wearing her starched FBI-ware and a severe bun at the back of her head. No makeup but she had clear skin, gorgeous blue eyes, and full, fuckable lips. I could only hope Simon was calculating the way they’d look around his buyer’s cock when he was making his decision, a thought that causes my stomach to curdle.
The music starts waning and I realize Amy is at the end of her routine. She ends it by hooking her fingers in the strings of the thong that rest at her hip, shimmying them down her long legs. She steps out of them, catching the edge on one manicured toe encased in silver, high-heeled sandals, and flicks it out so the material goes sailing at Lance. He deftly catches it and just like the schmuck that I know him to be, brings it to his nose and inhales deeply with a sensuous look on his face. That earns him a cheeky grin from Amy, bare-assed naked and staring boldly down at us.
Cocking one hand on her hip and letting the other hang loosely at her side, she says, “So what did you think? Do I have the job?”
Simon and Lance bend their heads toward one another, voices so low that I can’t hear a damn thing now. They don’t bother to conference me in because my opinion doesn’t matter at this point. I did my job… brought the prospects to the table, and now it’s Simon’s decision.
Pulling back, Simon looks up at Amy and gives her a smooth smile. “You’re hired, baby. Head back to the dressing room and get your clothes on. You can go over the details with Raze a bit later. We have two more auditions.”
Fuck.
He hired her, and that just decreased Andrea’s chances.
“Who’s up next?” Simon asks me.
I glance down at the application I had filled out the day before and pretend I’m not overly familiar with the fake person it belongs to. “Nikki Oliver, but she goes by Nikki O… She said it means Nikki Orgasm,” I say with a snort, and Simon and Lance laugh along with me.