was a whole lot of sexy woman-on-woman action happening and the crowd noticed.
Nassir chuckled as I started to move forward in order to break up the catfight.
“What?” I barked it him over my shoulder as I moved forward.
He laughed again. “I would’ve charged more at the door if I had known you were going to bring that kind of entertainment in with you, cop. When she figures out you’re just using her and you drop her on her ass, send her my way if she wants a job. I’ll oil her and Honor up every night and make enough to buy and sell this piece-of-shit city a hundred times over.
“Fuck off, Gates.”
I pushed through cheering bodies and waving arms until I could get to the spot on the floor where the girls were rolling around. I was assaulted with a chorus of boos and hit with more than one flying beer bottle as I pried Reeve off the stripper. They were both breathing hard and bleeding from various scratches.
“Seriously?” I asked the question as I set Reeve on her feet and watched as she shoved her long hair out of her face. I sighed and grabbed her hand as I started to drag her to the back where the bathrooms that the girls used were instead of the ones that were there for the customers.
“It’s fine.” Her voice was shaky as I shoved her into the room and hit the light switch.
“It’s not fine.”
She laughed a little shrilly and then the next thing I knew she launched herself at me so that I had to use both hands to catch her.
“You’re right.” I wanted to demand to know what she was thinking. I wanted to ask why she had decided to throw down with a stripper, but before my tongue unleashed the words, her mouth locked on mine and then there was no thinking. There was just heat, the tang of blood, and all the sweetness that always seemed to rise above the tartness when it came to this woman.
Chapter 7
Reeve
I COULD TOLERATE A lot of things. I was immune to nasty words and thought very little of the people that slung them around carelessly. I had grown used to hearing that I was a rat. I often heard the word backstabber mumbled as people walked by. I had been labeled a sellout, a traitor, but even worse was the disappointment I saw in Titus’s eyes every time I got just close enough for him to realize exactly who it was that had her hands on him, what kind of woman it was that made his eyes bleed all their color and burn white hot with craving and need. It stripped little pieces away from what was left of my dignity when he looked that way because the disappointment wasn’t directed at me but inward. He struggled with the way he wanted me, fought against big, powerful things that rose up inside him when we touched, and it hurt that he wouldn’t give in to them. I wasn’t sure he even knew they were there, but I could see them shining out of him and hear them calling to me louder and louder the harder Titus tried to quiet them down. The cop had more going on than his duty to serve and protect, and I wanted to dig into all of it.
Apparently the situation between me and the handsome detective bothered Honor as well. I knew Keelyn Foster and her glittery stripper skin outside of Spanky’s. She was one of my regular clients when I worked down here in the District doing hair. She was tough as nails, spoke her mind, and if there was ever a reigning queen of the Point it was her. She was tough and unbelievably beautiful. She was also unabashedly honest and had no problem getting right up in my face and telling me that Titus was a good man, too good for the likes of me, and that I should keep my bloodstained paws off of him. It should have been ridiculous. The words were trite and obvious and she delivered them dressed in nothing but a sparkly G-string and a pair of platform heels that almost made her the same height as me. But it was there in her frosty gray eyes. She really thought Titus was above me, thought I was somehow going to dirty him up and drag him down to the level she and I were at, and she