turned from the mirror, leaving the dressing area as she heard the DJ start to mix in her signature song with the R&B tune bumping from the speakers.
As she walked, her sway became more pronounced, her body relaxed, her small breasts pushed out, her shoulders thrown back.
Sienna tossed her hair away from her face, licked her full lips, and smiled.
She was almost ready.
The closer she came to the long, black velvet curtain cloaking the stage, the more she shed her inhibitions.
The less she cared.
It was showtime, like Deloris said.
Time to get her sexy on.
The slow, hot heat from the rhythm invaded her limbs and she reached back and fluffed out the colorful feathers attached to her thong.
Her fingertips then ran lightly over her breasts, skimming her protruding nipples, making sure her sequined pasties were secure.
With a toss of her head and a smile, the transformation was complete. She was no longer Sienna Featherstone, part-time substitute grade-school teacher, full-time college student.
She was Sinful Feathers, headlining act at the Sweet Kitty Gentlemen’s Club.
And for one final night, one final time, it was time to get her sexy on.
2
Garrett McAllister sat back in the high-backed wooden bar chair and raised the shot glass of whisky to his lips and took a healthy swallow. With a grimace, he placed the glass back on the small dented table in front of him, and turned bored eyes toward the gyrating woman on the main stage.
Her moves were the same as all the others before her.
She shimmied and danced, kicking her long legs out in front of her, gyrating for all she was worth. She worked her double-D cups, grabbing her breasts and squeezing them, dancing and twirling around the small stage for the throng of men standing in rapt attention.
When one of the men looked particularly animated, the dancer dropped down on all fours, slid on her back, throwing her legs in the air, and shimmied her ass in front of him.
At his vantage point, Mac could see the saliva practically oozing from the sides of the man’s lips as the dancer slid one long, manicured finger inside her thong panties. She pushed the scrap of lace aside to give the man an extra peek at what else she had for sale.
It was no secret that some of the strippers at the Sweet Kitty offered more than a stage or lap dance to the men who frequented the club.
There were several rooms upstairs where, with the right price, a man—or a woman—could buy a “bed dance.” According to club rules, all bed dances, although conducted on an actual bed, with the customer lying down and the dancer on top of him or her, were conducted fully clothed.
But what happened when the doors were closed in the bedrooms was a different matter altogether, Mac thought cynically.
The music ended, and with it, the dancer’s set. The woman abruptly stopped dancing, midshimmy, and gathered the tossed bills before swiftly walking off the stage.
At the curtain separating the stage from the back room, she paused and glanced over her shoulder toward the customer she’d given a private viewing. She pointed to the back of the club with one of her long, talonlike fingernails, where a winding staircase, leading to the upper rooms, was located.
With nonchalance, Mac observed the exchange. He noted the man’s head hastily bobbed up and down in affirmation and the woman left the stage area with a satisfied grin.
His gaze raked over the clientele at the Sweet Kitty. The clientele ranged from men in beat-up jeans, T-shirts, and yellow work boots, to businessmen wearing Brooks Brothers suits and Rolex watches.
“Mac, ain’t nothing going on here tonight besides tits-and-ass shakin’. I don’t think our guy is going to show,” Kyle Hanley said, drawing his attention from the scene on the stage. His partner’s gaze was on the women dancing on small round up-raised stages, scattered throughout the dimly lit club.
“Patience, man. It’s his club, he’s bound to show. Besides, you have somewhere else you’d rather be?”
“Hell yes. The luscious Tawny and her sister, Tanya, and I have plans. I thought we’d be done with this case, and if ol’ boy ain’t showing, I can sure in hell find a better way to spend my time.” Kyle’s restless eyes scanned the room.
Mac released a grunt for a laugh. “He may still show. Don’t want to take the chance on missing him. I’m sure you lovebirds can do whatever the hell you have planned, later.”
Mac turned back to the stage, ignored his friend’s glare, and did a quick scan of the room, hoping to find Damian in the crowd. Although he preferred one woman at a time, had only participated in one ménage à trois, which left him strangely unsatisfied, Mac had no problem with his friend’s proclivity for multiple partners.
To each his own.
He didn’t understand male/female relationships, much less a relationship involving two women—so what the hell did he know anyway? Although he’d been surprised when Kyle had disclosed his sexual preference—a need he’d said—for two women at once, that he couldn’t find satisfaction with one woman, it hadn’t altered his view of his friend.
Mac and Kyle had been friends as well as battle buddies throughout their career, from their first enlistment in their Special Forces unit in Heidelberg, Germany, to their last duty station in Afghanistan. Dating back over fifteen years, he was closer to Kyle than he was to anyone else in the world, besides his sister. Mac couldn’t think of a better man, one he’d trust more to have his back, than Kyle.
Their latest case had been an easy one. They’d been hired to locate Larissa St. John, the missing daughter of a wealthy couple in New England. Larissa had left home the previous year, leaving behind a note that said she was tired of school and wanted to live her life the way she wanted.
Although she had been over the age of consent, twenty-one years old, her parents had hired Mac to go and find their daughter.
Mac and Kyle had tracked the wayward deb to DC and found her shaking her moneymaker like a seasoned pro. When they identified themselves to her, and explained that her family had sent them to bring her back home, she’d broken down in tears.
The life she envisioned “on her own” hadn’t turned out to be the life of glamour she thought she’d have.
They’d finished the case in less than two weeks, after having placed her on the plane to go home. The men would have returned to their home base in Hampton, Virginia—had Mac not discovered something far more interesting than a runaway quasi adult thumbing her nose at conventionality, trying to prove she was grown by stripping.
He’d discovered the Sweet Kitty was a front for a money-laundering operation, among other criminal activities, all tied up with a Dominican named Carlos Medeiros. Mac had first come across Medeiros’s name during a previous investigation, another runaway case. Medeiros ran a tight operation, and Mac hadn’t been able to tie him into the disappearance of two young college-aged women, although the intel he’d gathered
