LEATHER AND LACE (BAD BOYS & GOOD GIRLS, #1) Read Online Free Page B

his face and confessed to taking the money—saying it was her due for all she’d done at the club. Threatened to file a lawsuit for harassment if he tried to stop her from leaving town.
    He’d had her ejected from the club and from the apartment. Paid someone to pack up her stuff and told her to go ahead. Take his ass to court. Afterwards, he hadn’t said two words to her, even when she’d taunted him to do something. Feel something. He couldn’t.
    She’d sent an email months ago, saying that she’d forgotten the dress and to stow it, stating that someone would be by to pick it up unless he’d gotten rid of it. Like it was some challenge. Each time he caught sight of the red leather fetish dress, he considered setting a torch gun to it. But hell would freeze over before he gave Val the satisfaction that he cared enough to torch it. So stubbornly, he let the dress hang there refusing to give a rat’s ass.
    Instead, he dove into his work. Like now, when he redirected his attention to the spreadsheet on the computer screen, tamping down the sting from the memory of Val’s laughter when she’d admitted to faking her way through playing the part of his sub.
    He rubbed his hand over the stubble along his jaw, and shook his head, scrolling down the spreadsheet. Cursing under his breath at the amount of work required to balance the books, he started digging through the pile of invoices. Buckling down, he organized the bills and got his head into figuring out their finances.
    It would have been easy to hire a bookkeeper for a routine business. But given some of their vendors included a retailer of satin sheets, a supplier of erotic lingerie as well as an online outlet that stocked the standard kink paraphernalia required for a sex club, he wasn’t keen on fueling gossip about the S & L. A high-class club meant no loose talk. They vetted members with a background check handled by a retired FBI agent in Dallas. Membership required a signed contract with a hefty annual fee. What went down at the S & L didn’t leave, not without threat of serious legal repercussions. Tight-knit and closemouthed is how he and Pen ran this place.
    Except if he didn’t get the bills paid, they’d run out of clean sheets and towels for the coming week.

Hungry & Buzzed

    H OURS LATER , the sound of music and laughter filtering into Brandon’s awareness reminded him that the club had opened. He’d untangled the club’s finances. A stack of checks was written to cover vendors, and his bank account wasn’t suffering. He sat back with a satisfied grunt and stretched, unfurling his long legs and letting each boot come down with a loud thud against the floor to the side of the desk. Staring out the window at the darkened skies, he contemplated throwing back a shot of Jack. A knock sounded at his office door, a sure sign that things were heating up.
    “Yeah?” he hollered, doing a neck roll as his door opened.
    “Got yourself sorted out?” Sam the head bartender leaned against the doorway.
    “Finally. What’s up?” Tonight he felt in a surly mood, and those types of nights never ended well.
    Lately, nothing around here was easy and Sam’s normal shit-eating grin was gone. The bartender stood there and frowned. “Need your attention downstairs, on the double.”
    “What happened?” he barked.
    “Naw. This problem you’d better see for yourself.” Sam uncrossed his arms and made to leave.
    Oh, fuck. That wasn’t good . “Sam, stop being such a pussy.”
    “Dude, say what you will. I’ve seen you in action and this ain’t one of those ‘go and shoot the messenger’ kinda deals. I did my part by coming and getting you.”
    “Who in the hell is at the root of this issue ?” He carefully skirted around authenticating an issue as a true problem. Without laying eyes on a situation—any situation—he’d learned early on, defining things had a tendency to make them real and never real in a good way. Cattle were livestock, not pets.