Scarlett

Scarlett Hunter was the girl that the boys laughed at. Candy was the woman they paid not to touch. I built her out of humiliation, rage, and really good lipstick, and by midnight, men were lined up to worship what I survived.

“Candy.”

I looked up from the mirror, one lash half-glued on, and caught Malachi leaning in my dressing-room doorway with his usual bouncer scowl and folded arms that could stop a freight train.

“You’re up,” he said.

I finished pressing the lash into place and blinked a few times, making sure it held. “Private room?”

He nodded. “Big spender. Asked for you by name.”

A slow smile curled across my mouth. “Good taste.”

Malachi’s expression didn’t change. It never did when I got cocky. “He’s already had two drinks. He isn’t sloppy or handsy so far. But I don’t like his face.”

“You don’t like anybody’s face.”

“I like yours.”

I snorted and reached for my heels. “That’s because mine makes you money.”

“That too.”

I stood, smoothing my hands down the sides of the tiny red outfit I’d changed into ten minutes ago. It was barely fabric. More like a suggestion and a prayer. Red lace cups, a glittering G-string, and garters, the whole fantasy. Candy sold fantasy. That was the point.

Scarlett Hunter had never sold shit.

Scarlett Hunter was the girl in clearance-rack jeans and hand-me-down sneakers with frizzy hair, bad skin, and braces too big for her mouth. Scarlett Hunter ate lunch in bathroom stalls some days because girls like Trudy Bennett thought humiliation was a personality trait, and boys like the ones who laughed beside her treated cruelty like cardio.

Candy didn’t know any of those people.

Candy was adored.

Candy got paid.

Candy made men stare so hard they forgot how to breathe.

And tonight, apparently, some big spender was waiting for me to climb his lap in the private room with my stage name in his mouth and money in his pocket.

I slid my lip gloss into place and stood, giving myself one last look in the mirror.

Long dark hair cascading over my shoulders. Gold shimmer on my eyelids. A bright red mouth, and curves where there used to be angles and awkwardness.

Confidence painted over every crack like lacquer.

Beautiful.

Expensive.

Untouchable.

“Ready?” Malachi asked.

I grabbed my room key and rolled my shoulders. “Lead the way.”

The music hit the second I stepped into the hallway outside the dressing rooms—the bass heavy enough to rattle my ribs. Male laughter spilled through the air, sharp and loose, mingling with the clink of glasses and the sweet-bitter scent of whiskey and bad decisions. Pink and blue lights drifted across the club in slow, dizzy waves. Onstage, Bambi was finishing her set, one leg hooked around the pole, while three men at the rail looked ready to ascend straight into heaven.

Beavers R’ Us wasn’t subtle.

Neither was I.

A few men called my stage name the second they spotted me crossing the floor. I tossed a smile over one shoulder without stopping. Let them look. Looking cost extra. Everything did.

Malachi opened the private room door and stepped inside first.

The guy in the chair had his back partially turned, one ankle crossed over a knee, and a drink in hand.

Then he looked up.

And there he was. Luke fucking Delaney. One of the boys who made a sport out of humiliating me is now sitting in front of me with money in his pocket and no idea who’s about to make him come in his pants.

He’s older, broader through the shoulders, and sharper in the jaw than he’d been in high school, but still unmistakably him. Sandy brown hair. Clean-cut, wearing an expensive watch, and with the same smug mouth.

My stomach did a strange little twist. Not nerves or attraction.

Something meaner, hotter.

Something that’s been waiting years.

Malachi went into his usual speech in a voice that could sand paint off a wall. “Rules are simple. You keep your hands to yourself. No grabbing, no kissing, no taking pictures, no trying to be funny. You respect the dancer, you follow the rules, and when your time is up, it’s up. Got it?”

Luke gave a lazy nod, eyes already sliding back to me. “Got it.”

Malachi looked at me for one extra beat before leaving. I knew that look. Yell if you need me. I’ll come through this door like a wrecking ball.

I gave him the tiniest nod.

The door shut behind him.

Luke looked me up and down slowly, and I felt it the way I always did—the stare, the hunger, the instant shift in power.

I lived for that shift.

I reached over and pressed play on the sound system. Something dirty and slow spilled into the room.

“Hi,” I purred.

His mouth curved. “Hi.”

I turned toward him, rolled one shoulder, then the other, and let my hips start moving with the beat. Slow first. Teasing. The kind of movement that promised everything and gave nothing. I dragged my fingertips over my own thighs, up my waist, and over the curve of my breasts, all while holding his gaze.

He looked mesmerized already.

Good. I want him to be.

I stalked closer one step at a time, letting the music do half the work and memory do the rest.

Luke, in tenth grade yanking my ponytail in biology.

Luke, in eleventh grade, laughing whenever someone asked if my braces picked up radio stations.

Luke by the vending machines, saying, “Damn, Hunter, did you get dressed in the dark?” or “You’d probably be pretty if you fixed… all of that.” or “No offense, but you’re kind of hard to look at.” and “You smile like you’re apologizing for existing.”

I cried in my mother’s bathroom after that one. Quietly. So my little sister wouldn’t hear.

Now he’s staring at my mouth like he wants to taste it.

Funny how life worked.

He held my gaze as I circled him. “No wonder I was told to ask for you.”

I let a slow grin spread across my mouth and trailed one finger down the center of my stomach. “Am I everything they promised?”

His eyes dipped, followed the path of my finger, then dragged back up. “Not even close.”

I laughed softly.

Good answer.

I came up behind him and let my hair brush his shoulder as I leaned down near his ear. “Maybe you should keep watching, then.”

A rougher breath left him that time.

There it was, that quiet slip in control they always thought they had.

I came around to face him again and let one thigh slide over his lap without fully sitting. My hands glided over his shoulders, then down his chest—never quite touching, just hovering, teasing the heat from his skin. His hand twitched once on the armrest, but to his credit, he didn’t touch me.

“Good boy,” I murmured.

A low laugh came out of him. “You always talk like that?”

“Only when it’s deserved.”

That got another smile out of him. God, he really didn’t know. Not even a flicker of recognition. Not in my eyes, or voice. Or even in the mouth, he used to mock.

I leaned in closer, close enough for him to smell my perfume, then rocked my hips—slowly, deliberately, just enough pressure to make his breath catch. I felt the first hardening strain beneath his slacks and smiled against the corner of his mouth.

His gaze darkened.

“Candy’s your stage name, right?” he asked.

I almost laughed in his face.

I settled for a coy tilt of my head. “Depends who’s asking.”

“A guy who’s suddenly very interested.”

“Then Candy works just fine.”

The song dipped lower, slower. I rose from his lap and turned away, dragging my hands up my body as I moved. He was watching like he was starving.

I looked at him over my shoulder. “You always this easy to please?”

He smirked. “You always this good at making a man miserable?”

I slid my bottom lip between my teeth, then let it go. “Maybe I just like the buildup.”

I stepped back into him, this time closer, one knee on either side of his thighs, my hair falling around us like a curtain. Our faces were inches apart now. He looked a little dazed and a little flushed.

And a lot turned on.

“You look familiar,” I said softly.

“Do I?”

“Oh, yeah.” I smiled. “I think I’d remember a face like yours.”

He grinned like he thought the sound of his name in my mouth meant something good.

Maybe I’d once dreamed about smashing your face into a locker.

Maybe I‘d once gone home and stared at myself in the mirror, wondering what was so wrong with me that you all treated me like I was something you scraped off your shoe.

Maybe now I’m straddling your lap in red lace while you look at me like I’m a damn miracle.

I brought my mouth to his cheek, not kissing, just letting my lips brush his skin as I moved against him one last slow time. Then I bent lower, letting my breath skate over the shell of his ear.

“If you keep looking at me like that,” I whispered, “I might start thinking you’re obsessed.”

His breath shuddered out. “Maybe I am.”

I pulled back just enough to look at him, then let my fingertips drag down his chest, over his stomach, stopping just above his belt before I eased away entirely.

The denial hit him harder than the touch had.

Even better.

Then the song ended.

Just like that.

I rose gracefully, stepped back, and reached for the little remote to kill the music.

Luke looked wrecked.

Good. He deserves to be wrecked.

I extended my hand. “Time’s up.”

He stared at me for half a second like his brain had to fight its way back online, then reached for his wallet. He handed me the cash, but instead of letting go, he kept his fingers on it and looked up at me.

“I’ve got a room at the Harbor Grand,” he says, “just down the road.”

I took the money from him and tucked it into my garter. “Congratulations.”

His mouth twitched. “Come with me.”

I let my face go blank. “That wasn’t part of the dance.”

“I know.” He stood, smoothing a hand over his shirt. “I’m saying I’ll pay you for more time.”

“You should be grateful if any guy notices you.”

And prom night, his voice was smug and loud enough for people to hear, “Wow. Didn’t know this was your Make-A-Wish night.”

My pulse gave one hard, ugly kick.

And just like that, Luke Delaney was standing in front of me with a hotel key, a wallet full of money, and no idea he’d just handed me the perfect chance to humiliate him.

I crossed my arms over my chest, not because I felt exposed, but because I wanted to make him work for the next breath. “How much?”

His eyes flicked over my body. “A thousand.”

My pulse jumped, because a thousand dollars was stupid money for one night.

I could use it for rent or add to my savings. Or, it could be used as freedom money.

And standing in front of me was the same smug bastard who used to laugh when my shoes had holes in them.

I tipped my head. “For a dance?”

He hesitated, and there it was. The thing underneath the offer. The assumption. The entitlement.

“For whatever the night turns into.”

I stepped closer until he had to look into my eyes.

“I’m not a hooker,” I said softly.

“I didn’t say you were.”

“No,” I murmured. “You just thought it.”

His mouth tightened.

“I’m saying,” he says, voice lower, “I’ll make it worth your time.”

I held his gaze for three long heartbeats.

In my mind, I saw my old yearbook. His face and stupid grin, and the pen I used to carve a dark little circle around his name.

Luke Delaney.

I had spent years avoiding people from high school and making sure no one could ever laugh at me like that again. And I spent years turning myself into someone men like him would beg to touch. And now one of them was standing in front of me with a hotel key and an offer.

A thousand dollars.

A private room.

No witnesses.

A perfect chance to see the look on his face when he found out exactly who had been in his bed.

I smiled slowly.

Then I leaned in, put one hand flat on his chest, and whispered against his mouth, “Tell me the room number.”