Jacob sat back as Frank went to get the women. The last party he was part of, he’d shared two girls with Abel. Tonight, he wasn’t going to be looking at any other woman. Lou held his attention with the way her curvy ass leaned over the table. The businessmen were getting loud, and hollering all kinds of shit at the girl on stage. Their noise was starting to piss him off.
When Lou took them over a drink, he watched as she caught around the waist, and forced to sit down. Jacob didn’t take time to assess. He got out of his chair, and stormed over to the table. He listened to his brothers call his name. The one who had caught Lou rubbed his hand between her thighs, and tried to capture her mouth. Lou was trying to fight, but the way he held her, her arms were trapped.
Rage consumed him as they touched his woman.
“Let her go,” Jacob said. If he shot the bastard there was a risk he’d hit her.
The man looked up at him. “Go and find your own slut.”
Wrong answer.
Lou had frozen into place, and he grabbed his knife out of his pocket, throwing it at the man’s shoulder. He screamed, releasing Lou, and Jacob grabbed her, giving her to her brother, even though he didn’t want to.
“It’s time you learned some fucking respect,” Jacob said.
****
Sitting inside Frank’s office, Lou wrapped her arms around herself while Riley knelt in front of her.
“Are you with me, Lou?”
She nodded. For the past year she’d been working in the strip club and never once had she been treated like that. Her heart raced, and she felt so damn dirty. Tears filled her eyes and before she could stop them, they were falling. She was so damn scared, and she wasn’t used to the feeling. “I’m not okay.”
“Do you feel happy getting back at Mom?”
“What?” she asked. This was not the time for that kind of conversation. “You’re seriously going to ask me that.”
“Fuck, Lou, some bastard has just mauled you right in front of me, and before I could get to you, Jacob fucking Denton did.” Riley got to his feet, and to her shame she couldn’t hold the tears back.
She heard the masculine scream of pain, and she shuddered.
“Calm down, Riley. This wasn’t your sister’s fault,” Frank said.
“What about you? You let assholes like that inside your fucking club, touching my sister up?”
“Enough!” Lou said, screaming out. “What’s done is done.” She was shaking like mad, and Riley wasn’t helping her feel any better. “Please, just either calm down, or leave. I don’t need this right now.”
She’d never been touched in such a way unless she was actually asking for it.
Minutes passed, and finally Riley kn
elt in front of her. “Shit, honey, I’m so sorry. I just went a little crazy. What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing. Not to say horrible things like you did about Mom. Yeah, I work here to spite her, but I happen to also like working here, too. Most of the time I’m safe here. Frank, he’s a good boss. This is the first inciden—”
“Those fuckers are gone, and they’re not coming back.”
Lou turned to find Jacob in the doorway. He looked crazed, which only startled her even more.
Without another word, he walked in, moving Riley aside as he knelt in front of her. “Are you okay? Did that bastard hurt you?”
He made to reach out to her, but she spotted the blood on his hands and froze up. She hated the sight of blood.
Jacob paused, staring at his hands. “They won’t be hurting you again.”
She didn’t know what the hell to make of what he’d done for her. There was no doubt that he had hurt the guy who touched her.
“Do you have somewhere I can wash up?”