2
STEELE
I sat in the office of the Tiger’s Eye nightclub, waiting for Charlotte to come in. Of course, I figured her making me wait on her was a power play. She was noted for pulling those. As if I needed a reminder of who was in charge.
The door opened and closed, and the tips of Charlotte’s heels clicked against the floor as she walked through the room and took a seat at her desk. She leaned forward and set her eyes on me. Seconds later, she huffed with a sad smile.
“Am I an unreasonable boss?” she asked, calmly.
This was indeed a trick question.
“Not at all,” I said, placating the side of her that tended to be a bit emotional.
“Are my rules too hard to follow?” she asked, again calmly.
Warning bells were ringing through my head. There was danger ahead.
“Not at all, my alpha,” I said.
She placed her hands on the top of her desk, about shoulder-width apart, and then stood up, leaning her weight on her arms. I sucked in a breath as I watched the anger within her become unleashed with fury lighting behind her eyes. “Then why did you break the number one rule?”
Her voice echoed through the room.
“I’m afraid I have no idea what you are referring to,” I said, holding her gaze and not showing her an ounce of fear or guilt.
She sucked in a breath which symbolized the start of a very long lecture.
I placed my attention on anything other than my alpha-slash-boss while she droned on, giving me the lecture of a lifetime. We were minutes into this thing, and it felt like a lifetime. I had broken what she believed was a cardinal rule, and with how she continued on, I might as well have slapped her grandmother while I was at it.
My hand rested on the desk as the tips of my fingers tapped the surface in rhythm. One after the other. Starting with the pinky and ending with the index finger, over and over again until my attention was caught by the ladder attached to the wall… and a thought occurred to me.
A roof access door sat barely hidden from sight on the wall to my left, and I wonder if she had ever been up there. I wonder what the town of Manitou Springs would look like, staring down at it from that height. Maybe I could make it up one day. Just to say that I had been.
Meh. It probably wasn’t all that impressive. More than likely, it was simply a way to trim back overhanging branches and ensure the roof was sound. And it struck me as odd, after all this time, I had never been up there once.
“Are you listening to me?” Charlotte nearly screamed. Her voice was loud and sharp, piercing my ears in the way only her voice could.
I annoyingly flit my attention back to her. “Of course, I am.”
No I wasn’t. When she got into these verbally abusive moments, she tended to go for a while, and I would never truly get the point of the conversation until she was closer to the end of her rants. So, no. I wasn’t actually listening to her drone on endlessly about how horrible of a person I was.
“Then what do you have to say for yourself?” she asked, standing straighter and propping her fists on her hips.
I shrugged. “I’m sorry?”
I wasn’t sorry though. Judging by the use of her words and considering what happened last night, she had found out that me and my two comrades had sex with our client last night. We broke a rule. We were never to sleep with our clients. Our jobs were to just get them drunk enough—and tease them enough—to take all their money.
By not allowing us to sleep with the clients, she keeps all of us under her control. And since she’s alpha, we’re bound by her word. Her word was the law.
We were forbidden to mate. And having sex with clients ran too high of a risk of mating. And Charlotte couldn’t stand the thought of us leaving her and lessening the amount of coin depositing into her purse.
She wanted me to fear her. I did not.
She wanted me to respect her. I certainly didn’t.
She wanted me to beg for forgiveness. I would never.
She wanted me to regret my actions. But I didn’t regret a single move I made last night.