Quiet Man Page 4

  After that, I took him up the stairs and into the guestroom, bathroom and my pole room where I practiced and choreographed (he didn’t bother with the shades in the guestroom, but the pole room was closed off for sure).

  We then went into my master.

  I was pretty proud of my house. You know, me buying it. Me gutting it (or hiring someone who did that). Me decorating it. All on my own. No help. No man.

  The little stripper that could.

  And the master was the masterpiece.

  The two-side slanted ceilings of a Tudor upper floor. The diamond-paned windows that featured the window seat. The shelving around all that filled with my beloved books (yeah, strippers read) and stereo. The clean-lined lighting. The cool rattan rugs. The creamy tones of the couches and bedclothes, all this mixed with some warm orange notes in the toss pillows, because I liked orange.

  Mo had no opinion on the color orange or the fact it was clear I read a lot.

  Mo assessed the fact my tall, but narrow windows (all four across, with two square on top) didn’t have blinds and his mouth got tight.

  “The bathroom has frosted windows,” I shared helpfully. “And there aren’t any windows in the walk-in closet.”

  The bed was against the back wall.

  He turned and looked down at me. “Do not go near those windows or the couches.”

  My master was huge. I had a massive seating area for reasons that were mostly aesthetic, unless my nephews were up here messing around, which was usually right where they ran the minute they entered my house because it drove Jet crazy and my boys and me loved driving my big sister crazy.

  Two couches faced each other over a coffee table made entirely of glass.

  If I was in the mood, it gave me options for lounging and reading.

  It gave Mo bad thoughts.

  “I read a lot, Mo, and—”

  “No window seat. No couches. Or we put up a sheet until this is over.”

  I pressed my lips together and sucked them between my teeth.

  A sheet would totally mess with my masterpiece.

  “And you’re not in this room without clothes, ever,” he went on.

  I let go of my lips and nodded.

  “Not even just underwear,” he added.

  That seemed OTT, considering.

  “I strip for a living, Mo, and—”

  “Not even just underwear.”

  Okay then.

  I nodded.

  “I sleep on the couch.” And he tilted his head toward the couch.

  Um…

  Say what?

  “I have a guestroom,” I pointed out.

  “I sleep on the couch.”

  “Won’t one of Hawk’s other guys—?”

  “Just me.”

  Okay.

  Wait.

  What?

  “You’re not gonna…trade off or something?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  Once.

  I still got the negative.

  “Well, uh…I don’t want to be telling you your job, but…is that the way it’s normally done?”

  “Absolutely.”

  It was?

  I clearly showed my surprise because after I did, the Quiet Man gave me more words.

  “Military. You train with someone. You bunk with someone. You breathe their air all day every day, they mean something to you. You could hate their guts and you’d still form a bond. They’re in it with you. They’re family. There are men…and women…who might rush into danger just to save a life. But there’s a big difference between instinct and already being in danger. Knowing your time could be up at any moment. And watching that grenade fall at your feet. Which is also at the feet of your brothers. Then throwing yourself on it knowing every man standing with you has the same exact thought to do the same exact thing because one might have to go, but that bond is so strong, you’ll die not to make the other ones have to break it.”

  “You’re gonna need to throw yourself on a grenade for me?” I whispered.

  “I need you to trust that I’d throw myself on a grenade for you.”

  That was easy. I did that already. I mean, he was wearing cargo pants. And a gun.

  And I could do it and he could sleep in the guestroom or have an afternoon off.

  “I trust you, Mo,” I promised.

  “You have no idea the meaning of the word trust, Ms. McAlister.”

  “Lottie.”

  He tilted his chin up this time.

  “So, you have to sleep in the same room with me?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “But you’ll be sleeping.”

  “I require four hours of sleep a night, ma’am. And from REM to battle ready requires two point five four seconds. I don’t know what the time is to do that and get down the hall if you’re facing a threat. I just know it’s longer than two point five four seconds.”

  Two point five four.

  Exact.

  “You’ve timed it?” I queried disbelievingly.

  “Yes.”

  Wow.

  “When will you shower?”

  “I don’t waste time when I shower. It takes less than five minutes. So I’ll shower with you in the bathroom with me and the door locked or I’ll shower while you’re dancing, when Smithie has his men on you. That is, if I feel the club is clear. If not, I shower with you in the room with me. Outside me taking away that choice, it’ll be your choice.”

  He did not offer the choice of showering while I was showering in the same shower, which was a shame.

  “Why don’t we, um…just play that by ear,” I suggested.

  Back to dipping his chin.

  “Do you need to go pack a bag or something?” I asked.

  “It’s in my truck,” he answered.

  “Okay,” I muttered.

  His deep voice went low. “This will be done soon and I’ll be gone.”

  Now who was a freak?

  I was.

  Because I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I knew it was bad, and I still didn’t want it to end because I knew exactly one solid thing about this guy, the fact he was called Mo, and I didn’t want “this” to be done soon so he’d be gone.

  “What’s your full name?” I asked abruptly.

  “Kim Seamus Morrison.”

  I stared at him. “Your name is Kim?”

  “My mother’s Norwegian.”

  Since I wasn’t an expert in Norwegian names, that didn’t explain it, except apparently Kim was a Norwegian dude’s name.

  “Your dad?” I pressed.

  “Half Scottish. Half dick.”

  Oh man.

  He rattled that off by rote.

  I opened my mouth.

  He shook his head.

  “This doesn’t get personal,” he stated.

  To hell with that.

  To hell with nerves too.

  There might come a time he’d shower with me in the bathroom with him.

  Or better, with me in the shower too.

  So yeah.

  To hell with that.

  I motioned to the couch, “We’re bunking together. We’re breathing the same air. You wanna train together, I’ll show you the pole and you can spot me on the weight bench. You’d fall on a grenade for me. I’d say this was already personal.”

  He said nothing.

  “Mo,” I snapped. “Seriously. Who knows how long this is gonna take? You can’t just hulk around silently with your gun on your belt, waiting for something to happen to me.”

  He again said not a word.

  Which told me he could hulk around silently with his gun on his belt, waiting for something to happen to me.

  Or more, waiting for it to happen so he could stop it.

  “Okay, Rambo, how about I don’t want you hulking around silently, waiting for something to happen to me,” I amended.

  More nothing from him.

  I crossed my arms on my chest (and still, he didn’t look in t
hat direction).

  I got paid for men to look at my tits, it was my way of life.

  But never did I want a man to notice my tits as much as I wanted Mo to notice them.

  “Right. I’ll start,” I offered. “I’m Charlotte McAlister. Not ma’am. Never ma’am. Lottie to family and friends. Which means Lottie to you. Lottie Mac to the world. Queen of the Corvette calendar and headliner at Smithie’s strip club. You got a problem with me stripping?”

  One head shake.

  “You think I’m downtrodden and promoting the objectification of women?” I asked.

  He looked around the room briefly.

  This answered part one of my question.

  He looked to me.

  “Yes.”

  That answered part two.

  But wait.

  Whoa.

  “Really?” I asked.

  His mouth said nothing.

  His face repeated, “Yes.”

  “I’m not, you know. I can do what I want with my body, including using it to make money,” I stated.

  “True,” he muttered.

  “And I’m a woman.” I jerked my head his way. “You are very much not. So I think that’s my call to make.”

  “Where does it go from there?” he asked.

  “Where does what go from there?” I asked back.

  “You take your clothes off for money. And then where does it go from there?”

  I felt my eyes get squinty. “Where do you think it goes?”

  A shrug of his massive shoulders which I was pretty sure wafted a breeze through the room.

  I still got what he was saying.

  “So me stripping means I’m in some way responsible for a man’s bad behavior,” I translated the shoulder shrug verbally. “Because, you know, me stripping means men can think of women on the whole as nothing but sex objects, if they want them to or not, and further on from that, they can treat them as sex objects, whether we want to be treated that way or not.”

  Mo didn’t confirm.

  His look did.

  “That’s bullshit,” I told him.

  He silently disagreed with me.

  “And it’s manthink,” I informed him.

  This made him look amused.

  And again I wanted to climb him like a tree.

  Those silver eyes dancing and his mouth quirking an eighth of an inch up at the ends?

  Damn.

  We totally had a problem here.

  In fact, several of them.

  But the one I wasn’t going to get into right then was me thinking about how badly I wanted to treat him like a sex object.

  “You know, men get drunk a lot,” I pointed out. “Women do too. They get drunk alone, among only men, or only women, or mixed. It happens millions of times every day and every night. And does every one of those millions upon millions of men get drunk and then go out and perpetrate a sexual assault on a woman?”

  His amusement vanished.

  “No,” I answered for him. “Because to do that, they have to have the monster in them. Bottom line. You either have it in you to do that, and thank God the vast majority don’t, or you don’t. It has not one thing to do with booze. Or drugs. Or what a woman wears. Or what she doesn’t. Or how she behaves. She has absolutely no responsibility at all for a man harming her. A monster does that because he’s a monster. He just hides it when he’s sober. But when he’s weakened, that monster comes out. And that’s it. The end.”

  His big body shifted slightly, but he made no response.

  Though I read in that it was his response.

  He was with me.

  “And the same with any kind of bad behavior a man commits,” I continued. “If he harasses a woman. If he beats her. I’m sick and tired of men, and women for that matter, blaming women for the bad behavior of men. That said, there’s something that helps to make this never ending. You know what perpetuates this kind of thing?”

  He shook his head.

  “Locker room talk and no man in that room having the balls to say, ‘You know what, that shit does not make you sound cool. It makes you sound like a loser who can’t get laid by a real woman. Knock it off,’” I told him. “When men allow men to talk shit about women, that reduces women to sex objects. It gives the impression all the men in that room are down with reducing women, and with that validation, some men carry on with that, the asshole ones, and they do things directly in an attempt to reduce women. And since it’s men doing it, they have no clue what it’s really doing. Reducing them.”

  Mo agreed with me.

  He didn’t say it.

  I saw it.

  Considering he communicated his response (his way), and even though I liked he had that response, I kept talking.

  “Turn this around, what do you think of a woman who goes to a Chippendales show? Thunder Down Under? Is that about skanky guys who are probably addicted to drugs and have no other choice in how to make a living?” I asked.

  “Skanky, maybe. The rest, no,” he muttered.

  I felt my lips twitch but kept at him.

  “Though, women who go to those shows are thought of as randy or out-of-control bachelorettes with their bridesmaids or desperate. Why the contradiction?” I demanded.

  “Men that watch strippers are considered randy or bachelor party dickheads or desperate,” he returned.

  Hmm…

  “I do not let men objectify me, Mo. I don’t drag them to the club to watch me dance. They come on their own. And you can look at it two ways, just as you could look at a woman watching men dance while taking their clothes off. I make a damn good living off a man who’s totally down with appreciating the female body and he’s at one with the fact he enjoys it, or it turns him on, and it ends right there. Or I make a damn good living off weak men who are weak because they’re not strong enough to respect strong women, even if those women are strong women taking their clothes off. And I’m okay with both.”

  “You’re you,” he grunted.

  “And what does that mean?” I asked.

  “You’re beautiful and together and confident and I hear you’re talented. Most women who do what you do don’t do it because they’re proud of it. They do it because they’re in a life where they don’t want to. But they have to.”

  There was a lot there.

  Primarily the fact he thought I was beautiful, together and confident.

  Good job I didn’t trip when pivoting to show him the living room.

  But also, he had a point.

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  His expression registered surprise.

  “I don’t have an argument for that,” I told him. “Though I will note that I didn’t ask about how you felt regarding the career of stripping as a whole. Just me doing it.”

  For a second, his face blanked.

  Then he let out a roar of laughter.

  I was relatively sure my toss pillows wobbled.

  And I was transfixed.

  Totally transfixed.

  I’d heard one thing that was more beautiful.

  The laughter of my nephews.

  But this was a close second.

  I stayed transfixed for only a beat.

  And then I dedicated my life to making him laugh as often as I could.

  Thus I was smiling at him when he quit.

  He didn’t look in my eyes then.

  He stared at my mouth.

  Now we were getting somewhere.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Are you going to tell me about your military service?” I went on.

  He shook his head.

  “Are you going to tell me how your dad’s a dick?” I kept at him.

  He shook his head.

  “We’ll get there,” I mumbled, beginning to head to the door, still mumbling. “I’m hungry. Time for dinner.”

  I walked out the door of my bedroom.

  Kim Seamus “Mo” Morrison, my bodyguard and the most fas
cinating man I’d ever met, followed me.

  Chapter Three

  Start with Your Toes

  Mo

  She was on the stage, busting out a performance to Shakira’s “Loca,” and making Mo, for the first time since he started with Hawk, wish he had another job.

  Honest to fuck, if he managed to get through the whole night, and all three of her feature sets (this was number two), without jumping off the stage and punching every motherfucker watching her in the throat, it’d be a miracle.

  He got why she was the headliner.

  He got why it was a packed house.

  She was graceful. She knew how to dance. She was beautiful. She had an awesome outfit on (or was taking it off).

  And she was sexy AF.

  Christ.

  He’d learned during the first set that he needed to watch the crowd, which was his goddamned job, and not her or he’d be standing in the shadows just offstage, unable to take his eyes off her at the same time fighting his dick getting hard.

  Which was what every motherfucker out there was doing.

  And why Mo wanted to punch them all in the throat.

  Fuck.

  If they didn’t get this guy and soon, this was going to be torture.

  Mo knew this without a doubt.

  And he knew it wasn’t just about her dancing.

  It was also about her just being her.

  But he was trying not to go there.

  And failing.

  Her house was the shit.

  Her fridge was as neat as his (if he went grocery shopping, which was rare, he was too busy working and hanging with his buds and his family, but if he did, the inside of his fridge looked like hers, mostly, without the lining up of shit, but he’d start doing that the minute he got the shot).

  Her barefoot, all that blonde hair tumbling down, in that tight tank and those jeans with her little ass he could palm in one hand, for fuck’s sake.

  That massive bed he’d give his left testicle to fuck her in.

  The fact she could concede a point in a discussion without being a bitch about it.

  Her huge, bright white smile.

  And most of all, how she’d taken the news from Hawk and Smithie.

  She read the letter. Hawk’s call. Smithie had not liked it (and honestly, Mo didn’t either), but Hawk wanted her to understand the seriousness of the situation.

  Mo knew she’d been freaked.

  Her face got a little pale, and that was it.