Total pages in book: 20
Estimated words: 18683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 93(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 93(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
But Colt, club owner, isn’t having it. Until now, he was happy to let any girl who walked through those doors step on stage and make him money. But Tilly has changed that. In fact, Tilly has changed everything, from his outlook on women, to his outlook on life altogether.
Colt forbids her to dance, but knows he also can’t send her back out into that cold world on her own. He wants Tilly for himself, which means he has to do something he swore he would never do: let a woman back into his life again.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
Tilly
The sign of the strip club reads:
Now Hiring Class of 2022.
“Wow,” I mutter as I pull into the parking lot. At least I know the owner is shameless. But that’s not going to stop me. I’ve reached my destination, now all that’s left is to go through with the rest of my plan.
Taking a deep breath, I step out of my car—well, technically it’s my dad’s car, and I stole it, but if he wanted to keep it, maybe he should have kept his hands off me.
The place looks like a hellhole, but having grown up in a hellhole, and being desperate for money, right now I’m okay with that. So I head immediately for the front door.
I’m greeted by blaring country music and flashing lights. There’s a girl on stage in cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and not much else.
“Hold it,” a man the size of a Jeep says to me as soon as I step inside. “You are—?”
“I-I’m here for a job…”
He looks me up and down, then nods to his left. “Down the hall. Ask for Damien.”
“Thank you.” I smile. He doesn’t smile back. I make my way quickly down the hall, trying not to look completely out of place, until I reach a door with the word OFFICE written on it. I knock, and a voice calls back from within.
“Yeah!?”
“Um…Damien?”
“Not now!” he calls back.
I almost turn away, but then I remember that I have nowhere else to go. “The…big guy at the door told me I should ask for you.”
“Jackson? All right, get in here.”
As I reach for the doorknob, my heart rate skyrockets, and my fingers begin shaking. It’s like my nerves are flushed with electricity.
I guess the decision I made could be considered rash, but I had no choice. My father’s only form of discipline came in the form of his hand or a bamboo rod he’d picked up somewhere years ago and kept in his bedroom. No matter my age, he still felt that because I was his daughter, I was supposed to obey everything he said—even if it meant marrying his friend.
Never even having dated in my life, one day my dad came to me and told me that he’d found a fiancé for me and that it was his best friend Josh, whose wife had left him for another man years ago. He said the wedding would take place two weeks after my eighteenth birthday, so the day I turned eighteen, I stole his car and a little bit of money and ran away.
This is it. If I screw this up, I don’t know what my next course of action will be.
Quickly, I turn the doorknob and step into his office.
Damien, a wide, muscled man wearing a blue striped collared shirt and pink suspenders, looks up from a tablet on an enormous and very gaudy wood desk.
When he sees me, he instantly smiles, but in the way a wolf might smile at an injured deer.
“You’re not with the IRS, are you?” he asks.
“I—IRS?...No. Um, my name’s Tilly?”
“Well, it looks like the Lord done blessed us with some fresh meat tonight. Nice face, nice tits. Turn around…”
I do as asked.
“You’re hired.”
Just like that? I’ve never been complimented so much in my life—even if those compliments were completely without tact.
“You bring your own outfit?”
“I—No, all I have are my regular clothes.” Why didn’t I think of that? He’s going to know I’m not cut out for this.
Looking back at his tablet, Damien points to a cardboard box sitting on a chair behind me. “Pick something in your size, head to the locker room, and change. Go up after the next girl.”
“A-after the next girl?” That fear and nervousness I was feeling a moment ago surges up inside me again like a volcano. Damien glances up at me.
“Problem?”
“Nope,” I immediately reply, shaking my head. He simply nods as I turn to the box full of bikinis and lingerie and begin sifting through it.
I try not to think about the fact that these have all probably been worn by plenty of other girls before me—and never washed—before finally settling on a blue bikini with sparkles. It’s something I would never wear in real life, but somehow I feel like it will work here.
“Locker room is up the hall,” Damien tells me. “You can’t miss it. Oh, and you need a stage name. Got one?”
Panic sets in. It feels so strange to suddenly have to pick a name for myself that I suddenly freeze up. But I know I can’t waste this man’s time, so I spit out the first thing that comes to my mind.
“Diamond.”
Damien chuckles and writes on his tablet. “Okay, Diamond. Now get lost. I got work to do.”
I quickly leave the office and head up the hall to the locker room. There are a few other girls inside, including the girl with the cowboy boots who was on stage when I came in. As I enter, she glares me up and down like she suspects me of having just robbed her house.