Stripped love, p.1
Stripped Love, page 1
Contents
Playlist
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Diamond Dozen Series
Author’s Note
About Chelsea
Other Books by Chelsea McDonald
CLAIMED
Stripped Love
Copyright © 2020 Chelsea McDonald
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Artwork by ©The Pretty Little Design Co.
Formatting by Lou J. Stock
Proofreading by Paige Sayer and Heather Woodman
Editing by Amanda Williams
Disclaimer: The following story contains sexual situations and strong language, it is intended for adult readers only.
Playlist
Fall In Line (Christina Aguilera feat. Demi Lovato)
Make Me (Britney Spears feat. G-Eazy)
Gasoline (Halsey)
Crowded Room (Selena Gomez feat. 6lack)
Why Are You Here (Machine Gun Kelly)
Crave (Madonna & Swan Lee)
Diamond Body (Mavado, Stefflon Don)
She Knows (Ne-Yo feat. Juicy J)
Call Out My Name (The Weeknd)
Nothing But You (Conor Maynard)
Faded Love (Tinashe feat. Future)
Waiting for Tonight (Jennifer Lopez)
FALLINLOVE2NITE (Prince feat. Zooey Deschanel)
Express (Christina Aguilera)
It was a simple story, really.
Boy meets girl, boy likes girl. They fall in love and live happily ever after.
Except we didn’t live happily ever after, maybe we just weren’t meant to. I hadn’t known our ending, but a wise woman once told me ‘if you wanna know the ending, look at the beginning’. That had been a quote I’d lived by my whole life and it hadn’t yet been proven wrong.
That night, for the first time ever, I had even gone so far as to pray that that wasn’t the case.
Just this once, not this time.
I’d first met Callum Wright on the subway. I was on my way to a job that I really didn’t want to go to. He was on his way home from the airport. I tripped in my stilettos jumping onto the train. I stuck the landing but hadn’t been ready for the speed at which the train shot away from the platform.
I fell, bumped my head, and crash landed onto the seat next to Callum. I spilt my iced latte all over my coat and immediately began sobbing.
You know those moments where it feels like the ground has fallen beneath your feet, but somehow the clouds are still raining down on you. It feels like you couldn’t get any lower and then you drop even further. Well… Callum had been there to witness maybe the most embarrassing and definitely the lowest moment in my life to date.
Luckily the train had been quiet, only a few other stragglers hovered around.
Callum hadn’t said a word, just lowered his newspaper and handed me his pocket square. He’d taken pity on me.
That only made my crying worse, but I eventually managed to pull myself together and find a seat. The one directly opposite him. That was when I got my first good look at him.
He was gorgeous. Like a model, or the modern reincarnation of a Greek god. I spent the whole train ride with my eyes locked on this heaven sent stranger.
When he looked up, I looked away. He smiled, I bit my lip to keep from laughing and then we struck up a conversation. I could’ve talked to him for hours, but unfortunately his stop came first. We exchanged numbers and began texting later that night.
I’d never fallen in love so quickly, but it was a different kind of relationship than I’d ever been in before. I was consumed by him. He was my every thought, I felt him in every move I made.
I knew we were doomed from the start, but I didn’t know if that was more terrifying or exhilarating.
It was definitely a thrill. He treated me like a princess, when in actuality I was the maid’s daughter.
And the sex. My god, the sex.
He had made me feel things that I hadn’t known were possible. He took it from ordinary to extraordinary. I knew as soon as it all crashed and burned that I wouldn’t ever feel that level of all-consuming, body-on-fire lust with anybody else, ever again in my life. He was a unicorn, and while I could call him mine, I rode him every chance I could get.
Returning to the present moment in time, my eyes accidentally flickered down to his crotch. While it may have been covered by his jeans and hidden by the angle of the street lights, I knew the ungodly love stick that hid there. It wasn’t the right time to be thinking about his penis, not at all, but I couldn’t not.
“I just don’t get it, Mel. Why didn’t you tell me?” I looked up to meet his eyes. It was a difficult task because of the darkness but also because I stood before him wearing nothing but a silver thong and matching pasties which had only been covered by my coat.
As I had rushed from the club, pushing him outside, I’d made sure to grab it from Flank at the door before entering the cold night air. Besides the cold, the coat also blocked out what I didn’t want him to see.
“I…” I didn’t know how to answer that. I loved dancing, I was proud of the way my body moved. The stripping? Not so much, but it brought in the money while allowing me to do what I wanted. How many other people could’ve said the same thing about their job? Not many.
So. I was a stripper. By choice.
It had always been this big obstacle when it came to my love life, though. There were two types of guys from my experience. Guys that loved it, or guys that hated it. If they loved it, they were creeps. If they hated it, it wasn’t long until they began to look at me exactly like Callum was right then.
A mixture of disgust and embarrassment.
I had valid reasons for not telling him. I usually waited a couple weeks to tell guys that I was an ‘exotic dancer’. But with Callum, I’d let it run on longer than normal. I was clinging to the idea that maybe he’d never find out. It was silly, but I had liked the fantasy too much.
I had rationalized that he didn’t need to know.
I was wrong. On some level, I must have known that all along.
But really, it didn’t matter. None of it mattered because despite everything, now he knew. And then either way, that would be the end of that.
Callum’s eyes stayed locked on mine but I was struggling to reciprocate his level of eye contact. I couldn’t stand the look on his face. It was a striking mixture of hurt, confusion, disgust, and embarrassment. So completely different to the loving tenderness that was there only this morning.
“Callum, I’m sorry.” That was all I could manage to say. I knew what he wanted to hear. The standard run of the mill ‘I’m paying for my dying grandmother’s medical bills’ or ‘I’m putting myself through college’.
He was looking for a noble answer. I didn’t have one, though.
It was simple and unromantic.
At one point in my life I was training to be a professional dancer, and then I woke up in the hospital after a horrendous car crash. I’d broken my ankle in three places, shattered my knee, and fractured my tibia. It was a miracle I could walk right now. Dancing professionally? Never again.
The most I’d ever be able to do was what I was doing right now. Learning to swing on a pole built up other muscles and made me feel empowered again.
It was something I never thought I’d do again. Something I’d never anticipated feeling again.
“You lied to me, Mel. Right to my face.”
“If you lied about this, for all this time, what else have you lied about?”
I assumed that he didn’t actually want me to think about that and give him an answer. So I stayed silent. It only took another twenty seconds of head shaking for him to storm away from me.
And I stood stoic as I watched him go.
What could I have done? This was me. I couldn’t change that.
My heart cracked, but my head - the voice of reason - stood solid with my decision. Getting me fired up. Who was he to look at me like that? Who was he to try to change me? No one was worth changing who I was. My head was a cold-hearted bitch, put simply. But I hoped that she was leading me in the right direction.
Six years later...
“What are you up to tonight?” Emilia asked, lifting my attention from my diary.
She was fully dressed with her tote slung over her shoulder; she looked to be heading home. All the other girls had rushed out of there like their tails were on fire. I didn’t take that too per sonally. I felt confident that all my girls loved working here, but I also understood that to them, this was just their job. To me however, this club had become a very big part of my life.
And yet, I was rushing to get out of there as well.
I wanted to go home. Everyone would be fast asleep, but I felt comfort being in my own home, under the same roof as my family.
“I’m taking Hallie and Ava to see Disney on Ice. What about you? Any big weekend plans?” I tried to keep the excitement from my voice. We’d had tickets for what seemed like ages, the kids’ enthusiasm had begun to seep its way into me. That was my story, and I was sticking to it, but I wasn’t willing to confess to the perky twenty-two-year-old in front of me that I was in fact excited for my weekend plans.
Yeah, no way was that happening.
“Sadly, no. I can’t believe it. My first weekend off in over a month and I have no plans. Oh, how far I’ve fallen.” She giggled, which reassured me that she wasn’t actually too upset.
I felt so bad that the thought of inviting her along to Disney on Ice with us floated through my mind. But I knew that I couldn’t, not only would that have been inappropriate, but I knew whatever she ended up doing would have definitely been better than being dragged out with her boss to a kids show.
Emilia had only joined the crew about two months ago. As far as I knew she didn’t have much family around her, she’d never spoken about a boyfriend and every time I saw her she was always by herself.
My girls were solid, nice girls, we were a family at With The Melody but I wasn’t naive. I’d been there and done that, and unfortunately no matter how much of a family we were, I knew there were still cliques amongst the staff. I had just hoped that someone would’ve stepped forward by now and have taken Emilia under their wing.
She was new in town from what she’d told me, and she hadn’t been dancing very long. She wasn’t our youngest dancer, but I still felt that a mentor would’ve been good for her. Something that I’d have to talk to Frankie about on Monday.
The thought actually made me wish that I could’ve been her mentor. Back in the day, I would’ve been all over that shit. But I was her boss. It was a different kind of support that I offered now.
“Would you mind coming in early on Monday?”
“Oh. Did I do something wrong?”
“No, no, no.” I rushed out, panicked that I’d scared her. “Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to talk to you about how things are going. Honestly, it’s pretty standard for all our new girls.”
“Okay, sure. I’m heading out now. Hope you enjoy your weekend.” She smiled as she began backing towards the door.
“Have you got a ride home?”
“Flank is holding my cab for me out front.” My lips stretched at hearing that. At least she had made one friend. Being honest, everyone loved Flank. He was a father figure of sorts. He’d been working here longer than me and I’d been here seemingly forever.
When I took over from Harry, my old boss, I’d only kept on the staff that I’d trusted. Which, back then, wasn’t many. The club had changed so much since then, most patrons wouldn’t even be able to recognize it as the same place.
A moment of pride took root. And just for a second, I immersed myself in it.
It wasn’t often that I slowed down enough to take in the reality of my surroundings. Usually it only happened when I brought someone new into the club, such as Emilia.
“Stay safe.” I called out after her.
I was alone all of five minutes when I groaned again. Tommy, one of my assistant managers, had updated the books, and then asked poor old me to check them over. I wasn’t sure how I got so lucky with Tommy, but he was a freaking genius. Although I wasn’t a numbers gal, everything seemed to be in order.
I slammed the book shut. As the sound echoed, I looked around. It wasn’t uncommon for me to be the last one to leave, I just felt sorry for Flank. That man didn’t leave until he knew the club was empty and locked up.
Getting up, I moved through the club on complete auto-pilot as I followed the nightly routine, step for step. Back door locked, security system on, chairs on tables, lights off. Then grabbing my bag, I headed out the front door. Sure enough, there was Flank on his stool, a regular sight as he waited for me to close.
The man was the size of a tank, hence his nickname, Flank the tank. Handsome as well. If he wasn’t already married and about twenty-five years my senior, I’d be craving a piece of that action.
“All done, Mel?” He asked, standing from his stool.
I smiled and nodded my head, before he turned to lock the chair in his cupboard and set the alarm. “Yep, all done for the night. I’ll be so glad when Sasha gets back from L.A. I can’t stand all these late nights.”
I’d been covering for Sasha, my other assistant manager, for the past week and a bit. I’d covered the occasional night shift here and there, but I hadn’t done steady nights for years. Not since I first bought the club. And it was fucking hard. Harder than I remembered. I really didn’t know how the woman did it.
Hell! I didn’t know how I used to do it.
I couldn’t wait until she got back and I’d go back to my regular hours. The days couldn’t fly by quick enough.
The worst thing about working nights was that I didn’t finish until about four in the morning most nights. It was hard to be away from the girls for so long, and it had really fucked with my sleep pattern so I wasn’t even able to spend time with them during the day.
Ugh. I felt like I could’ve slept forever, but all I wanted was to be with Ava and Hallie.
Soon! Dear god, it would be soon. Even if I had to get on a plane and drag Sasha back kicking and screaming.
I crossed the road to the twenty-four hour diner. “Have a good night, Flank.”
“Be safe, Mel.” Flank called out after me.
He couldn’t see it but I smiled anyway. It was the small things in life that were the most joyous. The small constants.
When I made the decision to invest my inheritance in buying the club, we shut down and underwent a lot of changes. But Flank? He was there through it all.
While strip clubs usually had a constant turnover of staff, the fact that he’d never wavered made me smile. He was a big part of With the Melody, and he’d unknowingly motivated me to step up my game. I wanted to create a safe environment, a community amongst my underlings.
After four years, I felt some semblance of achievement.
I waved over to Sandy as the bell rang above my head. It was closing in on half four, there’d be no point in going home for some shut eye yet.
By six sharp I liked to be at Mom’s ready for the girls waking up. I couldn’t be there when they went to bed but at least I could be there in the mornings.
My mom had been an absolute lifesaver. Not just this week, but she’d been another constant in my life. An unmoving rock since my twin girls were born. I was thankful. I couldn’t have even imagined juggling my life without her.
I wasn’t under any illusion that she didn’t love every second of being a grandmother though. There were some days she couldn’t push me out the door fast enough. Thank fuck for family.
Ours had always been quite small, just my sister Naomi, Mom, and I.
The girls. And that’s how I’d liked it. A part of me was happy to have Ava and Hallie grow up in a similar environment. They’d grow to be each other's closest ally, to be empowered and strong individuals. I only wanted what was best for them, and to me this was it.
Thinking of family, I texted Naomi while Sandy dropped off my coffee and breakfast.
How long until you’re finished? - Mel
Another 2 and a half hours :-( - Naomi
Meet you at Mom’s? - Mel
She sent back a line of emojis that made me giggle. A thumbs up, an exaggerated crying face, and a clock.
