Stroke (A Miami Lust Novella Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 – Mateo

  Chapter 2 – Cassee

  Chapter 3 – Mateo

  Chapter 4 – Cassee

  Chapter 5 – Mateo

  Chapter 6 – Cassee

  Chapter 7 – Mateo

  Chapter 8 – Cassee

  Chapter 9 – Mateo

  Chapter 10 – Cassee

  Chapter 11 – Mateo

  Chapter 12 – Cassee

  Chapter 13 – Mateo

  Chapter 14 – Cassee

  Epilogue – Mateo

  Stroke

  stroke

  / strōk /

  Verb

  To move one's hand with gentle pressure over a surface, especially hair or skin, repeatedly.

  synonyms:

  caress, rub, fondle, pet, soothe, tickle

  © 2017 C.M. Lally

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express consent of the copyright holder, except for brief quotations for the purpose of reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, events or incidents are products of the authors imagination and used in a fictitious manger. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental or fictionalized.

  Cover by: Amanda Walker PA and Design Services

  Acknowledgements

  There are so many people to thank I know that I’m going to forget someone, so I apologize in advance.

  I really need to thank family for letting me barricade myself away from them to write yet another book. I know we travel this journey together, and I’m so grateful that you’re with me. I love you with all my heart.

  To the authors who encouraged me every day to tell the story in my voice. I sincerely thank you for your friendship, your mentorship, answering my countless questions, and simply supporting me: Abby Brooks, Alison Claire, Alison Ryan, Fifi Flowers, Frankie Love, Heidi Hutchinson, K. G. Reuss, Lyssa Cole, and Vivian Ward. You are an amazing set of women and I am honored to call you my friends!

  To my Cover Designer, Amanda Walker: You make me a better author all ‘round. You’ve become an amazing friend, a great source of inspiration, a mentor, and a shoulder to cry on when I fall apart with stress! I love you dearly! Don’t ever change your ‘Simon Cowell’ ways.

  To the great group of women in the following Facebook groups: The A-Team, Abby’s Angels, Book Boyfriend Central, Lyssa’s Lustful Beauties, Vivian’s Voyeur’s, and C.M. Lally’s Wicked Playground – you are simply amazing!

  I send a huge thank you to Chris Sawyer. You have always supported my dream of writing, and it goes without saying, I’m honored to call you my friend.

  To my Alpha readers: You bring sanity and glory to an otherwise chaotic and messy process. I adore you and would not be the writer I am today without your feedback! From the deepest recesses of this heart, I have so much love for you...it overflows.

  And finally to my best friend, Heidi – life is messy and rough and sometimes uncompromising, but I know I always have you to piece together the insanity with the perfect.gif or meme. I love you, Sunshine!

  Contents

  Stroke

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction – Mateo

  Chapter 1 – Mateo

  Chapter 2 – Cassee

  Chapter 3 – Mateo

  Chapter 4 – Cassee

  Chapter 5 – Mateo

  Chapter 6 – Cassee

  Chapter 7 – Mateo

  Chapter 8 – Cassee

  Chapter 9 – Mateo

  Chapter 10 – Cassee

  Chapter 11 – Mateo

  Chapter 12 – Cassee

  Chapter 13 – Mateo

  Chapter 14 – Cassee

  Epilogue – Mateo

  About the Author

  Also by C.M. Lally

  Introduction – Mateo

  Stress! The one constant in my life. The only good thing I can say about it is that it’s loyal to me — unlike the women in my life. I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t trust anything that comes out of luscious lips and sultry eyes, especially when they’re in a thong with dollar bills stuffed all around their twat. If it were me and the almighty American dollar in competition for a female, the dollar would win. Every. Fucking. Time.

  It’s not that I’m not a handsome man. I’ve had my fair share of women beg me to fuck them. I don’t have the suave voice like my older brother, Thiago, or the boy-next-door charm and humor of my baby brother, Dante, but I can hold my own. I simply prefer my women a little more innocent and a lot less greedy than what I’m used to. Yeah, I’m a “nice” guy. I fucking hate that word. It’s as bad as the other four letter word - cute.

  You see, my brothers and I own The Glass Stripper, the newest and hottest strip club in Miami, Florida. I touch women all day long. Let me explain that. For lack of a better title, I’m the head of Human Resources here. That pretty much means I oversee all of the employees and their schedules, but especially the dancers.

  The male dancers take care of their own shit, and are usually pretty complacent. The female dancers are a different story. They are quite needy and love to flirt. They’re always asking me to zip up their costume, remove a tag, or cut a hanging thread because it “tickles”. I’m always pulling straps tighter, or rolling on butt glue so that thongs and bikini bottoms don’t completely ride up their derrieres. Something has to hold their dollars in place while dancing...God bless the person who invented butt glue.

  I’m surrounded by gorgeous, but half-naked and somewhat morally corrupt women all day and all night. None of them interest me. You’d think with all that touching going on that one of them would make my dick hard. Nope. Not even the sight of one or general conversation with them does anything for me.

  It’s hard to meet the kind of quality woman I want in this environment though. Don’t get me wrong, beauty is high on my list of “wants” in a woman, but the higher priority words would be funny, genuine, loyal, passionate, and smart. Those words bring out the beauty in a person, and that’s what I want. Desperately.

  But I’m also a jaded man. We all are. We were raised in the sex industry in seedy New York City. Our dad was the kingpin of sex for hire in the city that never sleeps. Unfortunately, sex for hire is illegal in this country and now, he’s doing twenty years to life in prison back home in New York. Thiago ran a strip club for him and I mainly helped with the dancers, so I didn’t know too much about the business. Dante was too young to be in the clubs at eighteen, and besides, he’s got a brain for numbers. We shipped him off to college—might as well save one Solis soul if we can.

  I’ve seen and heard things from a young age that no seven year old should bear witness to. My dad always ignored me. Fuck, my whole family ignored us boys. We were somewhat quiet kids, like our mom. I’m not sure if she knew what Dad did for money, but she was a good Catholic woman. I’m sure Dad thought she was his ticket into Heaven because she was an angel. And he was Satan reincarnate on most days.

  Anyway, after Dad’s sentencing, we skipped town to save face and decided we wanted heat and tanned bodies in our lives. Dante drew the long straw, so he closed his eyes and pointed his finger onto a map- Miami, Florida was our destiny. Yeah, it really happened that way. I’m just glad we didn’t end up in Montana or the middle of the ocean.

  We found The Glass Stripper for sale a few days after our arrival and knew it was meant to be. That’s not her original name, but the one we chose. She was an old bank with lots of potential, but we knew she could be something much more exciting. On the exterior, she’s three stories of one-way mirrors. Internally, each flo
or has a wide open floor-plan, and is connected to each other with long and winding staircases that separate the floor themes one from another.

  She’s gorgeous and perfect. The only lady I can truly say that about. She’s also sensual and mysterious. When you’re inside, you can see outside to the street, but no one can see inside until you enter the doors. It gives off that sense of “voyeurism” that kicks your lust up a notch.

  Chapter 1 – Mateo

  “Hey, Mr. Solis. You want a refill on that drink?” Tito asks.

  “No, Tito. I’m good. I’ve got to get backstage and check on the girls before they go on,” I inform him, swiveling my stool around and stretching my kinked up legs out. I’ve been sitting on this stool waiting for a no-show for over an hour.

  “Are you still expecting your seamstress interviewee to arrive?” he asks.

  “No, not at this point. I wouldn’t hire her now if she were Victoria Secret herself,” I blurt out, laughing at my own joke.

  Women want money but they don’t seem to want to work for it. And the ones that will work their fingers to the bone for any money they can get won’t work in this industry for fear it will ruin their reputation. It’s a double-edged sword, it seems.

  I walk back behind the stage to the dancer’s lounge and immediately hear Brittany bitchin’ about her thong set again. Her voice carries so loudly, you’d think she was across the state. She spots me through the open door, and starts pushing through the other dancers to get to me. Damn! It’s too late, I can’t hide.

  “Mat, baby,” she croons in her baby voice, rubbing her long fingers up and down my chest. “When’s someone coming to fix the backlog of costumes? We really need someone soon. My favorite lace thong is torn and keeps getting buried in the ‘to be fixed’ pile. I have to dig it out and put it back on top every day.”

  I pick up a tendril of her vivid purple hair and twirl it around my index finger, tugging her closer to me as it winds tighter around my knuckle. “Brittany, baby. Maybe I don’t get them fixed so that I get to see you in nothing. All. Day. Long.” I swat her on her just spray-tanned ass and pull her closer to me, kissing her forehead and caressing her ass where I spanked her.

  She giggles under her breath, smiling at me with bright lavender lips and fake violet eyes the men go crazy over. Her robe falls open and I see her lacy white and lavender silk bustier. She gently rubs her fingertips over the heavy mounds of her breasts that spill over the top, running her tongue over her lips like she’s hungry for a taste of me. “Now, baby, get ready to go on stage. You’re first out there tonight—my opening act,” I remind her. Her face falls, pouting lips pursed out with a tantrum on the verge of being released, but I turn and move on to the reason I came back here.

  “Lindy,” I call out to my dance manager. She looks up from fiddling with one of the lace masks that must be broken, complete frustration on her face. “I know. I know. I promise to hire the first competent person I can find this week.”

  “I hope so. I was hired to manage the dancers, not manage prop repairs,” she mumbles the last statement not wanting to jeopardize her job with sass talk. She tosses the mask back on top of the broken pile of props and smiles really big, “Did you need me?”

  “Yes, I did. This last girl didn’t show up for her interview, and I have no one else scheduled for the next few days. Could you please gather up the props and costumes of higher priority that need repairing and I will take them somewhere to get them fixed, even if I have to pay a higher fee. This is getting ridiculous,” I hiss.

  “Yes, sir. When would you like them sorted?” she asks.

  “By tomorrow morning if possible. I have an early morning meeting with the consultant working on the new bar renovations, and I would like to drop them off to someone by the afternoon,” I sigh heavily, turning away from her as I see Georgia hurrying through the lounge area. I follow in hot pursuit, needing to talk to her about the silks dancers.

  She walks fast for a woman with short legs. I’m gaining on her and saying her name, but she’s got ear-buds in and what sounds like loud heavy metal blaring from them. She quickly does a 180-degree turn and bounces off my chest, startled. Looking up and pulling on the ear-bud strings to remove them, she tosses them over her shoulder and quickly apologizes, “Mr. Solis. I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear you.”

  “Really? Now, why am I completely shocked by that statement?” I ask teasingly, cocking one eyebrow up in mock surprise. “How are the sets looking tonight? Do we have enough dancers for the aerial silks for that last number you were planning for?”

  “Umm, if the new girl shows up, then yes,” she grunts.

  “And why wouldn’t she show up?” I question, rubbing the deep wrinkles etched into my forehead.

  “She’s new in town and desperate...but nervous,” she laughs nervously. “She’s a great dancer, though. She’s just never done silks for hard cash in this type of setting. She’s more of a ballerina-type dancer. If she shows, she’ll be amazing.”

  “Okay. Make sure you direct the bouncers at the door that she may be here. Give them a description to go off of,” I explain, and then get out of the way. The first set is in ten minutes, and it gets pretty chaotic back here once the music starts and dancers run to their positions.

  I make my way back to my office, but stop at the bar first to finally get a refill of my slow gin and orange juice— my drink of choice. It’s actually quite mellow. Most people call it a Slow Screw. I’m not comfortable ordering it by its formal name, so I just throw out the ingredients and they fix it right up, no questions asked or side-smirks given.

  The bar is getting busy, so I move to the side and wait for my drink. I spot a bachelor party right up front, waiting for the entertainment. What are men thinking when they go to strip clubs for bachelor parties? They obviously aren’t thinking of the groom. I mean, c’mon. He’s about to commit himself to the one true love of his life and they bring him here for a night of total debauchery and sin.

  I do like to watch them though. The ones that are completely uncomfortable with the whole show are the ones who see it for the bad decision it is. Those who throw themselves into it and go reckless are the ones I will see back here in a few short months, regretting the turn their life has taken. It’s sad and no different here than in New York. Men are men and bad decisions are bad decisions, no matter the zip code. The longer I’m in this industry, the less I believe in finding true love.

  ***

  From the corner of the bar, I see a girl coming up the staircase. Long, curly, brown spirals bounce with her graceful body movements. Her face is downcast, watching every step she takes to ensure she doesn’t trip on the stairs as they wind and curve. She finally arrives at the top and lifts her face to the room. Wow! My heart just fluttered and skipped a beat, while my breath shuddered to catch up. She’s gorgeous. Large blue eyes blink as shock and curiosity floods her senses. I watch her tap her foot to the thumping bass of the music.

  Long willowy arms adjust the shoulder strap of her bag higher onto her shoulder, clutching it tightly like someone’s going to steal it any minute. Her long legs wobble around in three-inch heels. They must make her close to six feet tall. She’s obviously got the body of a dancer, one that is nervous because her shoulders are scrunched and pulled tight to her. Tension. It’s written all over her body. This must be the new aerial silks girl.

  I hold my finger up in the air and whistle for Tito, motioning that I’ll be right back. She’s still standing at the top of the stairs, slightly blocking it as people move around her. My steps slow as I approach and take her in. She smells like sugar. I suddenly want to taste her and get drunk off the adrenaline that would surely come with her sugar-high.

  “Hi. I’m Mateo Solis, one of the owner’s,” I say, extending my hand out to shake hers as it’s offered. She gives me a quick smile, but doesn’t say a word. “I think we’ve been waiting for you. Let me walk you to the lounge.” She lowers her face again as she starts to follow me. She must
be clumsy or accident-prone with watching where she walks. I take her elbow into my hand to guide her easily through the throng of show gawker’s, lest she be groped on the way. This way, if they see her with me, these men will be less inclined to touch her.

  I pull the thick red velvet curtain back so that she can pass through from the show floor into the dancer’s lounge. She shuffles by me quickly like she’s trying to get away from me. Once inside, the chaos of the lounge with a show in progress is quite evident. Naked and half-naked women are everywhere. Some are in costume, while others are in the process of changing into them. Of course, none of this fazes me. I’m back here every day lending a hand where it might be needed.

  She lifts her face to me and it’s as pink as cotton candy. I’m breathless again seeing her full face, and she’s adorable when she’s embarrassed. Kelly and Remy brush by on their way to the stage, and this girl quickly covers her eyes with her fingers, keeping herself from seeing their well-exposed breasts. I mean, everything is out there to see except their nipples, which are covered in silk tassels. Yes, this girl’s been sheltered as a ballerina. She’ll either quit with embarrassment or quickly get with the program if she needs the money. There is no in-between in this lifestyle.

  “You can look now. They’ve passed,” I say chuckling under my breath and staring at her covered face. She slowly peels her fingers from her eyes, but doesn’t take her eyes off mine either. It’s like she’s afraid to look left or right. “Now that you can hear me a little better, let me introduce myself again. I’m Mateo, one of the owners. Most of the employees just call me Mat. You are welcome to do that, if you like. And you are?”

  “Hi. I’m Cassee Moore. I’m sorry I’m late,” she says in this long, slow sexy southern drawl. I’ve always loved hearing southerner’s talk. Most people think it makes them sound dumb, but I think it’s charming and friendly. “I took the wrong bus. It went in the opposite direction of here, and I had to get turned back around. Fixing myself rightways took longer than I thought it would.”