His Virgin Stripper

13- Jasmine and Obsession

Marcello

Jasmine.

That was the first thing that hit me when I stepped into the room. Faint, warm, and distinctly feminine. It clung to the air the way expensive things did, effortlessly and without apology.

It was coming from behind the bathroom door, curling beneath the gap and spreading quietly through the room like it belonged here.

I stood still for a moment and let it settle around me.

I didn't know why I did that. I wasn't the kind of man who stood in rooms noticing scents. I wasn't the kind of man who noticed much of anything that didn't directly concern my interests or my operations.

And yet.

I took a deep breath, letting the scent of Jasmine fill my lungs.

I exhaled slowly and moved further into the room.

From inside the bathroom came the sound of movement.

A soft curse, then her voice.

"Roxy?"

I remained silent.

A smile threatened at the corner of my mouth.

She thought it was her friend. Of course she did.

The thought almost amused me. Almost.

It was a modest space. Small in the way that rental properties always were, furnished with the kind of careful neutrality that was designed to offend nobody and inspire nothing.

Beige walls. A narrow window. A bed that had clearly seen better years. Nothing about it was remarkable in any way.

And still, somehow, she had managed to make it feel inhabited.

That was the only word for it. Inhabited. Like the space had absorbed something of her simply by containing her for a few days. I noticed it immediately and I couldn't explain it, which irritated me more than I cared to examine.

I walked slowly around the perimeter of the room, hands tucked into my pockets, taking inventory of the small details she had left scattered across the surfaces.

A pair of earrings on the windowsill. Small and gold, the kind a woman wore when she wanted to look put together without trying too hard. A half-open suitcase sat near the bed.

Clothes had been folded with varying degrees of success.

Some neat, some clearly shoved into place at the last minute.

A handbag rested on a chair.

Ordinary things.

Normal things.

Things that had absolutely no business holding my attention for longer than a passing glance.

And yet I found myself moving toward each one with the kind of quiet focus I usually reserved for things that mattered. For meetings that determined outcomes. For men who needed to understand exactly how serious I was before I gave them a reason to regret underestimating me.

I stopped in the middle of the room.

None of this matched the image I'd created of her.

The woman I'd watched on stage wasn't ordinary. She commanded attention without trying. Even surrounded by dozens of people, she had been impossible to ignore.

She had stepped onto that stage out of fury and heartbreak, not just familiarity. I had seen it in every line of her body before the music gave her somewhere to put it.

She was angry, humiliated and she was looking for somewhere to direct it.

I understood that more than she could have known.

Her phone sat on the lamp table beside the bed.

I looked at it for a moment.

Then I picked it up.

I wasn't a man who second-guessed his decisions once they were made, and I didn't second-guess this one.

I pressed the button and the screen lit up immediately, no passcode, which told me more about her than she probably intended.

A photograph appeared.

Everything inside me went still.

Sienna was smiling.

Not the guarded smile she'd given me.

Not the practiced smile, she plastered on her face during her performance.

A real smile; bright and warm.

Happy.

For a moment, that was all I saw.

Her smile. The ease in her expression. The absence of pain.

But my gaze shifted. A man stood beside her, his mouth hidden behind her hand as he kissed he while his arm rested lazily on her waist.

A diamond ring glittered on her finger.

Something moved through my chest. Low and quiet and entirely unwelcome. It wasn't jealousy. I didn't entertain jealousy.

It was something colder than that and more precise, the specific irritation of recognizing a lie that someone else had been made to believe without ever being given the tools to see through it.

She had loved him.

That much was obvious without needing to be told. It was in the photograph, in the ring, in the way she had looked when I watched her step onto the stage two nights ago.

Her fiance cheated on her and her world had ended.

I set the phone back down on the table.

Then I straightened and turned away from it, pulling my hands back into my pockets.

Dave Cortez.

The name sat cold and familiar in the back of my mind, the way it always did. The way it had for two years. The man she had built her future around was the same man who had taken something from me that could not be returned, and she had no idea.

She had walked into my club, onto my stage, into my basement, carrying his name like it was something worth mourning.

It wasn't.

He didn't deserve her grief.

He didn't deserve anything from her.

The bathroom door handle shifted.

I turned toward it slowly, unhurried, and positioned myself in the center of the room.

Her voice came through the door first. Low and irritated, the warning she had been issuing to the empty room finally running out of patience. Something about serious trouble.

The corner of my mouth lifted slightly.

She was going to be furious.

I found that I was looking forward to it more than was strictly appropriate for a man in my position.

The door opened.

She stepped out mid-sentence, the words already dissolving the moment she crossed the threshold. The scent of jasmine following her out of the steam like it was part of her.

A towel barely clung to her body, shorter than her underwear, while damp strands of hair slid down one shoulder.

My jaw tightened before I could stop it.

I swallowed hard, my adam's apple shifting with the effort.