“What a fucking dump.” Sean stared around the room in stupefied horror.

“This is the way she lived before she came to me,” Thorpe said with a hollow voice.

“I knew that on paper, but holy shit.”

“How could she go back to this after everything . . .” Thorpe pressed his lips together, refusing to lose control of his anger—or feel too hurt. “When I get my hands on her, she won’t sit for a week. And that’s the beginning of what I’ve got planned for her.”

“Better make that two weeks. I have some ideas of my own.”

Thorpe shoved aside the fact that Sean hadn’t objected to him spanking Callie. Yes, she’d taken off her collar, but she hadn’t discussed it with Sean, who probably didn’t see their relationship as over. Thorpe knew that the girl would never belong to him, but he refused to let this behavior slide without putting in his two cents—and then some.

Quickly, they searched the room. He found her backpack in the closet and grabbed it. There was no sign of the red duffel she’d mysteriously acquired in the airport bathroom. She had nothing else personal anywhere in the room. Even her toothbrush had been stowed back in the appropriate plastic holder in a zippered pouch. The used bar of soap told him that she’d taken a shower. Over the odor of mildew and stale cigarettes pervading the motel, he smelled a light trace of her.

As Callie’s scent registered in his brain, boiling blood filled his cock. A caveman urge to grab her, bind her, and fuck her until she understood all the reasons she could never run away from him again seized Thorpe.

“She was here,” Sean confirmed, sniffing the sheets.

“I’ve got her stuff.” He indicated to the pack slung over his shoulder.

Sean gave him a thumbs-up, then headed for the door. Thorpe followed, hot on his heels. Back in the lobby, he tossed the key to Doreen with a stern warning glance. The woman looked somewhere between breathless and ready to shit her pants when he left. She wouldn’t talk without substantial incentive. Not a perfect solution for keeping Callie safe, but the best he could do now.

Back in the Jeep, Sean had started the engine and turned on the lights. Thorpe tossed Callie’s backpack in and shut the passenger door as the other man threw the vehicle into reverse and peeled out of the parking lot.

The journey to Glitter Girls seemed like the longest two blocks of his life. When they reached the seedy dive bar, his worst fears were confirmed. The windows were covered up and painted the same color as the exterior walls. A big neon sign over the building advertised TOPLESS GIRLS! Thorpe swore.

It was a fucking strip joint. Callie better hope for her sake that she was merely waitressing.

The lowlife clientele slinking in seemed like a mixture of locals and tourists. They all looked as if they’d served time. None of them appeared to take bathing too seriously.

As they reached the front door, a big bouncer stood grunting out a “request” for the cover charge over the raucous music. Ten bucks with a two-drink minimum. The guys in front of them pulled out a big wad of cash he’d bet they had obtained in less-than-legal ways.

As he and Sean each pulled out a bill and ran in the door, the smoke, stale beer, sweat, and glitter assailed him. Goddamn it, this place was the worst sort of dive.

On the sagging stage, someone named Whipped Cream, who wore two little pasties designed to look like her namesake, was taking her final bows. Her mother definitely hadn’t given her that name—or that shade of ruby-red hair. She didn’t look like she had all her teeth.

The deejay sounded bored as he told the audience to give it up for the woman. The smattering of applause broke into chatter. A few bills littered the stage as Thorpe studied the girls serving drinks, hoping . . . But he didn’t see any waitress who had Callie’s face, build, or innate grace.

Fucking son of a bitch.

Sean looked around, too, obviously worried. “Where the hell did she get off to now?”

Thorpe didn’t think Doreen would have been dumb enough to call her cousin and tell him to warn Callie. “I’m hoping she’s in the restroom. Or getting someone a drink.”

“If she’s already become a customer favorite, I doubt she’s serving drinks,” Sean managed to growl out with his teeth grinding. “If that’s the case, she’ll probably go on when the night’s in full swing, toward the end of her shift.”

In twenty minutes or less.

Damn it to hell, he was right. “We don’t know her stage name, so we have no idea who to ask for.”

“Unless I barge into the back with my badge and drag her out of here.”

The idea had merit. Thorpe looked around, trying to gauge what the management’s reaction to having an FBI agent in their midst would be when a waitress came by for their drink orders. Truth told, he didn’t want anything, but ordered a bourbon and water, knowing he wouldn’t drink it. Sean asked for a vodka tonic, then motioned her down to him in a moment between the music.

“I’m wondering, pretty lass, if you’d mind to give me a wee bit of information.” Sean slipped into his Scottish accent and smiled at the acne-prone waitress, who looked barely legal and totally dazzled. The fed flashing a bit of cash sealed the deal.

“I’ll tell you anything. My bra size is a thirty-six D. They’re real.”

They weren’t, but Thorpe wasn’t going to bother debating the girl’s assets.

“You’re right fetching, that’s for sure. But I’m inquiring about the new bit of fluff. For my friend here.” Sean gestured to him.

The waitress made a sour face and rolled her eyes. “All the customers are, like, totally insane over Juicy. It’s not as if she’s got a magical pussy.”

Juicy?

Thorpe cast a glance over to Sean, who looked ready to disagree with the waitress, but he managed to force another smile onto his face. “Juicy, you say? Tell me more. My friend is quite interested.”

“That one is antisocial. She’s pissed all the girls off. Whipped Cream and Sparkle Swallows both can’t stand her. Two days here, and she’s already got more fans than everyone else. Now if you two want nice . . .” She smiled, showing off slightly bucked teeth.

“What does she look like?” Sean asked.

“Blond, blue-eyed, stacked.” The girl sighed. “But she’s not special.”

“When does she come on?”

The waitress opened her mouth to answer, but the deejay’s voice over the speakers drowned her out. “She’s new. She’s exciting. She’s your wettest dream. Give it up for Juicy!”

Sean stiffened, looking like his fury had climbed ten notches. Since Thorpe felt like strangling the deejay and killing everyone who stood between them and the stage, that suited him just fine.

And if Juicy and Callie were one and the same, slipping away unseen with the girl in tow had just become impossible.

The music cued, and Britney came on with some damn suggestive lyrics. Then the curtain parted, and out strutted the next act. Despite the bright lights glaring, all the makeup, and the skimpy costume, Thorpe knew instantly it was Callie.

She definitely wasn’t waitressing.

Tingles zipped down his spine. He itched to wrap his fingers in her silky hair. Even being in the same room with her made him titanium hard, so if he hadn’t known in every other way that he’d found Callie, his reaction made it damn obvious.

As he watched her onstage, the waitress stomped her foot and huffed off. He barely glanced at the other girl. Callie held him rapt as she gyrated for the crowd wearing a schoolgirl uniform, complete with a plaid skirt. Her blond wig hung in long pigtails. The whistling and catcalls ramped up, and she pasted on a come-hither smile. But her eyes . . . they didn’t invite. Because he knew Callie, he could read that expression. She looked both unnerved and scared out of her mind.

Beside him, Sean cursed a blue streak and leaned forward, gaze drilling into her. Thorpe felt the man’s displeasure. It mirrored his own. Rage bubbled and turned, and he knew that Callie would feel every inch of their disapproval the second they got their hands on her.

“Her file doesn’t indicate that she’s ever stooped this low,” Sean snarled.

Thorpe didn’t take his eyes off her. “I don’t think she’s ever been this desperate.”

Sean nodded grimly, and they watched her slowly reach for the top button of her blouse.

Tensing before she even had it undone, Thorpe wondered if he’d survive the next three minutes. He fidgeted in his seat, eager to storm the stage, take her down, and let her feel the full measure of her consequences. “What’s the fucking plan?”

“It would be better if we didn’t make a scene,” Sean bit out, gritting his teeth. “But the minute this music is over . . .”

“We’re going to grab her ass and haul her out of here. I’m all over that.”

“I was counting on it.”

Callie slipped the top button free, then another, and a third. The seconds ticked by, one after the other, in a horrific show that slowly revealed her milky flesh and had all the men in the room shouting that they wanted something “Juicy.” Every muscle in Thorpe’s body screamed at him to stop this travesty, even as his head silenced his inner Neanderthal and told him to keep his ass in his seat. They couldn’t make a scene.

With a sexy little spin, Callie whirled away and let the white shirt slip off her shoulders. She looked back at the audience with an exaggerated wink. Even terrified, there was something unmistakably special about her. She had a sweet quality and a goodness that her difficult life hadn’t killed. But the girl still exuded sex from the sparkle of her eyes and the pout of her glossy lips, all the way down to her swaying hips and pink-tipped toes peeking out from black patent stilettos. Denying just how much he wanted her wasn’t possible anymore. He’d never met a woman he couldn’t resist—until Callie. Thorpe feared that walking away from her again would be like trying to swim against a raging tidal wave.

To the beat of the music, Callie flipped up her illegally short skirt and flashed the audience her sinfully small thong—and her ass cheeks—before the plaid fell softly over her backside again. The whooping and whistles revved up. A bouncer nearby stood mutely and watched.

“Show us your tits!” someone near the stage shouted.

“Gimme a piece of that luscious ass,” another demanded.

The idea that these dregs now had Callie in their spank bank made him feel somewhere between nauseated and homicidal.

“Damn it all.” Sean gripped the table, looking ready to combust. “This three minutes is taking for fucking ever.”

Thorpe couldn’t agree more. “It will end.” It had to.

But would it before they lost their minds? He wasn’t sure about that, especially when the shirt slipped from the crooks of her elbows and onto the buckled stage, leaving her top half clad in nothing but a nearly sheer lace bra. When she turned back to the audience, there was no mistaking the pinkish cast of her plump nipples.

Callie arched her back, running her palms down her breasts, over her flat belly, then pressed her fingers toward her pussy. The audience started whooping at decibels near frat-party levels. Thorpe began to sweat. Jesus, he knew what her sweet pussy tasted like, and his mouth watered for another chance to make a meal out of her. Of course, every man in this room wanted that opportunity. One started pounding on the stage. Others joined in, slamming the wooden surface to the beat of the music, demanding more of her.

Fuck, this was getting out of control, and it took everything Thorpe had to stay in his seat.

A man in a cheap suit with a pimp moustache and a shaved head crowded closer. He thought he was the shit, clearly. With a confident leer, he leaned across the corner of the stage, holding up a hundred-dollar bill. He said something to Callie that Thorpe couldn’t hear over the music. Her eyes widened. More disquiet filled her face, but she danced in the dude’s direction.

With a shimmy, she lifted her skirt in front of him and circled her hips, spinning around until she backed up to him. Then she crouched, wiggling her ass seductively in his face. Her eyes slid shut. To anyone who didn’t know her, she might look as if she were in the midst of passion, but Thorpe saw differently. He had no doubt her skin was crawling and she was barely resisting the urge to run like hell.

Just because she wasn’t enjoying herself, however, didn’t mean she was going to escape punishment. She had a protector and a Dom, both of whom would do anything to help her. Had she trusted either of them? No. She’d just left. Sean, he sort of understood. Hell, Thorpe hadn’t trusted the man himself until . . . what? Maybe yesterday. Or the day before. His days were running together. But Callie had known him for four fucking years. In all that time, she hadn’t learned that he cared, that he would do anything to help her?