Naughty November

Chapter 2

TWO

ROMEO ARES

The intruder clasped his hands together in supplication, which caused my traitorous dick to twitch in my pants. Because not only was the boy needy, but he was also good at begging. I sighed and raised a brow, waiting him out as he gathered himself, took a couple of deep breaths, and finally managed to stammer out a desperate plea. “Please don’t call the police. I’m not here to steal anything, I promise.”

“And I should believe you why exactly?”

“I work here!”

I gave him a narrow-eyed glare because I knew who was on staff at the club, as I’d vetted every single one of them. “Bullshit. I know all my courtesans, and you barely look sixteen.”

He scrunched up his face in a pouty frown at what he obviously thought was an insult, just proving my point that he looked and now acted like a teenager. “Hey, I’m twenty-two, and as much as I would absolutely love to be a courtesan—especially if I were your own personal one, because fucking hell, you’re gorgeous—I’m only part of the cleaning crew.”

I felt my lips twitch at his babbling but hardened my resolve and stepped closer to him, probably a bit too aggressively, because he hopped back a step, banging the backs of his knees against the bench. He nearly toppled over it to the other side, but caught himself when his butt hit the bench and he gripped the side of it to keep from ending up in a heap on the floor.

He obviously saw the doubt written all over my face, because he raised his hands up, pleading, “No, I swear! Look!”

His desperate near shout had me leaning over him and baring my teeth. His eyes widened as he shoved his hand into his backpack, but before he could pull anything out, I had my gun against his temple. “Slowly,” I murmured menacingly.

He whimpered, and his whole body gave an involuntary shudder. Fuck if my dick didn’t take notice, bastard that it was. With a smirk on my face, I watched as he slowed his movements to a snail’s pace, which nearly made me sigh, wondering if he was this dramatic in his daily life or if it was only under threat of a bullet in his skull.

When he pulled his hand from the backpack, he held a shirt out to reveal my cleaning company’s logo on his black uniform polo, and then slow as molasses, he dug around in the bag again, pulling out his uniform pants and unclipping his employee badge. A sparkly eyed, grinning, black eye nowhere to be found version of this kid stared back at me. He kept surprising me, and if there was one thing I hated, it was surprises. His movements were desperate as he got out his wallet and showed me his driver’s license as backup proof.

“Julien Gallo.”

Nodding so fast I wasn’t sure how he kept his brain intact, Julien smiled up at me. “Well, I go by Jules. But see? I do work here.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Since when?”

He shrugged, looking up at me, his smile slipping off his face, immediately replaced by sadness. “About a week now. But I guess that’s no longer the case.”

“No?” I asked, while putting my gun once more in its holster.

“I mean, I’m assuming as much anyway. You caught me here after my working hours.”

“Ahh, yes. I did, didn’t I? And why, exactly, are you here?”

Blushing to the roots of his shoulder-length, layered, wavy, light brown hair, he glanced down at his lap, fidgeting with his work clothes. “I just, umm… didn’t have anywhere else to go? My roommate kicked me out last night.”

“So you slept here last night, too?”

His eyes popped wide. “No, sir! I swear.”

“Then where?”

“Well, it was two in the morning when I got home from cleaning and then Jared kicked me out ten minutes later. I wasn’t able to grab more than a sweatshirt before he shoved me out the door. I tried the two local shelters, but there weren’t any beds available. So I found a bench at the bus station.”

Fucking hell, this kid. “And what, no shelters tonight?”

“Hm-mmm,” he said, shaking his head as he kept his eyes averted and bit his chapped lip. “I went before my shift to get a bed for when I got off, but there’s a curfew and I wouldn’t have made it.”

“So you decided your new employer wouldn’t mind if you made use of the facilities?”

On a shaky breath, Julien met my gaze. “I wasn’t planning to, but when the shift was over I just… I-I…” Closing his eyes, he shook his head in what I assumed was annoyance with himself and took a deep breath. “I didn’t know where else to go. I was cold as hell last night. I figured I could just sleep on a comfortable sofa or curl up on one of the booth seats and then sneak out before anyone came in.”

“You’re aware we have security on all the exits here. You had to have noticed your boss disarming it before letting you inside.”

“Yeah, I just… I figured it would go off, but I’d be long gone before anyone got here to check.”

“So, let me get this straight… You figured you’d illegally make yourself at home here, take advantage of your employer, break all the rules you signed off on in your employment contract, use the facilities, take illegal substances while doing so, and essentially make yourself at home?”

Shaking his head frantically, Jules stood up, the clothing on his lap falling to the floor. “I didn’t know what else to do. Fuck. I work three jobs, and I’d never make it in time to get to a shelter. I was scared to sleep out—wait! Illegal substances? I don’t do drugs, man! What the fuck?”

I wrapped my hand around his slender neck and squeezed, feeling a sick sense of satisfaction when his Adam’s apple bobbed under my palm as he swallowed reflexively. Leaning down into his face so our foreheads were nearly touching, I growled, “The fuck you don’t. You seem to think alarms on the outer doors are the only things we have here in terms of security. There are cameras with motion sensors covering every fucking inch of this club. I got a notification the second you moved from wherever you’d hidden yourself when your boss left. The cameras provide video and audio recordings.”

“Fuck. I didn’t… I never saw any cameras.”

“Obviously. They are discreet by design.”

“Shit. Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was going to do it until the opportunity presented itself. It won’t happen again. I’ll figure something out. But, dude, I don’t take illegal drugs.”

Dude? For fuck’s sake, this kid.

“Like hell. I saw you swallow some pills from a little baggie. If that doesn’t scream street drugs, I don’t know what does.”

His eyes popped wide and he shook his head. “Those were prescription meds. I swear. Look, I’ll show you.”

I still held him by his throat and watched as he raised his arm to clasp my wrist with his much smaller hand. I glared and shook his hand off with a growl. “Watch yourself, boy.”

He held his hands up until I stepped back, crossing my arms over my chest again. Turning, he dug into his bag and pulled out a small ziplock bag—of all the fucking things—brandishing it right in my face, his expression triumphant.

Sighing, I rolled my eyes and scrubbed my face, frustration nearly seeping out of my pores, I was sure. I didn’t know why the fuck I hadn’t just grabbed him by the scruff and tossed him out yet. Okay, that wasn’t true exactly. The boy was absolutely stunning, and so far his story was amusing me, so I continued with my inquisition, all while knowing—but ignoring the fact—that I should get back to work.

“So, you’re trying to convince me that the drugs in your baggie are prescriptions? Drugs in baggies literally scream illegal substance. ”

Frowning, Jules dug into his bag again, grabbed his phone and tapped a few times, then waved it in my face. What I saw was the close-up of a prescription bottle with a script number and drug info. “If you have the bottle, why put it in a bag?”

He sighed, turning and then putting the phone and the bag back in his backpack, then faced me again. “I have a picture of it in case I’m out and need the script number to call in for a refill. And if you must know, I’m clumsy, and one night the bottle fell on the floor and I was rushing around trying to find the damn thing when I stepped on it and broke it. So, I stole one of my roommate’s drug bags to put them in.”

“So, you’re not a druggie, but your roommate is.”

“Yeah. Well… he’s a dealer and a junkie. If he knew I had this prescription, he’d be stealing it from me. This way, he doesn’t know it’s mine if I lose it somewhere in the apartment. And don’t look at me like that. Beggars can’t be choosers. I didn’t exactly have a lot of options. He’s a piece of shit, really, but he didn’t charge much because he owed my brother a huge favor. And I basically did everything around the place, like cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping. So…”

“So, why did he kick you out?”

Cheeks flaming, Jules huffed out a breath and muttered sulkily, “He said I fucked him over by leaving the front door unlocked, but that only happened once when I first moved in because my brain is broken and I had no mantra. But?—”

“And how exactly is your brain broken?”

“I have ADHD—which is what the two pills are for, by the way—and I forget shit all the time, but like I said, if I have a mantra in my head, I can usually keep it from happening again.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off. “The mantra I repeat in my head every time I leave is phone, keys, backpack, door , and I repeat it over and over and over again until I actually leave the apartment with all of those things with me or taken care of.”

He folded his arms over his chest and gave a nod as he met my gaze, like he’d just made a grand statement. Once more I opened my mouth to say something and he swooped in again, his voice louder than before, suddenly revved up and annoyed. “Oh, and I am positive I didn’t do it again because of my mantra when I leave the house, but also because it was clear the door had been tampered with. He just wanted someone to blame because his stash and cash were both stolen.”

My cynical look was back full force as I narrowed my eyes. “Your story still doesn’t track. You were kicked out yesterday, but that shiner looks fresh, so you had to have been hurt today.”

“Yeah, well… I went back today when I knew he’d be out and grabbed as much as I could fit in my backpack and a duffel bag. But then I heard him coming in, so I tossed the bags out my window, but it’s two floors down, so I had to try to get past him. Thought he was in his bedroom and I could sneak out, but he was in the kitchen and roughed me up for coming back.”

“And because you clean the club, you thought you could make use of the place with no one being the wiser.”

Jules looked down at his feet, shrugged, and mumbled, “I noticed last night there are some locks left on these lockers, and I had a lock and just figured I’d put my stuff in one and sleep here for a few nights until I figured something out. He’ll kill me if I go back, but I still have more of my shit I need to get before he sells it off or tosses it.”

Hardening my resolve, I gritted out, “Kid, my club isn’t here for my employees to crash whenever they get themselves in trouble. It’s not a halfway house with a revolving door for boys who can’t get their shit together.”

“Yeah, I get it. I’m sorry. I’ll go if I have to, just please don’t fire me. I need this job if I’m going to find another place to stay.”

The fact that I was starting to feel bad for him annoyed the hell out of me. I was just shy of grabbing his shit myself and dragging him to the back door when Jules grabbed his stuff and sighed. “Look, the pills are kicking in and I’m about to pass out. I know it’s asking a lot, but I’d literally do anything if you’d just let me sleep on one of the booth seats for, like, three hours. Only for tonight, I swear. I don’t have time now to wander around and try to find a place to sleep. The meds will keep me under, but I’ll set an alarm to get me up before anyone shows up in the morning.”

“Keep you under? And you still expect me to believe these are prescription drugs? ”

Narrowing my eyes at him, I stepped into his space. Not expecting it, he lost his balance and pinwheeled his arms as he fell back. I caught his arm just in time to keep him from being a drugged-up heap on the floor. That was all I needed.

“Yeah, with my ADHD I can’t shut my mind off and sleep, so my doctor prescribed it and it knocks me out. Look, I know I can’t sleep here ever again, but at this point, I’d be willing to do absolutely anything to sleep in your alley without you calling the cops on me.”

He sidled closer to me and looked up to meet my gaze, his goddamned puppy dog eyes nearly doing me in. I was about to strengthen my resolve when he pressed his body to mine and placed his small hands on my chest.

“I saw the way you looked at me when you first came in here and a few times since. And I don’t need to tell you that you’re gorgeous as fuck. All tall, dark, and dangerous. Totally my type. So when I say I’ll do anything, I mean anything .”

“ Really? You don’t even know me, let alone my sexual proclivities. Are you sure you mean anything? Because you need to be real sure, little one. I’m not gentle in any sense of the word. I like to leave marks on my sexual partners.”

“Mmm, that sounds like exactly what I need. I love being marked up by a big, strong, bossy Daddy.”

“Oh, you don’t get to call me Daddy. Daddy is only for one special boy I’ve yet to meet, and I highly doubt you’re him. You’d be running in the other direction if you knew who I was.”

“Then tell me who you are.”

“Not a chance, boy.”

“Then I’ll just have to call you Daddy until you do.” I grunted at his audacity. “And what if I was that special boy and you shoved me out the door without a taste? Don’t let me slip through your fingers. I could be just the boy you’re looking for.”

“Highly doubtful.”

This kid was unbelievable. He had no idea who I was because if he did, he’d have tried to escape knowing he was in a very precarious situation and had chosen the wrong location to squat for the night. He’d also know there was no promise he’d get out of here in one piece. I wasn’t known for my lenience.

But instead of backing off, he caressed my pecs, then pressed his hard cock against my upper thigh, grinding himself into me. Oh, this boy had no idea what he was offering, proving once again he was clueless about me—otherwise, he’d never have offered himself up on such a delicious platter. I’d take him apart, piece by piece, and then leave him wrecked instead of putting him back together again.