Beyond Shame

—my father—offered to help him deal with the man who hired the sniper, but only if Dallas sent me back. I made the choice.”

“Hopefully it was to tell your father to fuck off and give Dallas all the damning details you know about Gareth Woods.”

“More or less. I think it’ll be easier to do now that Woods tried to have me killed.”

“It always is.” An inescapable fact of life in the sectors. Lex picked up another shirt and began to fold it. “Fuck Jasper. I know you want him like burning, honey, but you don’t need him. You’ve got your job, your ink. Your family.”

“You.” Noelle caught her up in a hug, clinging desperately. “God, Lex. I need my own space, but I still need you.”

Even more heartbreaking than the palpable pain was the way tears thickened Noelle’s voice. “You have me. I’m right here, whatever you need. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay. I’m okay.” A lie, and when Noelle lifted her head, the tears spilled over, tracking down her cheeks as quickly as she could wipe them away. “It’s good that it hurts, right? That I can feel.”

“Yeah.” Lex smoothed the hair back from Noelle’s damp face. “I know it’s not a lot of comfort right now, but the bad reminds you just how good everything else is. You’ve got to have both.”

Noelle nodded. “I can. I will. He’s not the only man out there, right?”

She spoke the words, the right ones, but she didn’t believe them, and Lex bit her lip against all the empty reassurances. Hell, she’d offer Dallas if only it would ease Noelle’s pain, melt that lonely look in her eyes. “Plenty of men, and plenty of time.”

“And I’ve got lots to do to keep busy.” Noelle scooped up one of Lex’s shoes, a towering five-inch heel she wore on stage. “You’re still going to teach me, right?”

“To dance?” A sudden thought occurred to Lex—an utterly wrong, plain old evil thought. “Actually…I’ll go you one better, honey.”

Both of Noelle’s eyebrows swept up, and finally something replaced the pain and sadness in her eyes—curiosity. “Better?”

“Better.” Lex grinned slowly. “I’m gonna make you a fucking star.”

Chapter Twenty

At least Noelle had the night off.

Jasper threw back another whiskey and banged his glass on the table. “You’re slow with the refills tonight, Mad.”

“You’re quick with the drinking.” Maddox tossed his hair out of his eyes and paused to flash a rakish grin at the next table over. The women—groupies Jasper had seen a dozen times before—giggled and ducked their heads together, whispering behind their hands. Satisfied, Mad slopped whiskey into Jasper’s glass and topped off the others as well. “Pace yourself, or you’ll be drooling drunk before Ace is.”

Ace made a crude gesture. “Bite me.”

“I’m not looking to get that drunk,” Jasper groused. It might be easy, but it was also weak. There wasn’t a damn thing about his situation that wasn’t of his own making, and he didn’t deserve to run from it.

She’d stayed. The damn woman had stood in this very room, looked at him and said, “Okay.” Okay to the end of them, okay to going back to the safety of Eden. Okay.

And then she’d stayed.

If that wasn’t a giant fuck you, he didn’t know what was.

Ace planted his elbow none too gently in Jasper’s side. “Brother, if you glare at the table any harder, it’s gonna piss itself.”

Jasper elbowed him back. “I’d be happy to glare at you instead.”

“At least it’d be progress.” Ace sighed. “Come on, man, you’ve got to do something. Live life. Get in a fight. Find some fucking pussy.”

Jasper drained half the liquor in his glass. “Not all of us run at full-bore manwhore all the time like you. We work and sleep sometimes too.”

“Whoring was only one of the options,” Ace muttered. “But fuck it. Whatever, keep brooding.”

Mad took a swig directly from the whiskey bottle. “You’ve got shit for tact, Ace.”

The stage was still dark, and Jasper eyed it moodily. “Who’s dancing tonight? I could try my luck with that.” It couldn’t go worse than his fling with Noelle.

Ace shot him an amused look, his earlier irritation forgotten as only Ace could manage. “Doubtful. I’m pretty sure Lex took someone’s shift.”

Well, fuck. Even if Jasper had felt like braving that minefield, he couldn’t close his eyes and picture Lex naked anymore without also picturing Noelle kneeling between her thighs, eating her pussy.

“Yeah,” Ace said, as if Jasper had spoken. “I thought so.”

“Dallas doesn’t feel much like sharing lately,” Jasper mumbled, then finished his drink.

Giggles drifted up from the table beside theirs, and Mad tilted his head. “Uncomplicated is easy to come by, if that’s what you’re in the mood for. There’s only two of them, but I’ll share.”

A damn generous offer, when you got right down to it. Every one of the O’Kanes knew Jasper was nursing a bruised heart, so everyone around was bending over backwards, going out of the way to cheer him up.

Well…almost everyone.

He shook it off. “It is what it is, right? This too shall pass? Got any platitudes to add?”

Mad shook his head. “You’re handling the cliches just fine on your own.”

The house lights dimmed, and soft music began to play. It was so unlike the usual tracks chosen by the dancers that Jasper blinked. “This doesn’t sound like Lex’s sort of thing.”

“No, it doesn’t—” Ace started. A single light flared on the stage, and his eyes widened. “Oh, sweet mother of Christ.”

Lex was sitting in a chair, dressed in demure white lace and silk. It was completely different from her usual act—until the music deepened into a rhythmic throb, and another woman, this one dressed in red, slithered onto the stage.

Jasper’s heart kicked into high gear, his body reacting before his brain caught up.

Noelle.

Everything about her was sin to Lex’s sweet. A blood-red corset hugged her torso, topped with low black ruffles that barely hid her nipples. The ruffles at the bottom didn’t hide black lace panties or her smooth thighs, the pale skin bare and lush in the soft light.

She came to a stop behind Lex and pressed both hands to the other woman’s shoulders, pausing for a moment to let the men drink in the sight of both of them. Her hips swayed, a gentle roll with the music more than an actual dance, and she caught one of the ribbons holding Lex’s virginal white top together…and tugged.

It was a dirty, dirty game, and Jasper couldn’t look away.

The ribbons yielded one at a time, baring Lex’s skin in the slowest tease the stage had ever seen. Ace shifted in his chair, muttering something too low to be understood. Mad just stared, unblinking, as Noelle wrapped her hand around the front of Lex’s throat.

With the stage lit and the floor dark, there was no way Noelle could see him in the crowd, but her gaze still swept straight to him as she bent low and closed her teeth on Lex’s earlobe.

Lex gasped, and Jasper felt an answering tug in his gut as his balls tightened. The perfect show, a role reversal. Innocent little Noelle playing the seductress, while Lex submitted with astonishingly convincing wonder.

Not that Noelle looked innocent now. She teased Lex’s gown open far enough to bare her breasts, and Ace bit off a curse as Noelle licked her thumb before teasing one of Lex’s nipples to a hard point. “Fucking hell, Jas. You tried to send her back to Eden? You’re brain dead.”

“Shut up, Ace. I mean it.” Oh, she was teaching him a lesson now, all right. Showing him all the ways she’d