City Of Need

1 ❤️‍🔥 Rescue

Jack

I lean back against the horse-shoe shaped bar at The Kings, watching her. She keeps pulling at the hem of her black, very shiny, very tight, latex top. She veers from looking like she owns the fucking club, to looking like a lonely little girl in a school playground.

Men come and go, making huge efforts to talk to her. She barely says a word and one by one they walk away, their tails between their legs.

Why is she here?

I'm momentarily distracted from the beautiful woman at the bar as my oldest friend Jameson walks towards me. With a huge smile on his face he says, 'Jack, didn't know you were back in London. When did you fly in?'

'Two days ago,' I tell him as he claps me on the back almost knocking me off my bar stool. I return the favour almost knocking him off his feet.

'Two days, and I'm only seeing your face now?' He smirks.

I've known Jameson for at least ten years. He gave me my first job the last time I had to leave LA and spend a bit of time back in London to take the heat off.

'Yeah well, been keeping a low profile - you know how it is.'

'Ah,' he says, rocking back on his feet. Knowing exactly how it is with me, and knowing not to ask too many questions. 'Well LA's loss is our gain.' He smiles, dropping the big tough guy act and acting like the much older brother I never had. He's always been that to me.

We used to go out in London hunting for women together- both wearing black suits and all the status symbols we thought we needed. We didn't need them. All we had to do was stand at the bar and smile, that was all it took.

He orders two whisky macs in my honour and then says, 'I've got to get back to Lily. She's freaking out about something and she needs me. I'll be back.' Then he claps me on my back again and struts off across the club. He always goes for high maintenance women. Same as me I guess.

My eyes are back on the woman at the bar. She's gorgeous, hot as fuck, and could be terrifying, if she wasn't picking at her red nail varnish and completely destroying her nail job.

Fuck it. I need a distraction from all the shit that's going on in my life right now. I push myself off my bar stool, straighten all six foot four of my frame and approach her as if I'm approaching a wild animal - with great caution.

She doesn't notice me approach until I hold out my hand and say, 'Hi, I'm Jack.'

'Fuck,' she almost screeches. She looks terrified.

Jesus, what did I do? This is not the normal effect I have on women.

'Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you,' I say and hold my hands up in front of me.

'Jesus H Christ, I didn't see you coming,' she says, her voice a little lower than a screech now. 'What do you want?' she snaps.

At this point I'm absolutely regretting coming over to this side of the bar. From my stool I couldn't see that she had a leash looped around her wrist, with a chain attached to it. The other end of which is attached to a young man, dressed only in black jeans, kneeling at her feet. He watches us dispassionately. What the fuck is that about?

I can't just walk away after scaring her so badly, and her strange boyfriend seems to be doing nothing to help her. What would a gentleman do in this situation?

'Drink?' I ask her, giving her my best, - I didn't mean to scare the crap out of you, I'm a nice guy really - smile. I know she'll say no, the same way she's said no to every other desperado in here. But at least I won't feel so bad about freaking her out.