Playing Dirty by Kiki Swinson Read Free Book Online Page A

his message as usual and I rushed out of my building to my waiting Aston Martin. The valet smiled at me and I did the same in return. As he opened my car door, he said, “If I wasn’t the one who had driven that hot car of yours around here, I would’ve sworn you were about to be carried off on a white horse by a prince.” I loved attention of any kind. Flattered, I flashed my perfect white teeth at him.
    “Don’t tempt me—one day you might just see me being carried off on a white horse,” I said jokingly. I got into the car and looked up at him. When he closed it, I reached for his hand and touched it. He looked at me and I could see him blushing. I placed a one-hundred-dollar bill in his hand and continued on. I knew I had made his fucking night. A hundred dollars was nothing to me, but I knew it might’ve meant a month’s worth of groceries for him.
    The car was the right accessory for my look. It drove like a dream. I mean, the tires hugged the road and it felt like I was in a spaceship, riding on air. When I pulled up to the Panama nightclub, the crowd outside was outrageous. There had to be more than two hundred people outside alone, so I could only imagine what inside was like.
    “I should’ve invited Maria,” I said out loud. I didn’t want to be lost in a sea of unknown people. A valet approached my car and I slid out. All eyes seemed to turn to me. As usual, I flashed a sexy smile and walked toward the front door. I was held up by security, but I pulled Mr. Santana’s personal invitation out of my bag and the velvet rope was immediately moved out of my way. I felt like the only VIP.
    The inside of the club was decorated beautifully with all red, white, and gold. I’d learned from living in Miami that Hispanics always loved those colors. There were bouquets of bloodred roses on each table and gold glittery accents all around. It looked more like someone was getting married. A jazzy-sounding Carlos Santana tune blared from the speakers and the Latina were eating it up. I struggled my way through the hip-swaying, foot-tapping crowd, trying to make my way to the VIP room. Finally, after a million “excuse me” and “watch it” asides, I was at the door. A tall, skinny man dressed in all black guarded the door.
    “Hi, I’m here on the request of Mr. Santana,” I screamed, yelling over the music.
    The man looked at me from head to toe. “Your name?” he asked stoically.
    “Yoshi Lomax,” I screamed in reply. He immediately moved.
    “Shit, now that’s first-class service,” I said to myself, feeling good as hell.
    Sauntering my sexy ass into that VIP room felt like walking a red carpet. In fact, the carpets were red. The room was decorated just like the rest of the club, and the gold accents gave everything a rich feel. I looked around for Mr. Santana. I didn’t see him. But I did see a whole lot of gorgeous—and I do mean gorgeous —Latina women. These women looked like supermodels and they were dressed to kill. I suddenly began to feel a little self-conscious. After looking at them, I no longer felt like the belle of the ball. Then I noticed that I was receiving my fair share of stares from the well-dressed men in the room. All of a sudden my high confidence came rushing back. “Never doubt your beauty, Yoshi,” I said to myself under my breath. I guess I was the different kind of beauty in the room.
    They were all Latina and kind of looked the same. I was Asian and Black, so I looked way more exotic than they did. I walked toward the bar. I was going to get my own party started. Before I made it all the way to the bar, I felt a hand on my back. I whirled around in surprise.
    “Yoshi, I’m so glad you could make it,” a soft voice whispered right in my ear. I could tell from the smell of that sweet-ass cologne that it was Luis Santana.
    I seductively turned my body toward his voice. “I would not have missed it for the world,” I said back.
    “You look amazing,” Mr. Santana