Iron Rods
Strip Club
Series, Book 1.
By Brenna Zinn
ISBN
9781419947179
Book Length:
Novel
Publisher:
Ellora's Cave Publishing Inc.
Hopefully you’ve already heard about Iron Rods, the best
little fictional strip club for women in Texas.
If you haven’t let me fill you in.
Iron Rods is the first book in a series about a rundown
strip club for women in Austin. At the beginning of Iron Rods, you learn that
the club is a bone of contention between the owner, Austinite and half-crazy
old man, Lyle Truitt and his estranged New Yorker son, Bennett Truitt. Suffering from neglect and mismanagement, the
club is in bad shape, including the shoddy dancers. Then Tatum Reynolds, a down-on-her-luck
University of Texas graduate with a Master of Dance degree, takes over and
begins its slow return to its former glory.
In book one, several strippers, past and new, make an
appearance. I’d like to give you an opportunity to meet one of them – my favorite
– the Masked Man.
The Masked Man is exactly that. He auditions for a place on the stripper team
wearing a mask and never takes it off.
The only things Tatum knows about the mystery man is that his real name
is Mack Garner, he speaks with a Scottish accent and he has to keep his true
identity under wraps.
Interview
Interviewer: Hello Mack, if indeed that is your real name.
Congratulations on being selected as one of the strippers for the new and
improved Iron Rods.
Mack: Thank ye. And Mack is my real name. My accent may be
as fake as a three dollar bill, but I carry it off well enough. Dinna ye think?
Interviewer wipes mouth from the pooling drool: Yes.
Absolutely. Nothing like a good looking man with a Scottish accent.
Mack: The ladies seem to like it well enough. The more they
like what they see and hear, the more they like to tip. Ye ken?
Interviewer: Oh. I
ken, alright. So just between us and
everyone reading this blog, why the need for all the secrecy? I mean, really. It’s not like you’re an FBI agent or a guy
under the Witness Protection Program, right?
Mack: *chuckles* I ken what you’re doing, Lass, and it won’t
work. What I will tell ye is that I have
a job where my work as a stripper would be frowned upon. And I dinna want to lose my job.
Interviewer: Fair enough.
Then let’s talk about how you got into stripping. Have you done it long?
Mack: No, not at all.
I’ve never stripped before, except maybe for a few lasses I dated. And then it was before I took them in my arms
and had the kind of sex with them that curled their toes. But I have danced
since I was a kid looking for something to do with my time. I grew up with my
granddad, Jamie McKenzie, who truly is from Scotland, and I got into dancing
after school to keep myself out of trouble until ol’ Jamie could come fetch me.
Interviewer: No stripper experience? That’s surprising. Didn’t Tatum Reynolds, the manager of Iron
Rods, make you the lead stripper?
Mack: Aye. She did. I’m as stunned as you. Clearly the woman has a keen eye.
Interviewer *swallows hard*: It wouldn’t take a keen eye to
see you’re an extremely handsome man with talent. So,
um, do you have a girlfriend? Any women in your life?
Mack: No girlfriend. The only woman in my life is my boss
and she about drives me crazy. She has a
stick up her backside that’s hard to get past. I wish she would lighten up a
bit. Get off my back and into my bed.
Interviewer: Excuse me?
I didn’t hear that last part.
Mack: I said I wish she would get off my back and smile a
bit. The woman never smiles.
Interviewer: Now that you’ve had a chance to meet the other
strippers, what do you think of the “Men of Iron Rods”?
Mack: For the most part, they’re a fine group of fellas. There is one though that seems to have a
pretty fair-sized chip on his shoulder. Not sure what his problem is – yet. But
I have a feeling we may bump heads if he doesna watch his step.
Interviewer: Interesting.
What’s this man’s name?
Mack: I dinna know
what his real name is. Dinna care,
really. His stage name is Archangel. Thinks he’s the bloody star of the show.
But we all know who that is, now don’t we?
Interviewer *nodding furiously*: Yes we do. Speaking of stage name, what’s yours?
Mack: Ack, well, we’re still figuring that out. Tatum has been saying that the hot thing
going on these days is BDSM. What the
bloody hell is BDSM?
Interviewer: Does she mean Bondage, Domination, Sadism and
Masochism?
Mack: Well, well now. I dinna ken for sure. Is that what that means? I had no bloody idea.
Verra interesting.
Interviewer: Tatum is right, you know. BDSM is extremely popular these days. I’m curious to find out what she has in mind.
Mack: You and me both, Lass.
You and me both.
Interviewer: That about does it for our time today. Anything you want to say before we wrap up
this interview?
Mack: Aye. My story, Masked Secrets, is the second book in
Brenna Zinn’s Strip Club series. If you liked Iron Rods, book one. You’re gonna
love Masked Secrets.
To read more about Iron Rods, Masked Secrets and the third
book in the series, Dirty Politics, go to www.IronRods.NET.
Here’s an excerpt.
Enjoy!
Watered-down
drinks were the last straw. The wild concoction of emotions brewing within her
bubbled over. The time for calm had passed. She needed action. Something to
release the rage and hurt trapped inside. She’d had enough of being stomped on
by life, and by God she would not sit still while this seedy little club
stepped on her as well.
Tatum
picked up both drinks and marched to the bar, fury feeding her temper.
Something in her day was going to go right, and having a decent drink to dull
her pain wasn’t too much to ask for. So what if Conan the bartender looked as
though he could snap her in half. If he so much as blinked the wrong way, she’d
jump over the counter and make him wish he’d never poured a drink in his life.
The
bartender had his broad back to her and appeared deep in conversation at the
end of the bar with another man she hadn’t noticed before. How she could have
overlooked the stranger was a mystery.
The man
looked up and made eye contact with Tatum. Out of nowhere, fire popped
and sizzled through her, scorching senses that had been dulled by the
oppressiveness of the club. For a mesmerizing moment, she stared at the
stranger, unable to look anywhere else.
Black hair
groomed to perfection, a handsome face with an honest-to-God square jaw and
wearing the kind of slick suit and tie she’d only seen in magazine ads, he
looked like a modern-day aristocrat. Some big shot who was completely out of
place in a dive like Iron Rods.
Why such a
good-looking man was here to do anything beyond strip she didn’t know and
didn’t give a flip, she reminded herself. Tonight she was on a mission to
forget her troubles and find some kind of satisfaction. If the stranger couldn’t
help her in either regard, then he was little more than eye candy.
She
plunked down the cocktail glasses. A harsh thud
sounded as they hit the wood counter. The bartender glanced over his shoulder.
His face still appeared impassive, though his eyebrows now arched a bit higher
on his forehead.
“Yes?” he
asked.
Tatum
steeled her resolve and straightened her spine, hoping all six feet of her
looked formidable to a man who probably crushed boulders with his bare hands.
“If these drinks have a shot of pure vodka in them, then I’m the governor of
Texas.”
The
bartender said something to the stranger then turned around and made his way to
where Tatum stood. Her skin grew cold as she noticed the hint of a grin pull at
the corners of his lips. How could a person look more intimidating with a smile
on his face?
“You
saying I watered down your drinks?”
Though the
music in the club was loud enough to vibrate through the floor and up her
calves, she easily heard his deep bass voice. A tremor of fright added to the
quaking in her legs. Scared or not, she’d started this and she wouldn’t stop
until she had two cocktails to her liking.
“I’m
saying there’s no more alcohol in these glasses than there is in the Colorado
River down the street.” Allowing the full impact of her feelings to give her
strength, she took a step closer and pressed her stomach onto the padded vinyl
that trimmed the bar. “My friend spent a lot of money for these drinks and I
aim to make sure we get what we paid for. So how about you taking that unopened
bottle of vodka there on the back shelf and trying one more time?”
The large
bartender’s nose flared and the muscles in his thick neck and arms flexed.
Before he had a chance to say a word, the man at the end of the bar spoke.
“It’s
okay, T. Do as the lady asks.”
The big
man shot her a look that could have frozen hell. “Fine. As the lady likes.”
Without breaking his glare, he roughly grabbed two glasses and dropped them on
the counter before reaching for the vodka.
And just
like that, the polished stranger in the fancy suit single-handedly shut down
her attempt at blowing the steam she’d built up.
In a
perverse way, Tatum didn’t feel appeased. She might have gotten her way, but
pumped-up energy still surged in her system. If only she could punch a wall or
kick over a chair. She needed to do something, anything, to relieve her
bottled-up tension and lock down the pheromones that unexpectedly
decided to show up to the party.
The
good-looking man wasn’t making her struggle to calm down any easier. Over the
stacks of papers littering the end of the bar, he stared at her, and not in a
pleasing way. He appeared amused, almost smug, as though she had just provided
his evening’s entertainment.
She pushed
her attraction aside and allowed her irritation to hitch a half notch.
“Are you
the manager here?” she asked, making her way down to the end of the bar.
He punched
the end of the pen he held and tossed it onto an open file. “I guess you can
say I am. Is there a problem?”
His tone
sounded a little too bored for her liking. He might not be hard to look at, but
he had pompous ass written all over him. “As a matter of fact there is. Have
you taken a good look at this place lately? It’s a dump. The lighting sucks,
the dancers aren’t good-looking and couldn’t dance to save their souls, and the
bartender is serving lousy drinks.”
He tilted
his head. “You don’t say.”
His
prissy, holier-than-thou attitude provided just the spark she needed to stay
ignited. “Yes, I do say. You should be ashamed of yourself and this place. It’s
the worst club in Austin.”
“And yet
you’re here.”
“I—” Tatum
started, but faltered in the wake of his unexpected retort. She blinked several
times, too flustered to speak. Weren’t managers supposed to be nice to their
customers? Even rich, snobby managers?
The
stranger stood and Tatum’s gaze continued up until her head tilted back.
Powerfully built, he not only stood several inches taller than her, he
dominated the space around her. Though he might not be as humongous as the
bartender, he radiated a fierce but intelligent intensity that commanded her
attention. Here was a man used to getting what he wanted.
“You think
someone else can do better?” he asked.
Her mouth watered as she watched the play of muscles behind
his snug shirtsleeves and listened to the deep voice that poured over her like
warm molasses. Good Lord, the man was virile.
Not
permitting herself to be influenced by intimidation or lust, she raised her
chin and said the first thing that came to her mind. “I think a drunk monkey
could do better.”
“You
looking for a job?”
Her mouth
fell open at his audacity. She might be fast on the uptake, but he was faster
and better.
Perturbed,
Tatum planted her fists on her hips. “You calling me a drunk monkey?”
* * * * * *
And at the Iron Rods website: www.IronRods.NET
