by Jana Aston
Good thing I’m flexible. I should remember to mention that.
I tap my fingertips against the steering wheel while I think. I hope he’s agreeable to my sex plan, by which I mean my plan to have crazy hot, no-strings-attached sex with him this weekend. I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t be agreeable because it’s a good offer, but I don’t know him well enough to know, do I? I know almost nothing about him, other than he was much nicer than he had to be today, to both Lydia and myself. And that he’s attractive. Really, really attractive. Also, I’m fairly certain I caught his eyes on my ass when I glanced back to get one last look at him on the way out of his office earlier, so that’s something. Clearly he’s an ass man as it’s the only logical explanation for his lack of interest in my tits.
But he is interested.
Maybe.
I turn off the car and head inside because I’m not going to resolve anything sitting in the parking lot. Besides, my options for the day are clear. I can go shopping, find a gift for my mother’s upcoming wedding and knock that off my to-do list. Or I can focus on Vince.
The choice is pretty clear.
Chapter Seven
The locker room at Double Diamonds reminds me of a spa. Changing rooms, showers and a long vanity for applying makeup. There are a few rows of lockers tucked around a corner, but no jarring slap of metal when they open and close because they’re made of wood and must have soft-close hinges because I’ve yet to hear one of them snap shut.
Just inside the door is a seating area. Club chairs surround a round coffee table. A couple of high-backed wing chairs sit against the far wall with a shared ottoman between them. There’s a coffee station in here too, one similar to the setup in Vince’s office. Mini glass-fronted refrigerators line the countertop beneath, filled with an array of bottled water, energy drinks and soda. There’s even a fruit basket on the coffee table. The only things missing are fluffy white robes with an embroidered Double Diamonds patch.
I’ve never been in a strip club before, but this cannot be normal. The front looked and felt exactly like anyone would expect a strip club to look and feel. Loud and dark. Strobe lights flashing and beautiful women dancing. Glasses clinking and music thumping. The back room doesn’t match my expectations at all. It’s serene, peaceful. Quiet. There was some money put into soundproofing between the front-of-house and back-of-house areas here, that’s for sure.
Nothing behind the scenes at Double Diamonds has been what I expected.
I drop my handbag onto one of the chairs and walk over to where Lydia is sitting in front of a makeup mirror at the vanity. The locker room is surprisingly empty too. Or maybe it’s not surprising, it just wasn’t what I was picturing. I can hear a shower running and I passed a girl exiting the locker room as I entered, but I’d imagined a room filled with half-naked girls rushing around and maybe some bickering about who got the good pole tonight.
I really need to get my imagination in check.
“You look gorgeous, babe,” I tell Lydia as I approach. She does too. Rhys is done for.
“You look nice too,” Lydia comments, eyeing me in the mirror.
“Do I?” I glance down at myself in fake surprise, as if it’s some kind of fluke that I look good tonight. It’s not. I took a shower and washed my hair for the second time today just so I could properly blow it out until it was silky straight. I’ve got really thick blonde hair, so the whole blow-dry-to-perfection thing doesn’t happen every day. Nor does moisturizing from head to toe and painting my lips the perfect shade of fuck-me pink. Or pairing a body-hugging low-cut top with low-rise jeans that fit my ass perfectly. And fine. Fine. I might have added a a bit of body shimmer to highlight my cleavage.
“Are you going to Hennigan’s later?” Lydia questions, referring to a bar near our apartment, clearly still trying to figure out why I’ve taken so much effort to get ready tonight when she’s the one going up for auction.
“Um, I don’t know, maybe?” I hope not. “So, what’s the plan? Is Rhys here yet? Are you positive you want to do this, Lydia?”
“Yeah, I’m doing this. Assuming Rhys shows up, I’m doing this. He just does it for me, Payton. I think he might be my swan.” I swear to God little hearts float over her head as she tells me about how swans mate for life because they choose carefully.
I think I might be a porcupine. I read something once about how the female porcupine lures the male porcupines to her, selects one but then makes him wait until she’s good and ready before presenting herself for sex. Once she’s had enough she tells the male porcupine to fuck off because she’d rather be alone. I’m paraphrasing obviously, but you get the gist.
Lydia’s a monogamous swan.
I’m a persnickety porcupine.
“In case we don’t get to talk later, I’m really proud of you, Lydia.” I pull her to me for a hug, careful not to mess with her hair and makeup. “It’s total insanity, but I’m proud of you for going after what you want.”
“Don’t be proud yet. We don’t even know if this worked. This might end with Vince selling me to a seedy businessman from Iowa. We don’t really know yet, do we?”
“Speaking of, have you seen Vince yet tonight? He will be here, won’t he?”
Please be here, please be here, please be here. It’d be just my luck that he has a business partner who handles the club in the evenings so he can spend his Saturday nights with some ho who isn’t me.
A cough alerts us that we’re not alone. It’s Vince. Hands in pockets and a smirk on his face. I don’t know what he’s amused about because I kept all those thoughts inside my head. My heart is another story. It’s about to jump out of my chest at the sight of him. My pulse has most definitely increased with his arrival. Crushes are weird.
He’s in a different shirt than before. The one earlier had barely discernible stripes while this one is a crisp, solid white. He’s wearing a suit coat now too, black. It makes him look sexier than any man has a right to look. Sophisticated. Powerful. Sensual. I should get a hobby that is not cataloging every detail about Vince, but not right now. Maybe next week. Something like calligraphy or adult coloring books.
“Iowa’s a very nice place,” he says. “It’s the ones from Maryland you want to watch out for.”
Oh. He heard Lydia’s comment about selling her to a seedy businessman who is not Rhys. Not that Rhys is seedy. He’s not, not really. A little stupid in my opinion, but not seedy. Wait, that’s unkind. I know he’s book-smart, just love-stupid. But it’s fine because Lydia is gonna fix him right up.
“Haha, you kidder, you.” Lydia deflects, clearly uncomfortable that he overheard her and still a bit unsure about this entire setup.
“I’m serious,” he responds, his gaze landing on mine. “As a skydiver.”
Oh, my God. He remembered our conversation from earlier. I wonder if he thought about me today while I was thinking about him? Swoon. I’ve got the swoons. There is definitely chemistry happening here between us. A pull. A delicious gravitational force at work.
I wet my lips while I steady myself, then I smile. “Yeah, that was a good one. Skydiving safety is no joke.”
Vince dips his head towards me in acknowledgment, the hint of a smirk on his face before he turns back to Lydia. “It worked,” he tells her. “Rhys is here.”
Lydia leaves with Vince, off to scam the love of her life into purchasing her and taking her home for sex. Scam might be too harsh a word, it’s for his own good. It’s an awful lot of work to go through to get laid, that’s all I know.
I plop into a chair and toss my legs over the side to get comfortable, then bite my bottom lip to keep from smiling like a lunatic. Because Vince. Is. Here. I drop my head over the other arm of the chair on a groan as I think about everything I want to do to him. Or him to me. Either, both, whatever. I have got to find out if he’s available before I fall any harder.
“Everything okay?”
It’s Staci. She’s one of the dancers here, the one who took Lydia shopping
today and helped prep her for tonight. I straighten up in the chair and smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just daydreaming. I mean, waiting on Lydia. She just went out.” I wave a hand in the direction of the door to emphasize Lydia’s departure.
“Cool,” Staci replies, tossing a makeup bag onto the vanity before rooting around inside of it in search of something or other. She’s in yoga pants and a t-shirt, her hair damp and combed straight, so I’m guessing she’s preparing to go home versus preparing to go on stage.
“Done for the night?” I question as she squirts a dollop of moisturizer onto her fingertips before working it onto her face.
“Yup.” She nods as she tosses her face cream back into her makeup bag before dumping the entire thing into her handbag. “I’m gonna Netflix and chill with myself and I cannot wait. It’s been a long week.” She starts to hoist her bag over her shoulder and I realize this might be my golden opportunity to get some answers on Vince.
“Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” She nods distractedly as she rests her weight on one hip, freeing her cell phone from her bag as she turns to look at me.
“What do you know about Vince?”
“Vince?” She seems a bit caught off guard, as if she wasn’t expecting this line of questioning from me. “I mean, he’s my boss?” She ends the sentence as a question, as if she has no idea what information I’m seeking. I’m not sure how that’s possible, because look at him.
“Is he with anyone?”
“Ah.” She smiles now, looking me over with new interest. “I don’t think so.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know.” She laughs. “I think he works a lot. He’s kinda serious, don’t you think?” She shrugs like she hasn’t given any thought to this.
“So he’s not with any of the girls?” I press. I really need to know what I’m up against tonight. “Casually?”
“No, definitely not. It’s kind of an unspoken rule around here. Vince doesn’t cross those boundaries.”
What I’m hearing is the coast is clear for me to cross some boundaries with Vince. He’s becoming more and more interesting to me by the second.
“I don’t think he’s been with anyone seriously since Gwen,” she adds, throwing me. Was Gwen a dancer who broke his heart? Did she run off with a customer? Break an ankle while wearing a stripper heel and retire to Arizona and force him to implement his no-fraternization policy with the dancers? Or did Gwen have nothing to do with the club? Maybe she was his high school sweetheart… and ran off with his best customer—a tech nerd who made billions when the stock for his app went public.
I really need to lock down my imagination.
I’m about to ask for clarity on this Gwen character when Staci’s phone rings. She accepts the call while giving me her apologies about having to run. I grab a cluster of grapes and resume my position relaxing in the chair, popping grapes into my mouth while I wait. Almost as soon as Staci leaves the door swings open again and Lydia appears, collapsing against the door the moment it’s swung shut again.
She’s wearing a man’s suit jacket over the negligée she went out there in and I don’t think it would take an astrophysicist to figure out that it’s Rhys’ jacket. Not that there’s an astrophysicist hanging around to weigh in on the topic. Or maybe there is, what do I know? There may very well be an entire group of astrophysicists hanging out downstairs. Maybe astrophysics is a field filled with kinky fuckers, but my money is on virgins living with their mothers. I’ve been known to be wrong a time or ten though, so don’t take my word on it.
“Nice jacket,” I greet her before popping another grape into my mouth.
“Payton.” She braces against the door and kicks the heels on her feet off one at a time. They clatter across the floor with a thunk as she exhales. “That was horrible.”
“What happened?” I sit up, bracing myself for something awful, but to be honest, my money is still on that being Rhys’ jacket. Because he couldn’t stand to see her in public wearing something less revealing than a swimsuit, so he covered her up in some kind of caveman gesture. You woman. Me man. Mine. Grunt.
I sorta love that kind of bullshit. It’s cute.
“Lawson is out there. And Canon!”
“Oh.” I lean back in the chair and get comfortable. “Well, yeah. They’re friends, so that makes sense. Besides, Vince had to get Rhys here tonight. I’m sure he recruited Lawson or Canon to help him make that happen.”
“Why didn’t it occur to me that they might be here? I’m so embarrassed.” She wraps Rhys’ jacket tighter around her body and worries her bottom lip between her teeth.
“So did Rhys win you or what?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know? That was literally the point of the auction.”
“Because I don’t know. One minute I was standing on stage under a spotlight and the next he was wrapping me in his jacket and telling me to get dressed.” She turns around to slip the negligée off and quickly dress.
“Sounds like you’re leaving with Rhys.”
They’re going to have really attractive babies. Lydia will make homemade organic baby food that she freezes into tiny baby-sized portions in a vintage ice cube tray she bought at the Goodwill while Rhys stares at her with a mixture of befuddlement and worship for the rest of his life. I’ll babysit on occasion, take the kids out for non-organic ice cream covered in candy and then return them on a sugar high covered in streaks of chocolate and crumbs.
I’ll need to borrow one of their cars for those outings, obviously.
Lydia’s carefully folding Rhys’ jacket when the door opens. It’s Vince. Vince with an actual smile on his face. He’s got his hands in his pockets, thumbs hooked on the exterior. His body language is relaxed, polar opposite to Lydia’s entrance a few minutes before. His eyes rest on mine for a moment before he turns his attention to Lydia. He has curious eyes, that’s how I’d describe them. There’s a speck of interest when he looks at me. Amused interest, but it bodes well for me. Of course I might be projecting based on what I want to see. As long as I’m projecting I’m going to note that he looks well rested too. Like he could stay up all night if needed.
“After a small bidding war we came to an agreement at five,” Vince tells Lydia.
“Got who to five?” Lydia asks, a look of confusion on her face as if she’s already forgotten why she’s here.
“Rhys,” Vince says, looking at her like she’s crazy. “Wasn’t that the entire point, Lydia?”
Exactly! That’s exactly what I just said! Vince and I are so in sync. God, tonight is going to be amazing.
Lydia drops into the chair next to mine and proceeds to argue with Vince about how much Rhys should have paid for her. It seems Vince thought he was being generous for not antagonizing Rhys into paying a million and Lydia thought Rhys was going to check out with a Groupon deal.
My life has gotten exponentially more entertaining since moving in with Lydia. I didn’t really see that coming, to be honest. She’s a bit on the quiet, goody-two-shoes side. When she’s not selling her virginity to her boss, that is.
“Does he think he’s getting a party?” Lydia is questioning Vince when I tune back in to their conversation. I was distracted cataloging every detail of how he looks in that suit. Is liking the way a jacket fits his shoulders a weird thing? Because I’m deeply into it. “I’m not doing his friends or anything weird like that. I’m not.” She’s firm about this, it would seem.
“I would,” I chime in. “You only live once, am I right?”
Vince pauses at that, side-eyeing the hell out of me before running a hand over his jaw and exhaling. “I’ve got no idea what the guy is into,” he replies, addressing Lydia. “I’m sure the two of you can figure that out. Alone. Without me,” he adds in a tone that tells me he’s reached his limit on this charade. I can’t really blame him, it’s not even a real auction. It’s real money, sure, but the auction was fake.
&nbs
p; “She accepts,” I announce to both of them. “You accept,” I tell Lydia. “It’s time to earn your Rhys badge.”
“What in the hell is a Rhys badge?” Vince looks between us before shaking his head. “Never mind, I don’t actually want to know. He’s outside, waiting for you. It’s your choice. I’m not giving him his money back though. Dumb fuck has more than he needs.” He mutters the last part under his breath.
We’re definitely in agreement on that. Rhys totally deserves to lose half a million dollars because Lydia would have gone home with him for free weeks ago. I love how we’re already on the same page about our friends, like a team. We have so much in common it’s ridiculous.
Less than five minutes later we’re dropping Lydia off for her first day of school, I mean sex. We don’t have kids of our own yet because it’s not possible to get pregnant from eye-fucking someone.
I give Lydia a final hug as Vince holds the door open for her. I don’t think Vince needed my help walking her to the door but you didn’t think I was going to let him out of my sight now, did you? Lydia is not the only one getting laid tonight.
“Break a dick!” I call out to Lydia as the door swings shut behind her.
And then I’m alone with Vince.
Finally.
The sexual tension is off the charts. Way, way off.
I bet we’re gonna have sex in this hallway because he won’t be able to contain himself long enough to make it back to his office or to a broom closet, which is fine because I’m ready. So very ready.
He’s standing so close behind me I can feel the heat and energy flaring between us without us even physically touching. I take my time turning, wanting to drag the moment out and commit it to memory forever. I wet my lips as I pivot, my eyes level with his chest. He’s so appetizingly tall and broad and manly. I exhale and drag my eyes upwards, ready to tip my head back for a kiss.
Except he’s laughing.
At me.