“All right, I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“I’ll be there with bells on.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you after tonight. Oh no, I’ve given you an idea.”
“You have. I’ll see if I can work some musical instruments in.”
Zoe walked away shaking her head and laughing to herself.
Madison went up the back steps and hoped that Dante wasn’t there at all or if he was, that Enzo was up there too. She knocked on the half-opened door.
“Come in.”
Crap, it was Dante. She pushed open the door. He was sitting at his desk flipping through papers. Did the mob do paperwork? What Zoe said couldn’t be true, it had to be a rumor.
His blue suit looked good. What did he look like when he wasn’t wearing a suit? Not naked, her face heated at the memory of his body. She would never see him in jeans and a shirt.
He had taken off the jacket he had worn on the floor, and it was draped over the back of his chair. She had seen him on the floor both during her sets and while she was bartending.
But besides some heavy eye contact, there had been no sign of him coming near her, which was good. At least that was what she told herself. She pushed the door open wider. “Hey, I wanted come to get my money from my sets. Zoe told me besides tips, that we get a check every two weeks for tending the bar.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” He reached under his desk. “I have your money right here for your sets on stage.” He held it over his desktop.
She hadn’t expected it to be that easy. Or maybe she hoped it would be that easy. Her dreams had been fire, and after having the real thing her vibrator still wasn’t enough.
“Great. Thank you.” She didn’t want to seem like she expected a repeat performance, even though she kind of did. There was no point standing there like an awkward girl. She should turn and go.
“It looks like the sets went well.” She shifted side to side next to his desk.
“Yeah, I think this was the most we’ve made in a night.” Dante angled his chair towards her.
Her face heated at the memory of what they had done in that chair. “Well, that’s good, right?” Her eyes darted to his face. Was he thinking the same thing? Or had he forgotten it.
“Yep. It’s good for both of us.”
“Yeah, uh, right.” She remembered what was good for her, and maybe it had been good for him too.
Dante’s head tilted to the side. She guessed he wanted to know why she was still standing there.
“I forgot to ask if I needed to sign a contract or something.”
“Oh yeah, right. I forgot to get you to sign it for some reason.” He shuffled some papers.
Some reason? They had had sex in this office, and he called it some reason.
“Here you can look it over and sign it.”
Their hands brushed as she took the papers and her eyes jumped to his to see if he detected it too, but he didn’t even look at her. She was sitting over here pinning for him and he couldn’t care less. “You want me to do it now? Do you have the paperwork for independent contractors? I want to make sure I save the right amount for taxes. Don’t want to be on the wrong side of the law, you know.”
Something like surprise and confusion flickered over his face. “Sure, you can also fill out these forms.” He pulled some papers from the file cabinet near his desk and handed them over to her.
She was going to make sure to avoid touching his hands, but he kind of shoved them at her and let go so she didn’t have to worry. He didn’t want her to touch him for a different reason. It was clear he was done with her and had moved onto the next woman.
Madison looked them over and signed the contract papers and the W2 forms. “Ok, here you go. Do you send out your 1099s at the end of the year?”
“You can leave them there. I’ll get them later. Yes. I can help you calculate based on an estimate so you can pay the taxes early.”
“Great. That would be helpful. I don’t want to do it wrong and get in trouble.” She figured he would show her at some later point. “Ok, I guess I’ll go now.” She went to walk away. There was no way he would want to sleep with her again. she shouldn’t have even bothered. That’s why she was just as surprised by what came out of her mouth as Dante had to be.
