That warning from Alanis played in my head again like an earworm.
Two years ago, our friend Erica had a bachelorette party, and we all went to New Orleans. During our crazy festivities, we found our way to a strip club in the French Quarter.
Two things surprised me in that club: the fact the stripper poles were connected by a metal bar about six feet in the air, and the sheer amount of gymnastics the dancers did. If a woman wasn’t twirling around a pole, she executed flips and spread-eagle splits on the bar between the poles.
It had been captivating as hell.
I loved dancing. As a kid, I’d taken dance and then moved on to gymnastics. My coach told me, I had great instincts, before Mom had to pull me from the program because she couldn’t afford it seeing as Dad fell behind on child support. I hadn’t been on any kind of gymnastics equipment in years. I figured it would be similar to riding a bike… it would all come back to me, given the chance.
Could I bare myself to strangers every night?
Hell, from what Frank had said, if I didn’t come up with the money, he’d hurt me and Catalina. Or sic his creepy clients on us.
Alanis might call this crazy, but I really didn’t have a choice.
With my phone in hand, I opened TikTok, but I zoned out. An idea hit me, and it was even crazier than considering a job as adancer. Being a stripper was a means to an end, but it was hard to say how long I’d have to dance (assuming I got a job). If I could go viral, maybe…
No. Men planning a night out didn’t scroll TikTok.
Still, if I could bring in more customers… maybe I could get done with Frank faster. If I could pull in a thousand dollars a night, that would mean in about thirty-five nights, or definitely in two months I could be done. That would be ideal.
Yeah, I could handle baring my breasts to strangers for two months.
Now, I needed to find a club that was hiring. After researching local clubs, I found one hosting an open audition the following Monday.
Punc
Punc had a love-hate relationship with auditions. He loved the feminine excitement that filled the air, but he hated being back at work after just five hours of sleep and having to referee the occasional catfight. He and Beast were manning the check-in table, while Tundra dealt with specific song requests and showing the women backstage.
After giving their completed application to Beast, Punc assigned each woman a number - though it was up to the dancer as to where she pinned the paper. The front vestibule was so crowded, after a while, most of the women blurred together.
For some reason, he glanced up at the next dancer in line who held her form out so carefully, he couldn’t tell if she wascourteous or tentative to the point of reluctant. Locking eyes with his sister’s best friend, Savannah, should have told him her actions were reluctant, but the resolve in her warm brown eyes sent a tremor through his body.
What the hell was she doing here?
When did Savannah go and get so damned sexy? She’d always been pretty. Extremely pretty. Looking at her now, the sight of her arrested him. Froze his lungs and caught him off-guard.
Like many gorgeous women, she carried herself like she knew she was pretty. If he hadn’t seen first-hand how fucked up her family was, he’d have thought she was conceited, but he’d heard the way her mom spoke to her back in the day. Saying shit like the only thing she had going for her were her looks.
He’d always wanted to tell her parents they were wrong, but he couldn’t deny Savannah’s beauty. She had shiny, light brown, wavy hair that fell four inches past her shoulders. Those brown eyes lit her face when she got riled up, and they went soft when she was around his nieces and nephew. She had a huge smile that most movie stars would kill for, and it always knocked him for a loop. With her standing right in front of him, he couldn’t help but notice how lush and prominent her curves were. And as usual, he forced himself to ignore her incredibly long legs. She ticked all his boxes.
No matter how much he wanted to go there, he fucking couldn’t.
His sister’s best friend? Nope.
Hard pass, or it should be, because it just wasn’t done. Which was exactly how he’d missed how hot she’d become over the years.
In a split-second, he saw the recognition flash in her eyes, then quickly get replaced by embarrassed surprise. His gut said he was thelastperson she wanted to see right now.
Then again, he wasn’t too keen to let her through the doors.
A protective instinct he didn’t realize he had reared up and it was all he could do not to throw her over his shoulder and carry her out to the parking lot.
Whether or not he’d stop at her car or his bike was the wild card.
“What are you doin’ here?” he muttered, his voice husky, low, and stern.
The way she visibly forced herself to smile, he sensed she didn’t want to be there…and it angered him. He pushed aside his flaring temper.
