Not just money, old money.
Power.
His presence seemed to suck all of the air out of the room and set everything to vibrating.
What the fuck wasLocke Maris, the heir to the Maris shipping fortune, doing in a place like this, meeting with a corrupt union boss?
His eyes flicked over me with zero interest, which was no surprise. He probably had a pretty wife or girlfriend at home. I was a little impressed he didn’t seem interested in the dancing women nearby either, though. Maybe he was loyal. Or maybe he was simply focused on something else at the moment.
Like whatever he was here to talk to Ronald about.
Was he aware of Ronald’s petty grifting? Was he involved in it? In charge of it?
Maris was a much larger fish than Ronald or any of his known associates. And now he was in the middle of my op at the fucking Candy Bar.
I needed to get into Ronald’s phone to figure out why.
As I sank further into the squat, opening my knees and rolling my hips, I met Ronald’s eyes and winked. “Please,” I mouthed in a flirty way, tilting my head subtly toward the private rooms.
He tilted his chin up in agreement, then said something to Maris, who quickly shook his head and spoke again. Ronald lifted his eyebrows and made a joke I couldn’t hear over the music. They exchanged a back-and-forth before Ronald finally arranged for a private dance with me. I hopped down from the platform and made my way to the private room, not realizing until it was too late that the man following me wasn’t my fucking mark… but Locke Maris himself.
“Oh, uh…” I glanced behind him, trying to stay in character as a flirty dancer looking for a heavy tipper. “Just one person per VIP dance, baby.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Do you see anyone else?”
“I thought your friend wanted the dance,” I tried.
“Apparently not. And neither do I. If we could get this over with quickly, there’s a hundred bucks in it for you.”
I blinked at him, trying to look stupid and confused instead of annoyed and frustrated. “Why hire a private dance if you don’t want one?”
Maris smiled coldly. “Because myfriend, as you called him, thinks forcing me into a lap dance with a male stripper will give him the upper hand in the conversation we’re about to have.”
It was clear from his tone that Ronald had miscalculated. Badly.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest, suddenly less capable of hiding my annoyance. “I’m not a stripper, asshole. I’m a…” I gritted my teeth, wanting so badly to sayhighly trained intelligence operative. “Dancer.”
Maris sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can you just get on with the dancing, then? Better yet, don’t. We can sit in here for the duration of a song and call it good.”
Well,thatwasn’t happening. If this asshole was going to spend time in a private room with me, I was going to do my best to hackhisdamned phone instead. Which required getting close to him.
“No can do, baby,” I purred, stepping closer and fingertip-walking my way up his chest to the cleft in his chin, which I tapped lightly. “I’m required to give you a dance. So, sit your sexy fucking ass down.”
He did not look amused, but he sat anyway. I moved over to the music system keypad and selected two songs without asking his preference or how long he wanted the dance for. Let him cut it off early if he noticed the song change. Two songs would give me more time.
If the man wasn’t attracted to me, though, this was going to be next to impossible. No horny haze of distraction to take advantage of. And he’d most likely balk at my touching him.
“You want to pretend I’m someone else, baby?” I asked with a grin, moving my hips and shoulders as the opening notes of Ginuwine’s “Pony” came over the sound system. “Go right ahead.”
He sat back and studied me, large hands open and easy on his long thighs. “You’re not going to give me the little talk about not touching?”
My heart rate picked up, but I forced myself to shrug easily. “Maybe I want you to touch me.”
This was unfortunately true.
As I moved closer, I caught the expensive scent of him. I saw a few little imperfections like a spot he missed shaving and a scar in his eyebrow that made him even hotter somehow.
There was no doubt, Locke Maris was a tasty treat. And if he ever wanted to touch me… well, I was no saint. I’d let him touch the fuck out of me.
