“Sorry to interrupt the party,” I heard him say from somewhere over my shoulder.
“Not at all,” Leelah said. “We’re just getting started.”
“I didn’t realize this was a girls-night activity. I couldn’t get ahold of you, Scout, and, uh, so I asked around and…You know what? I’ll just head out.”
That seemed perfectly reasonable to me.
“No way, dude,” Addie said. “Pull up a chair! Tonight’s on Clara—and you’ve earned a little R&R. Isn’t that right, Scout?”
He deserves all the R&R in the world, but he doesn’t deserve to be stuck here, peer-pressured into watching me get a lap dance from two strangers.
I was about to say as much. But apparently my vote didn’t count, because no sooner had Addie gestured to a scantily clad waitress for another chair than my two strippers materialized.
I didn’t even want to imagine what my brain scan looked like now.
34
Griptease
Hudson’s gaze was inescapable. It was like an evolutionary force. If natural selection ensured that humans could fight, fuck, and feed…then my biology was perfectly attuned to know when Hudson wanted the second thing on that list.
This current stare wasn’t angry. I’d worried that jealousy would burn through him like a lab fire, but it didn’t. It smoldered. It yearned.
It possessed.
The strippers’ crotches were right at eye level, though, so I didn’t have much mental space to dissect Hudson’s attention. She wore a spangly silver number straight out of a Vegas cabaret. He was dressed like a vampire from a bad TV show, with tear-away leathers and a dark button-up shirt complete with sleeves rolled to the elbow.
They should have been ridiculous. Instead, they turned me on.
Maybe because of their perfect bodies. Maybe because of the way Hudson’s stare scorched as they touched me—the male dancer’s hand on my shoulder, his partner’s brushing hair from my face.
“Hey there, beautiful. I’m Stephanie.”
I swallowed. What the hell do you say in a situation like this? Were goose bumps normal in this scenario? “Oh, hi.”
“I’m Rich,” the man purred. “Thought we’d come and give you a show in the Platinum Room. Is that all right?”
My chest tightened. This whole thing with Hudson had been about opening my sexual horizons, and this was a safe place to do that. Besides…part of me wanted Hudson to see me like this. The object of someone else’s sexual energies. “Mm-hmm.”
Rich took me by the hand, guiding me up from the chair. Stephanie slid her arm around my waist, hugging her tight body to my curvier one. Her touch gave me goose bumps. I’d only just started seeing a man; I’d definitely never been touched by a woman.
God, these brain scans are going to light up like a goddamn Christmas tree.
The ladies from work whooped and hollered in approval the whole walk to the Platinum Room. I listened closely for any sign from Hudson, but he didn’t join them.
“You know the rules, sugar?” Rich asked as we walked.
“No touching.”
“Not unless we touch you first,” Stephanie crooned, squeezing my waist. “And you’re looking pretty damn tempting, aren’t you?”
I almost laughed out loud at that. We’d all changed after work, but my black and white skirt and blouse set was far from little. It didn’t even show off my cleavage. Of all the talent in this club, I was probably theleasttempting.
The compliment was strikingly insincere. Not surprising, considering they were being paid for it. But it only highlighted how sincere Hudson had always been.
I’d never heard him lie. Not once. And certainly never about me.Beautiful. Smart. Kind. Good. Worthy. Deserving.He’d said all of that about me. More than that, though, he’d believed it. Even now, when his eyes followed me through the club, his gazewas honest.I want to fuck you and I wish the hands on you were mine.
Fuck, and now I was catching feelings in the middle of a personal strip dance.
