Davis strips his underwearand uses them to clean himself, because I can see now that yes, yes, he definitely did. He balls them up and tosses them in the trashcan next to my desk. I get a good eyeful of his dick while he does, and despite the fact I’ve just had the orgasm to end all orgasms, my pussy tightens. He’s uncut and thick, not super-long, but even now, there’s more than enough there to make my mouth water. I watch as he tugs his jeans back up and tucks himself in commando.
Fuck, that’s even hotter.
“My eyes are up here, boss.”
I blink, startled. Davis looks at me with that soft intensity he does so well, but the term boss rings in my ears.
“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” I babble. “I just, um. Phone!”
I dig my phone out of the back pocket of my shorts, where it’s been dangling by a thread this whole time. I have several missed calls and a message from Jake:
I’m 5 away.
I groan, my post-orgasm glow evaporating. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Davis straightens like someone pulled a wire in his back. “What now?”
I’m already moving toward the door, scooping my shirt up off the floor. “Playtime’s over. You might have to really earn your Coke Zero tonight.”
I run back to the bar to find Ada on the stripper pole. Not just on it—owningit. Twisting, spinning, flipping upside down like gravity's for amateurs. I don’t know when she learned to pole dance, but if she didn’t, it’s the most Ada thing ever, pulling a hidden skill out of nowhere and performing like she was born to do it. Davis is beside me again, his eyes pointedly glued to his phone. I’m not as noble. I can’t look away from Ada’s body, and neither can anyone else. The whole bar’s hypnotised by her slutty Cirque du Soleil. The two uni boys from earlier are still circling like vultures, hooting and stuffing notes into Ada’s crop top as though they summoned her from a wetdream. But Ada isn’t enjoying their attention. She barely seems to know they’re there. Her face is set like a diamond, beautiful and cold. She’s not having fun, but she keeps right on dancing.
She’s still on the pole when Jake walks in. His eyes lock on Ada like a heat-seeking missile. His jaw clenches, and he starts pushing his way through the crowd.
“Shit,” I hiss to Davis. “We need to…”
“Yeah.”
I cut across the dancefloor, ducking between and around people and intercept Jake. He’s a wall of muscle, but he was raised a gentleman despite whatever he’s been playing at, so all it takes to stop him is a hand on his chest.
“Nope,” I say. “Not tonight. Don’t even try it.”
He shakes his head. “I need to talk to her.”
I jerk a thumb at Ada, who’s dangling upside down with her legs twisted around the pole. “What part of that looks like a woman who wants totalk, Jake?”
“She’ll talk to me.”
“Maybe, but she won’thearyou.”
You idiot, I think, just barely stopping myself from saying it.
“I have to explain,” Jake says. “I never meant for her to get upset.”
I laugh because that’s what guys always say when they fuck up. I feel sorry for him, the way I feel sorry for people who try to domesticate lions and then get their faces chewed off.
“Jake, you’re not listening. Ada’s not upset; she’sfurious. If you go in guns blazing, she’ll burn you to ash.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Yeah? That’s all you’ll be handling. Enjoy a lifetime of wanking over Ada’s magazine covers.” Frustration boils my blood, and I shove his shoulder. “What the fuck were you thinking taking that photo with Jenny? Why were you even with her today?”
He shifts like the floor’s turned slippery. “She wanted to meet up for a coffee. I thought it was to talk about that award I’m giving at the bullshit reunion.”
“Thebullshit reunion you don’t want to go to?”
Jake pulls the same irritated face that all guys do when they realise women actually talk to each other. I fold my arms over my chest, holding my indignation close.
“I didn’t know Jenny was gonna make that photo look like we were hooking up or whatever the fuck she was playing at. I thought it was for the reunion, too. When I saw what she did, I called her and told her I had a girlfriend, and she took the posts down. That’s all there is to it.”
