He offered Willis a black credit card. “Give us an hour.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE BOUNCER STARTEDto lead Axel out of the changing room, but Joy hung back to flick through a rack of costumes.
“What are you doing?” he asked her.
“Changing.” Her chin came up so she could look down her nose at him. “What would you like? Schoolgirl? Librarian? Bondage? Cheetah?”
“That.” He nodded at her robe, trying not to think of the lush curves barely contained by her provocative black bra and butt-floss bottoms. The way she had stared at him while writhing had caused exactly the reaction intended, which was irritating in the extreme. He needed cold clarity, not dull-witted lust. Not a hot weight throbbing behind his fly, urging him to rearrange his priorities.
How was he supposed to erase from his mind that image of amber-honey limbs moving with superb grace, though? Or platinum-streaked hair falling around her shoulders and across her cheek, begging his fingers to brush it from her eyes and tuck it behind her ear? A mutinous, pouted mouth that—
Stop.
What the hell was she even doing here? His research had told him she was studying to be a nurse, not working as an exotic dancer.
The woman he was contractually obligated to marry was a stripper.
Axel strove to be a modern man who didn’t judge other’s choices. He’d been in the position of having few choices himself. He knew you had to make the best of what little you had. God knew, there’d been a time when he would have thought being able to afford a private room in an adult-entertainment establishment was the height of luxury—not that he had ever thrown his money away in places like this.
He curled his lip as he entered the round room with its cushioned bench and pole in the middle. A funk of sour beer and sweat permeated the air.
He had scratched tooth and nail to get out of traps like this and resented the hell out of Otto—and this woman—for dragging him back into this world, even for a minute. If he wasn’t so furious at Otto, so determined to win this hand and the pot, he would have walked out and never looked back.
Even as he thought that, however, his gaze snagged on a muscled calf and a narrow foot in a black stiletto. The turn of her ankle kicked fresh lust into his groin.
“I’ll be back with the champagne,” the bouncer said.
“Don’t bother.” Axel had had champagne. They didn’t serve it here.
The bouncer left, enclosing them in silence.
“I don’t have my phone for the music.” Joy adjusted the knob on the wall near the door, filling the room with the relentless rhythm playing in the front of the club.
She was trying to seize the upper hand. He recognized the tactic because he did it himself with a shake of his head. She lowered the volume to silence again.
“Are they recording us?” He glanced at the dark bubble protecting a camera lens above the closed door.
“They watch to be sure there’s no touching. Martini could lose his license.”
Which probably didn’t stop the behavior from being tolerated if the dancer was willing and the customer was known to be discreet.
How would she react ifhetouched her?
He yanked his mind from going down that path.
“Why do you work here?” he asked in a voice that sat like grit in his throat.
“A deep need to express myself through the art of exotic movement.” She set the inside of one spiked heel against the base of the pole, picked up her inner leg, and grasped the pole as she leaned out, taking a slow spin around it.
Her long hair fell in a curtain that brushed his sleeve as she went by. She batted purple lashes at him and offered a buttery smile.
“You need the money,” he surmised.
She touched her nose.
“For?”
