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“Do me a favor, Adam?”

“Sure,” I said, probably too flippantly.

His tail stroked up my arm as he leaned in, shrinking my world around his dazzling smile and brilliant eyes. “You see that pole?” I did see the gleaming pole. “Imagine that pole is you. Just Adam Vex, standing right there. And watch.” He peeled himself away, and sashayed toward the stage. The jacket went, draped over a nearby chair, and as he stepped onto the stage, the lights dimmed.

“There’s no way anyone in here is ready for this,” Tom grumbled.

The jukebox fell silent, and I don’t know how Zee did it, but when the music blasted to life again, so did the lights. And there he was, clad in his skinny waistcoat, black leather pants riding low on his hips, heeled boots laced up to the knee—and he began to dance.

What had I been expecting?

A simple routine, maybe. A few minutes of fun. But Zee turned himself into liquid sex, and worshipped that pole as though it were his whole reason for living. I hadn’t even known a body could move like that, hips and legs in glorious, fluid motion, spinning around the pole like water down a drain. I did what he said and imaged I was there with him, but that very quickly had my heart pounding, along with other insistent parts of me.

And this was why I didn’t indulge in watching his movies.

“It’s not a bad thing to want someone,” Tom said, leaning an arm on the bar while watching Zee’s performance.

I looked up from my drink, and studied the artificial bartender. “Is that part of your script?”

“Does it matter?”

Huffing a laugh, I circled my finger around the rim of my glass. “It’s not the wanting him, it’s the can’t have him part.”

“Why not? He’s obviously into you.”

“Everything I say to you, stays between us, right? You don’t share secrets, you just hear them? That’s part of your package?”

“That’s right.” Tom beamed. “The best listener your cheap ass could buy.”

“Don’t remind me,” I muttered. Then looked over and caught Zee’s gaze spearing into me, pinning me to the stool, as he rose from a crouch and bent his body in a silky, wave-like motion, that left no doubt how the arrow tattooed on his hip would absolutely keep its promises. “It’s complicated,” I told Tom. “So, so complicated.”

“Is it though? Or is that your head getting in the way of your heart?”

I blinked at him. “You’re actually not bad at this.”

“You want to know what I see?”

“Alright.”

“Two consenting adults and a whole lot of unresolved sexual tension. It wouldn’t hurt either of you to blow off some steam, might even help relax you, allow you to focus once you’ve got it out of your system. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t want to get it out of my system. I’m not like that.”

“Ah, and you believe Zodiac is? You think he’ll drop you faster than a hot rock once he’s tapped that?” Tom raked his gaze over me. “Valid point. I doubt he’s looking for a long-term, stable, happy-ever-after.“

“It’s not even that. I am capable of frivolous things too, I just . . . I’m scared to feel again.”

Tom eyed me cautiously. “Been keeping people at a distance for a while, huh?”

“Something like that.”

Zee’s dance ended, and the stage lights darkened to a single spotlight. He bowed, and the bar customers went wild. All that, and he hadn’t taken any more of his clothes off.

The spotlight went out, Zee vanished, then poofed onto the stool beside me. Flushed with heat, he sweated some, and his hair clung to his face, horns and neck. “You wanna fuck me now, Kitten?” he purred, reaching for the drink Tom had poured for him.

I opened my mouth to say the usual line about being business partners, when Tom’s glance caught my own, and the words stalled on my lips.

Zee was chuckling, then rapidly stopped chuckling and looked over. His smile fell away, then bloomed back as he slipped off the stool and plastered himself to my side. His tail came around and stroked up my back. “Tell me to stop, or I won’t, and then we’re both fucked.”