Sure, we have our share of problems. Investigators. Threats of criminal charges. But no one rises to power without others wanting to pull them back down. No one is in the spotlight without extra scrutiny.
Dante had built the strip club he'd wanted to build and I'd helped him do it. I owed my brother so much.
So tonight, on his birthday, I stand guard while he's on stage getting lap dances from the hottest girls at The Fun House: the club we’d built together. We employ a slew of bouncers but none of them could be trusted to be informed about tonight.
They're as scandalous as we are, and they would have spread the word. We need tonight to be extra quiet. Nothing needs to get in the way of a birthday for Dante.
That's why when Little Miss Innocent- Looking comes to the door, I have no idea whether to let her in or not.
"Hello?" she says, rather timidly, after I crack open the door a bit for her.
"What are you here for?" I'd asked gruffly, but then I look her up and down and my tone instantly softens.
She has dark brown hair and matching brown eyes. Full breasts but not the fake kind. A perfectly normal sized waist with a curvy ass. Just the way I like them.
She's fucking hot all right. So hot that all I can think about is bending her over and fucking her right here and now. I'm popping a boner right here where I’m sure she can see. How fucking embarrassing.
"I'd like to see about working here," she says.
I give her a skeptical look. While telling my cock to quiet down so that my brain can think.
"Who sent you?" I ask her, suspicious but hoping that she can hurry up and start doing what she came to do. I want to see her naked. I want to be inside her. "How did you find out about us?"
"There was an ad…" she says, holding up a copy of the Local Gazette.
She points to the free classified section in the back, where we continually run an ad looking for fresh meat. I mean, new dancers. I wouldn’t expect a girl like her to be reading that section, let alone applying for it.
But times are tough. It's hard for these girls to get a job out of college, let alone high school. She doesn't look much older than twenty.
And she doesn't look like a normal stripper, the part of my brain that isn't seized with testosterone points out. She looks like some rich preppy girl who's trying to look like a stripper. Or like what she thinks a stripper should look like.
The rational part of my brain is trying to tell me it's not a convincing act. I should listen to that part of my brain. I should ask myself why she's here.
But maybe she's rebelling against Daddy Dearest. Or a clingy boyfriend. Or a boring suburban life. Who am I to judge? I am only a guy who wants in her pants.
And then I remind myself that it's all up to Dante. He's in charge. And he's the man of the day. The birthday boy.
To be fucking honest, he’s always the man of the day. He always makes all the decisions. But it’s better for me that way— safer, and more secure. So I’ll let him make this decision like he does all the rest.
I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that she's here. I just know for sure that Dante will want to get a look at her.
I kind of wish I could keep her all to myself. But he's my big brother who always helped me out, and now the tables have turned. I’ll let him make the final decision, but I know he’ll be glad that I’m bringing her to him. He's the birthday boy and he needs to lay his eyes— and hands— on this hot little number.
So I call his name. And I smile as he gets down off the stage and says, "Marino, this had better be fucking good."
Oh, it will be, Big Brother. Just you wait.
Chapter 4 – Jessica
One of the worst parts of my job is having to suck up to everyone, kiss everyone's ass, and do everything they tell me to do.
I guess that's three bad parts of my job. And it's hard for me to pinpoint a good thing right now.
Power? Prestige? The supposed ability to influence and change things, make a difference in the lives of my constituents?
Those are all things I used to think of as job perks. But they're becoming a much smaller part of my job as time goes on.
As a new senator representing the state's poorest district, I don't have a lot of power or sway. I have to beg and plead and swap favors for everything I'm trying to work hard for. Further, as the youngest and newest member of the Ethics committee, I pretty much have to do whatever they tell me to do.
And they just told me I have to be a stripper.
A stripper! Seriously. I couldn't even believe it. I still can't.
But that's exactly what happened during last week's meeting.
"We need to ramp up our investigation of the Rossi brothers," Senator Santara said.
He leaned forward in his chair to stress the importance of what he was saying. Before this announcement he had been staring at the clock on the wall as if wondering how early he could leave to go play golf. But this was one of his platform's priorities and now that it was his turn to talk about it, he was clearly all riled up.
"These guys have been rubbing their criminal organization in our faces for far too long now," he continued.
I couldn't help but almost smile, although I quickly suppressed it. Rubbing something in our faces sounded like a purposeful double entendre or dirty pun.
Everyone knows the Rossi brothers. They are the city's perpetual scoundrels, always in trouble for something but too clever to be caught.
And they're fucking hot. God help me but their handsome faces and strapping chests are the first thing that come to mind when I think of them. Even more so than their criminal activities.
"Their latest racket is this strip club. The Fun House," Senator Santara continues. "They think we don't know it's a cover for a prostitution ring and a drug ring, among other things. We need to expose them for what they're really doing. And make the streets of this city safe again. And win the upcoming election by campaigning on the promise of stopping them, and actually doing it."
A bolt of electricity ran through me at the mention of winning the election. I suddenly paid more attention, nodding along with everyone else.
That's exactly what we needed. To win the election. Oh, and to stop the Rossi brothers too, of course.
If I win this election I will be the youngest full- term senator in the history of this state. Right now I'm an incumbent but I was appointed mid- term so it's important that I win enough votes to be retained.
"Obviously Jessica is the perfect candidate for the job," Senator Santara continued.
Everyone else kept nodding along with what he was saying, including me. Until I realized what I was nodding along to.
"I'm sorry, what?" I asked, raising my hand as if I was in my first day of Kindergarten all over again. "What exactly is the job? What am I the perfect candidate for?"
"To expose them," Senator Santara said. "You're perfect to expose them. By going undercover."
"At a strip club?" I asked, wishing I could implode. Everyone was staring at me, trying not to laugh.
Of course he thought I'd be perfect for the job. I'm a woman. I'm young, and I've been told I'm quite attractive, although I've never really felt it.
Nor have I wanted to feel it. I've wanted to focus more on brains than beauty. I've wanted to prove myself and my abilities. I've wanted to use my intelligence and personality rather than my looks.
But all my colleagues want is for me to go strut my stuff— if that's even what they call the thing that strippers do on stage— undercover. Apparently the way to prove myself in politics is to prove that I'm sexy enough to be a stripper. No one ever taught me that in my poli sci classes in undergrad.
I looked around at the sea of other faces surrounding me along the large conference table, hoping someone else would chime in about how ludicrous it all is. But everyone was just staring back at me innocently, as if we were having a perfectly normal conversation.
As if we were not talking about me taking off my clothes for strangers. F
or money. Even if it's also for an undercover investigation.
Was I really going to have to be a stripper?
Everyone was still staring at me, as if they were waiting for me to answer that question in the affirmative.
"How exactly would this work?" I asked. "I mean, logistically speaking, how does one just do that?"
"You just do it," Senator Santara said with an exasperated sigh, apparently losing his patience with me. "You just go in and you do it, and I'm not saying it will be easy, but it'll be for a cause."
Stripping for a cause wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind when I'd envisioned a political career from a very young age. I can't believe I'd worked my way through my higher education for the privilege of taking off my clothes for a bunch of seedy men.
But it was my job. And it didn't look like I had much of a choice.
Sure, I could say no, but I'd lose all my support in the committee. Refusing this "opportunity" would probably ruin my political chances and the career I had worked hard for so far.
So I'd donned this tacky wig, these stiletto heels and the skimpiest clothes I could find. All of my attire was left over from a Halloween party I’d attended in college, for which I’d dressed in a stripper costume. Looks like my tendency to hoard old costumes had finally come in handy.
I hope my laptop never gets subpoenaed by the FBI because they would certainly find some strange Google searches. I'd looked up stripper makeup on YouTube. YouTube had also come in handy for finding stripper exercise videos and practicing all my moves.
I even went to a real- life strip dancing fitness class and learned how to work a pole. I'd prepared for this undercover role as best as I could.
But nothing could ever prepare me for coming face to super sexy face with Marino Rossi.
Chapter 5 – Jessica
Sure, I've heard the rumors. Everyone in this city— if not this state— has. The Rossi brothers are as hot as they are scandalous. They are as well- hung as they are well- connected to the underground.
They can get any woman they want to do anything they want, and they leave her begging for more. In fact, they sometimes even share one woman.
I was always sure that all of it was true— well, except maybe for that last part. I can't understand why the Rossi brothers would need to share one woman when they're so adept at getting so many. Or how that could be anything but awkward for all involved.
The rest of it has always made sense to me, though. There are definitely women out there who love bad boys. And there's no denying that the Rossi brothers are handsome. Now they're even rich, which of course is an added bonus.
But I guess I also always thought I was immune to the Rossi brothers and anyone like them. Their charms or their asshole ways or whatever it was that drew women to them wouldn't work on me.
Because I'm Jessica Mason. An ambitious, determined woman with political aspirations only half achieved so far. I need to keep climbing all the way to the top. Plus, I'm a good girl in bed, in relationships and in life. I don't need any bad boys to drag me down.
But when Marino Rossi comes to the door, I start to see that I may have been wrong about some things. At the top of the list of things I might have been wrong about is my ability to look away from his dark green, piercing eyes— and the way he looks at me.
People talk about eyes that undress you when they look at you. But Marino's eyes not only undress me, they burn my clothes off and tie me up naked, helpless, and begging to be kept captive forever.
"How you doin', Doll?" Marino asks me.
"F-fine," I stammer.
And then I remember I'm supposed to be an experienced stripper.
"I'm just fine. I'm here for the job."
I show him the classified ad Senator Santara told me to use as my lead-in.
"We're not auditioning tonight," he says.
I roll my eyes, not just to play the part of a busy stripper who doesn't have time to waste in between making those dolla dolla bills, but also because I’m annoyed. I'm a busy senator who needs to get in, out and on with my normal life.
"It says right here to come by any night between 8 and 9," I tell him.
And also to bring appropriate attire to be ready to perform immediately if hired.
I'd stared at that line in the ad for a while, in disbelief. Partly I was imagining myself as a real, out of work stripper, dragging a duffle bag full of stripper clothes across the city, hoping someone would hire me to work that night. But the bigger part of me was focused on reality and scared to death of how I was going to actually be ready to perform on stage when I don't even like to change in the dressing room in front of my sister when we go shopping together.
"Yeah?"
He shrugs, as if not understanding the point I’m trying to make. He clearly couldn't care less about the struggles of this desperate stripper looking for work. I'm sure we're a dime a dozen.
"Well, it's between 8 and 9," I tell him. "It's 8:30, to be exact."
I've always been known for my punctuality. My mother taught me it's one of the essential traits of successful people.
"And it's any night of the week," I add, as he just stares at me.
"We're having a private soiree tonight," he says, looking around as if making sure no one can overhear.
Perfect. They're worried about the public coming in. Or about investigators sniffing around.
If I can get in here— and I'm pretty sure I can, judging from the way that Marino is staring at the cleavage prominently being displayed from behind my mesh tank top— that will make this stupid undercover assignment all that much easier and faster.
I'll find out what they're up to and I'll give the information to Senator Sentara and everyone in the committee will love me and vote for all my bills. This'll be nothing. A piece of cake.
"I might be able to get you an audition, but you'll have to promise to do something really special to wow us," he says, lowering his voice as if he's offering me the chance to win a billion dollars. "It's a private party and no one's supposed to be let in, like I said. And it's the boss's birthday."
So it's Dante Rossi’s birthday and it's also my lucky day. Because I know that if Marino lets me in when he’s not supposed to, he's been blinded by my looks. He'll let his guard down and I can find all the damning information I need.
"I can definitely wow you," I tell him, raising my eyebrows and pursing my lips in my best attempt to be seductive.
"Hold on a second," he says, and nods at me before closing the door.
When he comes back, he leads me through a swanky lounge and to a large stage near the back of the room. Dante is sitting around the stage, as are other rich-looking men. Customers, I assume.
A lot of gorgeous young women are sitting around tables further away, staring at me like I'm trying to take their jobs. And I guess I am, only in a different way than they're anticipating.
"Dante, this is… well, I didn't catch your name," Marino says, looking at me now instead of at Dante.
"Desire," I tell him, with a coy smile.
"Very nice," he says, with an approving nod.
I have to admit that I like the stripper name I picked out well in advance. So I'm glad he does too.
"Goes well with Dante," Dante says.
"Well, you wanted this spot, and now it's yours," Marino says, gesturing to the empty stage. "So let's see what you've got."
What do I have?
Lots of hours of YouTube prep and pole dancing classes but no actual experience at this. And everyone is looking at me rather skeptically. I'd better put on one hell of show. I don't want my cover to be blown before this whole thing even has the chance to get started.
As I climb the stage and see both Marino's and Dante's eyes watching me, I start to think I might be better at this than I thought. Sure, I'm scared of making an idiot out of myself. And I'm still in denial that I'm even doing this.
But this rush of adrenaline could be addicting. As could two pairs of handsome dark green e
yes watching my every move and obviously wanting to be with me.
Chapter 6 – Dante
I was upset at Marino at first. Leave it to my little brother to fuck up a private VIP event, and my birthday at that, by letting in a complete stranger.
But now that I see her, I have nothing to say but well done, brother. Let this girl in anywhere.
She's standing on stage looking different from the other dancers. Sure, I've never seen her before, so that's a plus. So many dancers make their rounds from here to other clubs and back again that it’s rare to see someone new.
But this girl’s also got a completely unique fucking look. More wholesome. She's sure perfected the innocent little girl look.
The DJ cues Desire's music: Ariana Grande's "Dangerous Woman." Desire shimmies up the pole right away and amazes everyone by hanging upside down from it.
There's an audible gasp from some of the customers. And I don't have to look at the regular girls to know they're either wide- mouthed or rolling their eyes right now.
This woman's obviously a pro. She's almost too good to work at a place like The Fun House. We're known more for our back room VIP services than we are for the quality and fanciness of our dancers.
"Where did she say she worked before this?" I ask Marino.
"She didn't," he says.
Typical. Leave it to Marino to forget to ask the important details.
He sees the look on my face, and sneers.
"Whatever. I wasn't exactly conducting a formal job interview. I'm sure she's from Scores or Double Diamonds."
She slides down the pole and then gyrates her hips.
I can't believe I'm going to get to see this chick naked. Yeah, I know that's her whole fucking job but she does it well. Acts like an innocent little doe and makes you think she's never even done this before. She's very convincing.
My mind starts racing with the possibilities. Always the capitalist, I'm thinking about where this can take us.
The Fun House can become a classier, more upscale joint. Maybe wherever this Desire chick is from, she has some dancer friends that are just as good as she is at this gig. They'd be able to make our regular customers spend even more fucking money. And we might get some new customers in from bigger surrounding cities too.
Knock Me Up, Boss: A Bad Boy Office Romance Page 92
