by Stewart, JM
“He’s ordered a lap dance. Or should I say, his friend ordered one for him. Apparently it’s his birthday. He specifically requested you.” Janet pulled a fifty off the tray she carried and waved it at Angela. “His friend tips very, very well.”
“A lap dance?” Angela swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. She was going to have to get up close with a man she’d had a crush on for most of her teenage life. Who, twenty years later, still had the power to make her stomach do somersaults. Alex looked better than he had back then. The boy she’d known had grown up. The years added maturity she found sexier than ever. How in the world was she supposed to think with those eyes all over her? Plus, being up close, he was sure to recognize her.
Janet grinned, flashing her pearly whites. “Go get him, girl.” She winked, then pivoted on her heel and strode off.
****
“I can’t believe you got me into this.”
Alex McKinley stifled a groan as he watched the leggy brunette sashay in his direction, wearing little more than a bikini and heels. She walked with a sultry sway of her hips, a siren’s song that called to him. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since her show the previous night. When Rick had suggested they come back to the club tonight, he hadn’t been able to resist, simply because he’d hoped she’d be here.
She was the first woman in over a year to make him do a double take. The first one who’d even managed to capture his attention.
She was gorgeous. Taller than most women, all long well-toned legs and wide hips, full breasts, and a firm backside a man could sink his hands into. Her hair hung long and lush, flowing around her shoulders in soft caramel waves. The image of those locks dragging across his naked flesh as she leaned over his prone body tormented him.
Watching her the night before had done him in. She’d set her sights on him like she’d been dancing just for him. He’d been helpless to obey the call of her song. Surely the dancers got paid to look at the customers that way—they likely made most of their money in tips. But this one… damn. Now she was about to do things to him he’d never dared do in public before.
His friend and fellow attorney Rick Sheffield let out a low laugh, his gaze glued to the blonde in his lap. “Relax. Enjoy it, man. You need it.”
Alex darted a glance at him. “Shouldn’t we order one for Chris too? He’s the one getting married.”
Chris Carmichael, seated on the other side of the small round table, laughed. “Oh no. Jenny finds out you dragged me to this place, she’ll kill me. She finds out that you put one of those girls in my lap? There won’t be a wedding. No, I’m fine where I’m at.”
“Who says she has to find out?” Rick nudged Chris with an elbow, but turned and winked at Alex.
Chris laughed again.
Alex could only shake his head. He had no idea what the hell he was doing. He didn’t come to places like this. He had to admit, though, maybe Rick was right. The three of them had come down for a weekend getaway. Chris was getting married in two weeks. This weekend served as his bachelor party. His last hurrah. Chris and Rick wanted Alex to have some fun, in hopes that he could finally take that first step into moving on with his life.
It had been exactly a year since the police officer had shown up on his doorstep, changing the course of his life with a few simple words he couldn’t forget. I’m very sorry, sir…
Tonight was the night his four-year-old daughter had died. Karen, his wife, had lived for a few months in a coma. He still woke up every morning expecting his wife to be there beside him, expecting to hear the slap of his daughter’s feet across the hard wood floor as she ran through the house. Every morning he still felt the sting when he found himself alone in an empty house. He needed to escape this weekend and everything it represented. Needed to forget the pain of the memories that seeped out of the walls of his condominium in Manhattan.
That was why he’d come back to Vegas. Why he’d allowed Chris and Rick to drag him down here. What he wanted more than anything was to forget. A few days to let loose, to assuage a few long-forgotten needs. To feel like a man again. If luck found him, a few days to forget the painful emptiness his life had become.
Candy came to a stop in front of Alex, then bent over, resting her hands on his thighs, instantly grabbing his attention. Up close and personal. God, he hadn’t been this close to a woman in a year, twelve long months. She smelled…delicious, her essence a soft, fruity fragrance that swirled around his head.
“I hear it’s your birthday.” Her words were little more than a breathy whisper, soft and alluring. Her voice wrapped around him, making his entire body sit up and take notice.
He swallowed hard. He’d been painfully aroused since he’d watched her on stage. For the second time in as many nights she’d pulled him in and rendered him defenseless. “I’m afraid my friend lied. My birthday isn’t for another couple of months.”
She winked. “Well then, we’ll just have to celebrate early.”
Then she began to sway to the music. He forgot how to breathe. Her hips rocked, her body so near he could touch her. She twisted, turned her back to him. Her sweet rear-end did a low bump and grind. Twice she dipped low enough to brush his throbbing-to-life erection. It was all he could do not to pull her down onto his lap.
As she swiveled in a slow circle to face him again, he raked a hand through his hair and trailed his gaze over her curves, from her slender shoulders to the width of her hips. Damn! What was it about this woman? She wasn’t doing anything any other stripper in the club wasn’t doing, including the blonde in Rick’s lap. He didn’t normally fall for that sort of blatant ploy, had never in his life felt the need to come to a place like this. It wasn’t his style. There was something to be said about the art of subtlety.
No, there was something about her. It was in her eyes, almond shaped and bright blue, rimmed with long dark lashes that tempted him every time she peeked up at him. He’d known a girl with eyes like those once, the color of the Caribbean Sea on a clear day. No way could Candy be Angela, though. Angela Lewis had been a bookworm who graduated class Valedictorian. She would never be in a place like this, taking her clothes off for a crowd of drunken men.
No way could his best friend’s little sister arouse him like this either. On the outside, Candy moved in a way designed to entice a man’s desire. Her hips twisted, shifted, swayed. More than once she thrust her breasts in his face. On the outside, those eyes revealed an innocence that contradicted the way she flaunted her body. Like he was getting a glimpse at her, at who she was when she wasn’t being Candy.
It intrigued the hell out of him.
When she spun and her gaze met his again, something electric zipped between them. She bit her lower lip. Not playful or even sexual as he’d expected from a well seasoned stripper, but shy and reserved.
The same looks she’d given him from the stage these last two nights. Like whatever flowed between them wasn’t the simple exchange of customer and temptress. As an Assistant District Attorney for the New York County District Attorney’s office, he knew when someone was lying to him. Those eyes told him that the attraction wasn’t one sided. It was in the shyness of her gaze, the way it dropped to his mouth more than once. In the way her steps faltered when their gazes clashed.
Like now. With one simple look, need burned hot and heavy between them. He found it intoxicating, like a rush he hadn’t had in way too long.
Desire consumed him. He was helpless against it, but he’d long since given up trying to fight it. After all, hadn’t he come to Vegas in the first place for this very reason? He’d come down here to forget, to be someone else for a while. Oh how he wanted her. One wild night with a sultry woman who stroked his libido like no one had in a long time. One night he could walk away from, no strings attached.
“I hoped you’d call me last night,” he murmured, too low for anyone but her to hear.
She met his gaze, staring at him for a moment, before her eyes moved over his face. “I have to
admit I was tempted.”
Her soft-spoken admission slid over him as surely as if she’d stroked her hand along his thigh. Damn. He hadn’t expected her to say that. He’d expected Candy to play coy and hard to get, to turn him down flat. It would have been part of the game. Except there she was admitting she’d thought about him.
“Why didn’t you?” He had to know, whether it would get him anywhere or not.
She straightened, standing over him with those long legs straddling his thighs. Her hands slid over her body while her hips did erotic figure eights in the air to the beat of the music.
“Cardinal rule number one. I never go out with guys I meet here.”
The woman was driving him insane. The playful look in her eyes said she was toying with him, but a certain something in the deep blue depths told him she enjoyed the play between them every bit as much as he did.
“Smart girl. You shouldn’t. Never know what kind of scum you’ll meet working at a job like this.”
She arched a brow, one corner of her mouth quirking up. “Then why should I go out with you?”
He couldn’t help but smile. That was too easy. “Because I’m not like other men.”
She let out a low, throaty laugh. A sound he vowed to hear again. “Like I haven’t heard that before.”
He pulled a twenty from his pocket and waited until he had her undivided attention. Until that certain something caught and ignited between them before he slipped the bill into her bikini bottoms. It was an excuse to touch her, to watch her reaction.
He pulled his hand back with deliberate slowness, let his fingertips trail over the skin of her hip. He’d flat out violated the unspoken rules of stripper engagement. They both knew it, but the touch had the desired effect. A shiver ran through her that he felt clean down to his toes. A lazy, desirous heat flared in her eyes.
“Go out with me, Candy.”
She shook her head. “I appreciate the offer, Mr. McKinley, but—”
“Alex.”
She froze, stared at him for the span of a heartbeat, clearly taken off guard, before her body once again began to sway. “Alex.”
God he loved the way she said his name. Spoken low, throaty, and half-whispered, so that he swore he could feel her breath on his neck as she moaned it in his ear…
He tossed her a playful grin. “I’ve seen your nipples up close and personal. I think we can do away with formalities.”
That got a genuine smile out of her, one that lit up her whole face. Triumph surged in his chest. “I promise I don’t bite.” He winked at her.
That earned him another throaty laugh.
Then she bent over him, hands braced on his thighs, her luscious mouth inches from his. The heat of her palms singed his skin even through his jeans. Her warm breaths puffed against his lips as she stared him dead in the eye. “What if I do?”
God almighty.
If he didn’t get away from her soon, he was going to do something that would earn him a well deserved slap across the face.
He needed a stiff drink.
Bracing his hands on the arms of the chair, he rose to his feet, forcing her to straighten along with him. Her entire front pressed against his, belly to belly, her breasts brushing his chest. She was tall for a woman. In her heels, she all but matched his six foot two, which settled their hips together perfectly. He held no doubt she could feel how aroused she’d made him.
She stared at him, a tremble running through her, her eyes slipping to half mast, sultry and filled with unrestrained desire. She made no move to step away, however. It took all of his willpower not to touch her, not to grab her hips and pull her closer. It didn’t help matters any when her gaze dropped to his mouth and seemed to fasten there for a moment. Or when her pink tongue darted out and slid along her lips. Lips he was dying to taste.
“Should you change your mind”—he told her, fisting his hands at his sides—“you have my number.” Then he stepped around her.
He only got two steps away, however, when her soft voice called to him. “Actually I don’t. I seem to have misplaced it.”
He swallowed a groan. How was it possible to be this aroused and not spontaneously combust?
He turned back to her, pulled his wallet from his back pocket, and extracted a business card, then slipped it into the waistband of her bikini bottoms. “Feel free to call at any hour. I doubt I’ll be getting much sleep tonight.”
Summoning willpower, he turned and headed for the bar. He had no doubt he wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. No, it would be cold showers for him.
Chapter Two
What was she doing?
Seated behind the wheel of her car in the Diamond’s parking lot, Angela’s hands trembled as she punched the last number into her cell phone’s lighted display and hit the CALL button. She was playing with fire, but Lord help her, she couldn’t resist. She only wanted to hear Alex’s voice, to see what he’d say when he heard hers, see where the conversation would lead them.
Excitement zipped along her nerve endings. There had been something real and irresistible between her and Alex at the club tonight. For the first time in a long time, a man had seemed to see her. Right or wrong, she couldn’t resist.
As the first ring shrilled over the line, her heartbeat tripled in cold blind panic. She ran her trembling thumb over the END button. This was insane. She shouldn’t be doing this. She should hang up right now, call him tomorrow and tell him the truth. Tell him—
“Alex McKinley.”
The sound of his voice, deep, husky and relaxed, wound around her, settling into the pit of her stomach. “Did I wake you?”
He made a sound at the back of his throat, a sound of pleasure that teased her senses and provoked visions of the two of them together in the dark. “Candy. You actually called.”
She let her head fall back against the headrest. “How’d you know it was me?”
“Because the sound of your voice has been haunting me for hours.”
Her stomach tumbled. She bit her lower lip, unable to help the grin that spread across her mouth. He’d been thinking about her too. “Were you sleeping?”
The question had the image rising in her mind of him lying in a king sized bed, sheets draped low over his hips, his chest bare. Did he sleep in the nude? She was tempted to ask.
“In bed, but not asleep. I’m afraid a cold shower didn’t do me a damn bit of good.”
She could hear the amusement in his voice, imagined the wicked grin that went along with his tormenting words. No sooner had he said it, however, than the image rose in her mind, of him in the shower, the water running over his naked body…
Angela swallowed a groan, forced herself to focus on something else, before she invited herself into that shower with him. “You sounded surprised to hear from me. Why?”
His quiet chuckle echoed across the line, warm, rich and infectious. “You must get a million guys wanting your phone number. I figured it was just a game.”
That he was honest enough to admit it somehow only added to his appeal. She couldn’t resist telling him, “It was, and I’m playing. I told you I was tempted.”
“Mm.” Another murmur of delicious pleasure echoed along the line. “That you did. By what?”
His eyes, as he’d stared up at her only hours before, flared to life in her mind. She saw again the wickedness that flashed there when he ran his fingertips over her skin, felt the desire all over again that had raked through her.
Instead, teasing him, she said, “You made me laugh.”
If she remembered correctly, he’d pulled a chuckle out of her several times. Downright sexy. There was something to be said about a man who liked to laugh, who didn’t take himself too seriously.
“It wasn’t laughter I was aiming for, sweetheart.”
She swallowed a groan. If she closed her eyes she could still feel his body against hers when he’d risen out of his seat at the club tonight. So solid against the softness of hers, his arousal pressing into her hi
p.
“Tell me something,” he said, “did you call just to torment me, or did you have a reason?”
Even though she knew she ought to, she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Do I torment you?” The words left her mouth with far less bravado then she’d intended, on a needy whisper that laid all her cards on the table. She bit her lower lip as she waited for his answer.
“You have no idea.” The unrestrained need in his voice sizzled along her nerve endings. Like earlier, her body reacted, echoed that need. Desire pooled low in her belly, making her ache.
Now she knew why she’d called him. She had to see him. Just one more time.
“Do you like to dance, A-Alex?” Catching herself, Angela bit her bottom lip. She would have to be careful. It was hard to remember to call him Alex. She kept finding herself wanting to still call him A.J., the way she always had growing up. God help her the day she forgot. She didn’t want to know what looks would cross his features when he found out who she was. That she was Angie Lewis, his best friend’s little sister.
For the space of a heartbeat, she was that fifteen-year-old girl all over again, standing on the front porch of her mother’s house, making a bold pass at her brother’s best friend. Watching the surprise light in his eyes as he’d pushed her away, then hearing the nervous laughter bubble out of him. “What are you doing, Angie?”
“I did a bit of club hopping in my college days, does that count?” Alex asked.
Shaking off the memory, she forced herself to refocus on the here and now. She wasn’t fifteen anymore. She wore contacts, not glasses. She’d also grown up, dammit. Alex wanted Candy, and Candy… wanted Alex. For one weekend, she’d give them what they both craved.
“The Arctic club on the strip is having salsa night. I usually go with a friend, but she’s busy tonight. Would you care to go with me?” She and Stacy went every Saturday night. Stacy went to flirt with the men. Angela just loved to dance. Tonight, Stacy’s four-year-old son, Lucas, had turned up sick.
“I’m afraid that’s one you’ll have to teach me, but I’m game if you are.”
