by Skye Jordan
“Thanks, man.” Relief rang clear in Beck’s voice, even eight thousand miles away. “I owe you.”
“No.” A flash of memory tightened his throat—Josh lying on a pile of rubble drenched with his own blood in Aleppo, the deadliest city in Syria. Over eighteen months later, and he could still remember the feel of Beck’s body weight hitting him as his friend provided cover against enemy fire after the IED had exploded. He released a long exhale. “You’ll never owe me.”
Josh tapped his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of Nickelback’s “Feelin’ Way To Damn Good,” wishing he could agree. But he was sick. And worried. And anxious.
Swish-swish.
The wipers cleared a path across his rain-spattered windshield, allowing the pink neon advertising Allure, a gentlemen’s club, to flash against the black sky, mocking him. He’d never believed he’d get this far. On the drive here, he’d convinced himself that this was all a misunderstanding. That this would turn out to be a case of mistaken identity. That Grace was still doing nothing racier than coaching high school cheer teams and was perfectly fine.
But when he’d reached her town house, he’d discovered Grace didn’t live there anymore. And when he’d swung by her forwarding address, he’d found himself in a neighborhood where young men loitered on the corners in small groups.
Swish-swish.
The realization that he was only yards away from Grace inside that club turned him inside out. There were ways he could get out of the duty while accomplishing the end goal, but the truth was, he craved the sight of her again.
He scanned the parking lot, searching for the high-end Jeep SUV Beck had given Grace their last Christmas together. The fact that it wasn’t anywhere in the lot meant one of two things—she either wasn’t here or she’d sold the car just like she’d sold the town house.
With stress building, Josh turned off the engine and pushed open the car door. The wipers stopped midswish, and the music cut out. He stood, locked the doors, and slipped the keys into the pocket of his blazer. Traffic raced past on the freeway with a soft whoosh, and the club’s music thumped through the evening mist. The chill December air swept in, turning his nervous sweat to ice, and Josh shivered as he started toward the club’s front door.
The parking lot was filled with high-end sedans, sports cars, and SUVs. Christmas lights lined the club’s eaves. He paused at the front doors, painted with sexy female caricatures in skimpy elf costumes, and replayed his cover story while dragging cash from his wallet. He’d only been to strip clubs three times in his life—all three for bachelor parties—but he’d only needed to go once to understand how they operated. He folded the bills and pushed them into his front pocket.
As he gripped the cool metal door handle, his muscles coiled tight, and his mind focused on the mission. But he sure as hell wished he were breaching a dozen terrorists with AK-47s in a Taliban stronghold instead of the lone, pretty, little Grace Ashby at a strip club.
He stepped into a foyer thumping with the sexual beat of My Darkest Days’ “Nature of the Beast.” Two walls were painted black, two covered in smoke-colored mirrors. A man who could have passed for three guys stuffed into one suit turned toward Josh. He looked Hawaiian or Samoan with a round face, dark skin, black eyes, and a buzz cut. And he was huge. At least three inches taller than Josh’s six foot one and tipping the scale at over three fifty.
“Welcome.” His voice was deep and flat and serious. “There’s no cover charge, but we have a two drink minimum. We ask that you be as generous as possible to the staff, seeing as it’s Christmastime and all.”
“How ’bout I start with you?” Josh drew cash from his pocket, offering the man a fifty. “I understand a friend of mine works here. Her name is Grace.”
The man’s dark eyes flicked to the bill, then back to Josh’s face, but his body never moved and his hands remained at his sides. “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t give out personal information on the girls.”
The girls.
Josh’s stomach twisted. The sweat gathering on his neck slid down the indention of his spine. He swallowed the ball in his throat and pressed the money into the bouncer’s massive hand. “I’m a friend, and I need to tell her something about her family.”
The man’s fingers curled around the money. “I just saw her out on the floor. But she goes by Nicole here, so don’t call her Grace. And don’t interfere with her work,” he warned, his voice growing hard, “or I’ll hurt you.”
Josh acknowledged the bouncer’s threat with a single nod, then took a deep breath, and strolled into the main club. He should feel relieved—he’d found her. But working the floor meant she was soliciting lap dances from spectators. He held on tight to denial while apprehension wound deep in his gut along with a hundred unanswered questions.
He immediately swept the club for layout, exits, and head count. A large, curved stage took up the most real estate, the glass base sleek and dotted with three stripper poles. Beneath the glass, lights faded on and off, making the floor glow in sensuous blues and violets, but the women dancing on the stage needed no enhancements. A blonde swayed on the far left leg of the stage, her major assets: enormous tits. A redhead writhed against the gold pole center stage, generous hips pumping. And a tall, leggy Asian woman rocked the stage on all fours to the right. Each wore nothing but heels or boots and a feathered or sparkling G-string.
Despite his distaste for these clubs, Josh’s blood heated and his cock tingled with a surge of lust, reminding him it had been way too long since he’d gotten laid. Like an idiot, he’d been holding out for Rachel. Since she’d jetted to the east coast with that head case, Ryker, Josh had been working too much to get into dating. And the whole one-night-stand thing worked better for him as a SEAL, when he’d only been in town for a few days before heading off on another mission. Now when he took a woman to bed, there was nowhere to hide the next day. Or the next week. Or the next month. And he hadn’t met anyone he wanted to promise he’d call in the future.
“Nature of the Beast” transitioned into something slower that Josh didn’t recognize, a song with a thick, sensual beat and nasty rap lyrics about pulling hair, a man of steel, and candy rain. The powerful beat throbbed beneath Josh’s feet and straight up his legs. On stage, three more women emerged from behind crimson draperies, while those who’d been dancing, pranced out of sight. The whole switcheroo had been both entertaining and smooth, and the new girls, wearing a variety of outfits covering all their assets at this point, moved with slow sashays and gyrating hips.
He pulled his gaze from the new performers and scoped out the bar, which filled one long wall of the club. He needed to get a look at all the women on the floor to eliminate the possibility that the Grace he was looking for worked there.
Two female bartenders worked behind the heavy, shiny wood expanse, wearing red lace corsets and velvet Santa hats. Two more women stood by holding trays, wearing some sort of elf suit. Their emerald-green skirts were trimmed in white faux fur and so short, their black-lace-covered ass cheeks showed. Their matching halter-style tops were cut deep in the front, exposing plenty of plump cleavage. And their boots—thigh-high, sleek, and black patent, like their low-slung belts.
Josh immediately pictured Grace in that outfit—or at least tried. But his mind couldn’t fit those puzzle pieces together. As long as Josh had known her, Grace had never worn anything more revealing than a sundress.
Josh pushed his hands into his pockets and wandered toward the bar, where he leaned against a stool, searching every elf for Grace’s cute little strawberry-blonde bob. Booths lined the walls, individual tables took up the center of the club, and premium plush seating ringed the stage up front, where men called out to the women and slipped dollar bills into sparkling G-strings.
Several dancers milled among the patrons, chatting, touching, taking them by the hand and leading them up a spiral staircase to private rooms. Josh had never been in one, but he knew exactly what went on in there—guys were not
shy about spilling every detail of their strip club encounters. The thought of Grace selling herself that way made him sick and doubled his determination to get to the bottom of whatever was going on with her.
“Hey, handsome. Haven’t seen you here before.”
Josh didn’t exactly startle at the seductive female voice behind his left shoulder, but his muscles went rigid. He turned to face a tiny woman with big brown eyes—and big, bouncy tits barely covered in a green velvet halter. She too wore a Santa-style hat, this one green to match the elf getup, sporting a big fluffy white fur ball at the point. She caressed the sleeve of Josh’s sport jacket with one hand, the other holding an empty tray against her hip.
“I’m Stephie.” She tipped her head and looked up at him through thick black lashes heavily coated with mascara. “Why don’t you buy me a drink while we get acquainted?”
A heavy, powdery scent wafted off her, along with her body heat. His nerve endings seemed to spread along the surface of his skin and sing to attention. Which meant, yeah, definitely too little sex in way too long, because she wasn’t his type at all.
“Actually…” He pulled a twenty from his pocket. “I’d appreciate it if you could point out Nicole for me.”
Her eyes lowered to the bill, then returned to his, a sly little smile on her lips. She slipped the twenty from Josh’s fingers with an enthusiastic “Easiest twenty I’ve made all night.”
She turned and pointed toward a shadowed corner where a group of rowdy younger men sat near the stage. A woman stood between two chairs, her back facing Josh. She was leaning forward, her hands braced on the men’s shoulders.
The woman who went by Nicole wore a one-shouldered, skintight black dress that clung to every luscious curve and barely covered her ass. Tanned legs stretched long and lean beneath the hem, made even longer—and sexier—by the sparkling spiked heels she wore. One side of the dress had diamond-shaped cutouts, showing a nice amount of evenly tanned skin all along her body, right down to her hip. The fabric gathered and was held together with clear rhinestones down her side. There was no way she was wearing anything underneath.
Josh didn’t recognize her as Grace. This woman had copper-colored hair falling in curls to the middle of her back. Right color—wrong length. And Grace had always been thin, with a more boyish straight-up-and-down figure. Josh would have noticed curves like those.
Wouldn’t he?
“In the black,” Stephie said. “Nicole. That’s who you’re looking for, right?”
“Don’t think that’s her,” he told Stephie. “But thanks.”
“Can I get you a drink?”
“Yes, please. Jack and Coke. Double would be good.”
“Be right back.”
When he slid his blazer off, his bad shoulder pulled, reminding him of the football incident. He tossed it over the back of the chair, and rolled up his sleeves before sitting, his eyes locked on the woman in black, waiting for a glimpse of her face. But his peripheral vision was picking up the brazenly erotic moves on the stage, and combined with the music, the lyrics, and the atmosphere, Josh’s body was definitely responding. His cock had grown thick, and the confinement of his slacks added pressure along his length. His heart was beating too fast, his body was too hot, his throat too tight.
The woman laughed, throwing her head back, and her hair—a shade darker than Grace’s, he was sure—fell down her spine like a sensual waterfall. A man came up beside her, and she turned and greeted him, exposing the stylishly and incredibly sexily cut side of her dress. Yep, she definitely had amazing curves. He tried to remember Grace wearing anything that would have accentuated curves but couldn’t. Tried to remember feeling them during the occasional hug—again, nothing.
Yes, he’d purposely been trying not to notice, considering she’d married his best buddy and fellow SEAL teammate, but still…
She reached up and hugged the older man. Since this wasn’t Grace, Josh let himself survey all that gorgeous skin, taking in her small waist, full hips and, once again, checking out the length of those sleek thighs. And he was plenty warm by the time he lifted his gaze to the woman’s face again.
Familiarity burned along his sternum and across his ribs.
Grace.
“Holy…shit…” He stared, trying to convince himself he was mistaken. Her heavy makeup was messing with his mind—Josh had never seen Grace with more than a trace. But then she slid her hands down the older man’s arms, rested her fingers in his, and smiled. And that grin was something Josh would never mistake—right down to the right-sided dimple near her mouth.
It’s Grace.
His stomach jumped, skipped…and plummeted. Grace was working in a strip club. Wearing a barely there dress that showcased every asset, makeup that turned her from sweet to seductive, and laying her hands all over strange men.
He pushed to his feet, hands clenched, then rethought and sat back down. He had no rights to her. No say in her life. He’d given all that up when he’d walked away.
But he still cared. And she wouldn’t be here, doing this, unless something was wrong. He could still help, despite their past.
She continued talking with the older man. They turned toward the stage, leaning into each other, talking over the music, and the man slipped his arm around her waist, his hand settling low on Grace’s hip. The intimacy of the touch made Josh’s fingers curl into fists.
Stephie showed up with his drink. Josh didn’t even give her time to set it on the table. He took it straight from her hand and tipped it back, taking the whole thing in one swallow.
“Ooooh-kay,” Stephie said in a half laugh. “I assume that means you’d like another?”
“Please.”
The older man moved his hand up her back and kissed Grace on the temple before wandering off through the club. Grace made her way to a dancer straddling a customer’s hips near the stage. With a very friendly stroke of her hand over the man’s shoulder, Grace glided around behind the dancer, put her hands on the woman’s waist, her chin on her shoulder, and let her body follow the movement.
“What in the fuck…?” Josh murmured, unable to pull his gaze from the erotic sight.
Grace’s hands slid lower, gripped the woman’s hips, and urged them into a sexier roll. She spoke to the client as she thrust, easing the dancer’s hips into a more rhythmic thrust. He nodded, eyes big, mouth open like a drooling puppy, and Grace smiled, a sultry, seductive smile Josh had never seen before. The dancer dropped her head back to Grace’s shoulder, raised her arms to wrap them around Grace’s neck, and turned her face against the skin of Grace’s throat.
Patrons sitting nearby cheered their approval of the girl-on-girl action, and the heat simmering in Josh’s body rocketed through his groin and up his chest. He fought to search out the what, the how, the why of this, but his mind floated in distracting titillation.
“Here you go.” Stephie set Josh’s second drink down.
“Thanks. Keep ’em coming, will you?” he asked.
“Who are you?” Stephie asked. “Her new bodyguard or something?”
Josh’s gaze broke from the erotic sight of Grace getting it on with two others and focused on Stephie. “Why? Does she need one?”
“I personally think we all need one after what happened last week. But, no one’s springing for any service, so I guess we’re relying on our monkeys in suits.”
“Stephie!” Someone called from close by. “Need another drink over here, sweetness.”
She glanced at Josh again. “I’ll bring you another in a few.” Then she darted through the shadows to another table.
When Josh returned his gaze to the lap dance, Grace was gone, the original dancer still going at it with her customer.
He scanned the area and found Grace weaving through the club, greeting men, group by group, stopping to talk for a moment, then moving on. No lap dances. No running to get drinks. Josh couldn’t figure out the setup.
Josh downed the next drink in two swallows, but th
e first was already hitting his bloodstream, making him bolder, braver, and—he knew from experience—far more stupid. It also made him forget all about that nagging pull in his shoulder.
When the song changed and the women on stage transitioned once again, Grace watched closely, then scanned the club like an overseer, her gaze pausing on every girl as they worked the room. And Josh could only compare her behavior to a lion watching over her cubs.
He was trying to figure her out while fighting complex emotions he was sure colored his perspective when her gaze passed over him. Then her eyes jumped back and held on his face with a spark of shocked disbelief. A sizzle broke out across his ribs. No turning back now. She’d seen him. She knew he didn’t belong here. She knew this wasn’t a coincidence.
But having her intense gaze locked on him made his chest ache.
Fuck, he’d missed her. Missed her friendship, her laughter, her quick mind. He hadn’t realized until now, their gazes locked yards apart, just how hollow he still felt without her in his life.
Her brow pulled tight. Emotions flashed in her eyes. And Josh felt a direct connection between them across the space. She started forward, never breaking eye contact. Josh took a slow, deep breath and tried to smooth the edge of raw nerves.
Stephie showed up and set his third drink down with a perky “I’ll check back.”
Josh had never seen Grace look so absolutely stunning. This was not the girl he’d left last year. She’d always been strong and smart. But this woman was more—more secure, more confident, more in control. Josh had never imagined finding that so damn hot, but watching her walk toward him with all that self-possession was sexier than a brand-new M4 submachine gun.
She paused two feet away, searching his face as if she still couldn’t believe he was real. The alcohol had definitely flooded his veins. He couldn’t get words out of his mouth while his head and heart were swimming with monologues he wanted to spill all at once.
