“She dance for you. She good dancer.” Pronouncement made, Katerina returned to Nigel, who was licking his lips as he stared at her barely-cupped breasts.
Another surreptitious glance confirmed Ray was watching like a hawk. Emma locked gazes with Mr. Kane again, and…nothing. No clues in those silver-gray eyes. No indication of how this mess should be resolved. He seemed to be waiting. For her to start dancing?
No, not that. He was waiting for an explanation. For why his unflappable, trustworthy, by all accounts nice-girl personal assistant moonlighted as a stripper. She would give it to him, but not now. Not with Ray’s soulless shark’s eyes on her. Not with Daisy in danger.
The things I do for you, sister bitch.
The music changed to Bang Bang by Ariana Grande. Emma liked this song. It had a good beat and the lyrics spoke to her…body like an hourglass…booty like a Cadillac. Not especially applicable, but maybe she could channel it.
She gave a tentative sway. Mr. Kane inched back.
Not quite a recoil, but not exactly good for her self-esteem, either. He held Emma’s gaze with steel-gray eyes of—ah, there it was, at last. Disapproval. Cartoon wavy lines of condemnation radiated off him.
Bang, bang into the room…I know you want it.
She swayed with more purpose, knowing Ray watched, knowing if she didn’t do this and make it look good, she would bring on a universe of hurt for her sister. She rolled her hips from side to side and shifted her gaze from Ray to Mr. Kane.
Brody. She couldn’t continue to think of him as her boss. He was Brody, the man she’d had inappropriate fantasies about. Yay, dreams do come true. Not. It was one thing to use your boss as masturbation fodder but this was definitely crossing a line. Heat rose to her cheeks at the thought, but there was no time to worry about that. If she thought sexy, perhaps she could be sexy.
She took a few steps forward, a couple back, trying to magically conjure a rhythm. A roll of her shoulders felt vaguely like she was poppin’ and lockin’. Did people still do that? She decided that maybe people did not still do that, so she changed up to kicking her toes forward and twisting her wrists at the same time.
Going for broke.
…
Brody had entered the wardrobe and was now sledding in f*ck
ing Narnia.
Ms. Strickland was a stripper.
He silently repeated the sentence, reconfigured the elements like he would a tricky word jumble, and eliminated the chaff: Ms. Strickland. STRIPPER.
Nope. Still made no sense.
How had it come to this? He paid her well. Very well. She was worth it, ten times better than any assistant he had previously employed. Of course he was attracted to her—though f*ck
knew why, given how she made no effort to showcase what were clearly amazing assets. But she had this cute-sexy way of biting the end of a pencil when she was taking notes. And pushing an errant dark curl that had escaped from her scraped-back bun. That move, so innocently erotic, always sent blood pumping to his dick.
But he would never act on it. She was Ms. Strickland, the kind of girl who curled up with a cup of cocoa and her cat in the evening and watched Downton Abbey. In moderation, he would’ve bet. Emma wouldn’t binge-watch anything. She had far too much self-control.
But…this was no longer Ms. Strickland. It wasn’t even Emma. Meet Chardonnay, the stripper to make a man’s dreams come true. At least for however long this damn song lasted.
Over the thud of his heart and the permutations of his brain, Brody watched the scene playing out before him. Ms. Strickland was known for her perfect handling of any and every situation. She could juggle multiple phone calls simultaneously, whip up elaborate spreadsheets that had the analyst in him weeping with joy, and produce oolong tea out of thin air. But she had finally met her match in a dingy strip club on Chicago’s North Side.
The woman could not dance.
Every jerk of her body made Brody wince to witness it. Weird kicks of her hips and thrusts of her pelvis should not have been sexy—they really weren’t—yet his groin was on serious notice. No one in his right mind would find this appealing in the slightest, but then Brody had not been in his right mind for a while.
He smoothed the hair that had flopped over his glasses while a cavalcade of emotions tripped through his brain. Confusion was the top note, but there was also shock, amazement, and a touch of anger. Lower on the list, but making a steady charge, was lust.
A small part of him—okay, a steadily growing part of him—enjoyed the vindication. Dowdy Emma had edged under his skin, invading his sexual fantasies when she had no goddamn right to be there, looking as she usually did in those bad suits and sensible shoes. But obviously his subconscious libido knew better. It knew that Ms. Strickland hid a hot bod underneath the polyester. The cock he wouldn’t normally trust as long as it took him to get off actually had the inside track.