“Ahhh. You’re right. Does look like you’re texting.”
I grinned and sat back down, dropping my hand from his solid bicep. I saved the note and turned my attention toward one of the stages. The guy on it had a girl in a black, wooden chair that was tipped back. He held it steady with one strong arm as he ground his hips against her, his other hand at the back of his head. I tilted my head to the side as she shamelessly ran her hands all over his body, causing him to move closer. It was...strangely hot, watching it happen to someone else.
“He’s gonna drop her soon,” West said into my ear.
I jumped at the proximity. I hadn’t realized he’d moved so close. “How do you know that?”
“There’s only so long you can hold someone’s body weight combined with the chair’s before you have to either put her down or let her fall.”
Ah. That made sense.
True enough, seconds after West had finished talking, the stripper righted the chair onto four legs and grabbed her hands. He pulled her up and spun her, put her hands on the back of the chair, and grabbed her hips. My eyes widened as he dry-humped her from behind.
Well, dry-humped was a little crude. He kind of...rolled his hips against her ass. Like a dizzy dry-hump.
West laughed so hard that he coughed on the sip of Pepsi he’d just taken. “You look horrified.”
I narrowed my eyes into a frown as I turned my gaze to him. He softened his words with a sexy smile and my drink. I took it from him and sipped hard through the straw.
Hm. It was pretty good.
My gaze traveled across the club. The oddest things were the TV screens around the club. I would have expected them to have music videos or something on, but no. They had a mix of both men and women masturbating. I was both uber creeped out and a little turned on at the very same time.
That definitely wasn’t something I needed to be feeling around West Rykman—turned on.
I dragged my attention back from them and focused instead on the rest of the club. They didn’t seem to be doing much in the way of marketing. There were no special offers on the posters on the walls or the fliers that littered the bar and undoubtedly the tables. Maybe it was because it was Monday, but there was nothing special.
“Ready to go?” West asked, leaning down to me.
“I...” I looked at my glass. It was empty. I guessed I was drinking on the job. “Sure. Let’s go to the next one.”
West motioned the bar girl over and handed her his card. He said something I couldn’t hear, but she nodded. When she returned two minutes later, she gave back his card with more than one strip of receipt.
He looked through them, chuckled, and put it all in his wallet. I raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything as he took my wrist and guided me through and out of the club.
I didn’t realize it was so hot in there until even the sticky, humid Vegas air hit me. Or smoky—hell, it was smoky in there.
I took a deep breath of fresh air and turned to West. “What were you laughing about in there?”
He was still half laughing. “The note she slipped me. ‘When you’re done with her, call me.’ Followed by her number.”
I had to appreciate her forwardness. That took balls.
“Keeping it classy, I see.”
“I could respond to that,” he said, “but it’d violate the professional-person line you’ve drawn.”
I hit him with a hard look. Yeah, but when I hit on you, you were already grinding your erection near my face.
We made it in and out of the second bar without him being hit on. It was much the same as the first, only without the videos on the TV screens. The screens were present but blank. Boy was I glad of that. I also really needed to make a note to put a drink down once he’d handed it to me, because in there, I’d had two really great cosmos, and I needed to get a glass of cold water in the next club.
The third club we visited, Hot Rod, was busier than the second and first, but not by much. What I did appreciate in this place was that, before we went right in, there was a calendar of sorts, saying what was happening during the weekend. I was allowed to snap a pic to take back to my “future sister-in-law’s bridal party,” and although I felt a little guilty about the lie—damn you and your guilt-trips, Mom—I felt better about using it for good.
Kind of.
It was my job, after all.
I declined West’s offer of a fourth drink, instead opting for water. This place was better put together than the previous two, but aside from the sign outside, there was nothing else saying what the plan was. I even flipped through the menu cards and sheets on the table next to me, but there was nothing. I pulled my phone out of my purse and noted it down. Put promos on every table.
“All right, darlin’?” A guy wearing ripped jeans and…nothing else...approached my table and grabbed the back of the chair next to me. Dark eyes gleamed down at me. “Here alone?”