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.
Trust the cock, Kane.
That was a conclusion he’d enjoy later because right now the decent part of him, the part not enslaved to his cock, needed to figure out why his assistant was dancing half naked—and badly—in a strip club.
Her eyes flitted nervously over his head toward the bar, then back at him, imploring him to play along. He wanted to turn but he suspected that would be bad for her. She was in some sort of shitty situation. No one would choose this, would they?
She had to be here under duress. Goddammit, that was all the more reason to put an end to this charade. Drag her out of here in the safety of his arms.
But his hesitation spelled trouble. His lack of reaction to her incredibly suspect moves as he analyzed the situation had clearly forced her into an assessment of her own. And the outcome of this assessment? Try a new move to get the client’s attention, which involved her pivoting less than gracefully and… Holy fuck, backing up. Truck-reverse beeps screamed in his head. He held his hands up to put a halt to this crazy, only to have her back right up into his palms.
His hands were on her ass.
Her amazing ass.
She froze. As did he. The surly blonde joined the still-as-a-statue party, which had the effect of making Nigel, the fourth in their happy quadfecta, question what had happened.
“Love, what the hell—?” A snaggletoothed grin broke wide. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a meaty handful there, mate.”
Sure did. Still, no one seemed capable of turning this shit-ton of awkward into a slightly less shit-ton of awkward. If only she would—yes, move, no, grind her ass on his open palms. She started rolling her ass in circles against his hands.
Her ass. His hands.
This could not go on, yet he found himself unable to pull away, his palms magnetized to those wicked curves. She continued that slow, weirdly erotic move.
Ms. Strickland had found her party trick.
Mesmerized, he let his grasping gaze travel over the reveal of skin above her shorts. Seeing the tattoo up close, he realized he’d been mistaken. It wasn’t an animal, but a squadron of dragonflies, beautifully etched on her creamy skin. He licked his lips, the urge to drag her back and place his mouth against the ladder of her spine spiking his pulse. Hands full with her perfect ass, he wanted to explore and ravish the body of his assistant.
Remembering who she was yanked him back to reality. He shifted his hands to her hips and twisted her around with a rougher-than-intended jerk.
“C’mere,” he growled, the verbal command complementing perfectly the seeking fingers that dug into her hip bones. Amazingly, she obeyed.
Note remembered: Ms. Strickland likes it when you growl.
She straddled him, her hands resting on his shoulders, her kissable lips parted in surprise. Time to get to the bottom of this. Without roaming his hands all over her “bottom” as S-O might say.
“Chardonnay,” he murmured, not quite believing that anyone would choose to be called that.
She blinked. Apparently, she’d already forgotten her stripper name, and his heart cheered at the notion that perhaps this wasn’t her normal.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” she hissed.
He had a half-naked woman seated about two inches from his very stiff cock, and the woman happened to be his employee. It might not be what it looked like, but it sure as hell looked like something.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he whispered in the ear farthest from Nigel and Emma’s stripper friend.
Her response? Grind on him some more. Because turning him on unbearably was the answer.
“I have to do this.”
Which? The grinding? The stripping?
“My boss is watching.”
“Your boss?” he asked, incredulity straining his tone because he had assumed she had one boss. Him.
She looked more than a touch exasperated at his narrow reading of the situation. “I have to”—she dragged her body up his thighs, snugging in closer against the cock fighting to rip free from his pants—“I have to make it look good.”
In looking good, it happened to feel amazing. His hands cupped her lush ass, barely covered in those shiny shorts. She sucked in a breath.
“Hips only. That’s the rule.”
“You backed your ass into my hands!”
She moved his hands to her hips, a prim move that reminded him of Ms. Strickland. His fucking assistant. “I was trying to get your attention.”
“Believe me, you had it, Chardonnay.”
“Oh, shut up. I didn’t pick that name.”
“It suits you,” he said, trying to see the humor in this situation. Laughing tended to kill the mood real quick, but he doubted there were enough jokes in the world to diminish his monster erection.
“You’re a terrible dancer,” he added, laying it on thick. “In fact, I’d pay you to stop.”
“And you’re an awful client. You’re supposed to be ogling and leering.”
Is this what happened to her every night? Did some ape—did multiple apes—ogle her? Paw at her luscious curves, tell her to move closer, grind harder, get wet for them? Anger the likes of which he had never experienced racked his body to near-paralysis. She lifted her ass from his lap and arched back so her perfect breasts jutted forward.
An urge to alternately protect and plunder her tight, fuckable body battled in his chest. The more honorable instinct won out. Barely. He stood, sending her tumbling, but he caught her before she fell on that hot little ass of hers and hauled her upright.
“I need to see you alone.”
“Nice work, mate,” Nigel the Limey Idiot said.
Brody pulled Emma toward him and encircled her waist possessively. She gasped, maybe at his display of dominance, more likely at his pulsing cock against her belly. No one in this place would lay a finger on her as long as he had breath in his body and multiple zeros on his bank balance.
“Now. Alone.”
“The private rooms cost a lot of money.” At his eyebrow lift of I’ve got this, she added, “And they have cameras.”
“Audio recording?”
“Usually, but one of them has been in need of repair for a while. We can see if it’s free.” She looked over his shoulder to the bar. He turned and found a hulk brooding his way. The big kahuna, Brody supposed. “You have to pay first,” Emma whispered, her bottom lip quivering.
Black Amex. Check. He threw it on his seat. He’d pay whatever it took to get her alone. To get her out of here.
“Lead the way. Chardonnay.”
Evidently torn between wanting to return a snarky comment and remove them both from this tricky situation, she chose the latter. Good call. Taking his hand, she led him to a corridor and eventually to a room near the end. She pulled him inside.
He slammed the door behind them and pushed her against it, that dangerous brew of lust and anger in maximum concentration now that they were alone.
“Now, how about you explain to me what the hell is going on here?”
Chapter Five
Mr. Kane was pissed. Understandably so; she had blindsided him, after all. She’d never seen him angry before, and it was…hot. She needed no more reasons to be attracted to him, yet here he was serving up more of the sexy.
His hair dipped over those sex-nerd glasses that always made her weak-kneed. His mouth was set in a straight line, no humor, no give, yet she suspected a kiss might soften it. And make him hard elsewhere.
Or harder.
She’d felt his arousal against her dampening sex as she’d writhed all over him out in the VIP lounge. A purely biological reaction, of course, just bodies rubbing against bodies, because there was nothing sexy about what had occurred. Yet faced with the most humiliating situation of her life, she had still managed to get turned on.
Because that’s your default setting, Ems. A bad girl who just needs the right set of circumstances to revert to no good.
“We have to make this look like a regular customer/client interaction.”
“I’ve paid for your time. I can spend it any way I want.”
“Three songs cost $150.” The music was pumped into the rooms, the same as heard out in the club. Brody probably wiped his ass with hundred-dollar bills, but no way did she want to be in debt to him. The situation was already a complete mess.
“Have a seat,” she said, motioning to the small red velvet sofa.