StriporTreat Read online

  All the oxygen in the cramped corridor disappeared, leaving Gray lightheaded and slightly disoriented. Very male stirrings grumbled that it had been too damn long since he’d had any horizontal action while awake. ’Cause dream sex sure as hell didn’t count. What better way to have free access throughout the club and Genevieve’s apartment than to become Sophia’s lover?

  “Has something changed?” he asked, liking his idea. Liking it a lot.

  “No, she’s doing great. Just a little frustrated.” Sophia’s shoulders sagged.

  “Has to be hard on a woman as vibrant as Madame G to be confined to the hospital. What’s her doctor say?” Having decided to gain Sophia’s trust, Gray moved in closer. Close was good.

  “That with time, determination and physical and occupational therapy she should recover almost completely.”

  “I’m glad to hear she’s going to be okay.” He flashed a smile meant to charm. “I really appreciate how she gave me this job and apartment. Let me know if there’s anything she needs.” He paused, raked his gaze down her centerfold perfect figure. “Anything you need. I’m just across the hallway.”

  Her face blazed red. She shifted, licked her lips. Gray considered kissing her. His every male instinct urged him to take what he wanted, that the attraction wasn’t one-sided but the agent in him reminded he should bide his time. Move in too quickly and your quarry might find wiggle room.

  “Guess I’ll see you later.” Despite her words she made no move to pick up her keys or purse, just eyed him, looking torn and exhausted.

  He almost felt guilty that he planned to use her for the case and his sexual gratification. Almost. Their physical relationship would be of her free will and he’d make sure she enjoyed it every bit as much as he did. No guilt in that. The case? Well, that was just doing his job and with every thug he helped put behind bars, the world became a better place.

  “You’re sure your aunt’s going to be okay?”

  She nodded. He caught a shiny glimmer to her eyes before her gaze dropped to stare at where her keys lay on the worn hardwood floor. Oh no. Time for him to disappear into his apartment and change into his work clothes.

  Anything to avoid the waterworks.

  Which was why she couldn’t possibly be more surprised than he was when his knuckles grazed across the satiny smooth skin of her cheeks. Or at the bolt of lightning that struck him at the contact of his skin against hers. Her gaze jerked to his. She didn’t speak, just stared. But he saw the fatigue, the shock, the what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here look mingled with outright desire and need.

  Protectiveness charged forward. Had to be because he planned to seduce her, to use her any way needed to solve this case. His instincts had kicked in, guided him on how to wheedle his way inside that cool reserve Sophia barricaded herself behind. That was why he wanted to wrap his arms around her, to kiss away her exhaustion. To promise he’d find a solution to her problems. All because of the case.

  “What’s wrong, Sophia?”

  Her lids lowered. A soft breath sighed across her pale pink lips. The gentle moist air caressed his callused finger as he traced the silky flesh of her lower lip.

  “Things are more complicated than I expected when I came to Tennessee.” She lifted her shoulders. “Nothing I can’t handle, though.”

  Tiny hairs on Gray’s nape prickled. Had she discovered cocaine in her aunt’s apartment? Or had someone contacted her about the next pickup? That would certainly explain her haunted, torn expression. Pressing his thumb against her chin, he tilted her face so she looked at him, so he could read the truth in her eyes. “Can I help?”

  “Sure.” She laughed nervously. “Take off your clothes.”

  “For you?” he purposely misunderstood, cupping her chin in his palm and enjoying the underlying strength in the stubborn tilt despite her current weariness. “In a heartbeat.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He lifted one shoulder. “Thought you might have reconsidered my offer of a private performance.”

  “No.” A faint smile played on her lips like a ray of sunshine peeping through a cloudy sky. “But you can’t blame a girl for trying to get you to reconsider her offer.”

  “I’d never blame you for that,” he teased, knowing that if she’d ever seen him dance she’d know she was barking up the wrong tree. He didn’t dance. “Are you going to watch tonight’s show?”

  Grimacing, she nodded. “I don’t have a choice. I’ve got to make sure everything runs smoothly. Aunt Genevieve wants a full report tomorrow morning.”

  Good. He’d get a chance to talk with her again tonight, charm her into sharing all her secrets. And her bed. “Come by the bar and I’ll buy you a drink. Something special I’ll make just for you.” His lips twitched into another of those grins he’d been told time and again melted women senseless. He wanted Sophia to melt. “All in an effort to earn that private performance, of course.” He winked.

  “Of course.” Her gaze lowered to the floor where her stuff still lay. “Maybe I will stop by. If you aren’t too busy.”

  “I’m never too busy to make a drink for a beautiful woman.” Gray bent and scooped up her belongings and her heavy purse. What did she keep in there? Bricks? He tried to look without being too obvious but she snatched the bag and her keys.

  “Thanks.” She offered another small smile, unlocked the door to her aunt’s apartment and slipped inside.

  Gray ran his hand over his stubbled jaw and stared at the closed door. What had Sophia uncovered in less than two weeks that he hadn’t scoped out in the two months he’d been undercover?

  Before the night was over, he planned to find out.

  * * * * *

  Sophia didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as Elvis Constiago tore off his black and white striped uniform to the tune of Jailhouse Rock.

  His blue-black toupee was styled in an out-of-date pompadour and his belly paunched a little rather than resemble a washboard like the abs of his Heavenly Hunks coworkers. Still, for a man on the opposite side of sixty, his body looked pretty good.

  Sophia shook her head in amazement. Women whooped and hollered as they poked dollar bills into his boxer style briefs. Briefs covered with tiny hound dogs.

  Elvis twisted and turned, shaking his rear for one woman in particular until she playfully smacked his bottom. He threw his head back and let out the worst hound dog howl Sophia ever heard. The woman jumped up and down, excited that she’d been the one to elicit the horrific noise.

  Elvis jiggled his thang this way and that. The dollar bills on the stage multiplied. Without a doubt, Elvis brought in as much as the younger, hunkier men. Possibly more.

  Some things just defied explanation.

  “He does put on one helluva show,” a sexy male voice whispered from behind her. The voice of the man who’d occupied her thoughts most of the day.

  Automatically her gaze shot to the bar where she last saw Gray—not that she’d been looking. Flirting shamelessly with three women hanging onto his every word, an Arabian Sheik stood in Gray’s spot behind the bar.

  “I’m on break,” Gray told her, reading her mind.

  Mentally preparing herself for the image of Gray in his barely-there work uniform, Sophia turned. She wasn’t disappointed. Flustered, burning up on the inside, yes. Disappointed, no. Laced-up black leather boots, black silky shorts, black and white bow tie and more muscles than an anatomy textbook. She gulped, then dragged her gaze away from his powerful chest.

  “Yes, Elvis puts on a great show.” She ignored his comment about being on break. Ignoring how close he stood to her, however, was impossible. Two hundred pounds of solid man filled her line of vision. Would his skin be as soft as the silk of his shorts? Or tough like the man who wore them?

  “Have you thought anymore about making Elvis your lead for Strip or Treat this Saturday?”

  She’d thought about it but she couldn’t have a sixty-year-old man as the main attraction. She couldn’t risk her aunt’s liveli
hood that way.

  “Not seriously. I went to a talent agency after visiting Aunt Genevieve this morning. They gave me a portfolio of prospective applicants.” Which she’d left in the car. Great. She’d go out and get them in a bit. “I’m supposed to call in the morning and they’ll schedule afternoon interviews with those available. That’ll leave me six days to search for someone else if they don’t come through. Guess we’ll see.”

  “At least you have Elvis as a backup. Just in case.” His flashing pearly whites told her he was trying to get her to smile. Maybe she would if she weren’t so worried about flubbing up the club’s biggest night. Or if she didn’t know she’d uncovered something very wrong in her aunt’s books.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” She glanced at her watch. “How long’s your break?”

  “Worried I might be jibbing your aunt out of an honest night’s work?” His tone teased.

  “Actually, I wondered if you’d eaten. I have homemade pasta in the break room that I’ll share.” Was that why she’d grabbed a large bowl and filled it to the brim all the while knowing she couldn’t possibly eat half that much? The way her heart bumped at his quick grin assured her that, yes, she had hoped to share her food with Gray. Right down to when she’d packed extra garlic bread.

  “I know better than to turn down food.” His big hand pressed into her lower back while he guided her across the room and to the swinging door near the bar.

  Sophia tried not to think about the possessiveness in his touch or how right his hand felt. She’d already told herself Gray’s interest really wasn’t so much in her personally as just in the fact she had double X chromosomes. After all, the man worked in a strip club. His ego had to be the size of, well, the rest of him.

  Although, honestly, that didn’t jibe with the way he responded politely, professionally, yet totally impersonally to the multitude of women who flirted with him. More than one smitten customer had slipped him a phone number only to have him hand the paper back with a charming headshake. Gray didn’t give a single indication that he flitted from woman to woman like a bee in a field of flowers. Yet, his interest couldn’t really be more than that, could it?

  Her past boyfriends tended to make geeky professors look scrumptious. So what if she had never really picked out any of the men she dated? Including her ex-fiancé. She’d only been placating her parents whose main goal in life was to see her married well—both socially and financially. Thus the parade of rich, passionless suitors. They’d almost succeeded with Sophia’s engagement to Nathanial Fleming, III.

  “What’s wrong?” Gray asked when they entered the ten by ten room stuffed with a sink, small refrigerator, microwave and a table with six fold-up chairs. Posters of bikini-clad women in various poses lined the wall. The stench of burnt popcorn lingered. One of the younger dancers had an odd fetish for the stuff and had to have a bowl before his performance. Go figure.

  “Nothing. Just worried about Saturday night.” She pasted a bright smile on her face and ignored the niggle there was more to Gray’s interest than met the surface. “Let me stick this in the microwave.”

  She removed the plastic dish from the ancient brown refrigerator and popped the lid. Tomato sauce, oregano and other spices filled her nostrils. Homemade lasagna. Perfect way to tempt a man. Not that she was trying to tempt Gray.

  Well, maybe a little. But turnabout was fair play. Because Gray was tempting. Sinfully so.

  She slid the container into the microwave and punched in the appropriate cook time.

  “Smells good.” He pulled out a fold-up chair but didn’t sit. She wished he would. He was overwhelming in the tiny room. His fingers curled over the back of the chair. “I have a pack of sodas in the back of the fridge if you want one.”

  “Thanks.” She plucked two bottles from the plastic web holding them together and handed one to Gray. Their fingers touched. Electricity sparked. Sophia pulled back.

  The drone of the microwave hummed between them as they stared at each other. Was it crazy to feel so much heat for a man she barely knew? A man her worldly aunt said seemed dark, wild, barely contained, a drifter. Those very qualities beckoned. What would it feel like to throw caution to the wind and have sex with Gray?

  “We need to talk.”

  Sophia nodded.

  “I’m not much with words and will probably say this wrong but you must have noticed,” he paused long enough to take her hand into his callused one. “I want you.”

  Her pulse quickened, jetting through her body and roaring in her ears when he gently pulled her toward him.

  “I get the impression you want me too but are afraid to admit to it.” His hand squeezed hers. The other cupped her face. “I assume it’s because of your role as my boss until Madame G’s health returns.”

  Sophia’s stomach growled but not for the lasagna’s spicy aroma that enveloped them. She hungered for the fulfillment Gray’s arrogant gaze promised.

  “For the record,” he continued. “Whatever happens between us is private and separate from our business at the club.”

  A glimmer of something flickered on his face, making Sophia question whether or not he believed his words. But desire matching her own blazed in his smoky eyes, blinding her to all else. His fingers slid into her upswept hair and she struggled to keep her lids from fluttering shut.

  “What do you see happening between us?” She held very still within his grasp, waiting for his answer, afraid this moment might disintegrate if she so much as said boo.

  “Can’t you feel the sparks? I want to hear my name on your lips when you come.”

  Sophia’s knees threatened to buckle beneath her trembling body at the sincerity, the honest need in his eyes. He was confronting her with her own thoughts. Could she risk having an affair with one of her aunt’s employees? Her life was already in upheaval. She was on the rebound, for goodness sake. Besides, what if Gray was involved in the club’s money problems? Sophia jerked her hand free but he prevented her from stepping back.

  “Did I mess up by admitting how much I want you? I know this is fast but I’m a man who goes after what I want.”

  That she could believe. Time apparently had nothing to do with physical chemistry.

  “I want you. Beneath me. On me.” His expression smoldered while he seduced with his words and the images he provoked. “Around me.”

  She squeezed her eyelids together. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, with him staring at her with such sexual intensity. She wanted to drag him under the table, or onto the table and beg him to have his wicked way with her. But a lifetime’s preaching from her mother demanded she consider the ramifications before being hasty. A lady never makes rash decisions. “I need some time to think.”

  “Don’t think.” He pressed her palm against the bare skin covering his heart. His racing heart. “Just feel.”

  The man could sell sand in a desert but she’d been raised better than to jump in without her eyes wide open. Was that why she currently held them so tightly shut? Because she’d like to forget logic and jump Gray’s bones?

  “So much has happened during the past month. My whole life has turned topsy-turvy. An affair is the last thing I should consider right now.”

  “But you are considering it.” It wasn’t a question. Damn his cocky arrogance.

  Sophia’s eyes popped open and her breath caught. He was close. Very close. His head dipped. Her heart lurched. The microwave dinged. Sophia jumped out of his embrace before his mouth covered hers.

  “So, how hungry are you?” she gushed.

  “Starved.”

  Funny, despite the mouthwatering smell filling the small room, she’d completely lost her appetite.

  “I can run upstairs and grab more if this isn’t enough.” Determined to take control of her erratic emotions, she scooped a generous portion of the cheesy pasta onto a plastic plate and placed it on the table. “Sit.”

  She glanced at him, saw the coiled tension in his stance and realized he hadn�
��t been referring to the food. He dithered only a moment.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She spooned a small helping of pasta, got them each a fork, and parked herself in the seat across from Gray. “Tell me about yourself.”

  “Not much to tell.” He shrugged and took a bite of food. “This is good.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” she teased, watching as he enthusiastically scooped up another large bite. “But thanks.”

  She wouldn’t tell him about the other two casseroles in her aunt’s freezer. No need to let him know she cooked when nervous and had been racking up the oven hours lately. “How did you end up working for my aunt?”

  His fork stopped midair and he stared at her with suspicion. “Why all the questions?”

  Sophia frowned. “You said you wanted to have sex with me.” She couldn’t bring herself to say make love. But then he hadn’t called it making love either. And she barely knew him so it wouldn’t be making love—just sex.

  “And?”

  “I won’t have sex with a stranger.” Just inconsiderate jerks who got themselves off and left her high and dry. Not that she was bitter or anything. Well, Nate hadn’t been like that. But his mind had been calculating his next takeover, his next million, not on her.

  Gray lowered his fork. “I needed a job. Madame G needed a bartender.”

  This was old news.

  “What did you do before Aunt Genevieve hired you? I checked your application. You didn’t list any previous employment or references.” Did admitting she’d checked his application reveal too much?

  “The reason your aunt hired me had nothing to do with anything a piece of paper could have told her.”

  Her gaze ran over his handsome face, over the broad, bare shoulders that announced tremendous strength at his beck and call. Although the table partially hid the flat planes of his stomach and narrow hips, she’d put his build to memory. Gray’s body would send Mother Teresa into hot flushes and chair squirms.

  “Okay. Point taken. Aunt Genevieve doesn’t care so much about your résumé as she does your derrière.” Sophia swallowed a bite. “Do you have family?”