Undercover Lovers (18 page)

Faking being drunk ensured
safety for all involved. Besides, she'd become so adept at
pretending to be intoxicated she usually relaxed more
anyway.

“
Um, Em,” Becky said,
scooting closer. “Think that's my drink you grabbed.”

Emma took another sip. Uh
oh. “Sorry.” She pushed the almost empty glass back. How bad could
she get from one drink? “We had the same thing, so no
biggie.”

“
No, we didn't.” Becky bit
her lip. “I sort of added an enhancement to mine.”

Oh God.
“What enhancement?”

“
An herbal mix.” Suddenly
Becky seemed practically sober. “A new blend I came up with in the
lab just for my honeymoon. Tonight’s the first time I tried it.
Known aphrodisiac extracts with a hint of a
totally
safe sexual enhancement
drug.”

Oh crap. A sexual
enhancement drug “safe” with alcohol? Did such a thing exist when
it came to her?

Her head swam. Not
unpleasantly, but still. She'd thought trying a drink called
bedrocker
sounded cool but
the predominant sensation she suffered from now was heat. Lots of
it.

Especially between her
thighs.

She reached for a napkin to
blot the dampness off her temples. Whoa, had the temperature shot
up into the stratosphere or what?

“
It won't hurt you. It'll
just make you really horny. If it works.” She glanced down at the
front of Emma's shirt and lifted her eyebrows. Emma followed her
gaze.

Definite
nipplage.

“
Well, the guys
are
smokin',” Becky said
in an undertone. “I’m turned on too.”

As if on cue, the dancers
circled the table, bumping hips to the raucous cheers of Emma's
friends. She stared dumbly as the cop made his way back to her,
grabbing her chair and thrusting his private area disturbingly
close to her face. Instead of grabbing at his crotch like Becky—and
she had to climb over Emma's lap to do it—Emma just
winked.

Um, wow, where had
that
come from? Confident,
sexually assured women winked at strippers. Normally that
description did not apply to her. 

She grinned. Score one for
the chemist o’love.

Apparently flummoxed by her
reaction, he stopped dancing and stared down at her while the other
guys pressed all around him, some even shaking their groove thang
up against his ass. He seemed oblivious.

Time slowed, crawling to a
stop. The loud music became white noise. Even Becky's high pitched
squeals faded away. Dazedly, Emma watched her arm lift from the
back of her seat and extend outward, fingers poised to
grab...

***

Sweet hell, the mark had
touched his cock. Actually, she hadn’t stopped touching it
yet.

Abort!

Shane Madison gulped in a
breath. He'd stopped dancing after she'd death rayed him into
immobility with her flirtatious grin. Then she'd hijacked his good
sense by wrapping those long, delicate fingers, finished off with
equally dainty pink nails, around his package.
All
the way around.

“
It is
real,” she whispered while her friends hooted and
hollered.

He didn't know how he heard
her over the music, the screaming and the roar of blood pounding
through his veins to gather in his groin. But those full lips
seemed to dawdle over the words just as her hand lingered on his
flesh.

Welcome to the mother of all
erections.

To save his sanity, he
pulled her arm away and danced back into the crowd. It had been a
mistake to get so close to her but he'd been drawn like a slightly
off-center magnet.

PIs never let themselves get
involved. Pretty or not, the fiancée of one of his
biggest—fine,
only
at the moment—clients should not be making him
hard.

God, pretty didn’t begin to
describe her.

Soft curling black hair
framed a face with a tiny, adorable nose and eyes as bright green
as the liquid in her glass. Those sexy eyes reminded him of summer
days, hot sunshine, fresh cut grass. Making love in same green
grass. To her.

He shook off his thoughts.
She was a pro at this supposedly, so of course he’d fallen victim
to her charms. She'd had a lot of practice. Though he still doubted
that an innocent looking woman like Ms. Shawcross could be visiting
Strippendales just to find new prospects for her escort service, he
couldn’t deny she'd inspected his…finer qualities.

And those finer qualities
had liked it. Hoo boy.

Throughout the rest of the
show, he avoided her. His cock finally relaxed to a respectable
semi-hardness that only encouraged the overly amorous
ladies.

Damn, women said men were
horndogs? They should check out this place on a Friday night.
Especially table number sixteen.

The one bearing the nametag
“Buxom Bride Becky” still bounced in her seat. Ms. Shawcross sat
quietly, her expression demure. How could she pick up possible
escorts if she didn't even make eye contact with any of the
dancers? Though maybe she'd heard about the recent firings and had
adjusted her, uh, hiring practices to compensate. After all, she
wouldn't have been able to grab Shane’s dick if the guy before him
hadn't gotten axed two days ago for being part of what the club
called “an infernal web of potential criminal activity.”

Enter Shane, who'd been
blessed with a good body he maintained with lots of sweat equity
and a hunger to succeed that overrode his hatred of anything
resembling dancing. Near naked dancing? Even worse. That they only
stripped to their thongs barely mitigated the horror.

Whatever he had to do, he
would do it. Connor Taylor believed his fiancée had a sideline
dealing guys to horny chicks, and
he
needed to deliver the proof. Luckily he'd danced
his way right toward the person he sought.

The woman in the audience
looked remarkably similar to the lady in the picture Connor had
provided. Not that he'd been able to check the photo again since
he'd laid eyes on her, but come on. No other woman had groped him.
Plus they both had short dark hair, bright eyes and come-hither
smiles. She also wore a diamond on the hand she’d wrapped around
him. It
had
to be
her.

Considering he’d only been
dancing for three nights, he’d hit the damn jackpot.

Backstage in the dressing
room, he donned his street clothes as fast as possible and grabbed
his gym bag. He had to get out front before she left. What if she
disappeared without trying to proposition him? He wouldn't let it
happen. Connor had major connections and the boon to Shane's barely
off the ground private investigation firm would be huge.

This time he had to make it
work. He would not walk away from another career. He'd used up his
fail quotient for two lifetimes at least. Probably more.

Shane ignored the comments
as he pushed through the crowd of guys shadowing the doorway. They
called him stuck up because he didn't make a lot of small talk but
he didn't have a problem with them. They all seemed like decent
people. Even so, he wasn't about to form attachments to coworkers
at a short-term gig. He needed to do his job, collect his fee, and
get out.

He couldn't deny the extra
money from dancing would help cover the plentiful gaps in his
budget. In the months since he'd quit the force he’d wondered again
and again if he'd made the right move. He wasn't the only person
who had trouble working for someone—though the someone he’d had
issues with cut a little too close to home—but he'd been passed
over so many times for choice assignments he'd decided he had to go
it alone.

As a PI, he was responsible
for his own successes and failures. So far he'd added a bunch more
notches to the failure column but he was determined to change that,
starting tonight.

Out in the hallway, he
hitched his bag higher on his shoulder and strode toward the club.
Inebriated laughter and thumping bass beats greeted him as he
entered through a side door, already surveying the assortment of
lusty, mostly drunk women. Where had she gone?

His gut tightened as he
swung his gaze in all directions, trying to see everywhere at once.
What if he'd missed her? She wouldn't leave if she wanted to invite
him to join her little stable, would she?

“
Hi.”

He glanced down at the silky
voice, a smile forming.
Thank God.
“There you are.”

She frowned, the gesture
looking completely foreign on such a cute face. Truthfully she
looked more like a kindergarten teacher than a madam in her sedate
skirt and blouse. She even had freckles.

Dammit, why hadn’t he
double-checked her photo in the dressing room? Then again, her
appearance might just be the perfect disguise.

“
Were you looking for me?”
She wet her glossy bubblegum lips and his manhandled cock strained
against his zipper. Hell, he'd enjoyed the abuse. If she turned out
not to be the woman he sought, he’d beg her to abuse him some more
with that luscious mouth. “I wanted to, um, apologize for earlier.
I can't believe I did that. I didn't think it could be real
and—”

“
Didn’t think what could be
real?”

She toyed with one of her
hoop earrings, glancing away from him then back again. Leaning in,
she whispered what sounded like, “Your penguin.”

“
My what?”

“
Your penis!” Obviously
aghast at her declaration, she whirled away into the
crowd.

Fighting the grin that
seemed determined to force its way onto his face, he chased after
her retreating form. Shit, she moved fast. Petiteness aside, when
she wanted to shove people out of her path she appeared to have
little trouble.

The woman had spunk. He
appreciated spunk. Despite her being his client’s fiancée, he’d
taken a…lusting to her. Not liking. He didn’t know her well enough
to like. That involved sharing mutual interests, perhaps a similar
worldview. But his
penguin
certainly enjoyed her backside bouncing under her
skirt.

He didn’t catch up with her
until she’d reached the parking lot. The warm June breeze blew her
hair back while she jogged toward a miniscule car. He could watch
that ass move all damn day.

She spun around and clutched
her belongings to her chest. “Why are you following me? I
apologized. I didn’t mean to molest you.”

“
Molest me?” Shane had to
laugh as he hefted his bag higher on his shoulder. “Honey, you can
molest me like that anytime you want.”

No, she couldn’t. She wasn’t
available. But he had to keep her talking until she propositioned
him.

Right now he had nothing to
give Connor. She’d touched his dick then apologized and blushed?
Yeah, that proved a lot. He still couldn’t figure out how someone
so shy could run any sort of escort service. Truthfully, he
couldn’t imagine this woman getting naked without turning pink and
holding a hand over her private parts. Not that she included
herself in the merchandise, but still.

“
You’re not offended?” she
asked in a tremulous voice.

“
Hardly, M,” he said,
remembering what her friend had called her. Connor’s fiancée’s name
was Maureen. So that wasn’t out of the realm.

“
How do you know my name?”
She lifted a hand to her hair, again flashing her
diamond.

Instead of responding, he
let out a deflated breath. If he dug out the photo burning a hole
in the pocket of his jeans, he’d have to accept the truth. He’d
found the woman he sought, even if her hair seemed a little curlier
outside in the glow of pink neon from the Strippendales sign. Even
if her cheekbones appeared a little more pronounced, her mouth
softer and more vulnerable. Didn’t matter. Height and weight
checked out. Time, place, touchy-feely behavior…all a
match.

He’d met Maureen Shawcross.
Dammit.

“
Your friend told me your
name.” The lie rolled off his tongue. “After the show, she pulled
me aside and said she had a friend who needed to get
laid.”

The sudden flush that
climbed from her chin to her hairline almost made him feel guilty.
“My friend is misinformed. She’s also drunk.”

He arched a brow. “You don’t
need to get laid?”

No, it’s your friends who
need to get laid, right? Your well-heeled, discreet friends with
more money than morals?

She looked him up and down
so thoroughly he suspected she was picturing him in his ridiculous
stripper getup. He would never live that down, even if no one else
ever knew about his secret sideline as a peddler of
man-flesh.

And now you’re trying to get
picked up as a prostitute…

He shook his head. Maybe
being a cop hadn't been so bad after all. At least he got a pension
and no one checked him out to deem him worthy for sale.