Summary: Charlie’s friends purchase her a lap dance with the club’s hottest stripper, but their business transaction may turn into much more than just one lap dance.
“What?! A lap dance…with you?” Charlie chokes out.
Unless you want one of the other guys.“ Maui motions towards the stage with his head.
“Oh, God no!” Charlie shouts much too loudly. “You’re the only one here I’m remotely attracted to.” Shit. She’s reached the point in the evening where she’s lost her filter.
His mouth quirks into crooked smile as her friends snicker in the background. “So you think I’m attractive?”
Charlie rolls her eyes. Like he doesn’t know almost every woman in the room dropped their panties once he strutted onto the stage. “You look like a freaking sex god. I doubt you needed to hear that from me.”
Maui shrugs. “It never hurts to hear it again. So are we doing this?”
“Uhh…” Charlie looks to her friends hesitantly and is met with encouraging looks. At this point it would just be rude to decline, right? Sober Charlie would never do something like this, but drunk Charlie could get into it. “Lead the way.”
Bryce guides Charlie to a private room towards the back of the club and switches on the dim mood lighting. The club’s music is already playing through the overhead speakers, and there are two plush leather chairs and a matching couch surrounding a pole in the center of the room. “Make yourself comfortable. Just to warn you there are cameras for both your safety and mine. We can leave the door open too, if you want.”
She weighs her options and decides it would be much more awkward to worry about people peering through the door at whatever was going on than to have it closed. And judging from his reputation with the crowd, she has a feeling she can trust him. “Nah, we can close it.” She sits in the middle of the big couch while Bryce shuts the door. “So how does this work?”
“Well, there are some hard and fast rules.” Bryce sits in the chair closest to Charlie. “Full nudity is prohibited by law, so no matter how much you beg, these puppies…” He hooks a thumb into his waistband and pulls it until it snaps back. “…are staying put.”
Charlie scoffs. “Like I would really ask you to do that.”
“You’d be surprised.” Bryce scoots forward so his knees just barely brush against hers and he leans in close. “When I’m up there, straddling your hips, grinding and writhing on top of you, you might just realize you don’t have half as much self control as you think you do.”
Charlie shudders and her pulse quickens, producing deafening thumps inside her chest she hopes he isn’t close enough to hear. She’s drunk enough that she probably has enough of a permanent rosy glow to mask the fact that her cheeks are burning. She clears her throat, trying to shake the image of him moving on top of her. “And the next rule?”
“No hands below the belt.”
“Noted,” she replies concisely. She doesn’t need to add any additional commentary that would cause him to get her any more worked up than she already is. “Anything else?”
He looks her over thoughtfully, a smile playing on his lips. “I take you for the type that plays by the rules, so I think that should cover it. How do you want me to start?”
Charlie swallows hard. “Umm…what are my options?”
“I could do a little dancing for you first on the floor, or we could get right to it.”
“Oh! Can you dance on the pole?” Charlie giggles imaging him spinning around it dramatically.
“Sure, if that’s your thing.”
“I’m kidding, it’s not my thing! None of this is my thing.” She playfully pushes his shoulder, suddenly realizing the drinks have made her much too comfortable with this situation.
“We’ll see about that.” He flies up off the chair and grabs hold of the pole, hoisting his whole body up in the air and wrapping himself around like gravity doesn’t exist. He does a series of spins with his body in various impossible positions with the only indication it is any effort at all being his tightly flexed muscles. He comes back down and faces her with a proud grin.
“Wow. That was seriously impressive. Like I would have fallen flat on my face had I even been able to launch myself off the ground, but I was getting more of an athletic acrobat vibe than a sexy stripper one.”
“Then how about this.” Maui grabs a folding chair from the corner and sets in front of her. “Sit.”
Charlie does as she is told and he turns with his back to her. He shakes his ass and and pops his hips, and she can’t help but admire how perfect this side of him is too. He bends over and somehow in one smooth motion ends up with his legs around her and the back of the chair while he’s propped up by his arms. His pelvis is resting against her lap just enough for her to feel the heat of him through the fabric of her little red dress. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands so she grasps the edges of the chair but she’d much rather be rubbing them all over him.
“You can touch me, you know…if you want,” he offers as if reading her mind, but maybe he’s just done this enough to know how most women think. She tentatively brings her hands up to the back of his thighs, but as rolls his hips over her, she wants more, and she slides them up, cupping his firm ass. And then before she knows it he maneuvers back around on his feet to face her.
“Was that better?” He asks with a cocky grin, and she just nods because she can barely form coherent thoughts at this point. “Good.” He starts dancing in front of her, moving around the back of her chair, his hot breath on her neck as he slides he fingertips down her arms leaving goosebumps in their wake and sending shivers down her spine. As he comes back around he swings a leg over her and his beautiful face is just inches from hers. “You doing okay?”
No, she is not okay. She’s dizzy and she’s not sure if it’s the alcohol or his close proximity. Maybe both. His features up close are just as flawless from a distance, and he smells like vanilla and the ocean. Everything about him is intoxicating. But she’s not going to tell him this. “Yep, all good.” She squeaks.
He gives her a wink and starts grind on top of her, and she wonders how it’s humanly possible to move one’s hips that way. She stares forward at the hard planes of his chest, glistening with a dewy layer of sweat and she can’t resist her compulsion to get her hands on him. She splays her hands on his pecs and works her way down his rippling abs. He closes his eyes, likes he’s momentarily forgotten his act is just for show, but then he snaps back, eyes open with his confident, focused demeanor. He dips down low and rolls his body up, and when he stops he’s impossibly close, their breaths mingling and his heated gaze never leaving hers.
And just like that, it’s over. He hops off, standing in front of her with his hands on his hips. “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it? But it’s probably good this isn’t your kind of thing. Now that you’ve had the best, anyone else would just be a disappointment.”
Charlie shakes her head and laughs. “You know, if you weren’t so charming and alarmingly hot, your cockiness would be quite off-putting.”
Maui chuckles. “I prefer to call it being confident in my own abilities. I’m good at what I do, and I own it. You saw how that room full of women reacted to me…and how you did.”
His stare is so intense she has to look away. He certainly is skilled at making every woman feel like they are the only one in the room – so good it’s easy to get fooled into thinking there’s something real there when he’s doing the same thing with everyone – because it’s his job. And then one of either the best or the worst ideas she’s ever had comes to her in her still half drunken state. If he could pretend with her this easily, it wouldn’t be hard to convince others there was something between them as well. She looks back up to meet his eyes. “You are right. You are the best at what you do, and I think I have the perfect job for you.”
He sits down in the chair next to her. “Oh, are you organizing a bachelorette party or something like that? I also do private events on the side so we could probably set something up.”
“Not exactly. Okay, maybe it’s not at all like that. But there is a wedding involved. I want to hire you to come to my cousin’s wedding with me…in Jamaica.
“Wait a minute.” Maui holds his hand up. “I’m a stripper, not an escort. I don’t have sex with people for money.”
“No, no, I don’t want to have sex with you!…not that I wouldn’t. Oh my God this is not coming out right. It’s a long story but my boyfriend broke up with me and I already RSVP’D for him to be my plus one to my cousin’s wedding. I don’t want to have to face her and everyone else pitying me and asking about my love life.”
He leans back in the chair considering her words. “This is kind of crazy. I could be serial killer for all you know. Plus you’re kind of drunk right now. I’m not sure you are really thinking this through.”
Charlie leans in and puts a hand on his knee. “It’s one week in Jamaica starting next Sunday, all expenses paid. Plus I’ll give you…ten thousand dollars.”
Maui’s eyes widen. “That is quite an offer…but I think I need to sleep on it, and you need to make sure this is still want when you are sober. Give me your phone, so I can give you my number. I don’t trust you to type it in right now.”
“You…are probably right.” She takes a couple tries to unlock the phone before handing it to him. She looks at the entry and reads his name out loud. “Bryce Lahela. Is that your real name? La-he-la. Sexy, just like you.” Why is nobody else here to shut her up?
“Yep. I figured you might want to check me out and make sure I’m not a felon or anything.”
Charlie opens a text message with Bryce and sends him her full name. “Now you have my legal first and last name too.”
“Keeping me in suspense until I get back to my phone, huh?
“What can I say, I’m a woman of mystery.” Why did she just say that? She needs to just get out of here before she does anything embarrassing, or even more embarrassing than she already has. “Nice to meet you Bryce.” She kind of wants to hug him but doesn’t know if that would be appropriate, so she extends a hand.
“Likewise,” Bryce gives her hand a firm squeeze, and somehow even his handshake is electric, the feel of his touch lingering long after it’s gone. He opens up the door for her. “After you.”
They go their separate directions, and Charlie finds her friends who immediately grill her for details.
“So how big is his thing?” Sienna blurts out immediately and a few nearby heads turn towards them.
“Oh my god, Sienna.” Charlie shakes her head. “This is not that kind of place.”
“Tell me you got to feel him up a little at least.” Aurora chimes in.
“Yeah, we want to make sure you got our money’s worth.” Jackie adds.
“You three are too much.” Charlie laughs. “I don’t know how much you paid, but whatever it was, he’s probably worth at least twice that, and that’s really all I have to say.” She’s not getting into the whole proposition to be her fake boyfriend thing because, even now, it’s starting to sound a bit absurd. She’ll cross that bridge if and when it comes.