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Could Tate be a walking, talking casino, tricked out with distractions advanced enough to get even me to play the game? No, I wasn’t that naïve. I might be a virgin, but I knew a come-on when I saw one.
Anaia, who Tate had sent for water and aspirin, returned with my items, slipping them to me with a wink and a whisper.
“He’s cute. Have fun,” she giggled under her breath before returning to work.
Great, everybody was in on it.
I swallowed the aspirin and sat uneasily on my hands, trying to keep still.
“Do you like the show?” he asked.
“They’re very talented,” I replied, hoping my tone was diplomatic.
“You’re not required to like it, you know. I enjoy your honest opinions.”
I turned to face him in full, and was momentarily caught off-guard by his profile in the dim fog. Those blue eyes peered out at me with deep perception, his full lips wet with vodka.
“Okay, then honestly? I don’t know why you’d rent out a theater to strippers and call it a ‘show.’ There’s a million strip clubs in Vegas. Putting one inside a casino doesn’t make you special.”
Tate took this in stride, but now he’d opened the floodgates, so I battered on.
“And hiring a show of all Asian women, and doing the advertising you guys did? It’s a little creepy. And sort of racist.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I noticed that on the way in. You’re right.”
“I am?”
“Yeah. Not very twenty-first century of us. I’ll get my team on it. Any other complaints, while we’re here?”
I held back a smile. “What are you, HR?”
“Think of me as HR Extreme.”
“Is that your official job title?”
“Yeah, hadn’t you heard? It’s CEO and HR Extreme. I’m a man of many hats.”
Snorting at his bad joke, I replied, “I can’t imagine what those hats would look like.”
“Oh, you know. Probably a fancy top hat.”
“Like Mr. Peanut?”
“Precisely.” He grinned, smile lines creasing around his mouth.
Why do the bad ones always have to be so fucking cute? It’s like the universe just won’t play fair. It should be the social workers, the teachers, the veterinarians who get the hot genes. Rich boys with daddy’s cash deserve to look like Mr. Toad.
But here was Tate, the sexiest, douchiest guy in town, looking at me as though I was something special, and the laughs between us felt real. I felt my earlier anger at him begin to dissolve as those blue eyes probed deeper into mine. Why couldn’t I just stick to my guns and call this guy out for the entitled asshole he was?! Ugh, Kiki!
The lights shifted around us, turning a deeper red, signaling an act change. The classic woo woo woo siren noise of a strip club DJ sounded, and Tate and I grinned at one another in recognition.
“They’ve had this same sound cue on a loop since 1980.”
“Which is weird,” Tate replied, “Because it sounds like some kind of sinking submarine. Not exactly sexy.”
“Mayday, mayday, tits alert!”
He slapped the table with a laugh, and his hand brushed against mine. We both went rigid at the contact, and then, much to my surprise — and yeah, okay, a little delight — he let his fingers remain on the table, just barely grazing my own, like that painting of God and Adam, a single finger reaching to the skies to make contact.
Neither of us commented aloud on the fingers, just smiled knowingly at one another. Fuck, was I really doing this? Was I going to be seduced by the last man in the world I would’ve given the time of day to?
Suddenly, confetti burst from the ceiling, dousing our heads in paper bits.
“Did the show just end?” I called out to Tate over the cheers of the audience.
He pulled pink tissue paper off an eyelash. “It must have. I guess we got… distracted.”
His fingertips began to move over my hand, one index tracing my knuckles, as the air around us fluttered with the explosion.
“How,” he murmured, in a low voice, “would you like to get a little more distracted?”
My pulse quickened, and a throb reverberated through my vagina. I don’t know what I would’ve done next, because without warning, there was a wail through the DJ’s mic, causing Tate and I to momentarily start back in surprise.
“Attention, ladies and gentlemen,” the voice boomed. “The show’s now over, but the party will go on. This theater is now a nightclub, and we’ll be spinning sweet tunes all night long. Stick around for a hot and sexy time.”
I looked to Tate and imitated the DJ’s voice. “Hot and sexy time.”
He laughed, and joined in. “Oh, baby, give it to me, pussycat.”
We doubled over, guffawing at our own silliness and the generally foolish nature of the damn show.
“This guy’s totally been DJing here since the seventies, right?” I asked once I’d regained my breath.
