breathed, fanning her face twice as fast as the music’s rhythm. “He’s exactly what you need.”
Air flowed from Rio’s lungs in a long, unsteady rush. “You mean us. Killer Bods.”
“I mean you,” her partner qualified. “You need a good fucking by a young buck just like him to fry your brains senseless. You’ve been going without way too long.”
“Shut up.”
Water and ice spilled over her hand as she set the glass down, splashing on the wooden bar top. An instant later, Luanne the bartender wiped away the puddle and handed Rio a fresh white towel.
“You do. That’s why you’ve been so evil.” Smoothing her hand down the length of her auburn dreadlocks, threaded beads clicked together. Galaxeé flicked the thick mass over her shoulder, still staring at Sullivan, mesmerized.
Rio tsked. The nerve of this woman. She folded the towel neatly into quarters and laid it across the curved bar. Yeah, maybe she had been evil, but she’d never shown bad manners to anyone other than her best friend and, of course, her ex-husband Devon, the midlife-crisis hound.
Arching one eyebrow a fraction, Galaxeé said, “You’re getting another pimple, too, right there in the center of your forehead. At your age, any fuckable age, lack of weenie action always launches a round of zits.”
“Shut up. Where do you come up with this mess?” She stole another glance at Sullivan. This man wasn’t lacking anything from what she could tell.
Galaxeé leaned back, dangling her arms behind the chair, cackling. “It’s true, especially after wrestling the monthly blues. I used to get them.” She’d hooked up with a new honey, an older man who, after four months, still lavished her with expensive gifts, bombarding her with boyish love. “Besides, I can tell you really like the way this guy looks, the way he moves. Your aura’s melting, on the verge of disintegrating. And it’s the first time I’ve seen your eyes glaze over in almost two decades.”
Aura. And glaze? She tsked again. Sometimes Galaxeé talked too much smack. No one caused Rio Saunders to glaze over, especially youngsters. “Bar lights, disco lights—”
“Bullshit. Admit it. He’s hot.”
He was hot—is hot—and far too young for her. Plus, he was nowhere near right for her. “Why do you think he came here for a job? Why not apply at Silk’s?”
Smoothly Silk, Killer’s sole competition, employed two African American dancers Rio and Galaxeé had disqualified from their league of performers a month before their own club opened. The guys were physically unsuitable for near-naked entertainment.
“Maybe he did,” Galaxeé replied as the music died away. “We need to interview him anyway. Ask him.”
Bryce collected his clothes and went backstage. After stripping out of the G-string, he struggled into a pair of tight stonewashed jeans. Luckily, his navy knit pullover soaked up sweat. It was freezing outside.
Snow—big flakes—had begun to fall by the time he’d arrived here. Winter had settled on Denver on Halloween night as usual, and continued a blustery rampage.
This was the stupidest plan on record. Galaxeé and whoever the hell this Rio broad is will never hire me. Should’ve come up with a better scheme and left Dallas out of the mix. If he ever finds out, our friendship is history.
His half sister, Angelina Berardi, owned Killer’s competition and Bryce was her silent partner. Silk’s was headed straight to hell as long as Killer Bods kept its doors open.
The club’s downward spiral had stretched his cash thinner than ice after a first hard freeze, compounded by Thorobred Computers lacking a new contract over the last seven months. Banking on a few still in the till, he hadn’t exactly wanted to strip to please a bunch of frenzied chicks. But, he also had a second working program: boxing in Jason Simmons, one of Killer’s dancers, who needed somebody to knock the arrogant chip off his shoulders. Simmons dated Angelina—as in, walked all over her.
Armed with a fail-safe plot backed by his computer expertise, Bryce had pretended he’d met Rio Saunders. Dallas had fallen for the in-lust ruse.
“If you want her,” Coop had said, “you got to get close to her. I’ll tell you what, my man. She is not easy meat. The woman’s got soul and determination, along with much class. This club means everything to her. Everything, dude. Nothing and nobody gets in her way when it comes to Killer Bods. As for Galaxeé Barnett, don’t try to get slick—nothing gets by her. Some of the guys nicknamed her ‘Loose Lips’ for good reason, and she knows everything that goes on, somehow. But the owners are professionals, all business.”
At the time, Bryce needed Dallas’s foot-in-the-door help. “She must have an old man or sugar daddy.” Not many chicks had their own business without financial help—like Angelina.
“Not. Unless she’s got him under lock and key, hogtied and gagged. She dates. Saw her with a couple older dudes, fifty-ish maybe. I’ve never seen her with a youngster like you, and never any guy tinted on the color scale’s lighter side, especially one with hair longer than Cher’s. I’ll get you an application, drop a heads-up, but you gotta lose those damned Coke-bottle glasses. Makes your eyes look bigger than E.T.’s peepers. Might want to think about waxing, too.” Laughing, Dallas said, “Hurts like hell.”
Testily conforming, Bryce permitted a beautician to chop off his locks to near-respectable length. Lasik surgery corrected the crappy vision he’d had since childhood. Horn-rimmed glasses had been a pain in his…on the bridge of his nose. Fuck waxing.
The new look had earned him lots more attention when he had little time for play. Work kept him busy, kept his libido in check most of the time.
He tucked the pullover inside his jeans, slung his black leather jacket over his shoulder and went out the dressing room’s door. Unfamiliar with Killer’s layout, he strode back across the stage and down the stairs, his gaze directed at the floor. Through a collection of tables stacked with hardwood chairs, he wove his way to the bar where Killer’s owners sat. Dancing was the easy part.
“Very nice.”
He recognized Galaxeé’s business tone from the call for tryouts.
“Exceptionally provocative.”
That sultry voice, chilly as a winter pond, floated through his senses, heating his skin unnaturally. Bryce looked up. The partner?
Exotic features fit her—coppery skin coloring, short-cropped platinum-blond hair lengthening to a shag that framed an oval face. Penetrating catlike hazel eyes held his gaze. When was the last time his heart stuttered and pounded like a damn kettledrum? He wiped away the cool trickle of sweat from his forehead.
“Thanks.”
“Better than nice.” Galaxeé tipped her martini glass toward him. “Sheer perfection.”
Encouraged, Bryce nodded, smiled. One point for his side.
“This is my partner Rio Saunders.”
“Tell us something,” she said. “Why aren’t you dancing at Silk’s?”
Busted. Ears on fire, his face surely flushed five different
