“Hey, I know nothing, senorita.” Tavia took the cleaning rag from her pocket and started wiping the railing past Jazzy with more fervor than before, avoiding eye contact completely.
Jayda spoke up. “Okay, girls! It’s three hours ‘til open. Let’s get this place jumpin’!” She clapped her hands over her head and gave a war-whoop.
The others answered in kind and Jayda flipped on the music, turning up the German techno-industrial-dance music for which they all had a great fondness. Jazmyn let the comment and ensuing guilty faces go and started downstairs.
Table settings in a basket, Jazzy bopped her way back up the stairs. By the time she reached the tables up there, Tavia had them sparkling under the moving beams of colored lights.
Each of the tables up there was supported by a single rod that ran down through the middle of an upright wheel adorned with a neon-colored spinner hubcap. Purple light tubes ringed each tabletop. Bucket seats from different types of cars had been fashioned into seats and the headrests were still intact and moveable. A scissor jack sat in the center of each table holding the drink menus.
In the back, where the ever-moving thin beams of colored lights didn’t reach, hanging lights burned dimly above each table, setting a more romantic ambiance. Each dim bulb had a hubcap with tassels for a shade.
Jayda placed the drink menus on top of the scissor jacks and left a short stack of beverage napkins in front of it. She also placed a single car trivia card on top of the napkins. The trivia cards had been Madison’s idea and Jazmyn liked them. There were probably a thousand of them stored in the stock room. The cards, once used, went into a separate plastic tote, not to be used again until all the others had been used. Jazmyn thought it would be novel to also include some trivia cards about music and some about liquor.
Finishing the placements upstairs, Jazmyn moved downstairs and decorated the tables there. The booths downstairs received a placement that was a bit of a variation on the ones for the tables and she always placed them last as there were fewer booths to decorate.
The private rooms in back were Jayda’s territory. She always did the pre-open setup back there, switching things up and making special arrangements for any requests made by customers who called ahead and made reservations. Jazmyn thought the private area had been a good idea, but she wondered sometimes what all went on back there. She had helped clean a few suspicious messes already.
Though she didn’t consider herself a prude, Jazmyn couldn’t see a time when she would be okay with going to a public place and doing anything sexual with only a curtain separating her and her lover from the world. She didn’t judge people who could do those things; she didn’t think she could ever do it, though.
An hour after they had started pre-open procedures, the women opened a bottle of vodka for their ritual drink. Madison cleaned the shot glasses afterward and Jazmyn started doing the booth placements. The music raised the mood and the vodka elevated it even more.
Between songs, Jazmyn heard the unmistakable sound of a Harley outside. Peering out a window to the front parking area, she saw Gage climbing off his Fat Boy. Her heart skipped a few beats. The sight of his long, strong body, stretched out as he climbed off the Harley was amazingly sexy.
Gage unstrapped a saddle bag and tossed it over his shoulder as he walked to the front door. Jazmyn was waiting for him there and her friends catcalled and whooped at her. Trying to shush them, she opened the door before Gage raised his hand to the handle.
Removing his shades, he smile
d broadly at Jazmyn. “Hey there. Now that’s what I call service.” He stepped into the club.
Jazmyn shut and locked the door behind him. “Well, we try. Come on in and have a drink, Gage. It’s gotten hot out there this evening, huh?”
“You better believe it. The humidity is murderous up here in the mountains.” He followed Jazmyn to the bar.
Chapter 3
The other women greeted Gage but none came over to where he and Jazzy stood at the bar. She was glad—relieved even—that they stayed away. It was impossible to know what they might say or do if they did come over. It would surely be something to embarrass her and she didn’t need that.
What she needed was another shot of vodka. She took it when she offered Gage a double shot of whiskey. The slow burn faded from her mouth and throat, but warmed her insides and left a tingle down toward her crotch. It was a pleasant tingle that heightened as she eyed Gage and his tattoos when he downed his own drink.
“That hit the spot, Jazmyn. How about one more before I start working?” His grin was beautiful, bright, and full of the most perfect teeth she had ever seen.
She nodded and filled his glass again. “I hear you’re going to repair our section of faulty lights up there.” She bit her bottom lip and pointed overhead in the direction of the flickering lights.
“That’s what they tell me.” He set his empty glass on the bar.
Jazmyn leaned over the bar to retrieve it. Gage’s strong hands stood out starkly against the backlit bar top, his tan accentuating each and every crease and bulge and blood vein there. She had the sudden image of those dark tanned hands stretched out across her pale, milky stomach. She could feel the heat of his touch as if he had really touched her. Catching her breath before she moaned, Jazmyn took the glass and met his gaze guiltily.
“Look like you just saw a ghost. Everything okay?”
His gaze drifted down to her tits and her nipples hardened. I need to get laid before I have an orgasm without being touched.
“Yep. Everything is perfect.” And that was the truth. Everything about Gage, so far, was perfect. She glanced at his hands again, unsure where to let her gaze light. The rest of him, darkly tanned, taut, muscled, would look as good as his hands did against that backlit bar. Her mind gave a quick rundown of all the backlit flat surfaces available in the Hideaway. Unfortunately, she came up with none that would be large and sturdy enough for Gage to lie on.
Standing straight, Gage took his bag and motioned toward the stairs. “I’ll just go ahead and get started so I’m sure to be done by the time you open.”
Jazmyn nodded. “Sure thing. Um, if you need anything, anything at all, just give me a yell.” She wanted to hear him yell her name. Perhaps yell her name in the throes of passion. She didn’t think she would be able to be the aggressor and pick him up for sex. He would have to do the asking, she was almost sure of it.
Dropping her a wink, he went to the stairs. Jazmyn watched him climb to the next level. His legs flexing, jeans hugging his thighs and his ass as he went up, and his back muscles bulging against the thin material of his tank top quadrupled the tingling feeling in her lower abdomen and between her thighs.