At the Stroke of Midnight (Naughty Princess Club 1)

As I settle back against the leather seat, PJ slides closer to me until our thighs our touching and the heat from his chest radiates against my arm when he leans into me. For just a few seconds, I forget about my need to cough. I forget my own name, and I forget where I am as PJ sits close, staring into my eyes. He smells so good I want to do something completely out of character, like straddle his lap and bury my face into the side of his neck.

And then he has to go and open his mouth and ruin everything.

“I’m just saying, there’s no shame in ordering something more your speed.”

I immediately pull away from him and narrow my eyes.

“More my speed? What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

With a sigh, he pulls his arm out from behind me and runs his hand through his hair.

“Why are you here, Cynthia?” he asks softly.

I curse myself a hundred different ways because I like the sound of my name coming from his mouth, all soft and sweet. It’s a shame he has to be such a judgmental jerk.

“You know why I’m here. I just told you why I’m here. We have a good business idea. No, scratch that. We have a great business idea. Excuse me for thinking you could be a decent human being and give us a few pointers or steer us in the right direction.”

I forget all about manners and being polite. He doesn’t deserve my manners.

“I’m not trying to be mean; I’m just trying to understand. Ariel, she could possibly make it work. She’s got the confidence. I just don’t think she’d be able to shut her mouth long enough to not insult paying customers. But you and Belle? Taking your clothes off for money?”

He’s lucky he didn’t end that question with a chuckle, but his words sting just as much as if he’d thrown his head back and had a nice, hearty laugh.

“What’s wrong with Belle and me being strippers? You don’t even know us,” I mutter angrily, trying really hard not to cry because he thinks it’s so preposterous that someone like me could be a stripper.

All of my confidence leaves me in a rush, and I cross my arms in front of me, my shoulders drooping as I practically curl into myself, wondering if he thinks it’s absurd because I’m not pretty enough to be a stripper. He lives in this world. He runs a very successful business in this world. He knows good strippers from bad strippers. He knows what type of women are beautiful enough and sexy enough to entice people to throw all their money at them. He’s spent a handful of minutes with me and doesn’t know me, but he isn’t blind. I’m a thirty-two-year-old mother of a teenager whose husband left her for a much younger, much prettier woman-child. He doesn’t need more than a handful of minutes to take one look at me and know I don’t have what it takes to turn a man on and empty out his wallet. The idea that he’s thinking this as he sits here staring at me, hurts a thousand times worse than the day I walked into my house to find divorce papers and my whole world came crashing down around me.

Sure, I lost hope for a little while, but I picked myself back up. I came up with a new plan and I figured out how to fix things. You can easily fix money problems if you set your mind to it; you can’t easily fix whether someone thinks you’re sexy or not, even when you have a crazy friend who gives you a makeover.

“Stop those wheels from turning in your head right now,” PJ finally says softly, grabbing my chin and forcing me to look at him. “I might not know you very well, but I’m pretty good at reading people, and your face is an open book.”

He drops his fingers from my chin and cocks his head to the side.

“I didn’t mean that you don’t look the part. I haven’t been able to take my eyes off of you since I saw you walk through the door. You look beautiful and sexy. Stunning, actually,” he tells me quietly, taking a minute to slowly look me up and down to reinforce his words. “But you aren’t comfortable wearing these clothes. I’ve seen you fidget with your shirt and your shorts more times than I can count because you aren’t comfortable in them. You aren’t comfortable being in this club. Two dancers have already gone on stage, and you never once looked in their direction.”

“Because I was busy talking to you!” I argue, even though I know he is one hundred percent correct.

As soon as I heard the first stripper being announced through the sound system, I spoke faster and louder, doing everything I could not to turn my head and look at the stage on the other side of the club. I could feel my face growing red with embarrassment for the stripper, and I didn’t know her or even get one look at her. I wanted to watch her dance. I wanted to take mental notes of all the moves she made and how much or how little eye contact she had so I could go home and practice it in the mirror when I was alone, but then I became mortified at the idea of looking at her and having PJ watch me look at her. It felt too intimate. I felt too exposed.