Strip Search (Tap That)

“I’m going to go run your license. I’ll be right back.”

She panicked. She’d gotten distracted. She wasn’t flirting or getting good footage. There was a dashcam in her rental car and for all she knew, Sadie was sitting back in the office scoring her live.

“Is that when you ask me to spread ‘em?” Leighton winked at him a second time. Or attempted to wink. It was more of an exaggerated squint this time. Her voice sounded more manic than flirtatious.

Axl eyed her. Not with interest, but wariness. “Leighton, I need you to step out of the car.”

She hid a wince. Dang it. This was a full-on disaster. Closing her eyes for one brief second, she imagined what her best friend, Zach, would say in these circumstances. Zach was sassy and confident and a wicked flirt.

“It’s about time.” She opened the door and rose to her full height, which wasn’t much. She barely came up to his shoulders. God, he was really sexy. Just so broad and manly and stern. It made her heart rate increase and her nipples start to firm beneath her sundress.

She held her wrists out to him. “Are you going to cuff me for being naughty?” she asked, going for seductive. “Do I have to bribe my way out of this?”

His eyebrows shot up. “Have you been drinking? Or

taking prescription drugs?”

If someone had written a script for him, they should be fired. What a dumb line. There was nothing sexy about narcotics. “Of course not! It’s two in the afternoon.”

“I’m going to need you to take a breathalyzer. Do you know what that is?”

Ah, here it was. A blow job joke. “Sure. Just tell me where to blow.” Her gaze dropped down to his crotch.

“I need you to come and get in the car, Leighton.”

This wasn’t going the way Leighton had expected. She was flirting as hard as she could with Axl and he didn’t seem to be getting it. Maybe Sadie had paid him to stay in character to a certain point.

But this was way harder than she had imagined. Wasn’t it a stripper’s job to make the “customer” happy? Her own job was on the line and she was blowing it. Or not blowing it, apparently, since he hadn’t reacted positively to her innuendo. Or wait, had he? Is that why he wanted her to get in his car?

Oh, hell no. No matter how much she needed this job and no matter how good looking Axl was, the thought alone made her sweat. She didn’t give blowjobs on the side of the road to anyone. Actually, it had never come up in her life before but it just figured that somehow her flirting sucked so hard he thought she wanted to suck hard.

Disaster. She was a total disaster.

But she needed Sadie to think she was going along with this whole fake cop stripper pulling her over.

It was the game. Part of “bringing it.”

Sadie had been quite clear again this morning on what she needed to do. She had specifically said that today there would be a test. A big test she needed to pass. That Leighton had to be bubbly and flirty and fun. Always the f word.

That damn f word.

Not to mention sparkle. And now bringing it. All phrases that could die, because they were vague and subjective.

If this wasn’t the test, she had no idea what would be. This had Sadie written all over it. Pulled over by a cop. Please. She hadn’t been driving that fast.

But now she was freaked out because if he whipped it out in his patrol car she would faint. Plus, Axl wanted to take her out of camera range. She had a dashboard cam that was meant for Winnie to record a video diary about the Wedding Crashers process and her expectations for her wedding but once Leighton had seen Axl come to the window, she had turned it on. Proof that she got the joke and could roll with it.

So, she had to stay in range. “Um, I don’t think so.” She tried to lean back against her car artfully, but she partially fell into the open window. Righting herself, she laughed and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Whoops.”

“I need you to come with me, miss.”

He sounded very stern. “Oh, you are so serious.” For a stripper he was a good actor. She’d give him that. It was very difficult for her not to be obedient. It was just her personality to follow directions.

But she had to stay strong. Her future at Wedding Crashers rested on it. She stayed put, trying to strike a sexy pose against the car.

“I need you to walk a straight line for me from your car to my patrol car. Stay away from the road.”

If she walked over there she could just walk back and be in camera range again so that Sadie could see she was fun and flirty. It seemed like her best bet. So she did, fast-walking in a straight line and immediately returning. “Done.”