Playboy Pilot

For the next few minutes, we just listened to each other breathe. Oddly, those minutes relaxed my muscles more than my nap and the warm tub had done combined.

“Are you still up for dancing tonight? I

understand if you’re not. You flew a plane for fourteen hours and only took a nap, really.”

“I don’t require much sleep. I’ll be good to go in an hour.”

“I went through my suitcases before. I honestly don’t have much to go out in that covers all the parts that are required to be covered.”

“You have a light jacket?”

“I do.”

“Dress your sexiest. Throw the jacket over you to cover up. Rules don’t apply in licensed clubs, and I’m looking forward to seeing some skin.”

“Okay. Well then skin you shall see, Captain.”

FORGET DUBAI, there was a chance I could get a ticket in Texas with this outfit. I turned to my left, then to my right, modeling my dress in the mirror one last time to make sure all of my important parts were adequately covered. They were…barely. From the front, it looked like a simple little black dress, although it was really, really short. It wasn’t until I turned to the side that you could see that the entire sides were see-through. A strip of sheer fabric about eight inches wide held together the black material and showed off that it was impossible to wear anything at all underneath. Braless wasn’t unusual for me, but going without panties to a dance club was a first. It was why I hadn’t worn the dress even though I’d picked it up at a trunk sale four months ago.

To go with my high-class call girl look, I’d teased my blonde locks to give them extra body and made up my eyes in a smoky purplish gray. There was a fine line between sexy and whore, and I hoped I was teetering on the right side. When Carter knocked, I was suddenly nervous with butterflies.

“One minute!”

I gave myself a last onceover in the mirror and took a deep breath before strutting to the door in my stilettos.

Apparently, slutty was a look Carter really liked. His eyes bulged from their sockets and he cursed under his breath. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You’re trying to fucking kill me.”

I spun a slow circle to give him the full view. “You like it?”

“You have no bra or underwear on under that thing, do you?”

“There are no sides; you can’t wear any. Is it too much?”

He stayed in the doorway, holding on to both sides so tight that his knuckles turned white. The way he looked at me with such raw intensity made my skin prickle. “You look gorgeous, Kendall. It’s not too much. I just hate the thought of sharing you with anyone else in that outfit.”

“You said you wanted to see skin. So I wore it for you.”

“Thank you. It made my day. Fuck that, it made my year. Now grab your jacket and cover yourself up before I do something that you might not be okay with.”

My coat was on the bed. Slipping it on, I cinched it tight at the waist, and I was glad it fell all the way to my knees. No one could have imagined what little I had on underneath. Carter held the door as I passed, but I stopped to whisper. “I can’t think of anything you’d do that I wouldn’t be okay with.”

CLUB BOUDOIR WAS MORE glamorous than any club I’d ever been in. And that includes the annual girls’ trip I’d taken the last few years to New York City. There was a long roped off line to get in, but Carter surprised me by walking to the front. When he gave his name, we were escorted right inside. He’d reserved a table that came with an expensive bottle of champagne.

“This is beautiful.”

He pulled out my chair. “I’m glad you like it. Because I might not be able to afford dinner for the next few days after this.” He’d said it jokingly, but I knew it had to cost him a small fortune for a bottle of American Dom and no-wait entry. We shared a table full of appetizers and drank the full bottle of champagne while people-watching together. It was so effortless to spend time with Carter, whether I was sitting in our room at Maria Rosa’s or swaying to music in my chair at a swanky club in the middle of ritzy Dubai. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how weird the entire situation was.

“I can’t believe a few days ago a monkey peed on my shoulder at a boarding house and now I’m sitting in a club full of beautiful people drinking champagne with you.”

“Which do you like better?”

“I don’t know. You haven’t shown me your moves yet. Can you dance, Captain Clynes?”

He gulped back the last of the champagne in his glass. “Maybe.”

I stood and offered him my hand. “Show me what you got, hot stuff.”

One brow arched. “Hot stuff?”