Stripped Down (18 page)

Whether she was picking it up from me or she was more attached to Beckett than I’d thought, I didn’t know.

I did know I couldn’t do this alone anymore. I needed a friend, someone who knew him, someone I could confide in. Someone I could rant at, who’d drink to misery with me, and who’d understand without judging.

That was how I’d ended up at the park with Mia and CiCi. The latter of whom was currently swinging upside down on the monkey bars despite my best efforts at convincing her not to. Needless to say, I was glad she was wearing shorts and not the skirt she’d insisted upon wearing.

Mia had already listened to my venting for at least fifteen minutes without complaint. I felt awful, but when I’d tried to stop, she’d told me to go on and get it all out and laughed my apology right out of, well, the park.

Every time I’d seen her before, she’d seemed a little wild and crazy, devil-may-care-ish, but I was already seeing that she had a softer, more compassionate side.

In other words, she was the friend I hadn’t known I’d needed.

“Honestly,” she said when I was finally done, “I’m not sure what to tell you. This is the strangest situation. When he told us what had happened, we assumed you’d just get an annulment, but of course, it’s never that simple, and Beck has to be awkward over every little thing. Hell, this would probably be over if he’d just signed the divorce papers before he gave them to you.”

I grimaced and nodded. It would have been way over. “I wish it were as simple as us not having to see each other outside work. Although, even now, we’re seeing each other more often.”

“You could ask him to have West or Vicky train you,” she suggested. “I know West wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m not sure West exactly likes me.”

“He doesn’t know you. Honestly, I think he’s still surprised Beck allowed a child to sleep in his spare room.” Her grin was infectious. “When we left, he told me that the last time Beck crossed a child, it was his seven-year-old cousin at his last family reunion. Long story short, the kid didn’t let his food settle before swimming. He threw up in his mom’s pool. While Beck was in it. She had to have the entire thing drained, and he considered bleaching himself to get the smell of vomit off himself.”

I winced. Yuck. “That makes total sense why he’d have an aversion to kids. And absolutely no sense at all as to why he likes CiCi.”

“Well, look at her. She’s like a little royal ray of sunshine, isn’t she? Does she ever not smile or laugh?”

Yes. On Friday night. “Not often. But, then again, the things she should be sad about, she doesn’t understand.”

“Your dad?”

I guessed Beck had told her. “Yeah. She knows he’s sick, but she doesn’t understand how sick.”

“They really can’t cure it?”

I shrugged and looked down. Thankfully, CiCi was now the right way up on the monkey bars.

“There’s an experimental drug that could make him strong enough for chemo, but his insurance won’t cover it, and we can’t afford it. Right now, his body couldn’t take another round of chemo because infections have killed his immune system.”

“That sucks. I’m so sorry. And, now, you have Beck and his bullshit to deal with.”

“Only because he doesn’t leave me alone.”

Mia laughed, leaning back on the blanket I’d brought. She shook her hair out, and it glinted bright copper in the sunlight. “Yeah, that’s one thing neither Beck nor West excels at—going the hell away. I’d like to tell you Beck will give up, but, Cass, if he wants you, he might not give up unless you murder him or something equally drastic.”

“Prison seems like an expensive price for peace.”

She smiled, looking at the park where CiCi was running around. “He’d probably come back and haunt you, if I’m honest.”

She was probably right. He felt like that kinda guy.

I sighed and crossed my legs, sitting up. “I just don’t know what to do about it all. I want to distance Ciara from him because it’s gonna be hard on her, but then he basically tells me he’s getting attached to her.” Maybe even us. Me. I didn’t know.

“I think it’s less her and more the two of you.” Mia pushed hair from her forehead and adjusted her sunglasses, but even through the dark lenses, I could see her eyes on me. “I spoke to him last night when I stopped by with some fliers for the promotion next week. He seemed pretty frustrated in general, but he told me about your new job. Clearly, the two of you have issues with this situation that you need to talk about but no time to actually do it. Maybe on Monday, with nobody else around, you’ll find it.”

I glanced up at CiCi to see if she was okay, and when I saw her swinging happily on the swing, I sighed and picked a long blade of grass from the ground next to the blanket. I ran it through my fingers as I thought about it.

She was right. Of course she was. We never really had time. I always had my responsibilities or he had his. We were at work. CiCi was around. Always something, but never time.

“Probably. But what do I say?”

Mia shrugged. “If I knew, I’d tell you.”

I sighed. “Thanks. That’s so helpful.”

She laughed and sat up straight. “Cassie... When was the last time you had fun? And I don’t mean accidentally getting drunk with your boss.”

I pursed my lips at her, but her smile was so infectious that I found myself smiling right back at her.

“I mean, like...real, honest-to-god fun, where the only worry is how long you have to wait to be served for your next drink.”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever had it.

“Never,” I admitted. “I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth, and I’ve worked ever since. You’d be surprised how quickly people forget about you when you have a child to worry about.”

Her lips curved to the side with a mischievous twist. “Do you think your parents would have her tonight so you can finally have that? ‘Cause I think you need it.”

“Probably, but I really don’t want to ask them. This was going to be the first weekend they’ve had alone in ages.”

“Try.” She shrugged a shoulder. “If they say yes, I’ll take you out. And, if not, I’ll bring the wine to you.”

I
only had one explanation for why the taxi I was currently in was turning onto the Strip: my parents had missed the noise and chaos my daughter brought to their house.

Mom had apparently noticed that there was something bugging me on Friday, before Beck and I had even argued, so the idea of me actually having a girlfriend to go partying with was too thrilling for her to refuse having CiCi.

I didn’t know if that was sad, lame, pathetic, or all three in one giant idiotic ball.

Probably the last. It was pretty sad that, at twenty-three, I didn’t have a friend to party with. I totally owed my parents a giant bunch of flowers and chocolate for this.

Meanwhile, I had no idea where we were going, and I had no idea what we were doing. I should have been afraid, considering we’d been drinking wine in my house for the last hour, but Mia was refusing to tell me. In hindsight, that should have been my warning.

“Have you ever been to a male strip club?” she finally asked me when I questioned our destination for the hundredth time.

I froze. “No. If I’ve barely been to an actual club...”

“Okay. We’re going to Rock Solid. But trust me, okay?”

“Trust you with what? Are you buying me a lap dance?”

She grinned but said, “No. Although that was how I met West...”

“No, Mia. Don’t even think about it,” I warned her. I was not down for a lap dance. I’d never had one, but I knew I didn’t want it.

“It’s theme night.” She turned toward me in the back of the cab and tucked her hair behind her ear. “That means that, for the most part, the main dance is themed. Tonight, it’s Singing in The Rain.”

“That’s a theme?”

“Apparently. I don’t choose them. I just schedule them. West tells me what to put when. I have no idea what’s about to go down.”

That sounded promising. Not. At all.

I ran my fingers through my hair, thankful for once in my life that it was thick and would settle quickly enough. “Okay. Let’s go. Why not?”

She cast her gaze toward me as if she knew something I didn’t, but her smile belied that, so the moment we pulled up outside Rock Solid, I climbed out the cab without a care. It felt strange, this being out without knowing I’d be groped or grabbed or inappropriately whispered to.

The freedom was...unusual. Uncomfortable, almost. Still, I relished the hot breeze as it ruffled my hair, the thick, Vegas air as it coated my skin, the ground as my heels clicked against it.

Real heels. Not hooker heels.

God, I felt twenty-three for the first time in...forever.

I felt like I’d imagined I should.

I took Mia’s hand, and she led us into the club with nothing more than a wink to the guys at the door. Of course she knew them—regardless, she had so much charm that she could charm a class of high school seniors into any club in this city if that’s what she wanted to do.

She wouldn’t, I was pretty sure, but she could.

“Well, well, well,” Vicky drawled as she dramatically mixed a cocktail behind the bar. “What brings you two here?”

“Dragged here!” I shouted.

“Dragged her!” Mia shouted too.

We shared a glance, and she giggled.

“A cosmo jug with two straws when you’ve got a minute, Vick!”

That sounded like a very bad idea.

“And you,” she said to me, grabbing my shoulders. “Turn this way.”

She spun me until I was staring right at the main stage that ran down the center of the club. Four guys danced against the poles that dotted it, and I watched, mesmerized, as they contorted their bodies into positions they shouldn’t have been in.

I mean, sure, I’d been in many of those, but it didn’t seem right at all.

Where did their dicks—

Never mind.

Found them.

I found exactly where their dicks went. Hard. Against their thighs. Hips. Stomachs.

Yowza.

I’d been working in the wrong club, hadn’t I?

Mia laughed loudly next to me and shoved a glass jug of cocktail in front of me. I grabbed the spare straw and sipped. Yowza two-point-oh. Vicky made a damn strong cocktail, and also a damn good one. She definitely had to teach me the ways of the bartender Jedi as I learned from Beck.

Somehow, I didn’t believe he knew how to make one this way.

By the time the guys on the stage were done and the lights had dimmed, we were at the end of our jug, and Vicky was handing us another jug that was full of a sweet, blue cocktail.

“What’s happening now?” I said as quietly as I could to Mia.

“The show,” she replied, a glint in her eyes.

The lights completely went out, swathing every inch of the club, besides the bar, in darkness.

I knew this from The Landing Strip.

Something big was about to go down.

And, by god, it did.

One spotlight came down on a guy wearing a black suit and a white shirt, soaking wet.

“Is that...West?” I asked.

Mia nodded. “Once a month. Compromise. Not the worst one I’ve ever made.” She flashed me a playful smile in the dim light as West slowly tipped his hat and lowered it down his body.

The moment his hat covered what would be his cock, a second spotlight came on.

I didn’t need to stare to know who was beneath it.

I knew those shoulders, that jaw, that body, anywhere.

Beck.

He did exactly what West had done, slowly dragging his hat from his head down his front until his cock was covered by it. Somehow, he made it sexier, and I didn’t know how. Maybe it was that I knew Mia had an irrefutable claim on West, or maybe it was because, technically speaking, Beck was my husband...

I didn’t want to think of either of those things.

I wanted to watch. Enjoy. Allow myself to let go in a way I never had.

Still, even as other lights came on, there was only Beck. There was only that man, his wet body, his wetter shirt, and his dangerous moves. That’s what he was—dangerous. Every time he flexed his hips, my heart skipped a beat. My clit throbbed threateningly as he slowly undid the buttons to his shirt and slid the material across the slick, hard sections of his body.

Then he slipped it over his shoulders, down his arms, and to the floor.

And I just about died with arousal.

He was still in his pants, but fucking hell, I’d never found anything quite as hot as him in that moment. He flexed his hips and moved his entire body in a way that seemed not quite human but, at the same time, so very real. His muscles rippled in the dim light as both he and West moved to the tune of “Excited” by AFTRHOURS and Travis Atreo.

I’d played the song a hundred times on Spotify as I’d cleaned, and I wondered how they’d created such an amazing dance to a new song so quickly.

The thought quickly disappeared as the lights cut out, along with the music.

Then they came back.

And Beck was in front of me.

And he had his hands out.

And his lips were curved so sexily and dangerously that I couldn’t stop myself as I put my hands in his.

And I knew I’d been played.

Beck pulled me to standing, and the moment my body was against his, he moved. It was the strangest thing to have such a strong, muscular guy essentially grinding against me, but the strangeness disappeared the moment I felt this cock get hard against me.