Strip. Delta Dupree
tattered mess in her lap. Freaked, Rio flicked the tiny pieces to the floor.
“The boy’s got you in a fluster.”
“Does not.”
“Uh-huh.”
Galaxeé knew her well. She was flustered all right. Skin heated, a fine sheen of perspiration dotting her face. Her emotions were in a ball of confusion over Bryce Sullivan and her awareness of him, unconsciously nervous before she saw the napkin torn to tiny shredded beads.
She caught her partner’s gaze and pleaded with her eyes. “I can’t let anything happen, Galaxeé. I won’t.” Something had occurred between them, a spark that had turned into a blazing inferno.
“Why not? He hot Tarzan, you horny Jane.” She drained the martini.
“He’s too young. He’s too—”
“Age is nothing but a damn number. We live in the twenty-first century. Get over it. Women have every right to get their jollies with a young hunk, Miss Goody Two-Shoes. Men have been making time with young chickies since forever. Run with it, honey. Work it.”
“Oh, sure, you can say that mess since Randy’s ten years older than you, and he’s black.”
“I wouldn’t care if Randy was twenty years younger, sported chartreuse plaid or he came in oxblood paisley. Why should you worry?”
“Remember Carson? I can’t go through that kind of mess again. I’m done with younger men.”
Carson was a thirty-five-year-old, lying slickster. A jailbird now, busted for dealing drugs, selling stolen property, racketeering, running a prostitution ring, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Rio had argued with Galaxeé about his guilt, certain of the innocence he’d adamantly proclaimed. Naïve, she had believed the best of people. She’d graciously accepted Carson’s gift, the diamond and citrine ring for her thirty-ninth birthday. But when her attorney, Victoria, had heard the police handcuffed and dragged Carson from the restaurant he owned and read the charges, she jumped on the telephone. Victoria urged her client to turn the jewelry over to the district attorney. Luckily, Rio had never let the convict get into her panties.
“Ancient history,” Galaxeé said.
“No, ancient history is listed under Marcus’s name.” At thirty-seven her younger brother was as set in his ways as their father, who had trained him.
“He’ll get over it. And he’s not here anyway. What are you afraid of at your age? Bryce isn’t asking you to marry him.” Galaxeé looked over her shoulder. The current dancer was leaving the stage, his G-string stuffed with dollars. “Yet,” she murmured and scooted off the barstool before Rio burst open with outrage. “I have to get onstage.”
Chaos reigned three minutes later.
“Holy buckin’ bronco! That’s what I’m talkin’ about.” Galaxeé said. “Somebody switched routines on me.”
Oh, my God. Rio groaned, turning away. She rested her forehead against her fingertips.
Bryce had parted the curtains and stepped out in a cowboy getup—snakeskin boots, tight blue jeans, plaid shirt opened to his waist. Perched on top of his head sat a big ten-gallon hat. To make matters utterly ridiculous, the theme song from Rawhide acoustically reverberated off the walls while he cracked a long whip on cue.
She looked over her shoulder again and shuddered. Oh, my God. What had they done? A cowboy, in a club catering mainly to African American women?
Galaxeé’s ear-busting whistles brought the audience to their feet. She had phenomenal talent to start a full-blown riot. “Giddy-up, cowboy,” she yelled into the microphone. “Head ’em up, move ’em out!”
Shocked, Rio’s mouth dropped open as the wild bunch mutated into charging lunatics, much like startled cattle. And when the cowboy flung his hat into the audience, a mad, clawing stampede resulted for the discarded headpiece. This chaos resembled sworn enemies at their first bridal-bouquet scramble. Plastic drinking cups fell to the floor, hardwood chairs crashed loudly against each other and tables had surely scored the new wax.
What had gotten into these women? Rio searched the arena for her servers, and Cockroach, for backup. Just in case.
All the waiters had retreated to the corner beside the curved bar. She couldn’t blame them. The rowdy crowd would likely trample or string them up for blocking a hot-to-trot lady’s view. These women meant business.
The melee didn’t stop Bryce’s routine. He kept with the rhythm of the song. Thank God, he’d tossed the whip aside.
The way his hips gyrated, has he ridden a horse before? Rio tsked. He’d ridden too many women from what she could tell.
“This boy’s a stompin’ fool,” Galaxeé hollered. She blew another shrill whistle. “Didn’t I say he’d work out? Wuh-oh, here we go.”
Everyone knew when the music mellowed to a sensuous tune the actual show-and-tell had begun. The room buzzed with anticipation, eager beavers waiting to chomp on the next oak tree.
Alone now, just what had he planned? Would his dance routine be as suggestive as when they’d swayed together?
Not a chance. Not as a solitary performer.
When he slid his shirt free, exposing all the glory of his muscular chest, Rio licked her lips and swallowed. He had one magnificent physique, and she’d caressed it. The onlookers didn’t know—would never know—how good he felt under her fingertips, plastered against her body.
Bryce unzipped his blue jeans, and she followed the movement of his big hands, watched them slide teasingly down the bulging length hidden behind the denim, remembering its size during arousal, its firmness, its insistence. Pressure. Throbbing heat.
“Breathe, girl,” Galaxeé said, laughing. “Don’t pass out on me now.”
Controlling the air that rushed out took every ounce of strength.
Bryce tossed the plaid and denim aside. The volume in Killer Bods increased twofold as he circled his hips, then dropped to knees, spread them apart, displaying all sorts of virile splendor.
Goodness. Rio felt the beginnings of a brand-new meltdown, sizzling heat filtering through her core, raising a tide of aching between her legs.
“I bet he’d wear you out,” Galaxeé hollered.
“Would you stop it?”
“You’re glistening again. Or shall I say, sweating profusely?”
Rio patted her face dry with another napkin. “We’re packed. With all these people, it’s—”
“Not.” Galaxeé burst out laughing. She glanced at the stage and her smile faded worse than sun-bleached fabric. “That trashy little ho.”
Rio jerked her head around and saw Bryce’s extended hand. And who had taken it?
Shannon Fields—Dallas’s girlfriend. The hussy hightailed up the stairs and threw herself at the man. Within five seconds, the dance went beyond sensuous to downright lewd and filthy. She was under him. On him. All in him.
Heart hammering against her ribs, Rio wondered if she had appeared the same when she’d danced with Bryce. Had their choreography turned raunchy?
Instantaneously, anger marched under her skin like fire ants on the attack. The she-cat hiss escaped her lips as wrenching knots twisted in her belly, moved to her heart and cut off circulation.
Rio hopped to the floor, stormed toward the stairs. Hearing Galaxeé call out, she ignored the summons, thoroughly disgusted with her own licentious behavior, completely disenchanted with the immature bastard who had not one gram of class, one iota of damn pride or respect for himself. Or her.
She shoved the office door open with gale-wind force. It hit the stopper, rattling the