French Quarter (4 page)

“Simple. I’ll tell Jack to go back to the drawing board.”

“And what if Todd
is
there? Will you confront him, run out crying, throw a drink on him, what?”

Liz considered the options. “To be honest, I don’t really know. I guess I’ll find out when the time comes.” The truth was, she was still thinking more about watching erotic dancers with Jack Wade than about her anger at Todd, and before she knew it, the moment would be at hand.

* * * * *

The following evening at nine sharp, Jack strolled up Bourbon Street wearing a pair of khakis and a sports jacket. He spotted Liz Marsh from a distance. She stood outside the Blue Moon Cafe looking hotter than the Vieux Carre itself on a ninety-eight degree day. Her dress was the color of warm cream, silky, and it hugged every curve from her breasts to her knee. Like yesterday, her hair fell in tawny waves around her face. And damn, she wore high-heeled, fuck-me-now shoes like the ones he’d noticed on the sexy, dark-haired stripper the other night.

“You’re actually going to Club Venus with that hot babe from the other day?” Ty had asked when he’d happened into the office earlier and they’d discussed their plans for the evening.

“It’s business,” Jack had replied.

“I’d like to have
that
kind of business,” his friend had laughed, and had gone on to tell him that if he decided he didn’t want Liz that he could pass her right over. He chuckled now at the thought, thinking—
no way, bon ami, she’s all mine
.

Not that he had any idea where things with Liz would go. As sexy and inviting as she was, when the shit hit the fan with her boyfriend, she might be too shattered to even think about fooling around with another guy. And Jack was no mender of hearts. He was looking to have a good time with her, not dry her tears. Either way, though, he was beginning to think Liz wasn’t all that madly in love with old Todd and that maybe he had a very good shot at getting to know her better.

He approached her with half a grin. “Hello there.”

She returned the smile with the same sultry look she always seemed to cast his way. It made him forget about business a little more. “Hi,” she said, a sexy lilt in her voice.

Part of him wanted to ask if she even cared about her fiancé, since from where he stood, she looked very ready to have some fun with him, but instead he decided to just see where it all led. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

They walked together toward Club Venus, but he warned her to be on guard—if either of them were to see Todd on the street, they’d need to duck out of view quickly.

That didn’t happen, though, and they were soon stepping inside. “Enjoy,” the doorman said after taking Jack’s money, and Jack placed a hand at the small of Liz’s back to guide her into the plush room of sin.

The place was more crowded than the other night, because it was later in the evening, and while he watched Liz looking around, focusing on the various stages where the women danced, he slipped a college-aged kid fifty bucks to give up the table he shared with two other guys. It was the same small booth in the back where he’d sat the other night, more secluded than tables closer to the various stages.

He took Liz’s hand, motioning her toward the small semi-circular booth.

“Like a drink?”

She drew her eyes from the main stage where a buxom blonde had stripped down to a Stetson and chaps, breasts bouncing as she danced, then lifted her pretty gaze to him. Damn, he wanted her—right here, right now. Maybe bringing her here wasn’t a smart idea. He’d intended to keep his pants zipped—at least until the case was finished, until he’d proven to her what she wanted to know about her fiancé—but at the moment, he wasn’t sure he could stick to his own rule.

“A screwdriver,” she said. “Tell them to make it strong.”

He grinned. “Gotcha.”

As Jack ordered their drinks from a gorgeous young girl in a tiny bikini, Liz kept watching the dancers. She knew she should be looking for Todd, or maybe a guy who looked something like Todd but wasn’t him, yet she couldn’t pull her eyes from the lush flesh being paraded all around her in the room. She’d felt herself surge with moisture upon first seeing Jack and now she felt it even more; her mound pulsed with heat as she watched the women play with their breasts, teasing the audience by wiggling their g-strings. Her own breasts felt large and achy, and when she dared glance down at herself in the semi-lit room, she saw her nipples jutting out, even through the bra beneath her dress. Of course, the dress was Lynda’s, and that meant it was a little snug over Liz’s bigger chest, and feeling the fabric stretch to hold her in only added to her arousal.

She and Jack didn’t speak much. He paid for both their drinks, asked her if she needed anything else.
Sex
, she thought.
I need you inside me so bad.
But she didn’t say that, of course. She just kept watching the girls wriggle and sway and gyrate and tease, watched the breasts and legs and asses parade past her, let herself get drunk on the raw sensuality filling her senses. Before long, her eyes were drawn away from the stage—to darker corners where nearly naked girls danced in men’s laps, jiggled their chests before their eyes, rubbed themselves while the guys watched, while
she
watched. The entire room was dripping with undiluted, unrefined sex.

“
Chere
,” Jack said.

She looked up at him, let herself get lost in his eyes and felt her whole body melting, wanting to be touched by him, wanting to dance in
his
lap.

“You might want to brace yourself,” he told her.

She blinked, the words stopping a little of her sensuous melt.

“I see Todd,” he said near her ear. “Over by the bar, along the wall.”

Liz looked. She instantly saw Todd, too. A busty blonde, a’la Pamela Anderson, hovered over him. She tweaked her nipples and licked her lips while she swayed in liquid rhythm to the music. Todd watched her, looking intoxicated with lust.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” Jack asked.

She nodded, still watching.

“I’m sorry,
chere.
”

“No, don’t be. I’m glad I know.” Still, she focused on the scene across the room, trying to absorb it. She really
was
surprised Jack had been right—really
hadn’t
believed this could be Todd’s indulgence of choice.

“I know this must hurt,” Jack said. He slid one strong arm around her, gently caressing her bare shoulder.

“No, actually, it doesn’t.” The words were as surprising to her as they probably were to Jack. She knew she didn’t love Todd, probably never had, but she’d still expected seeing him in the act—of cheating, of having a naked woman in his lap, whatever—to inflict some pain. Humiliation. The same embarrassment that had had her dressing sexy to go hire a P.I., the embarrassment of knowing for
sure
she wasn’t enough for him. But that wasn’t what she felt.

“Really? You’re okay?”

She drew her eyes from Todd and the blonde to look at Jack. God, he was hot—he hadn’t shaved today, and those dark eyes of his were suddenly so kind, so tender. He actually cared how she felt.

“It’s…almost a relief,” she told him. “It means…I’m not tied to him anymore. I have no reason to be loyal to him…to feel any guilt if I …” Her voice trailed off, but their gazes stayed locked.

It took a moment before he spoke. “What do you want to do now? Confront him? Leave?”

Practically the same question Lynda had posed, and the answer was one Liz couldn’t have predicted. “No,” she said softly. “I think I want to stay a while.”

Jack looked intrigued. “Why?”

Her breath turned thready. “I want to see more, want to know what it’s all about. If Todd can do this, so can I.”

He tilted his head. “You’re not…tryin’ to condone his behavior, are you? Somehow hopin’ you’ll decide it’s all right? Because it’s not. Once you commit to a woman, you don’t lie to her, and you especially don’t lie to her about havin’ naked chicks bounce around on your lap.”

She gave him a thoughtful look, fascinated. “Why, Jack, I’m surprised. You hadn’t struck me as such a…moral guy.”

A wicked grin crept across his face. “Don’t be too impressed by my morals,
chere
. I’m as much an alley cat as the next guy.” The grin faded back to seriousness. “But I’m not married or in a relationship, and that’s what makes it different. If I was in a relationship, I’d be honest, about anything and everything.”

“So if, say, you and I were in a relationship, and you wanted to come here and get a lap dance, you’d ask for my permission?” The passion in her veins was on the verge of turning her playful, despite or maybe
because
of Todd. She was free now, free to do whatever she wanted, to let go of her inhibitions like Lynda had advised.

“Absolutely,” he said, an air of teasing in his voice.

“And if I said yes?”

His voice went low, smoky. “I’d ask you to come and watch.”

“And if I said no?”

He leaned slightly closer. “I’d ask you to give me one instead.”

She cast a sexy smile. “What time is it?”

He checked his watch. “Almost ten. Why?”

“It’s almost time for Todd to leave. He’s always home before eleven.”

Jack straightened slightly. “And you need to be home before he gets there?”

She shook her head. “No, I just need him to be gone from here, out of my sight, off my radar screen. As for getting home before him—I’m happy to let him wonder where
I
am for a change.”

He smiled back, clearly liking her tactics, then sobered. “So, you and this guy—you love him?”

She shook her head. “I thought I did, but that faded. Since then, our engagement has felt almost like an obligation—there’s family involved, joint business ventures, you name it. To them, not loving him wouldn’t have been enough. I needed a reason, hard evidence, and now I have it because I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

“Good,” he said. “You deserve somebody who can keep you happy.”

Her heart warmed a little at the words.

Then, as if almost on cue, the big-breasted blonde extracted herself from Todd’s lap across the room, and he stood up. Liz and Jack both watched. Wearing a lecherous grin, Todd gave the girl some money, whispered something near her ear, and started toward the door. For Liz, it felt like being released from jail. Not only did she owe him nothing now, but he was no longer here to watch her if she wanted to play.

“Tell me about a lap dance,” she said to Jack. Suddenly, she no longer cared if she didn’t appear experienced. Perhaps, she thought, because she also suddenly wanted to change all that, wanted to
get
experienced.

“What do you want to know?”

“How much does it cost? How does it work? Is there touching involved?”

He looked taken aback, aroused, before explaining. “You have to ask the stripper how much it costs—usually twenty dollars or so. You pay the girl, then she straddles you and dances. You can’t touch, but she can touch you. They generally don’t, but they can.”

Jack pointed to a nearby table where a young guy was getting a lap dance from a pretty girl with round, sexy breasts and long brown hair—she looked particularly impassioned by her work.

Together, she and Jack watched and Liz could have sworn her body temperature was steadily rising. The gorgeous stripper leaned down over the guy, teasing him, her beaded pink nipples so close to his mouth that Liz wondered how he kept himself from nibbling on them. The stripper’s hips ground into the guy’s crotch, making the spot between Liz’s thighs tingle hotly.

“Have you had them before?” she asked, still studying the intimate act.

Jack stopped watching the lap dance to look at her. She pulled her gaze from the stripper and met his eyes. “Yeah,” he said on a heated breath. “Why?”

“Just curious.” She took a sip of her drink and looked back at him, feeling daring, wanting—for once in her life—to just do something she felt like doing without weighing it, questioning it, or worrying about it. “Do women ever get them?”

His gaze remained steady. “I’ve seen women get ‘em on occasion.”

“I want one,” she said, her voice low.

She could tell she’d surprised him once more; herself, too.

“Really?”

She nodded. Before now, she’d never desired another woman, but sitting here watching them had excited her, made her wonder what it felt like to touch or be touched by another girl, as Lynda had. Of course, Jack had just told her
she
couldn’t touch them, but she simply wanted to do as Lynda had suggested and follow her urges, and her urge at the moment was to have a woman’s curves hovering over and around her. More than that, her urge was to have Jack watch.

Jack’s voice came even lower and huskier. “Did you have a particular girl in mind?”

“Her,” Liz said, pointing to the same brunette they’d been watching give a dance at the next table. She looked at him. “Can you arrange it?”

He nodded.

Jack couldn’t believe Liz wanted a lap dance. Her voice was so breathy asking him about it, her full lips so pouty and kissable, her eyes so wild with curious passion. As he rose to approach the same hot brunette he’d been aroused by the other night, his cock stood so stiff it was almost painful.