The Allure of Dean Harper (The Allure #2)(51)

Dean: Are you backstage??

Jo: I GOT IT. He just sang like a canary and I recorded it all. He’s throwing up in the bathroom. Meet me at the front door.



I pumped my fist in the air. We did it! Hunter was going down and I hadn’t subjected Jo to a strip club for nothing. Win win. I was going to celebrate with Dean and bask in his compliments of what a good sleuth I was.

“Hey! Step off, bitch,” a dancer said, interrupting the party in my head.

I’d been too preoccupied to see her leave the stage and when I’d fist-pumped, I’d narrowly missed punching her in the face. She reared back and pushed me before I could explain the mistake.

I lost my footing and tumbled back, grasping onto the black curtain like it was going to catch my fall. In reality, the thin material gave way beneath my weight and my butt hit the stage with too much momentum to stop. I rolled back—clinging to the one gymnastics lesson I’d had at age five—and landed on my stomach, flat on the center stage with bright red light shining down on me.

Oh shit.

“Looks like we have a surprise guest on the stage now folks,” the MC said, stalling. “Kimmy Cat was supposed to be up next, but let’s see where this goes.”

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and watched as two bouncers made their way toward the stage with angry scowls aimed at me.

I surveyed the crowd around me. They weren’t angry, they were confused. I pushed onto the heels of my feet and tried to regain my equilibrium.

One of the bouncers reached the stage and leaned in to grab my arm.

“Let her dance!” a customer yelled.

“Yeah! Let her dance! Let her dance!” another chanted.

They want me to dance.

THEY WANT ME TO DANCE.

“Ladddiesss and gentlemen, we’ve got a brand new dancer on the stage tonight!” the emcee began, trying to make sense of the situation.

Oh no. No, no, no.

I stood and tried to get the emcee’s attention. I waved my hands back and forth in front of my chest in a universal sign of “STOP. LET ME OFF THIS STRIP CLUB STAGE.”

“Looks like we have a…sexy ninja,” he improved, misinterpreting my signals for dance moves. “Maybe a slutty samurai, showing off her erotic mooooooves! Give it up for, uh…”

“Busty Black Belt!” Josephine yelled from somewhere in the back of the crowd.

“Buuuuuuusty Black Belt!” he echoed, changing songs to T-Pain’s “I’m in Love With a Stripper”.

I smiled and held my hand over my brow to find Josephine, but the lights were blinding. I could only see the first row of men, smiling and goading me to dance.

“Show us what you got, honey,” a guy yelled from the front row.

I stood in the center of the stage, completely frozen. I had two options: I could dance or I could let the bouncers drag me away.

“Work it, baby,” another guy yelled.

My cheeks flamed as I wrestled with indecision, but in the end, my body made up my mind for me. It started moving to the beat, slowly at first, just my head and shoulders rocking back and forth. The front row of men cheered me on and I smiled.

This isn’t so bad.

The emcee kicked the music up another notch, loud enough to drown out the sounds of the club. I tried to shimmy to the left and to the right, but I couldn’t quite work out how to coordinate my chest, shoulders, and feet.

“Sexier, honey!”

They wanted sexy? I’d show ’em sexy. My rolodex was chock-full of the most sultry dance moves: stirring the pot, grocery shopping, watering the lawn, you named it. I watered that lawn like my life depended on it and the crowd sat stunned, watching me in complete silence.

I pulled the beanie from my head and tossed it out into the crowd. That earned me a few whistles and that’s when I saw Dean standing at the end of the stage with his arms crossed. His features were cast in shadows, but I could see the incredulous grin stretched across his lips as he watched me.

I bit down on my bottom lip to keep from laughing, and the crowd went wild.

“Yeahhh, honey!”

“Keep biting your lip!”

Dean tilted his head to the right and I glanced over to see the pole gleaming under the neon lights. I hadn’t touched it yet, but I knew I would before the song finished. I shimmied to the back of the stage and tried to recall how dancers usually mounted the poles in movies. Do they just hop on, or do they get a running start first? It felt like I needed a running start, so I let T-Pain’s wise, auto-tuned words wash over me as I ran straight for it. My body collided with the metal and I clung onto it like a baby monkey grabbing on to a tree branch. Usually the dancers jumped on and started to spin, but I just slowly slid down the greasy pole until my butt hit the floor. Nothing happened. The song ended and I was left with absolute silence.

One slow clap started near the back and then the emcee spoke up halfheartedly, “Well, A for effort, right folks?”

Josephine whooped it up beside Dean, tossing dollars onto the stage. “THAT’S MY BEST FRIEND!” she yelled.

The two bouncers who had stood off to the side during my “performance” stepped forward as I unwound my legs from the base of the pole, but Dean got to me before they did. He reached up to help me down from the stage.

“That was amazing, I ca—” he began.

Hunter emerged through the crowd, having left the bathroom sometime during my performance. He limped through the crowd, clearly looking worse for wear.