“I know. But just looking doesn’t do it for me.” When Katie laughed, Elizabeth hurriedly explained, “I mean, I don’t get excited by a body in a vacuum. I need something more.”

Katie didn’t even seem to hear her, since she was ogling another one of the strippers.

Elizabeth sighed and tried to consciously loosen up and find something to enjoy about this experience.

She tried and tried and tried and tried—until she was absolutely exhausted from working on loosening up.

Finally, she couldn’t stand the noise, the gyrations, the crude physicality any longer. Maybe it meant she was uptight. Maybe it meant she was repressed. Maybe it meant she was boring and vanilla. But she didn’t like this, and she didn’t want to be in this room anymore.

She told the others that she needed to go to the bathroom, and she maneuvered her way through the crowd until she could shut the restroom door on the screaming and pulsing music.

She didn’t like to sit on public toilets and she didn’t really need to go, so she just stood in a stall and tried to breathe, gradually relaxing her body, which she hadn’t realized had been so tense.

Maybe she could pretend to be sick, so she could go home. It would probably be another hour before her friends were ready to leave.

She stayed as long as she could in the bathroom, until there was another break between acts and several women entered at the same time. Since she felt bad about occupying a stall she didn’t really need, she flushed the toilet with her foot and went to wash her hands, giving a polite smile to the middle-aged woman wearing a sash that said I’M 50 YEARS YOUNG, who was waiting for an available stall.

When Elizabeth left the bathroom, she wasn’t yet ready to face the main room again, so she lingered in the foyer, near the door, pulling out her phone so she could pretend to be texting, which would give her an excuse if anyone was wondering why she wasn’t going back in.

She was so absorbed in tapping out nonsense fake text messages that she didn’t notice anyone approaching her until a low, male voice said, “You’re going to miss the next act.”

Elizabeth jerked in surprise, looking up from her phone to see the handsome mystery man she’d noticed earlier by the bar.

Up close, she saw that he had smoky gray eyes, a hint of stubble on his strong chin, and an elaborate scene was inked down both of his arms.

“Oh,” she said, feeling rattled, since he’d surprised her and she was still ridiculously attracted to him. “That’s okay.”

“You aren’t enjoying it.” The words were a statement rather than a question.

She made a face. “I’m sure the guys are doing a great job, but it’s not really my thing.”

“Why did you come then?” He didn’t look offended or annoyed—just curious.

“It was my friend’s idea. This is her bachelorette party.”

His eyes lingered on her face with an intentionality that confused and excited her. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

She had to pause a moment to think through what he meant, and she could feel her heartbeat accelerate even more. Her skin flushed slightly. “I came because I didn’t want to offend my friend. Why else would I have come?”

“I don’t know.” His lips lifted very slightly in a small smile that was sexy and strangely entitled. “So why aren’t you enjoying it?”

She gave a small half-shrug. It was odd to have such a personal conversation with a stranger, but it felt inevitable somehow, as if she’d been waiting all her life to be talking to him. “It’s not my thing.”

“You said that before. I was wondering why.” He moved a little closer, his eyes never leaving her face, except to glance down her body.

She wore black capris and a blue top with a scoop neck that made her breasts look bigger than they were. She thought she looked pretty good tonight, and it seemed like maybe this guy thought so too. “I just don’t see the appeal,” she admitted. “It’s really not sexy to me.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No. I’m surprised so many women do. The guys have good bodies—sure—but it’s all so blatant, right there in your face, and the moves seem kind of silly and over-the-top. That’s not sexy to me.”

Again, he had that little smile on his face, as if he knew her, understood her, in a way that he couldn’t possibly. “So what is sexy to you?”

“I don’t know. Different things. But I need…I don’t know…some kind of context to find someone or something sexy. I need a story behind it. You can’t just thrust a buff body in my face and expect me to get excited about it. That might work with guys, but it doesn’t work with a lot of women.”

“There’s a theory that men are turned on with their eyes and women are turned on with their hearts.”

“Yeah,” she said with a smile, feeling strangely validated. “It’s something like that, I guess. This is all about the eyes.”

“Maybe. But I don’t think that theory is universally true. Why shouldn’t women get turned on with their eyes as much as men?”

Elizabeth frowned, her relief from the moment before fading. “I don’t know. Maybe some of them do. I’m just saying that I don’t.”

“I think it’s because you’ve never allowed yourself.” He had a low, mesmerizing note in his voice that made everything he said seem like a seduction, even when it obviously wasn’t.

“Why would you think that?”

“I can get a sense of a person quickly, and I’ve already gotten a good sense of you.”

He was smiling again, but Elizabeth stiffened her shoulders since she suddenly wasn’t sure she wanted to hear his assessment of her. “That’s kind of presumptuous.”

“It’s very presumptuous, but that doesn’t mean I’m not right.”

“Okay, fine. If you’re so good at reading people, what have you read about me?”

“You come from money—maybe not huge wealth, but you always had enough growing up, and your parents indulged you. Your purse and shoes are really expensive, so you must still have plenty in the bank. Maybe you’ve got some sort of cushy job, thanks to your parents’ connections.”

This was partly true, but not entirely true, and she sucked in an indignant gasp at the implications. “I worked hard for the job I have.”

“I believe it,” he said, his eyes still resting on her face. “You’ve probably been an overachiever all your life, never wanting to disappoint anyone.”

“What makes you say that?” She didn’t bother denying this. Everyone who knew her would testify that it was true.

“I watched you with your friends—all those fake smiles you put on. You didn’t want to offend or disappoint them by admitting how much you wanted to get out of here.”

“Oh.” She swallowed hard, feeling a buzzing now in her chest, her head, her fingertips—like something important was about to happen. “I don’t like to disappoint people, but that’s true about a lot of women.”

“It’s particularly true about you. And I think it might explain why you’re having such a hard time here.”

She was starting to get annoyed. “It does not. It has nothing to do with not enjoying that whole silly scene in there.”

“I think it does. A lot of the women here find it sexy. They find it a turn-on to be able to live out in that room what they can’t at home—a fantasy man who is completely focused on them and their pleasure. But some of them don’t find it sexy. They come here for other reasons—to let down their inhibitions, to enjoy themselves with their friends without worrying about the impression they’re making on others, to take off the armor they habitually wear around all the men in their lives. It’s not about sex for them. It’s about shedding what normally restrains them. Even if you don’t find those guys sexy, why can’t you at least enjoy it for a different kind of release?”

It was a serious question—not an insult or reproach—but she still felt strangely defensive. “I don’t have any impulse to shed restraints or inhibitions, and I don’t think there’s something wrong with me for not wanting that.”