“Music’s gonna change. Yes or no.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“What is it with you and the whys?” Joan asked, rolling her eyes.

I didn’t know. I really didn’t.

“Your guy is going to dig it,” she said, prodding me on.

Yes. He was.

“Okay,” I said. “But, Renee, is she…?” God, I didn’t know how to say it. “Does she have kids? Or like some kind of terrible drug habit? Or a dad who used to sneak into her room at night—”

“Is she a victim?”

“Yeah.”

“Does it matter?”

I gave Joan a long look. “Yeah.”

“Oh good God, Annie. I don’t ask her about her life. She’s tough. She’s smart and she doesn’t take shit from anyone.”

“Really?”

“Really. And she’s freaky as shit.”

I took one giant long draw of my drink and then set it down on the table, nearly running toward the curtained doorway. I slipped between the beads and there was a small hallway with two doorways, and at the end, a red illuminated exit sign.

Shit. Which door?

I opened the first. Inside it was thick with cigarette smoke, and there was a table with five men sitting around it. All of them turned to stare at me when I walked in.

“Wrong door, sister,” one of them said. A thin man with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. Kind eyes. I have no idea why I got that impression in the three seconds I was face-to-face with him, but I did. And he was wearing a linen suit. At a strip club. That’s all I could see through the haze of smoke.

“Sorry,” I said, getting out of there as fast as I could. I spun around and opened the second door.

Inside was a small room with two big leather couches. In the shadows in the far corner there was the gleam of another leather chair, and I made a beeline for it before all my courage deserted me.

I tucked my legs up under me and tried to be as small as I possibly could and called Dylan.

“Are you still in the parking lot?” he asked, his voice teasing.

“No,” I whispered. “I’m in a VIP room. I’m going to watch…”

The door opened again and in walked Renee, who was like seven feet tall in her outrageous sequined heels. The guy she was with came in behind her, his hand wide across her belly, keeping them together.

God, my breathing sounded so loud. And I shifted in the chair and the leather creaked. I closed my eyes, my hands across my mouth.

It hadn’t even started and I was ruining this.

“Hit the button, baby,” Renee said. And the man, who’d clearly been here before, reached over and tapped a button on a black box on the wall and music filled the room.

I turned my phone so no one could see the glow. Or at least I hoped they couldn’t.

Renee turned them a little better so they were almost facing me head on, though there was twenty feet between us. The lighting was super dim but I saw her face.

She winked at me.

“Layla,” Dylan murmured. “Are there people in there with you?”

“Yes,” I breathed as quietly as I could, watching Renee and the guy to see if they heard me. They were locked on each other, the music blocking out any sound of my voice for them.

“What do you want?” Renee asked and for a second I thought she was asking me, but the man spoke up.

“Your mouth on my cock,” he said, and Renee laughed and then gasped when the man’s hands came up and cupped her breasts. Palmed them.

“Can you hear that?” I whispered to Dylan.

“Yeah, baby, I heard. You’re watching a blow job.” His voice, oh, God, his voice was so thick. So heavy. I could feel how turned on he was.

“What do you want?” the guy on the couch asked Renee.

“My mouth on your cock,” Renee said.

His dark laughter rumbled through the room. “This is why we work.”

This is why we work. I could say the same thing to Dylan right now.

Renee stepped away from the guy and gave him a shove over to the couch. He fell back willingly, and she grabbed a pillow from beside him and tossed it on the floor at his feet.

“Tell me,” Dylan ground out in my ear.

“She’s kneeling in front of him.”

Quickly, Renee undid the guy’s pants, her eyes flicking occasionally up to his. He was biting his lips, his hands up on his head, like he was trying hard not to touch her. Like he didn’t want to ruin the show.

And then she reached into the shadows of his open pants and pulled out his dick.

“Fuck, baby, go,” he breathed.

Renee closed her fist around him and pumped him slowly, from bottom to top.

Like Dylan.

“She’s touching him the way you like it,” I whispered. “Hard.”

Dylan groaned. The guy on the couch groaned.

“You want more?” Renee asked. And she could have been asking all of us; she had us all in the palm of her hand right now.

“Yeah,” the guy said.

“Yes,” I breathed.

Oh God. Forget about being quiet. Forget about not being noticed—I was going to go up in flames in this corner. Literally spontaneously combust.

“Touch yourself,” the guy said, and again, my mouth fell open. Was he talking to me?

But he was talking to Renee, who slipped a hand down between her legs.

“Show me how wet you are,” the guy said.

“Yeah?” In the shadows it was too dark to really see what she was doing, but I got the idea when she lifted her hand and held it up to the man’s face.

“Taste how wet I am.”

The man opened his mouth and Renee slipped her fingers in. The guy groaned. Renee groaned. I nearly died in my chair.

“She touched herself and put her fingers in his mouth,” I told Dylan.

“How do you think she tastes?” Dylan asked.

“Good,” I breathed.

“Do it. Touch yourself and taste your fingers for me. Right now.”

I wanted to put my fingers in Dylan’s mouth. I wanted him to taste me. I wanted him to look at me the way this guy was looking at Renee. The way I was looking at Renee.

But he was on the phone and not here, so I did what he said. Traced the edges of my lips with my fingers, gathered up the slickness there, and then put the fingers in my mouth. I moaned.

“Sweet?” he asked.

“Yes,” I whispered.

Renee bent and licked the guy’s dick, top to bottom, doing some kind of swirl thing over the head that seemed to make the guy go nuts.

“Suck, just suck, baby,” he groaned. “I want to come in your mouth.”

“She put his dick in her mouth,” I whispered.

“Where are his hands?” Dylan asked.

“On his head. He’s…watching.”

“Does it look good?”

“Yes.”

“You want to come?” Dylan asked.

“So bad.”

Soon, the guy dropped his hands, tangling his fingers into her hair, and he was holding her head, lifting his hips to ease in and out of her mouth.

“Do it, baby,” Dylan whispered. “Make yourself come.”

His permission made my heart pound, my fingers clumsy, and my nails scratched my skin as I slipped my hand down between my legs and through my shorts, I pressed up hard against my clit. I flinched I was so turned on.

“Oh, yeah,” the guy groaned, and Renee’s hand was a blur and I bit my lips against the sounds climbing up my throat. I stuck my hand down my shorts until it was buried in the liquid fire between my legs. It took nothing. One touch, another against the pulsing knot of my clit, and I was coming.

Coming so hard I saw stars.

“Oh fuck, yeah. Fuck—”

It was the guy. Not me. I was biting my tongue until it bled, trying not to make any sound.

And then he groaned and Renee slowly pumped her fist against him, holding the head of his dick in her mouth while he jerked. I tried to get my breath back slowly. Quietly. But I thought I might hyperventilate.

“So good, baby,” the guy breathed, reaching for Renee. “Let’s do you.”

“I need to get back. Zo is going to get pissed.”

“Fuck Zo.”

She shot him a wry look. “Say that to his face.”

The guy stood and zipped up his pants while Renee fluffed her hair and dug a piece of gum out of the guy’s pocket. He gave her a big, wet smacking kiss on the cheek and then opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.