‘That’s a good question. I’ve made it clear I’m not interested. Hell, I made it clear for years. I divorced her! We never had sex after I left. But now every time I’m near her she’s all over me like a cheap suit and you can imagine what Katherine’s reaction to that is.’
‘Sounds like you need to not be around her.’ Brandon shrugged like it was easy.
‘I wish it were that easy. Fuck. Maybe it is and I just need to be harsher and not worry if my daughters see. I just wanted them to understand that you could still be united with someone when it came to important things like raising children.’
‘Haven’t you done that already? You’ve been divorced for nine years.’
Huh. So Bingo wasn’t so naïve after all. Maybe the kid had a point.
A lovely thing, young enough for him to have fathered, cruised past and positioned herself between them. ‘Hello there. You two want a lap dance? Private room?’
Dix smiled slow and sexy. He had no plans to have any pussy but Kate’s grinding on his cock but that didn’t mean he couldn’t flirt. He was in love, not dead, and God knew he loved to look at women of all shapes and sizes. This one was easy on the eyes in every way. ‘Darlin’, you’re mighty tempting, but I’m going to have to pass on the lap dance and the private room. I’d be happy to buy you a drink for looking so good though.’
She smiled and he stood to pull a chair out for her.
‘Thank you.’
In short order the twenty-dollar drink showed up and Dix paid for it.
‘I’m Tiffani. Where are you two from?’
He bet it was with an ‘i’ she probably dotted with a heart. Most likely one of three Tiffanis who worked there. Her real name was probably Julie or something.
‘Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I’m Brandon, this is Charles.’
Well, lookie there, Bingo knew how to handle himself with a stripper.
Brandon was used to staring down at the tops of girls’ heads rather than having a face full of boobs. It was a little distracting, but he managed to look at the stripper’s face and not just her tits and the pasties dangling from her nipples. Not that that he didn’t look at all. She had a very nice pair of tits. But somehow, unlike the many times in his past when he’d gone out to clubs with the goal of getting his hands on a woman like the one in front of him, all he could think about was how bad her feet must hurt at the end of the night.
‘Hi, Brandon. Charles.’ Tiffani drawled their names, drawing out the syllables and rolling them around on her tongue. She pouted. ‘Sure I can’t convince you to take a private dance? Hell, boys as handsome as you, I’ll do a twofer.’
Brandon looked at Dix with a raised eyebrow. ‘That’s quite an offer, Tiffani.’
Dix grinned. ‘Sweetheart, you’re entirely too generous.’
Tiffani put her hands on her hips, determined, it seemed, to entice them. ‘Two full songs. Both of you. Same price as one song, one guy.’
Dix snorted laughter and shook his head. Brandon tried hard to think about why she was so insistent when there was a club full of high rollers itching to stuff their cash into her pair of very tiny thong panties. Tiffani huffed her bangs out of her eyes and stared him down.
‘There’s a fetish con in town,’ she said finally, when neither Dix nor Brandon looked like they were going to take her up on the offer. ‘Most of the people who’d be in here ready to spend their money getting sexed up are out there either doing it, or watching it, for free.’
Brandon looked at Dix, who shrugged. Great. ‘Thanks, man. Make me be the bad guy.’
Dix sighed and dug for his wallet, pulling out another twenty. ‘Listen, sweetheart. We’re under strict orders not to get anything here that’s waiting for us at home.’
Tiffani sighed and plopped down in the chair across from them, then plucked the twenty from Dix’s grasp and gestured for the waitress. ‘I won’t tell your wives. Believe me, sugar, ninety-nine per cent of the guys who come in here are married, and most of them don’t leave without at least a woody.’
‘No doubt,’ Brandon said, looking around.
Dix snorted again. ‘Some of us, sweetheart, are a little beyond the Sears and Roebuck underwear catalogue level of hard-on.’
Tiffani gave them both a hard grin. ‘No kidding.’
Brandon didn’t have a clue what that meant. ‘Huh?’
Dix curled his fingers and pumped them around an imaginary dick. ‘Back in the day it’s what most guys first jerked off to. The Sears catalogue underwear section.’
Brandon, three beers settling in his stomach, guffawed. ‘Get out of here.’
‘It’s true,’ Tiffani said with a nod. ‘If you do a survey.’
‘I can’t think of any reason to do that,’ Brandon said. ‘But seriously. Sears?’
Dix wadded up a cocktail napkin and threw it at him. ‘What was it for you? Don’t tell me you went straight to Playboy.’
‘Victoria’s Secret,’ Tiffani said.
Both men turned to look at her.
‘Not me. Mine was a poster of the New Kids on the Block.’ She rolled her eyes and jerked her thumb at Brandon. ‘Him. Victoria’s Secret, am I right? Snuck it out of the mail before your mom got it? Went up to your room, got the trusty bottle of hand lotion, went to town, am I right?’
Brandon swallowed a gulp of beer. She had him pegged. He could still remember the smell of the perfume sample mixing with cocoa-butter tang of the hand lotion. His prick stirred a little at the memory. ‘Um … yeah.’
Tiffani held up her hand to Dix for the high-five, which he gave her after a moment. ‘I knew it!’
‘It’s almost the same thing,’ Dix said.
The waitress brought them all another round of beers. Tiffani didn’t leave. ‘So, why are you two sitting here not getting hard-ons if you’ve got such hot stuff waiting for
