Jumping in before she could start, I pointed a finger at her. "No lap dances today either."
She pouted up at me, twisting her face into a beautiful temptation that made me want to show her what I could do with those pursed lips. Especially now that I knew what they felt like wrapped around my cock.
"What's the point of being in a strip club if I can't strip or get stripped on?"
She had a point there, but while I might tolerate many aspects of her adventurous personality and desire to try new things, letting her take off her clothes for a room full of men would never be on that list. "If I ever catch you on a pole, I'll spoon out the eyeballs of every man who sees you," I reminded her.
"Well, that's extreme," Sadie said, smirking at me with the playful smile that made me wonder if she'd considered trying it. Pushing those boundaries just to see if I'd keep my word probably sounded like a grand adventure to Sadie. I didn't think she'd enjoy it so much in reality.
Eyeballs were gross and empty eye sockets? Even worse.
She dropped into her chair as Rebel curled up at her feet. Kissing the top of her head, I whispered a warning to be good before I turned and left the room.
I wanted to go home. Sandro was a good kid, if a little slow to learn new things. But in that moment, he stood between me and some actual quality time with my woman, and that was something that didn't seem to come often enough between the gym and my responsibilities to the Bellandis.
A whiskey and a night at home called my name.
26 Sadie
"Well?" I asked, reaching down to stroke Rebel's fur. She seemed particularly on guard, hanging closer to me than normal. I suspected the music in the main lounge had aggravated her, and I worked to relax her.
The music had never upset her at the gym, but it was more of a background noise than the pulsing bass that you felt in your bones.
The best way to listen to music, if I was honest. But clients at the gym had to hear their trainers sadly.
"Well, what?" Yavin snapped back.
"Well, what crawled up your ass and died? Where's the smile?" I asked.
He grunted, rubbing his hands over his face. "Aoife is refusing to plan the wedding. She says she has no interest in planning something she doesn't want, and there's no need for a grand ceremony. She told me to just sign the check I write to her father, and the deal will be done."
"Ouch," I muttered. "I know nothing about these kinds of marriages before you go biting my head off, but are you actually writing her father a check for the right to marry her?"
"No!" Yavin said in exasperation. "Yes, it's arranged. I know I stand to gain from it since I'll be taking over for Liam after he retires. I don't care about any of that. I don't even want it."
"So why did you agree to marry her?" I asked, tilting my head to the side and encouraging him to admit the truth to himself through me. I didn't know Aoife, but I knew if I'd been in that situation, I'd have probably given Yavin shit until the day I died.
Unless he actually wanted me.
"She's far from a burden," Yavin said hesitantly. At my raised eyebrow and discerning look, he chuckled and finally continued on. "Okay, okay. I saw her. I wanted her. I didn't even want a fucking wife, but I volunteered before my brain caught up to what I was doing."
"So you regret it?" I asked, hoping to hell the answer wasn't a yes. I'd probably kill him if he went through with the marriage when he regretted it before it even happened.
"No," he admitted. "I don't. It just makes no sense. Let's be real here."
I shrugged and stood, walking around the office to examine the lack of personal effects. It was like he'd never really settled into his job at Tease, even though he'd managed it for nearly a decade. "You should put her picture on your desk. Maybe the shelf. Not a sexy picture or anything like that, but something sweet. Go to the effort, so that when she comes to your office for the first time, she can see that she's been here all along. Don't tell her about it or point it out, because that just reeks of looking for brownie points. Let her notice it organically," I murmured.
"I don't have any pictures of her. She refuses to spend time with me in her ‘last few months of freedom’," he groaned.
"So ask her father, stalk her on social media. Put in some fucking effort, Romeo. All she wants is to feel like you actually want her and not what she can give you. You work in a strip club. That is automatically going to work against you. She'll assume you're sleeping around. You proudly displaying her photo for all the girls to see will help that a bit, but not enough. If you haven't already done this, I highly suggest you take a vow of celibacy until she's ready to give it up. The last thing you need is one of the girls talking about how good you dicked them down last week when Aoife starts coming in."
He stared at me like I'd lost my damn mind, and I thought for a moment I'd have to smack some sense into him. "You think I'd agree to an engagement and still sleep around? Fuck, Sandman. Your opinion of me is flattering." He pulled out his phone, tapping away as, I assumed, he brought up Aoife's social media accounts.
"I can't believe I just encouraged you to stalk her." I shook my head, pacing around the room some more. "Keep texting her regularly, but not about the wedding. For her, the wedding is a symbol of
