I’m pissed that she would dare to enter my office without permission. Despite my dismissal of her, Tahlie’s hand reaches down to cup my still flaccid dick.
“I could help you forget about your stresses,” she simpers.
I’m reminded of the defiance flashing in Tiggy’s eyes. Always challenging me in bed. Tiggy wouldn’t keep begging after I’ve rejected her. She has too much pride.
“I’m not stressed.” Dropping back into my chair, I jab my finger at the door, silently telling her to fuck off. “And I have a wife who does quite well in taking care of those urges.”
Too well, in fact. Toying with my phone, I call Paddy into my office. He doesn’t like what I ask of him, but he stalks off to do it anyway.
TIGGY
Niall grunts that he has to go and take care of some things. I figure he means that he has to go and carve up, torture, and murder someone before disposing of their body, so I don’t ask.
I’m surprised to be left alone in the house. I hadn’t been expecting that. Before I can revel in my unexpected freedom, I’m brought back to earth with a thud as Paddy, Seamus’s best man from our wedding, strides in.
Where Niall is golden, rough good looks, Paddy is smooth dark gorgeousness. Thick, tousled dark brown hair, dark brows, and dark stubble, he watches me silently for a beat, a scowl on his face.
“Get dressed for Oracle. Seamus wants you there,” he grunts. I blink in surprise. Apart from my yoga class and grocery shopping, I haven’t left the house for almost two weeks.
I have no idea what a woman wears to a strip club, but I study my wardrobe and decide there is no way I can compete on a sexiness level with the strippers.
I mean, hello, their job is literally to be temptation itself, so in the end, I settle on a deep purple, long-sleeved silk blouse and a black pencil skirt that hugs my hips and ass, flaring out to the knees. Adding sheer stockings with a naughty red lace garter belt, I slip on black heeled pumps.
I might look business on the outside, but at least I’m sexy underneath. My red lace push-up bustier matches my garter belt and lacy panties. There’s no way in hell I can be as sexy as a stripper, but I can secretly feel that way underneath my clothes, which helps immensely with my confidence.
Paddy opens the car door for me, but he doesn’t talk to me at all on the way to the club. Pulling up in the parking lot, he points his finger in my face, and I watch him carefully.
“Now you listen to me, and you listen carefully,” Paddy glares at me. “You don’t talk to other men in there. You don’t embarrass Seamus, or I’m going to -.”
“I grew up in this life, Paddy,” I snap at him, and he falls silent, watching me. “I’m not an idiot. I know my role.”
“That’s a lesson you’d best not be forgetting, lass,” he warns menacingly, and I flinch.
We glare at each other, at an impasse, before he nods, shoving out of the car and rounding the hood to open the door for me.
The bouncer nods to Paddy, who ushers me through the door, his hand between my shoulder blades. The bar is low-lit, and two strippers are dancing their hearts out on stage.
Paddy takes me through a side door, down a dimly lit corridor into a smaller bar, with a single bartender, a single stripper commanding the stage, and a much more subdued crowd. It is a private bar, with seating around small, round tables for about twenty-five patrons. A few eyes flicker over to us, dismissing me as boring and frumpy in my business attire and turning their attention back to the show being put on for them.
We walk over to the bar, pausing there as Paddy raises a finger to get the attention of the pretty brunette bartender with smooth tanned skin and piercing blue eyes
“What’ll it be then, Paddy?” she asks, her accent pure Boston.
“Whiskey and a red wine.”
She nods, her eyes darting over me, looking intrigued as she pours our drinks.
Nodding to her and not bothering to pay, Paddy picks up our drinks, steering me over to a table at the back. As we arrive, Seamus’s cousin Connor, with his ashy blonde hair and sleepy bedroom eyes, salutes me with his glass of whiskey.
In a gesture I did not expect from someone who so obviously despises me, Paddy holds out a chair for me. Shocked into confused silence, I take a seat, nursing my glass of red wine as my eyes are glued to the pretty redhead on stage.
She’s wearing an emerald green thong, emerald stiletto heels, and nothing else. I can’t keep my eyes off her. I have always wished I had rhythm like that. Unfortunately, my skills do not lie anywhereneardancing.
“Tahlie caught your eye, huh?” Connor smirks at me, and Paddy turns his eyes to me as well, an inscrutable look there as he frowns.
“She’s quite talented,” I muse, sipping my wine while they watch me silently. There is something in their eyes when they look between the pretty redhead on stage and me, but they don’t say anything, so I let it go.
She finishes her set, shaking her tits as she sashays her way around the room, collecting her tips. She pauses at our table when she reaches us, Connor and Paddy holding out cash to her.