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“I’m not taking one,” she answered. “It’s only thirty degrees, and we’ll literally run from the limo to the club. and then back out when it’s over. Besides, sexy little nymphs don’t wear parkas.”
“How about wearing my overcoat? You’ll be more comfortable if you cover up.”
He’d be more comfortable if she covered up.
Matt stuffed his legs into a pair of loose jeans and jammed his feet into a pair of sneakers.
“I’m fine, Matt, but since we’ve just gotten the wings right, any chance you’ll skip the coat?”
Matt hissed and relented with a curt nod.
“Oh, come on, grumpy. If you’re cold, maybe I’ll sit on your lap and warm you up.”
“Nichole,” he snapped, his restraint perilously close to the breaking point.
She erupted in giggles and fled out the door. This was going to be a long night, and there was something very wrong with the fact that he was more concerned about Nichole’s flirtations breaking through his resolve than about standing around ninety-nine percent naked in front of a club full of strangers.
—
Backstage at Club Kink, Nichole scurried to check markers and cue music. With everything running like clockwork, the event so far was a great success. When she and Matt had first pulled up to the club, the line to get in had stretched halfway down the block, and that was before sunset. Now at nearly ten o’clock, the queue wrapped around the corner, and the local entertainment news crews she’d contacted had arrived and set up their cameras to catch the show.
With five minutes left before Eros swept the stage, Matt stood in the center of the huge papier-mâché chariot, fidgeting with the leather straps across his chest. At various stations around the club, men and women hired out of the local dance academy moved to the heavy beat of the music. Their oil-slicked muscles gleamed under the lights as they stretched and bowed their bodies.
“This is so wrong,” Nichole mused, staring at Matt’s ripped physique, which somehow looked flat under the lights.
He shook his head and put a hand to his ear.
She tucked his gold spray-painted bow and arrow under her arm, grabbed a goodie bag packed for the VIP guests, and selected a small, clear bottle from the contents inside. Stepping up to the chariot, she leaned into Matt, savoring the warmth of his hand as it rested against her shoulder. “You need to rub some of this into your skin so your body will stand out more.”
“What?” He pulled back and fixed his scowl on the bottle in her hand.
“Oil up!”
Matt rolled his eyes, the muscles of his jaw flexing as he took the bottle from her and grumbled something she couldn’t quite catch. Although, she was pretty sure it contained a colorful assortment vulgarities she’d just as soon miss.
He rubbed the slick liquid across his chest in a couple of awkward strokes that left him glistening with an oily mark of Zoro. Then he held out his hands. “Good enough?”
“Not hardly. Let me do it for you,” she groused. She grabbed the open bottle and poured a generous portion of oil into her palm. Then she snapped the lid closed, dropped the bottle back into the bag, and pitched it behind the rear curtain.
She’d been running in business mode since they’d arrived at the club and it wasn’t until she stood poised to rub oil into Matt’s chest that her focus slipped back to her plans for seduction. What serendipity to find him in need of a good rubdown. It gave her a perfectly legitimate excuse to touch him, and in a way that was much more intimate than any feigned concern over a fever could ever be.
She settled her ope
n palms against his chest, and her senses immediately dulled to the environment and any stimulus beyond the firm resistance beneath her touch. The scent of peppermint assailed her as she smoothed a slick sheen over Matt’s pecs, circling his solid muscles in outward strokes, working under and around his wing harness until she’d covered his shoulders and biceps as well.
Her mouth went dry and her throat tight as she traced her fingers down the hollow between his pecs to the ridged terrain of his abdomen. His tightly wrapped muscles ticked under her caress, and her strokes stalled as she ran out of skin.
The pounding of her heart seemed louder than the music and she wondered if Matt could feel her pulse slamming through the tips of her fingers as they traced each ridge and valley. She brushed his nipple with her thumb, and his hand shot out. He snared her wrist in his tight grip.
She released a gasp and her gaze shot upward to meet his dark stare.
“Nichole—”
The tempo of the music changed, and her heart raced into overdrive. Showtime! There was only one thing left to do; one thing she hadn’t mentioned to Matt. It was part of the show and definitely part of her plan.
The lights flashed bright and the curtain that ran around them dropped to the floor. Four hundred sets of eyes fixed on them, and a roar of excitement burst through the crowd.
Matt still gripped her wrist as she stood outside the chariot staring up at him.
