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As in, grey grey. Not just ashen or extremely pale. Grey like someone who had painted themselves to look like a black-and-white photograph. Not only that, but smoky black make-up was artfully smudged around his eyes, which had to be contacts. The irises were the same bright pink as his tie and the neon sign behind him. And the pupils were kind of… wobbly. Not circular, but more like a drop of oil that had splashed onto the floor from a height.
Not gonna lie, the look was equal parts hot and unnerving. He even had prosthetic tips on his ears to make them all pointy. Maybe on his cheekbones too—they were a touch too sharp and angular to be natural.
His long black hair looked ridiculously shiny and lustrous, falling around his face and over his shoulders in perfectly styled, gentle waves. I couldn’t tell whether the pinkish sheen on it was a dye job or just the neon lights behind him.
He was staring at me intently. When he lifted a hand to rub his jaw, I realised he’d painted his hands grey too, and his short nails were hot pink. I was kind of impressed with the level of detail he’d put into the costume, but mostly I was freaked out by this entire surreal situation.
The boss of a secret wrestling association operating out of the basement of my work building had dressed up in a costume and hired an exotic dancer to give him a sexy “sad office worker” striptease in his office.
I couldn’t decide which part was the weirdest.
“Exquisite.”
Holt’s husky voice made my belly tighten. I must’ve misheard him though, because there was no way he’d use that word to describe me. I was far from exquisite. I was the plainest, most average looking guy in the world. Average brown hair cut into an average style. Average blue eyes. Average features. Just… meh.
“Close the door behind you, Lark,” Holt rasped, and my belly jolted again. Oh god, better nip this in the bud ASAP.
Without a word, Larkin closed the door with a soft click. Then it was just me and the strange wrestling boss in his pink-and-grey body paint, lounging behind his big desk.
“God, it’s been a fucking week.” He reached up for his shirt collar, and I took a step back in panic as he loosened his tie. But all he did was undo the top two buttons—revealing that he’d even gone as far as painting his neck and chest under his shirt—before relaxing. “I’ve needed this.”
I swallowed and curled my sweaty hands into loose fists.
“Um.” I tried to let out a carefree chuckle, but it was a touch shrill and hysterical. “So, you’re gonna laugh about this, but—”
“I don’t want to laugh tonight.” He waved an elegant, long-fingered hand and leaned back in his seat, the leather creaking. “I want to feel that sense of dread specific to a man who has just realised that the crushing grind of his daily life will inevitably leave him an empty husk.”
Well, wasn’t that a fresh slap of reality right in the fucking face. I was too dumbfounded to think of a response, and after a few moments of incredibly awkward silence, Holt waved his hand again.
“You can start.”
I was so wildly out of my depth in this situation that for a split second, I almost started shuffling side to side in an awkward attempt at sexy dancing. He was unnervingly commanding. His whole presence was.
Plus, even with the weird grey cosplay make-up, he was ridiculously hot. And he… you know, seemed to like the way I looked, at least a little. There was a definite hint of something lusty in his gaze as he watched me expectantly.
Maybe I could just… No. No! I didn’t know how to do a striptease! I’d look like a complete idiot.
“Look.” I shrugged my shoulders helplessly. “I’m really not an exotic dancer or anything.”
“Mmm. No, you’re not, are you?” He gave me a coy smirk, and I quickly realised with horror that he thought this was part of my ‘act.’ “You’re just a sad little office drone who thought he might claw back some excitement in his life by stripping for strangers after work, aren’t you? God, that’s hot.”
Jesus Christ. I was sweating, and I was humiliated to realise that it wasn’t just from awkward embarrassment.
“Take the tie off first,” he purred. “And tell me how it felt to stand in that sad, lifeless room with all your colleagues and realise you’d be doing it for another thirty years.”
Okay, this had to be some form of demonic torture, because it was hitting far too close to home. Or maybe I’d never even gone up to the roof. Maybe I had snapped in the break room and this was all a delusion, and I was actually still upstairs, smearing cake all over my naked body while my co-workers looked on in horror.
“How did the cake taste?” Holt asked in a lusty murmur, as if he’d read my thoughts. “Was it the shittiest cake you’d ever eaten, but you ate it anyway just to feel something for once?”
“No,” I blurted defensively for some reason. “It wasn’t… I’ve eaten worse cake.”
“Mmm, I bet you have.” He gave me a sultry grin. “A life filled with little disappointments that you didn’t even realise at first were wearing you down into… this.” He waved a hand in my direction, his eyes flaring with lust.
Okay, that was enough. This was weird as fuck, and I was not going to let this hot cosplaying stranger sit there and accurately assess the sad state of my life. I was perfectly fine doing that myself. Alone. In private.
“Look,” I snapped, “I’m not the dancer you hired, man. I am just a normal guy who works in a fucking office, and yes, I did have to attend a co-worker’s birthday party tonight, and yes, it was depressing as fuck and I did stand there knowing that I was the saddest, most boring man in the world. I don’t know what the fuck this place is, but I just work upstairs. In one of the offices. I just wanted to get my fucking keys and go home.”
Holt was staring at me with an odd look, as if he was still trying to figure out whether this was part of the act. Slowly, he straightened in his seat. “Um…”
