Chapter 5
Bex
I ’m not a prude. Just because I don’t watch porn on the regular, and I wasn’t immediately familiar with the term “tag team,” doesn’t mean I’m offended by this conversation. But it’s… different for me. Being from Vegas and seeing how liberal the tourists can be when they visit; it takes a lot to shock me.
But staring at Corey and Ritchie, I can’t help but imagine myself between them. These two tall, broad shouldered, muscular guys… heat floods my core, and I squeeze my thighs together. They’re both older than me, though Ritchie has the look of someone who’s had some work done to appear younger, and Corey looks natural, with faint lines around his eyes and lips and a sprinkle of salt and pepper near his temples .
“So, what do you think?” Ritchie is talking to me, and I’m not paying the slightest bit of attention.
“Sorry, didn’t catch that,” I say, taking a sip of beer.
Corey hasn’t taken his eyes off me since he greeted Ritchie, and the heat in his gaze has me squeezing my thighs tighter and biting my lip. The movement doesn’t go unnoticed by Corey and he smirks, tilting his head at me like he’s caught me doing something naughty.
Three loud, giggly, plastic-looking women sneak up behind Ritchie, all of them trying to run their hands over him at the same time. He looks crowded, but in a way he likes; I wonder, given the work he’s had done and the women around, if Ritchie is the type of guy who seeks validation solely from others. He wraps his arms around two of the women, leaving the third to stand behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind—it looks awkward.
Corey steps back and leans against his chair, closer to me.
“We’re headed to Satin… you guys coming with?”
Satin is the new high-end strip club downtown. One of the Bravado co-owners invested in the property, but it’s not typically a place I’d check out on my own, or even with my friends.
I reach for my phone to check the time—it’s just past 2:30 a.m.—and even though I have the day off tomorrow, I should probably be heading back to my apartment. Surely Corey doesn’t want a chubby acquaintance he’s known for a few hours to accompany this crowd to a club like that… could he?
“Can I see that?” Corey asks, reaching for my phone.
“Why?”
“Just want to check something,” he says. I drop my phone in his hand and watch curiously as he taps a few times, then locks my phone and hands it back. “Thanks,” he murmurs, his hand lingering on mine .
“Ritchie, baby, can we get going?” the plastic woman standing behind him whines. Clearly, she feels neglected, but Ritchie nods.
“Yeah, baby girl, we’re going,” he says, tilting his head back toward her. “You coming, Frank? What about you, beautiful?” he directs toward me.
Corey slides in front of me slightly, as if he’s shielding me from his friend. “We—” he starts, but I interrupt.
“I need to get headed home,” I say, standing up from my chair. My legs are a bit stiff since we’ve been sitting here talking for over an hour.
Corey whips around to face me, and I can tell he’s disappointed, but he recovers smoothly. “It is late, and you worked all night,” he says, brushing my hair back over my shoulder.
The gesture gives me chills, and he notices me tremble.
Grinning, he leans closer to whisper in my ear, “Can I see you again? I’m in town for a few days.”
I swallow hard; his proximity, his scent, and his warmth envelop me and, though I’ve been turned on during our time at the bar, I can feel how wet I am when I shift my hips. “That would be nice,” I respond.
He reaches into his pocket and takes out a hundred-dollar bill, putting it down on the bar by our drinks—which more than covers our beers and shots. Janie slides over, grabs the bill, as she says, “Be right back with your change.”
Corey waves her off. “It’s yours,” he says, and the look on Janie’s face is precious and priceless.
“C’mon Frankie, we gotta roll,” Ritchie says. Two of the women have already headed for the exit, giving the neglected one at his back time to slide around to his front for some face time.
“Yeah, I’ll meet you out front,” he says as he begins to roll up the sleeves of his dress shirt and… good lord, I might need to sit back down, because his forearms are just as muscled as the rest of his body, and those veins popping out are making me feel faint. Rolling those sleeves up gives me the impression he’s about to get his hands dirty at the club, and I feel a twinge of jealousy that I have absolutely no right to feel.
He turns to me, leans in close, and cups my jaw. “We aren’t near finished with our conversation… among other things,” he murmurs.
I bite my lip, and he groans. “What other… things?” I ask, breathless.
“Oh, I think you know,” he growls. “I want to kiss you right now. Is that okay?”
Consent. He’s got me wound up so tight and wet, I would let him do whatever the fuck he wanted to do to my body, right here in the middle of this bar. But the fact that he asked turns me on even more.
“Please.” I hardly get the word out before his lips are on mine in a soft but possessive kiss. His hand slides from my jaw to my hair, gripping it tightly as if he’s fighting to control himself in this kiss. I don’t want him controlled, I want him undone. I slip my tongue along his lips, and he moans, parting his lips and allowing me to slip inside. He sucks on my tongue, hard, and then suddenly, he’s pulling away.
My heart is pounding as he steps back, his hand sliding back to my jaw.
“Can I walk you to your car?” he asks, just as breathless as I am.
I shake my head—it’s late, his group is on their way out, and with the tips he’s given me tonight, I can take an Uber back to my apartment. Britney dropped me off earlier today for my shift, anyway, since she was headed out on auditions, so it’s not like I’m leaving my car at work.
Ritchie runs back and, before I can say anything else, he sweeps Corey along toward the exit as I stare wistfully at what could have been walking out the door.
Grateful for a day off, I sleep in til noon. Not something I do often, but I didn’t make it home until just after 3 a.m. I haven’t stayed out that late in ages, so naturally my body wanted payment in the form of sleep.
As I stumble out of my room, I see Ally working on her laptop at the island in the kitchen. With her position at a PR firm in Vegas, she often has the flexibility to work from home—must be one of those days. Ally is the day-dreamer of our little group. When she’s not working, she’s reading a dirty book on her Kindle—and when we’re bored, we ask her to read some of her recent “highlighted” parts for fun.
“I just made a pot of coffee an hour ago,” she says, glancing up from her laptop. “It should still be warm for you.”
“You’re a fucking saint,” I mumble, walking to the coffeemaker and reaching for my favorite mug in the cabinet above. The mug has Pedro Pascal on it and a quote from a TV show he was in; honestly, anything with that man is my favorite, and this mug was a gift from my roommates last Christmas.
Taking the first sip of coffee, I moan in satisfaction. Ally eyes me curiously. “Late night for you, huh?”
I take my mug over to the couch and sit down with my favorite blanket. “Yeah,” is all I can think of to say.
Ally twists in her seat to give me a suspicious look. I’ve known Ally since high school; we were close, then went to separate schools when we graduated. It was by chance that we reconnected in California. She had gone to college there, majoring in communications, and was struggling to find work in the entertainment industry. We discovered Britney was a mutual friend and all of us were looking for a new place to live. So, we got a small place in LA for a year and made a pact: if none of us could find work within a year, we would relocate somewhere fresh together.
Alas, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and Ally and Britney didn’t find jobs they loved in LA, so we decided to try out Vegas, and here we are. Ally landed a dream job at a sports PR firm, where she handles major events for professional sports teams in the city.
Britney still floats around from gig to gig, just like she did in LA. I can’t imagine she makes good money, especially with how inconsistent her jobs can be, but she makes rent every month and seems to have plenty of money left over to live comfortably. It’s a mystery to me how she does it, but I don’t pry.
I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m doing my dream job. Honestly, who dreams of being a cocktail server? But there are so many parts of my job I enjoy that I’ve just let myself settle into a happy routine here in Vegas with my friends.
Ugh. Settle . I hate that word.
“Why are you giving me that look?” I ask Ally.
“Because your hoe ass was out til 3 a.m., and Beckett says he saw you at O’Malley’s last night with some hot as fuck grown ass man,” Britney says, stalking out of her room on the other side of the apartment. Britney is gorgeous, with auburn hair that falls in beachy waves over her shoulders, and skin so light she jokes she’s translucent in the sun.
I close my eyes and groan. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought Corey to such a familiar place. Beckett is Britney’s gay bestie, and he loves to gossip. I was so wrapped up in my convo with Corey that I didn’t even pay attention to who else I might have known there last night. I can tell by the look Ally’s giving me that Britney has already shared this gossip with her, and now they’re both looking at me expectantly for an explanation .
“Beckett is a gossip,” I mumble, busying myself with another sip of coffee.
Britney plops on the couch next to me. “So, who is this guy? Tell us everything.”
Before I can open my mouth, the door to Britney’s room opens and a tall, lean, disheveled guy walks out. His dirty blonde hair is hanging in his eyes, and he pauses when he sees all of us sitting in the common space, staring at him. He’s cute, and, knowing Britney, it’s probably a musician from a club she picked up. At Britney’s random gigs around town, she’ll usually find a guy who’s “just her type”—she always claims this, when really, every guy is Brit’s type.
I watch as he saunters over to Britney, bending down and placing a kiss on the top of her head. He’s quiet, but so are we, so I can hear him mumble, “Thanks for last night, pretty girl. See you around.”
With an awkward wave to me and Ally, this guy makes his way to the front door and leaves as quickly as he appeared.
Narrowing my glance at Britney, she dismisses me with a wave. “Not worth discussing,” she says. “We’re focusing on you. Continue.” She gestures.
Sighing, I take a deep breath and give them some details. Not everything—I’m certainly not telling them how Corey licked the lime juice from my face, although the memory of that moment has my core clenching as I tell them about him. I make it sound like a hot guy from the high limit room asked to take me out after my shift, and we had some good conversation and a promise to see each other again while he’s still in town.
“Oh, and he’s a porn star,” I say, adding that bomb of a detail on at the very end before taking a large sip of my coffee.
Ally and Britney’s eyes widen to saucers .
“That’s kind of an important fucking detail!” Britney exclaims.
I shrug as if it isn’t and continue sipping my coffee.
“Does he want to fuck you?” Ally asks, angling her chair around, her work and laptop fully dismissed.
“Ha, please,” I say, self-deprecatingly. “Look at me. Do I look like someone a porn star would want to fuck?”
Britney glares at me. “You’re a hot bitch, and we’ve talked about this. You don’t talk about yourself that way,” she says.
If there was a definition of true uplifting female friendship, Britney and Ally would be the poster girls for it. They’ve worked on my self-confidence over the years, and I’m honestly much better than I used to be, but that whisper of self-doubt can be difficult to silence.
“Okay, yes, I am. I know,” I say, setting my coffee down on the side table and looking at them.
“What did you say his name was?” Ally asks.
“His name is Corey, but I think maybe his performer name is Frank? A few people recognized him last night and called him Frank,” I say, shrugging.
“Wait, wait, wait. Frank… what?” Britney sits up, her phone appearing out of nowhere as she unlocks it and starts tapping.
I know someone said his last name last night, but it’s a bit fuzzy. Somehow, the details of Corey’s face—his smile, that dimple, the cut of his jaw—are clear as fucking day. “I’m not sure,” I answer.
Britney is grinning like a maniac as she taps on her phone. “There’s no way,” she murmurs to herself. Ally and I look on expectantly.
“Well?!” Ally prompts after thirty seconds of silence.
Beaming, Britney looks up. “Bex, is this the guy?”
She holds her phone up to me and I’m met with a stunning photo of Corey, clearly from the set of a porno. He’s not naked—which I’m not sure if I’m happy about or disappointed—but he is shirtless. And my god, his body is absolute perfection. The picture looks a bit dated, based on the lack of some lines on his face, and he’s missing some of the gray hair that peeked around his temples last night, but he still looks like sex on a stick.
Judging from the way my mouth is hanging open, Britney squeals. “Oh my god, it is him, isn’t it?”
“How did you find him so quickly?” I ask, reaching for my nearly empty coffee cup so I have something to occupy my hands other than twisting them nervously in my lap.
“He’s one of my favorite adult film stars!” Britney claims as she tilts the phone to Ally so she can get a better look.
“What?” I sputter. “You have favorites?”
She shrugs. “Yeah, don’t you?”
I glance at Ally, who is also nodding. I didn’t realize this was a thing. “Um, no?”
Ally giggles. “Oh, Bex, do you even watch porn?”
“I watch porn!” I cry defensively. “But clearly not enough to have a favorite performer. You two are dirty.”
“Ah ah,” Britney says, scrolling through what must be more pictures of “Frank” on her phone. I’m tempted to snatch her phone and look for myself—suddenly, I feel hungry for more. “We don’t shame each other here.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I sigh.
“I just can’t believe you even met him,” Britney says in awe. She pauses scrolling and exclaims, “Oh my god, I forgot about this movie! This is my favorite scene with him. He’s got this woman upside down on the bed, his co—”
“Brit, please,” I say, cutting her off. While a part of me is curious about her favorite scene and, well, honestly, any scene with Corey, I would feel uncomfortable watching him in a porn at this point.
“I bet he’s in Vegas occasionally... and The Adult Film Awards are here in a few months,” Ally explains.
“Of course the PR woman would know that fact,” I mumble into my mug.
“It’s being held at the Bravado theater,” Ally says, giving me a pointed look. I shrug—I’m not an event person. I can hardly keep track of the local professional sports team schedules; not that I follow sports, but there’s always an influx of crowds on any game night in the city.
Britney looks at us, her eyes bright. “Bex, Frank Moro is a fucking legend,” she says. “He’s like the Brad Pitt of porn.”