Page 30 of The Heartbreaker

His charm had captured me. His good looks had sealed the deal.

And hearing he was one of the good guys had literally turned me into a pool of goo because I was just so tired of dealing with assholes.

But the whole point of me being at the club was to make as much money as possible so I wouldn’t have to work there anymore. I wasn’t there to find a man. To date one. Or to even get close to going home with one.

Tonight was wrong on every level.

Ridge was all the extra I hadn’t been looking for, yet once he touched me, I realized he was all that I needed.

I could still feel his hands on my body, his lips on my skin, his tongue between my legs.

My God, he was perfection. I couldn’t find a single inch of him that I didn’t desire.

The mere thought of him made me instantly wet again.

Which made Ridge the most dangerous man in the world.

And someone I needed to stop thinking about.

So, I forced myself to as I parked my car and walked up the steps to our second-floor apartment, quietly opening the door so I wouldn’t wake up Leah, my roommate and best friend. But as soon as I got inside, the lights in the living room were on, the TV was playing, and Leah was tucked into the corner of the couch with a glass of wine in her hand.

“You’re home late,” she said. “I thought you’d get in around two, and it’s”—she looked at her watch—“past three.”

I sighed. “It’s a long story.” I grabbed a glass from the cabinet and found her bottle of rosé in the fridge, pouring myself some before I joined her in the living room. I snagged some of the blanket she was using and hugged one of the pillows to my chest, sitting on the opposite side of the couch.

“Wet hair?”

I took a long drink of the wine. “Like I said … long-ass story.”

She held the side of her long blonde hair that was twisted into a high knot. “It’s a good thing I’m not tired. I want to hear all of it.” She tucked her legs beneath her. “But before you get into it, tell me, how was tonight?” She muted the TV. “Was your third shift as bad as the first and second?”

“Different. Much different. But not as bad.”

“Babe”—she offered a consoling smile—“you’re getting used to it. Good thing is, you’ll be done before you know it.”

“That, yes.” I leaned my head on the cushion behind me. “Along with the fact that I only had to do two stage dances before I was hired to go into a private room.”

“You were?” Her eyes perked up and widened. “It finally happened. Yay! How much did you make?”

When the need for extra money had come into play, Leah had helped me come up with a plan. Plan A was a loan. The bank looked at my student loans, my car loan, and credit card debt and denied me. Plan B was an OnlyFans account dedicated to my feet. Something I didn’t want to do either, but feet were better than full-body shots, and I wouldn’t ever have to show my face. After a week of opening my OF account and cross-promoting on the other social media sites, I still had no subscribers. That was a full seven days of posting and commenting and trying to encourage men to subscribe to my channel, and I’d earned nothing. It was going to take far too long to build an audience on that platform and generate a steady stream of income.

I didn’t have time.

Which left me with only one other option.

Plan C—to strip. I convinced myself it was like the years I’d spent cheering in college, minus the top and bra.

But it was a decision that hadn’t come easy for Leah or me. What it was, was a fast solution that wouldn’t last more than a few months.

“I earned over nine hundred,” I told her.

“Holy shit.” She pulled at her hair knot to tighten it. “I didn’t realize you could make that much for one dance!”

I’d heard many different amounts could be made in those private rooms. There were even scenarios when the cameras were mysteriously shut off.

The girls didn’t brag in the dressing room when I was in there with them, changing my outfit or freshening my makeup, but they talked enough that I got the drift. It just depended on how much the manager was tipped and how big of a whale the patron was.

I’d spare my bestie those details since I would never be in a situation where the cameras needed to be shut off.