Callie dressed in a skimpy skirt and revealing top with sexy thigh high black stockings on, and went out to the bar to cocktail waitress. Max hadn’t been kidding about being really busy. He was behind on delivering drinks because he had so many orders.
She grabbed a tray and began taking drinks around to patrons as quickly and pleasingly as she could. The men recognized her right away, and gave her more money because of it, hoping to get closer to her since she was no longer on the stage. She had to work to keep them at bay and remind them to keep their hands off of her. It always seemed like a fine line to her, selling herself to them as an appetizer while withholding the main course.
Though she had had countless opportunities over the years, she had never gone out on a date with any man at the club, and she had never been intimate with one, from kissing to having sex. Not one man had ever turned her head or interested her. It was always a one-way street with her; they wanted her, but she hadn’t ever wanted even one of them.
With her tray full of drinks, she approached a table in the far corner of the room where two businessmen in their fine suits were sitting and talking.. One man was showing something on his cell phone to the other. Callie smiled a little. The man with the cell phone hadn’t even looked up from his phone, but his friend was gawking at Callie.
She could see right away that the gawker was hot for her. She had seen the expression more times than she could remember. The wide vacant eyes, the partly opened mouth, the spread knees, the shortness of breath. She knew that in his mind the rotund dark haired man before her was imagining her without her clothes on, and it was all he could do to maintain any kind of public politeness.
She reached the table and the other man didn’t look up at her. He was still talking to the fat man about whatever was on his cell phone.
“When we released this app, we thought that it was ready; that it was perfect, but it’s been a bit challenging. Everyone has gone crazy for it as you know, but we’re running into problems with it integrating into other software as seamlessly as we hoped that it would. It’s only working at half capacity for what we wanted, and I’ve got a team of people working on this, but it’s just taking some time to get through the bugs.” He sounded frustrated as he traced his finger back and forth over the screen, showing the app to the man with him.
The heavier man, who wasn’t listening to his friend at all and who was still staring at Callie, held his hand up to stop his friend. “Alexander, you gotta stop, buddy. I just can’t concentrate on anything but this beautiful woman in front of me. Have you ever seen tits like hers in your life? I’m in heaven. She’s an angel. Baby, you are an angel.” He babbled on, his eyes steady on her.
The other man finally looked up and blinked, realizing at last that there was someone standing at the table beside them. Callie had a half smile on her face. She hated it when men spoke to her that way, but she knew the look on the heavy man’s face. He would be thrusting money at her all night long just hoping to convince her to do something for him or to him, anything at all. He wouldn’t figure out that her body or her personal affections couldn’t be bought until she was deep in the money he had given to her.
The man with the phone who was talking about his app stared at her for a moment and then looked over at his friend in clear aggravation. “Hey! Tony! don’t talk about her like that! What do you think you’re doing? You can’t talk to women like that no matter where they are or what they’re doing! Can’t you see she’s trying to work here? You don’t need to make this a hostile work environment for her!”
Tony turned and looked at his friend Alexander in shock. “You gotta be kidding me! This chick just got up on that stage and stripped all of her clothes off! She’s the hottest stripper they have here tonight! I mean, wasn’t that strip tease the hottest you’ve ever seen? I’m still hard from her show!”
Alexander seemed caught short, blinking again and speechless for a moment. He looked up from Tony to Callie. “I… I’m sorry. I didn’t see it. Did you dance? I’m sure it was very good. I… I was just talking to Tony about this app, and I guess I must have missed it.” He turned and glared at his friend again. “Still though, I might have missed it, but seeing her do an exotic dance doesn’t give you the right to talk to her that way.”
Tony was affronted. “It’s her job to do what she’s doing and me talking about her tits or her ass or her incredible legs is all part of the gig! That’s just how it goes here! Isn’t it, baby?” He turned and looked at her, giving her an inviting grin.
She had planned on letting it go. She had planned on just letting him pour money in her direction all night and then shutting him down when he finally made his last desperate move on her before one of them left, but she was so disgusted by him that she decided to do it right then.
“Actually, your friend Alexander here is pretty on the mark. We’re all here working, and it’s not an office; it’s a strip club as you so accurately pointed out, but most gentlemen in this gentlemen’s club treat us with a fair amount of respect. Most of us really appreciate it. I know I do. People get a lot farther with us when they’re nice to us.” She gave him a smile and she saw Alexander chuckle and try to cover it up, lifting his hand to his mouth.
Tony blinked and grew anxious. “Oh… right! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I just… I really loved your dance, and you are one seriously beautiful woman, so I guess I was trying to pay you a compliment and it came out kind of wrong. Sorry about that.” He brightened then and gave her a flirtatious smile. “Let me buy you a drink and make it up to you?”
She saw that he was still in the game, trying to get any part of her body or her affections that he could and he’d be willing to tip heavily for the gamble. She gave him a sultry pout with her full dark red lips. “I’m so sorry, they don’t let us drink at work, but I’d be glad to bring you a drink. Is there anything you want?”
He grinned and gave her a wink. “Oh, I want quite a bit, but for now how about a slippery nipple? Dark…” He nodded at her as if he was being clever. She gave him a forced smile and nodded. Then she looked over at Alexander who was gazing at her curiously.
Alexander was a beautiful man. She had seen a lot of men in her line of work, and some weren’t anything to look at, some were nice looking, some were cute, some were really good looking, but on the very rare occasion, a truly beautiful looking man would come in, and then it would be her turn to actually look at the men in front of her and enjoy the view.
His hair was golden brown with more gold in it than brown; cut short at the sides and longer on the top. It was a classic sort of style, and that was true for everything about him. His white button up shirt, his hand tailored suit and his dark brown leather shoes. His navy blazer was hanging over the back of the chair and he wore tan and red suspenders on his tan colored pants. He might have just stepped out of the late 1800’s, or he might have just walked off of the pages of a men’s fashion magazine. His sleeves were rolled up to just beneath the elbow, and his shirt was unbuttoned three buttons.
His hazel eyes were steady on her face, and his rounded lips were curved into a small smile at the corners. Alexander’s face was clean shaven, showing off his sharply squared jawline and his strong chin. He was a masterpiece of masculinity, and he had a charm about him that felt to her as if it could draw her in. She immediately put up her mental guard, but gave him a genuine smile all the same.
“Can I get anything for you?” She asked with a softer voice. He blinked again, seeming to come back to where he was, looking as if he might have been lost in thought looking at her.
“Ah… a martini would be good. Thank you.” He gave her a smile and a nod. She realized that like her, he must be used to people staring at him for the way that he looked. It was humorous to her that they were both looking at each other that way.
“I’ll get those drinks for you,” she replied pleasantly, and she was just turning to go when she happened to see the app that he had been talking about with Tony, who hadn’t seemed to have heard a word about the app, and who was still staring, lips parted, at her breasts.
“Wait…” she said as she knit her brow, looking at it. “Are you talking about this app?” She pointed to the one on Alexander’s phone.
He raised his brows in interest and nodded. “Yes. I developed it. I was just telling Tony about the issues we’re having with it.” Tony was rapt with lust as he stared at Callie’s body, and he wasn’t paying attention to what Alexander was saying at all.
“It’s an organizational app.” Alexander continued. Looking from his phone back up to Callie, he brightened some. “Have you seen it?”
She laughed softly and nodded. “Yes. Everyone’s seen it, it’s gone viral. I know what you’re talking about with the integration issues. I hope you don’t mind, I heard you talking about it a few minutes ago. I actually have that app, and I use it all the time for school.”
Tony’s mouth opened further. “You’re a college girl?” He asked in a breathless voice. “God that’s so hot.”
She ignored him and continued with what she was saying to Alexander. “I had trouble with the app at first, getting it to work with all of the other software and programs that I wanted to use it with, but I just wrote some workarounds for it and implemented the adaptations, and now I can use it for everything.” She smiled widely at Alexander, and Alexander’s mouth fell open slightly.
“Wait,” He held his hand up as if to stop her, “you wrote… you wrote workarounds for this?” He pointed to the app on his phone.
She nodded and reached into the small pouch at her hip, pulling her cell phone out of it. “Yeah, I did.” She opened the app on her phone and handed it to him to look at. “Now I can use it with all of the programs and software that I use the most. My schedules, classes, homework, the programs I use for my papers, spreadsheets, word docs, all of it. Even health and fitness apps, music apps, and shopping; everything from groceries to tires. It works so well now that I put it on my laptop too, and I use it every day. It’s a great app.”
She shook her head, surprised that she was actually looking at the man who invented the app, and she was showing him her revision of it. “Wow… so you made this?” She gasped, realizing then just who he was. “Wait… you’re Alexander Kingston?” The light went on over her head and she couldn’t stop the awe from showing on her face. She had studied his work in school and she followed much of what he did in the tech media hubs.
Tony’s hand shot out. “I’m Tony. Tony Barretti. I’m the CEO of Morian Inc.” He seemed quite self pleased about it. She gave them both a smile. She knew who Tony was too, after hearing his name. He was a big shot in the tech industry as well, and Morian Inc was a growing company on the verge of becoming a powerhouse.
“Nice to meet you both!” She said simply as another epiphany struck her. She was looking at two of the biggest names in the tech world, sitting together at a small table in the back of a strip club where no one would see them, and Alexander Kingston was discussing his new app with a man who could either be a competitor or a partner. It dawned on her that they were probably there as a precursor to a merger, and her heart skipped a beat, wondering if she was seeing history in the making. She kept her thoughts to herself, but wondered about it with no small amount of excitement.
Alexander was busy swiping this way and that through her own version of his app on her phone. He started laughing with delight and shaking his head incredulously. “This is amazing! How on earth did you do this? It’s fantastic!” He held it out to Tony.
“Look at this! Look at the streamline… at the… what’s this p… well that’s just brilliant! This is incredible! How did you do this?” He looked back up at her as Tony stared at the app. “I have a team of people working on this problem. A team of some of the best tech engineers in the world. How did you figure this out? How did you change it?”
He was completely fascinated with her work, and it made her feel totally giddy with excitement. “Well gents, I’d love to explain it to you, but I’m working. I’m sorry, I have a tray full of drinks here, the ice is melting in them, and there are other tables waiting. I am sorry. I’d love to show you, but I just can’t do it right now.”
Alexander looked up at her with serious, wide eyes. “I’ll wait. I will sit here and wait until you are free.”
She nodded and he handed her phone back to her. “I’ll be back with your drinks.”
Callie left them feeling like she had just taken a trip to the moon and was walking around and dancing on the surface of it. The man who had invented the app was sitting at a table in the bar where she worked and he had seen her changes to his app and he was fascinated with them. It was like some kind of surreal dream come true, and she couldn’t begin to wrap her mind around it. It was Christmas morning and her birthday and New Year’s Eve all wrapped up in one.
She made rounds back to their table several times during the night to bring them drinks. As she predicted to herself, Tony kept giving her fistfuls of cash and flirting with her trying to get her to give him a lap dance or kiss him or any other number of things. He got very drunk on every dirty named drink he could think of, trying to say them all to her to get her turned on and interested in him. Alexander on the other hand had one martini and then switched to water for the rest of the night, fiddling with his app on her phone. She had finally left her phone with him as he kept asking her questions about it every time she came to bring them drinks.
As they each wanted desperately to talk with her; Tony about the possibility of her giving him a blow job or doing a lap dance for him, while Alexander was anxious about discussing the app reprogramming with her, they both ordered round after round of drinks until Tony was barely hanging in his chair and Alexander had drunk half his weight in water.
Callie stayed busy bringing drinks to all of the patrons of the bar all night long until closing time, and when everyone else in the bar had gone, Tony, who was passed out on the table, and Alex, who was anxiously waiting to talk with Callie, were the last people in the place who didn’t work there.
She went to them finally and Alex looked desperate. “Callie, I’ve spent most of the night looking at this, trying to figure out what you did, trying to trip it up, trying to find a bug or a hole or something… anything wrong with it, but there’s nothing. It’s flawless. I can’t figure out how you did this, and I wrote the damn thing! I’m at my wit’s end with this. You’re a certified genius. I don’t know how you did it, but you fixed what my team of pros can’t do. You said you have this on your laptop as well?” He asked, his eyes wide and his perfectly coiffed and combed hair slightly tousled from having run his fingers through it several times.
Callie nodded, more pleased with herself than she had ever been. “Yes, it works just like that on my laptop too. Same changes, different device, all the same fix.”
He sighed and raked his hand through his hair again absentmindedly. She watched him and wondered in the back of her mind what it might feel like to touch his loosely fallen hair, then she wondered what in the hell she was thinking and came back to the conversation at present.
He sighed and handed her phone back to her. “Look, I know it’s late, and Tony and I are here on this business… meeting…” he rolled his eyes, “but I can’t just walk away from this. It’s much too valuable to me. Listen, I know this might sound a little crazy, but just hear me out. I’ll give you two hundred and fifty thousand dollars tonight if you will please come back to our hotel and show me how you did this.”
Her eyes went wide as she scarcely believed what she was hearing from him. A panicked look came over his face and he waved his hand in the air. “I just realized how that must have sounded, coming from me here to you… in this bar. I’m sorry. This is business. Tech business. Nothing else. I promise you.”
She nodded. “I know that. You’re just about the only man in here who hasn’t hit on me tonight. Tony’s passed out, so I know he’s harmless. I was just wondering… if you’re serious.”
Alexander nodded emphatically. “I could not be more serious. Please. I cannot convey to you how much we need this, and we need it yesterday. Please, come back to the hotel. I’ll be so glad to pay you two hundred fifty thousand dollars for you to show me how you did this. Say yes. Please god say yes.” He looked at her earnestly and she laughed softly.
It was like she was standing there in a living dream and none of it could possibly be real. The beautiful, famous billionaire she was talking to, the fact that he was there at all in the strip club where she worked, the fact that she had come up with a fix to his app problem on her own and he had seen it, and above all of that, that he was pleading with her to pay her a quarter of a million dollars on the spot to show him how she did it.
“I’ll come with you,” she said with a smile. “I just need to grab my things.”
He nodded. “Fine, good. I’ll get lumpy here into the car and you can follow me to the hotel.”
She laughed and he laughed too then, as they both looked at Tony, passed out cold on the table. Callie turned to look at Max. “Hey Max, could you please give my friend Alexander here a hand getting his buddy out to the car?”
Max waved at them from the bar. “Coming!”
“I’ll meet you outside. I’m driving an ’87 Toyota Corolla.” She was shimmering with excitement inside, unable to really believe that it was happening at all.
He blinked in surprise. “An… an ’87. Classic hm?” He asked politely, trying to cover up his subtle gaffe over being amazed that she had such an old car.
She chuckled and nodded, promising herself that if he really did give her that much money, she was definitely going to get herself a newer car.
Callie followed them to the hotel and the hotel staff helped to pour Tony into his bed for the night. She went with Alexander to his room at the end of the hall. They had given him a suite, and it was the most luxurious hotel room that she had ever seen. There were four rooms to it; one was a sitting room with a balcony that overlooked the city and a pretty marina all lit up for the night, one room was a kitchenette and bar which was connected to the sitting room, there was a massive bedroom which shared the same balcony as the sitting room, and there was a bathroom that was bigger than half of her mother’s house, with a sunken jetted tub, a steam room, a sauna, and a standing stone walled shower.
He saw that she had never seen anything like the room he was in, so he gave her a tour. She couldn’t believe what she was looking at. “This place is amazing!” she grinned as she looked at it all. He was busy looking at her.
“You’re amazing.” He replied with a genuine smile. “I still can’t get over you. You’re just really, really something else.”
“Thank you!” She laughed softly. “Shall we get to work?”
“Yes! Definitely yes. I’ve been waiting all night for this. I’m so sorry it’s so late, but I guess it is what it is. There’s an office in the sitting room.” He led her into the sitting room and in one corner was a business desk set up with everything a person could need to do almost any kind of business work there.
He pulled his laptop out and she sat down in front of it as he leaned over the chair to watch her. She could feel his body heat close to hers, and smell his cologne; it was subtle and woodsy, and she closed her eyes and breathed it in for a moment, thinking how incredibly sexy he was, and smiling a little that he was so fascinated with her and her work. It was almost an obsolete experience to have a man so interested in her head instead of her body, and she found that it turned her on, much to her surprise.
“Now, if you open this file you’ll find some of the work that we have managed to do to fix it and get it to work. Please have a look at that and tell me what you think of it.” He spoke softly near her ear and it made her catch her breath.
She opened the file and forced herself to look at it and concentrate on it, which was proving difficult with him standing so close to her. Clearing her throat softly, she showed him the spots and holes that she saw in it right away.
“This is going to cause crashes… this one is going to prevent the use of other programs to their fullest capabilities… hmm…” She tapped away swiftly at his keyboard, her fingers flying and he watched intently as she worked.
She had just gotten her mind focused almost entirely on the programs she was working on when he drew a breath near her ear and spoke in a quiet voice. “What… what perfume is that that you’re wearing? I’m sorry, it’s just… it smells… really good.” He sounded as if he was hesitating, uncertain of whether or not he should say what he was thinking, but willing to say it anyway.
Turning to look at him over her shoulder, she met his hazel gaze close to her face and spoke in a low tone. “It’s called Yes.”
He was quiet for a long moment, gazing at her as if the rest of the world around them might have disappeared. “It’s… enchanting.”
She smiled and butterflies danced wildly in the warming depths of her belly. Callie turned back to the computer and felt like fireworks were going off inside of her. Alexander Kingston liked her perfume and her programming. She couldn’t remember having a better day.
“So this is what I did.” She said as she typed and pointed out all of her workarounds. He stared incredulously.
“I can’t believe this. It’s… god that’s brilliant. You really are a genius! I don’t know if we’d have ever figured all of this out. I mean, I guess we would have at some point, maybe… but… here it all is. This is… I’m just stunned. I haven’t ever seen anything like this!” he stood up and pressed his finger to his pursed lips, watching her as she worked.
An hour later, it was done, and she had given him the entire adaptation. She turned around and looked up at him with a smile that spread into a grin when she saw the look on his face. He was completely in awe of what she had done for him.
“I just can’t get over this.” He murmured with wide eyes as he began to grin too. He held his hands up in the air. “You did it! In no time at all. You did it.”
“Well, it did take longer than that the first time I came up with it. It took me a whole day, not an hour, but since I’ve written it before, I knew what I was doing this time.” She laughed softly as she gazed happily up at him.
He stared at her. “You remember everything that you wrote the first time, exactly as you wrote it?”
She nodded and stood up from the chair. “I have an eidetic memory.” She shrugged. “It’s useful for things like this.”
Alexander shook his head in wonder. “I bet it’s useful for just about everything!” He laughed softly and forced himself to look away from her. “Well, a deal is a deal.” He went to the drawer in the desk and pulled out his checkbook.
Callie watched in total disbelief as he wrote out a check to her for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He double checked the spelling of her name and then handed the check to her. She felt like she might faint right there. She’d never held so much money in her life.
“Thank you, this is really amazing.” She said softly as she folded the check and tucked it into her purse.
“Are you kidding? I should be the one thanking you! Thank you! You just fixed everything for me. I’m not even sure that check is enough.” He laughed and gave his head a shake. “Listen, you’ve been serving me all night, can I offer you a glass of champagne? We can celebrate with a toast!”
He looked like a giddy school boy, and she felt like a giddy school girl. “Sure! I’d love that! Thank you!”
Alexander went to the bar and popped the top of a brand new bottle of champagne. He poured for them and then brought a glass to her. Holding his aloft, he toasted her with a wide grin. “To the incredibly brilliant and beautiful Callie Forrester, with the gratitude of the world at large, and mine more than all of them!”
She laughed and raised her glass to him. “To the man to invented the app to begin with!”
“We make a perfect team!” he added, and she felt the butterflies go crazy in her again as she drank her glass halfway down and looked into his eyes. She saw so much about him that she liked, that drew her in and intrigued her, and all of it made her want to know him more, and made her want him, period.
They finished their drinks and she picked up her purse reluctantly, wishing that she could spend a little more time with him. He was quiet as he walked with her to the door. They stopped there, facing each other only inches away and she smiled up at him. He seemed enraptured by her, staring at her while trying not to.
“Thank you, Callie. I know I’ve said it ad infinitum tonight, but you really are amazing.” He stared into her eyes and she could feel electric sparks firing rapidly all around them and between them.
“I guess I’m not just a pretty face.” She laughed and teased him in a soft voice.
He looked dumbfounded. “A pretty… no.” He said quietly with a subtle shake of his head. “Tony was right about one thing tonight. You are so beautiful,” he whispered and then swallowed hard. “But he was only looking at the outside of you.”
Callie’s heart skipped a few beats and she lost her breath for a moment. All reason and rule disappeared from her staunch personal laws, and she blinked a few times and spoke just above a whisper as she leaned closer to him.
“Would you mind terribly if I..” She closed her eyes and brushed her lips in feather softness against his. Her breath caught in her chest and her mouth caught on fire. “… if I…” she tried to say again as he leaned forward and barely touched his lips to hers.
“Please…” he murmured against her lips as she reached her hands up to hold his cheeks and she kissed him tenderly.