Amazed that she had been harangued into making such a stupid bet with Pepper, Jazmyn downed a shot of vodka and took a deep bolstering breath. Gage would be at the Hideaway any time now to start working on those flickering lights upstairs.

Stupid lights. If the lights had been working properly, none of this would’ve come up in the lounge room conversation and Jazmyn wouldn’t have to decide how to go about hooking up with Gage.

The group of friends had been running the Hideaway for almost three months and business was great. The novelty of the new club hadn’t worn off yet as they all had expected would happen around the three-month mark. That was terrific for the women. According to Drake, the new club hadn’t hurt their business up at Harley Heaven, either. Their business had actually gotten a bit better since the Hideaway opened.

Jazmyn wondered if their underground business was still going strong up there. She had only been in the dungeons that one time, and that had been enough to fuel three months’ worth of kinky dreams. Being the least adventurous of all her friends, Jazmyn had never really experimented with toys and props during sexual encounters. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that Pepper had been right. Jazzy had always been thinking of making a future and a family with any potential lover.

Shaking the thoughts from her head, Jazmyn made her way to the upstairs section of bad lights. They’d been trouble since day one and someone always ended up having to go up there and fiddle around with the lights to get them to burn steady even for a little while.

Today Gage would be going up there. Hopefully, he would fix them and they would work correctly for the duration of the night anyway. She let her mind roam freely with the idea of sexy Gage bent over and working diligently on that section of lighting. He was sexy, tall, muscular, and his black hair and tanned skin made his green eyes stand out like two bright green emeralds. Though she only had two small tattoos herself, Jazmyn had always loved men with ink, finding it nearly an irresistibly sexy characteristic.

With the table and chairs moved to the side and out of the way of the faulty lights, Jazzy stood at the railing of the balcony, admiring how the club looked from her vantage point. Tavia ascended the steps slowly, wiping down the handrail and polishing away any stray spots on the riser-facings and walls as she went.

At the top, she smiled at Jazmyn and stuffed the cleaning rag into her back pocket. “So, you going to go through with the bet?” She stood beside Jazmyn and surveyed the place alongside her friend.

Shrugging, Jazmyn nodded at Tavia. “I don’t have much of a choice now.”

“Yeah, you do. You could always forfeit; tell her you didn’t mean it; tell her it was stupid.” Tavia didn’t look at Jazmyn.

“Nope. I made it; I’ll keep it. It was on my word, my honor, as a friend and fellow female.” She turned to Tavia. “Do you really think I’m a prude, Tavia?”

“Huh? No way.” Tavia didn’t hold eye contact and it made Jazmyn suspicious.

“Really? That didn’t sound very convincing. Am I a prude?” She asked more forcefully.

Tavia took out the cleaning rag and began wiping at the railing and the short wall below it, which was clear and showed every scuff mark from every shoe that touched it and every fingerprint from every patron who passed by it. “Not a prude, per se.”

Laughing, Jazmyn asked, “What the hell does that even mean? Either I am a prude or I’m not a prude. Which is it? I’m a big girl; I can handle whatever you tell me.” She nudged Tavia with her elbow.

“All right. You’re a little bit of a prude. But just compared to the rest of us floozies. You know how bent and warped all of our morals are by now. We’re all damaged goods, Jazzy. You’re just the only one of us that’s not damaged beyond repair in some fundamental way.”

Jazmyn searched Tavia’s face for signs of deceit and found none. “So, what you’re really saying is that I’m less fucked up than the rest of you?” She was shocked. How could any of them think she wasn’t just as screwed up as they were? Her life had been one major disaster after another for as long as she could remember. And, sex was at the root of most of those disasters.

“That’s pretty much what I’m saying, Jazzy. We only hold it together so well because we’re a group of screwed up people. We support each other and help put the duct tape back over the cracks in the walls when one of us starts leaking our crazy in public.”

“Well, when I start leaking my crazy, one of you bitches had better break out the arc-welder—forget the duct tape!” Jazmyn belly laughed at her own humorous remark but she had said it only half-jokingly. She was afraid that when she let go and started going to bed with men just for the sake of sexual release and experiences that she wouldn’t stop any time soon and that no man would be off limits. She had always thought she enjoyed sex way too much to be a woman. As a matter of fact, her own mother had told her that more than once when Jazzy was in high school and would come home after some date or other elated and smiling—even if she hadn’t had sex; her mother still threw the derogatory comment at her as if she were only a slut.

Tavia cackled and high-fived Jazmyn. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you’re just as wickedly twisted as the rest of us and you’re just better at hiding it.” She put the rag in her pocket again. “If you do hook up with Gage, god, give me the dirty, dirty details first. He’s had me drooling since I met him. I’d let him hook me up to any of those things in his dungeon. And, did you see his peach package in those jeans he wears? Girl, you have a treat coming for sure, unless that’s a sock stuffed down the front of his pants.”

Jazmyn had indeed noticed. It had been a long while since she’d had sex of any kind. She hadn’t had sex since before the opening of the Hideaway. “I did notice and I do believe it is most definitely not a sock. Hell, it’s been so long since I had sex that I might not remember any details, Tav. I might pass out cold as pond water when I see him naked.” She nudged Tavia with her elbow again and added, “You might have to get the details from him and then give them to me so I’ll know what happened, too.”

They both doubled over with laughter. Pepper, Madison, and Jayda came into the main room below Jazmyn and Tavia. Pepper grinned up at them. “You two all right up there?”

Jazmyn gave her a thumbs-up. “Just planning and scheming how to get a man into my bed, is all.”

Madison said, “As if you’d have to plan or scheme to make that happen. I can name three men off the top of my head who would gladly carry you off to bed.” Pepper, Jayda, and Tavia all gaped at Madison, who looked as if she’d just let something very important slip by accident.

Jazmyn looked at each friend in turn. “What was that all about? What are you all keeping from me?”

With her deer in the headlights look, Madison grinned sheepishly and said, “Nothing, Jazzy. You know them.” She scoffed and flapped her hand dismissively at the others, rolling her eyes dramatically.

Hands on hips, Jazmyn turned to Tavia. “Give.”

“Hey, I know nothing, senorita.” Tavia took the cleaning rag from her pocket and started wiping the railing past Jazzy with more fervor than before, avoiding eye contact completely.

Jayda spoke up. “Okay, girls! It’s three hours ‘til open. Let’s get this place jumpin’!” She clapped her hands over her head and gave a war-whoop.

The others answered in kind and Jayda flipped on the music, turning up the German techno-industrial-dance music for which they all had a great fondness. Jazmyn let the comment and ensuing guilty faces go and started downstairs.

Table settings in a basket, Jazzy bopped her way back up the stairs. By the time she reached the tables up there, Tavia had them sparkling under the moving beams of colored lights.

Each of the tables up there was supported by a single rod that ran down through the middle of an upright wheel adorned with a neon-colored spinner hubcap. Purple light tubes ringed each tabletop. Bucket seats from different types of cars had been fashioned into seats and the headrests were still intact and moveable. A scissor jack sat in the center of each table holding the drink menus.

In the back, where the ever-moving thin beams of colored lights didn’t reach, hanging lights burned dimly above each table, setting a more romantic ambiance. Each dim bulb had a hubcap with tassels for a shade.

Jayda placed the drink menus on top of the scissor jacks and left a short stack of beverage napkins in front of it. She also placed a single car trivia card on top of the napkins. The trivia cards had been Madison’s idea and Jazmyn liked them. There were probably a thousand of them stored in the stock room. The cards, once used, went into a separate plastic tote, not to be used again until all the others had been used. Jazmyn thought it would be novel to also include some trivia cards about music and some about liquor.

Finishing the placements upstairs, Jazmyn moved downstairs and decorated the tables there. The booths downstairs received a placement that was a bit of a variation on the ones for the tables and she always placed them last as there were fewer booths to decorate.

The private rooms in back were Jayda’s territory. She always did the pre-open setup back there, switching things up and making special arrangements for any requests made by customers who called ahead and made reservations. Jazmyn thought the private area had been a good idea, but she wondered sometimes what all went on back there. She had helped clean a few suspicious messes already.

Though she didn’t consider herself a prude, Jazmyn couldn’t see a time when she would be okay with going to a public place and doing anything sexual with only a curtain separating her and her lover from the world. She didn’t judge people who could do those things; she didn’t think she could ever do it, though.

An hour after they had started pre-open procedures, the women opened a bottle of vodka for their ritual drink. Madison cleaned the shot glasses afterward and Jazmyn started doing the booth placements. The music raised the mood and the vodka elevated it even more.

Between songs, Jazmyn heard the unmistakable sound of a Harley outside. Peering out a window to the front parking area, she saw Gage climbing off his Fat Boy. Her heart skipped a few beats. The sight of his long, strong body, stretched out as he climbed off the Harley was amazingly sexy.

Gage unstrapped a saddle bag and tossed it over his shoulder as he walked to the front door. Jazmyn was waiting for him there and her friends catcalled and whooped at her. Trying to shush them, she opened the door before Gage raised his hand to the handle.

Removing his shades, he smiled broadly at Jazmyn. “Hey there. Now that’s what I call service.” He stepped into the club.

Jazmyn shut and locked the door behind him. “Well, we try. Come on in and have a drink, Gage. It’s gotten hot out there this evening, huh?”

“You better believe it. The humidity is murderous up here in the mountains.” He followed Jazmyn to the bar.