Bought A Stripper Husband

Chapter 09 : Evalyne's First Strip Club

The Moonlight looked like somewhere respectable people pretended they had never been.

From the outside, it was almost understated by Atlantic City standards: a low, wide building wedged between two aging hotels, its black façade broken only by a vertical strip of neon. A crescent moon glowed there in ice-blue, letters curling underneath in cursive.

THE MOONLIGHT

ALL-MALE-FEMALE REVUE · EVERYONE WELCOME

"'Everyone welcome,'" Anna read, hand hooked through Evalyne's arm as they stepped out of the car. "See? Inclusivity. Very progressive of us,"

Evalyne stared at the sign. The bass from inside thudded through the pavement, vibrating faintly up the heels of her shoes.

"I am not progressive," she said. "I am desperate."

Anna squeezed her arm. "Same thing, some nights."

The line outside was already thick, muffled chatter and the occasional shriek puncturing the winter air. Women in sequins, men in slim shirts, couples of all permutations: two women sharing a cigarette, a man with his arm around another man's shoulders, a trio of nonbinary twenty-somethings swapping lipstick. Glitter clung to hair and collars like pollen.

Evalyne took it in with the wary attention she gave any unfamiliar ecosystem. She had spent her adult life in rooms full of designers, investors, socialites. This was a different tribe entirely: louder, messier, vibrating with anticipation that had nothing to do with profit margins.

"Tell me again," she said quietly, "why we are here."

"Because you lied," Anna said cheerfully. "And because I love you."

"Those two facts do not logically connect," Evalyne replied.

Anna lifted a brow. "You lied about a whole fiancé and a whole wedding, Els. You're trying to recruit a husband in two weeks. You're terrified of men who flirt with you. And you keep picking dates from Mina's network that turn out to be emotionally constipated tech bros and condescending accountants. Clearly, we needed to change the venue."

"So we came to New Jersey," Evalyne said.

Anna grinned. "Welcome to character development. Also, I checked: no phones inside the main room. Basically no VIPs came here just to entertain rather than business. VIP section reserved under a fake name, and the owner's lawyers would rather die than have a scandal. You're safe."

Safe was not the word Evalyne would have chosen as the bouncer checked their IDs and slid their phones into soft gray pouches that locked with a magnetic click.

"Enjoy your night, ladies," he rumbled, handing the pouches back.

Anna hooked hers to the strap of her bag, then leaned up to murmur in Evalyne's ear as they moved toward the interior doors. "This is not my first time, by the way."

"I can tell," Evalyne said.

"You shouldn't be the only one with weird stories," Anna went on. "You gave me that disastrous Paris fashion week with the flooded runway. I get to give you The Moonlight."

Evalyne ground down on the urge to turn around and order the driver back to Manhattan. Instead, she squared her shoulders and followed her sister into the dark.

The sound hit first.

Bass slammed into her chest like a physical thing, deep and relentless. Over it, a music mashup throbbed, singers' voices chopped into hooks. The air was hot and thick with bodies, perfume, spilled liquor.

The main room opened up like a theater that had decided the stage didn't need to be raised to be worshipped. A wide platform stretched from one end to the other, with catwalks jutting into the crowd at intervals. LED strips ran along the edges, pulsing in time with the music. Overhead, lights swung like search beams, catching on bare chests, sequins, greedy hands.

Men danced on the stage; women danced on the floor; gender blurred in between. A curvy woman in a tuxedo shirt and glitter tie collected tips as easily as a lean man in thigh holsters. Two men kissed sloppily at the edge of the bar. A pair of women in matching dresses clung to each other, laughing so hard they could barely stand.

Evalyne froze in the entryway, every muscle going abruptly rigid.

"This is worse than the Met Gala," she said.

"The Met wishes it had this much fun," Anna yelled back. She tightened her grip on Evalyne's arm and pulled her forward. "Come on, VIP is this way."

The VIP area hugged one side of the room, slightly elevated and separated from the crush of the main floor by a low chrome railing. Instead of barstools crammed shoulder-to-shoulder, there were black leather loveseats arranged in horseshoes around small low tables, each with its own dedicated server weaving through.

They were shown to a loveseat near one of the catwalks, a prime vantage point. Evalyne sank down onto it as though she'd been dropped into a hot seat. The leather squeaked under her.

Out on the stage, a trio of dancers in firefighter gear were hosing down an imaginary blaze with something that probably wasn't water. The crowd screamed approval.

"Drink," Anna instructed, already flagging down a server. "Two tequilas and a whiskey, please."

The server, a pierced twenty-something in a tank top that said MOON CREW, grinned. "Starting strong. I like it."

"I am not—" Evalyne began.

"Yes, you are," Anna said. "You need your brain to shut up for a bit or you're going to sit here and critique the choreography."

Evalyne opened her mouth to disagree, then closed it as a dancer slid in a split across the stage, catching a handful of cash in his teeth.

"All right," she allowed. "Perhaps one drink."

It became three.

Tequila burned a slow path down to her stomach, unwinding the coil between her shoulders by a fraction. The whiskey smoothed the edges further. The room blurred slightly, the neon and shadows blending into something almost abstract.

She was still painfully aware of herself: the drape of her black dress, the line of her spine, the way she kept checking the angle of her knees so that if anyone glanced over, they would not see anything she did not intend.

Anna, by contrast, had melted into the space almost immediately. She laughed with the server, clinked glasses with the women at the next table, shouted encouragements at the stage. It wasn't even s****l with her; it was kinetic joy.

"This is a good one," Anna said, leaning in as the music shifted. "Full choreo, lots of shirts coming off. Pace yourself."

"Why would I—"

The lights dimmed to a moody blue. A ripple went through the crowd, expectation crackling.

The DJ's voice rolled over the speakers. "All right, Moonlight, you know what time it is."

A deeper roar answered.

"Get your bills up," he crowed. "They're cold and hot, all over your dreams. Make some noise for your favorite stars!"

Men in their exotic clothes onto the stage from behind the curtain, as the host announced their names but someone caught her eyes. He's not the first dancer Evalyne had seen that night, but he was the first one that made the rest of the room vanish for a second.

He stepped onto and the lights seemed to find him like they'd been waiting. The host has his name; Nightlight.

White hair. Not platinum blonde like hers, but something sharper, closer to silver, cut shorter at the sides and left longer on top, falling over his forehead in a way that looked artless and was probably precise. The moving blues and purples from the rig above him caught on it, turning it into a living halo.

He wore a white collared shirt, the crisp kind she put on models in lookbooks. On him it was unbuttoned all the way down, the tails loose, the fabric clinging in places where sweat had already dampened it.

His abs were a clean line of muscle, a faint trail of hair disappearing into low-slung, black leather tight pants that had hole designated between his thighs. Glitter dusted his collarbones and shoulders, catching the light, and even from here she could see the faint shimmer of eyeshadow at his lids, a subtle silver that made his pale eyes luminous.

He raked his hand through his hair and laughed, sweat making the glitter stick to his skin in an odd, hypnotic pattern and wild, and it did something unnerving to her chest.

"That Nightlight guy is sexier than others," Anna said, delighted. "Called it."

"Called what," Evalyne asked, but her voice came out thinner than she intended.

"That he'd be your type," Anna replied. "He looks like if trouble and a snow angel had a child."

Evalyne wanted to say she did not have a type. Her romance with Hans had been a collision, not a preference. But she couldn't take her eyes off the man onstage long enough to craft the argument.

Nightlight moved like the music was in his bones. He didn't hammer the beat; he rode it, letting his hips lag half a second behind, snapping forward when the drop hit. He prowled along the edge of the stage, one hand running over the waistband of his black leather pants, the other reaching for bills already being waved in the air.

He was not the biggest man in the lineup. Not too small either. But something about him commanded attention. Maybe it was the almost careless confidence, the way his gaze slid over the crowd with the practiced ease of someone who'd already figured out where the money was and how to coax it out of tight fists. Maybe it was the grin that flashed and disappeared like he was letting strangers in on a joke.

Evalyne swallowed.

“I don’t understand this,” she muttered, mostly to herself.

Anna grinned. “What’s not to understand? He’s pretty, he’s half-naked, and he looks at you like you’re the only person in the club when you hand him cash. It’s the purest transaction on earth.”

“I don’t like paying people to pretend to want me,” Evalyne said.

Anna’s smile dimmed a fraction. “That’s not why you’re here.”

Nightlight climbed back to his feet, shaking water from his hair. The song shifted, the choreography hitting its final mark. He ended in a pose that looked almost accidental, lips parted, eyes half-lidded.

Evalyne exhaled, not realizing until that moment that she’d been holding her breath again.

She might have passed for cool, for mildly entertained, but Anna had known her too long.

"You're staring," Anna shouted over the music.

"I am observing," Evalyne corrected.

"You are observing very hard," Anna yelled back. "You blinked, like, twice."

Nightlight's gaze tracked along the VIP, taking in shrieking bachelorettes, tipsy couples, a pair of older women cheering like it was game night. When his eyes hit their table, he paused for a fraction of a beat.

Even from the distance, Evalyne felt the hit of it. A direct, assessing look. A curiosity that didn't quite tip into recognition.

Then he moved on, hopping down from the stage to straddle the lap of a woman in a tiara. She screamed, clinging to his shoulders.

He laughed, rolled his hips slowly, then peeled himself away, climbing back up, hair falling into his eyes and glitter catching at his throat.

Evalyne exhaled, not realizing she'd been holding her breath.

Anna clapped. "Yup. That one. Server!"

The Moon Crew server materialized like a conjured sprite. "You having a good time, ladies?"

Anna slapped a folded stack of cash into her hand. "We'd like to request Nightlight for a private."

The server's brows lifted. "Ooh, going big. Just the two of you?"

"Just us," Anna said. She jerked her thumb at Evalyne. "It's her first time."

The server's gaze flicked over Evalyne—expensive dress, carefully done hair, posture like she was still in a boardroom.

"Figured," she said, amused. "Don't worry. He's a pro. I'll put you on his list. You want him to come up here first or straight to the back?"

"Here first," Anna said promptly. "Ease her in."

"Got it." The server tucked the cash away. "I'll tell him the VIP loveseats. Give him ten?"

Anna saluted with her empty glass. "We'll be ready."

Evalyne turned very slowly toward her. "You did not just—"

Anna beamed. “I absolutely did. You need to get off the bench, Evalyne. Consider this training wheels.”

“I am not going into a private room with a stripper,” Evalyne hissed.

“Why not?” Anna demanded. “It’s literally his job. You said you didn’t want to practice flirting with men who could leak to TMZ. Well, this one legally can’t even bring his phone in.”

Evalyne’s mouth went dry.

Onstage, Nightlight's song hit its climax. He spun, dropped into a low squat, pulled the tails of his shirt out like wings. The crowd thundered. Then the lights cut, the DJ switched tracks, and the three remaining dancers bowed, waving as they bounded off.

Evalyne finished her drink in one swallow that probably made the server flinch.

Ten minutes later, the blue light above the entrance to the VIP section flicked, and he walked in.