It wasn’t that she was afraid of sex—not at all. She enjoyed the physical aspects of love as much as anyone else. The real issue was that this didn’t feel anything like sex to her.

It felt ridiculous.

When the guy had given Melissa a thorough dry fuck, he thankfully moved away from their table, and Elizabeth let out her breath when it appeared that this act—the sexy-construction-worker routine involving five different dancers—was finally drawing to an end.

“See,” Melissa said, grinning. “It’s just for fun. They’re careful about the sleazy stuff here. The staff is really well-trained, and anyone who goes too far is asked to leave. It’s all very professional.”

Maybe it was professional compared to other clubs like this, but the abundance of guys in tight underwear shaking their dicks around seemed kind of sleazy to Elizabeth.

“You’ve got to learn to let loose a little,” Jenna told her, holding up her phone to take a selfie with her cosmopolitan.

“I’m happy to let loose. This just isn’t my thing.”

Melissa shook her head. “You never let loose. You never let yourself be anything but perfect.”

Elizabeth faked another laugh, slightly annoyed because she didn’t think a woman had to enjoy male strip clubs to not be considered uptight. “I’m not that bad. I’ve gotten better than I was in college.”

She said that mostly so she wouldn’t end up in an argument with the bride to be. There might have been a little truth in her friend’s words. She did try to make sure everything about her life was in order. She’d done well in school, and then she’d gotten a master’s in art therapy from an excellent school. She’d worked hard to get a job at one of the most exclusive preschools in the Boston area. Given her professional responsibilities and the age of her students, she was more of an art teacher than an art therapist, but it paid well enough and she enjoyed working with the children. She’d generally been a good girl growing up, and she’d rarely gotten in trouble. But none of that was why she wasn’t enjoying this evening.

She just found this whole scene kind of…gross.

She relaxed during the brief break between acts, since the music wasn’t so loud and she could look around without being confronted by the waxed body of a barely clad man.

She scanned the faces of the women at the tables and felt a weird clench in her stomach. She didn’t get it. She just didn’t understand their enjoyment of this kind of show.

It was like she was alone in a dark corner when the rest of the world was at a party.

As she was looking around, her eyes landed on a man standing at the back, near the bar. He stood out in the crowd because he clearly wasn’t a member of the staff—all of whom were shirtless—or a customer, nearly all of whom were female.

This guy was tall and well-built but was dressed casually in jeans and a black T-shirt. It looked like he had tattoos down both arms. He was talking to the bartender, and there shouldn’t have been anything special about him. He was very good-looking, but he wasn’t calling any attention to himself.

Elizabeth had no idea why she couldn’t look away from him.

There was just something sexy and kind of deep about him, as if there were layers to his personality that were waiting to be peeled back. She kept watching as his eyes made an impersonal tour of the room. They paused on her, maybe because he noticed her watching him.

She felt a rush of excitement as their eyes met, although he didn’t smile or change his expression. She made herself look away, since she didn’t want him to think she was staring.

She wanted to stare, though. Something kept drawing her to him in a way she wasn’t accustomed to.

It took real effort to keep her eyes away from him. And every time her gaze drifted back, the man was looking at her too.

Her heartbeat accelerated at the idea that she’d caught his attention.

Not that she would ever date a man she met in a club like this. She had fairly high standards for romantic relationships. She was looking for an educated, attractive professional who would fit into her social circle, wouldn’t be intimidated by her family’s affluence, and was basically moral and upstanding. The guy she had in mind wouldn’t spend any time in a place like this.

But it was still nice. That he’d noticed her.

Of course, he might have just noticed her because she kept looking over at him.

When the lights briefly dimmed, signaling the beginning of a new act, she shook her head at the squeals from the women around her. She couldn’t help but wonder yet again what they found so appealing.

The brief shared glances with the guy in the back were a lot sexier and more exciting than any of the vulgar moves from these dancers or their unnaturally shiny, beefed-up bodies, with everything on display.

When three men dressed as soldiers came out onstage amid ecstatic shouts from the women, Elizabeth let out a resigned sigh and discreetly glanced back toward the bar.

The man was no longer there.

She told herself not to be disappointed. Meeting a guy’s eyes a few times wasn’t any sort of a sign or a promise. It didn’t mean he wanted to talk to her or get to know her. It didn’t mean she would ever see him again.

She tried to keep smiling so Melissa wouldn’t call her uptight, but as the evening progressed, she found it harder and harder to fake interest—especially since the good-looking mystery man never made a reappearance.

During a fireman routine, as the performers spread out into the audience, one of the guys came over to her and wanted to give her a lap dance.

She tried to decline—the attention she’d had from a dancer earlier had been more than enough for her—but her friends all demanded she participate so she felt trapped into doing so.

The guy was attractive and very young, and he was playful rather than genuinely sexy, but still….She found the whole act of him grinding against her with his hips—all of his “assets” fully visible beneath the tight briefs—so uncomfortable it was almost repellant.

She kept the plastered smile on her face and hurriedly offered him a tip afterward, but she pulled away as soon as she could without offending him or Melissa.

She should never have come here tonight.

She sat stiffly for a few minutes afterward, blindly watching the tight butt of the guy as he made his way back onstage.

“It’s really not that bad,” Katie said, leaning over close enough to be heard over the music. “You don’t need to act like you’re being tortured.”

“I know. I just hate this.”

Katie was Elizabeth’s best friend, and she was the only one of the women at this table with whom she could be fully open and share what she felt. “Just laugh at it,” Katie said. “A lot of the women here are having fun because they think it’s funny. You could try to enjoy it that way.”

“You don’t think it’s sexy, do you?” Elizabeth asked.

Katie was eying a gorgeous black man who was built like a rock. “Not all the moves, no. But I don’t mind looking at the guys.”

Elizabeth frowned, vaguely disappointed in her friend and genuinely confused about the look in her eyes. Katie was married to exactly the kind of man Elizabeth was looking for. Her husband Steve was a nice-looking lawyer with good manners and a good sense of humor. He loved their two kids, and he made a very good income.

Occasionally Elizabeth would feel jealous when she looked at Katie’s life. She didn’t want Steve herself, but she wanted a family and lifestyle like that. It had all worked out so smoothly and perfectly for Katie, but Elizabeth couldn’t even find a guy that she was remotely interested in dating.

Steve wasn’t any sort of movie star, but Elizabeth thought he was more attractive than the overinflated physicality of the strippers in this club.

“Nothing wrong with looking,” Katie said with a little smile. “You know guys do it too.”