Read an Excerpt
Christmas prostitution.
Zoie Qwin knew she had officially seen it all. She stopped in the entrance of Quench, her gaze scanning the hip-hop club as she waited for the line to move. A line, she noted tongue in cheek, consisting solely of women.
“You’re sixty-nine.” Dalia Kade handed Zoie a bidding paddle, an amused quirk tilting her siren-painted lips. Slim and blonde with an angelic face, she looked stunning in a red satin dress fitted at the bust and waist with a slit in the skirt that stretched up the better part of her shapely thigh. Four-inch heels of matching colour with overzealous elf-shaped shoe pins completed the look. “We’re all signed in and ready to spend. Whew, lucky for us I reserved a table. Would you look at the crowd in this place!”
“It’s hard not to. I’m swimming in estrogen.” Zoie followed Dalia to a table at the edge of the dance floor. Thin cardboard Christmas decorations and colourful streamers dangled from the ceiling. Small pots of poinsettias sat in the centre of every table. Sprigs of mistletoe hung low in strategic places throughout the club. The crowd, dressed in their best holiday attire, was nearly shoulder-to-shoulder and the auction wasn’t slated to start for another hour.
“Patience, my friend.” Dalia exchanged a couple of bills for two shots of a layered red, green and clear concoction from a passing waitress dressed as a Santa’s helper and shoved one into Zoie’s hand. “Soon you’ll be basking in drool-worthy testosterone.”
“I’d rather be dancing,” Zoie grumbled and tossed back the shot.
“And you will before the night is finished. The dance floor will open as usual as soon as the auction ends. Bet on the right man and you could be dancing the vertical bump and grind and the horizontal mambo before morning. You look great, by the way. I told you that dress wouldn’t clash with your hair. It’s perfect!”
Zoie glanced down at the emerald green silk and velvet lined bodice that displayed her moderate breasts quite nicely, if she dared to say so herself. She’d feared she would look like a Christmas tree wearing this shade of green with her head of scarlet hair. “Thanks. Now tell me why I have to be number sixty-nine?” She eyeballed the bidding paddle she placed on the table as she sat down.
Dalia shrugged and tapped a fingernail on the bold number sixty-eight of her own paddle. “Because that number won’t do me any good tonight. I’m here to rescue the bro, not land a hard one in the sack.”
“And I’m only here because you dragged me,” Zoie pointed out.
