I sat at my desk and propped my feet up on the wooden top. After all the time I spent fighting how I felt about her, trying to come up with a way to keep her safe and off that stage, I was finally getting somewhere.
Roxie might not know it yet, but she would very soon.
I was done giving her space.
7
Roxie
Sexual tension coated my skin. It wound up around my legs like tall grass in the summer. It coated the inside of my mouth, making my tongue restless and needy.
It was a strange feeling. One that was next to impossible to brush off.
Maybe it was odd to be so shaken by the feeling. I was, after all, in the middle of a strip club. And I was walking around barely dressed while drunken men stared their fill. But even here in the Mad Hatter, a bar that made its profit off sex, sexual tension never felt like this.
This was different.
Tonight, the charge in the air wasn’t from men looking for cheap thrills. It wasn’t from the women gyrating on the stage up front. It wasn’t from the scantily clad ladies carrying trays through the crowd. All of those things were external. All of those things happened on a nightly basis. I barely registered them anymore.
So what was it I was registering?
What was it that made me feel like my skin was humming from the inside out? What made me wrap my thighs extra tight around the pole during my last dance and press my core into the hard metal just a little bit more forcefully?
After I set down the last of the beers from my tray, I gave the men a lazy smile and then turned away, giving them a nice view of my behind. It was good for tips.
My strutting faltered, and I gripped the round tray just a little bit tighter when I noted who was watching me. Adam was leaning against the bar, his stance casual, as if he were just checking out the crowd, watching the girls to make sure they were doing what they were supposed to be doing.
But his eyes… His eyes told another story.
From this far away, the chocolate color looked more midnight. His stare was intense, and it wasn’t directed at the crowd. It was trained on me. He stared at me as if I were his prey, as if he were lying in wait for the perfect time to strike.
Little ripples of awareness shot up my back as I forced myself to walk through the crowd, trying to pretend I didn’t notice the way his eyes were eating me up. I tried to pretend the sexual tension I’d been feeling hadn’t just doubled.
I couldn’t say I’d never felt intensely attracted to Adam, because I totally was. From the minute I first laid eyes on him coming out of his office and striding his powerful body across the floor to meet me, I wanted him.
Of course, I never did a thing about it, but that was something that seemed to grow more and more difficult every day. Especially when he showed me his tender side (like earlier in his office) and when he stared at me this way.
Something between us felt different tonight, like the tightly honed control Adam always seemed to have around me was unraveling.
Instead of taking my next order around to the end of the bar like I usually did, I slid up next to Adam and called out the order to Cam. After I set the tray on the bar top behind me, I turned, resting both elbows on the counter and leaning against the wood.
“You done dancing?” he said, turning so only one of his elbows was on the bar top and he was facing me.
I shook my head. “One more.” One last dance. When I drove to work tonight, I never imagined this would be the final night I’d strip in the Mad Hatter.
He grunted, which wasn’t really an answer, but it still left me wondering once more why it seemed he didn’t want me to dance anymore.
“You know, if my dancing sucks, you could just tell me,” I said, point blank.
He shifted closer and his entire front almost brushed against my body as he leaned down to talk quietly in my ear. “What makes you think I don’t like your dancing?” It was a simple sentence, a question. But the way he spoke low, so it only reached my ear, the way he sort of leaned in to my body and his warmth and scent wrapped around me… I realized.
I realized the humming just beneath my skin, the restless way I danced earlier, the tension that seemed to coil just beneath my ribcage… it was him.
The sexual tension that flooded me tonight was from Adam.
Holding my body still even though I desperately wanted to lean closer, I tipped my head back and stared up at him. The rich shade of his eyes speared me, and my breath faltered. “Because,” I said, wetting my lips with my tongue, “you seem in an awful big hurry to get me off that stage.”
His eyes dropped down to my mouth, igniting a slow burn in my center. “Maybe I’m just tired of you dancing for other men,” he rumbled.
The bottom fell out of my stomach. Thank goodness I was leaning against the bar because surprise so strong flickered through me that I was unable to feel anything else.
Did he just imply he wanted me to dance for him?
“I didn’t know it bothered you,” I said, turning so my posture mirrored his. Now we were facing each other, both of us with one elbow propped on the bar.
“Now you do,” he said and he leaned closer, a little bit of challenge in his dark eyes. “What are you going to do about it?”
I never backed down from a challenge.
I straightened off the bar and stepped closer, my chest brushing up against his as I reached out and gripped the collar of his white dress shirt, adjusting it near his throat. There wasn’t anything about it that needed fixing; I just wanted to touch him.
His eyes narrowed slightly as he watched me. “Guess you’ll have to wait and see,” I murmured, smoothing my palms across his broad shoulders and then stepping away.
One of the girls motioned it was my almost my time for the stage, so I motioned to the tray of drinks and yelled out the table number so she could deliver the booze. Adam was still watching me. The air around us still crackled and the humming beneath my skin graduated to a vibration.
Without another word, I walked away, stopping off in his office on my way backstage. I knew exactly what I was after and where he kept it. Once my hand closed around the silk, I stuffed it in my apron and rushed backstage.
As the girl on stage finished up her dance, I changed quickly, bypassing the outfit I planned to wear and going in a completely different direction instead.
I dug into the bottom of my duffle for the panties I didn’t usually wear for dancing. I only had them to change into after I was done my shift tonight. They weren’t lacey thongs or tiny-cut bikinis like I usually danced in. These were soft cotton boy shorts. They hugged my ass and the very top of my thigh. The low-cut waistband was made of lace, and it curved well below my belly button, exposing all of my flat navel. They were deep black, and on the very front there was a ruching detail that gathered the fabric, exposing even more leg, punctuated on each side with a small hot-pink satin bow.
Frankly, these were more comfortable than anything I ever wore on stage, and they made me feel far sexier than any of the tiny outfits I usually wore. I liked them because when I walked around in public, I always felt like I was carrying a naughty secret because no one knew the sexiness I was hiding beneath my clothes.
I slipped them on and pulled off my top. I didn’t bother with a bra. Instead, I grabbed up the suit jacket that Adam pulled around me and slid it over my bare skin. The inside had a silky liner and it glided right over my touch-sensitive body.
After that, I stepped into a pair of black sky-high stiletto heels, pulled my hair down from the bun it was in and let the messy, tangled strands fall over my shoulders and around my face. Some of the strands were still damp from the rain, and I scrunched them up, trying to infuse even more body.
Just as the music onstage was ending, I yanked out the stolen item from Adam’s office and slid it over my head—the tie he kept for meetings. I adjusted the blue silk, letting it drape around my neck as I fixed the knot and made it so the fabric fell just between my bare breasts.
I noticed some of the girls staring at me from the corners of their eyes as I added some fuchsia lipstick and ruffled up my hair one last time.
“That’s a new look for you.” One of the dancers spoke up.
“Yep,” I replied, stepping up behind the curtain. “Figured I would end my dancing career with a bang.”
Butterflies took flight in my middle, and I moved restlessly against the silk hanging in the center of my breasts. Having his clothes, things he wore on his body, brushing against my naked skin excited me. I’d never been so keyed up, so turned on for a dance before.
Adam said he didn’t like me dancing for other men.
So this time, I was going to dance just for him.
8
Adam
I was going over an inventory sheet behind the bar, checking it against the supply of liquor, when the music came on. It wasn’t anything special, just the usual instrumental style with a slow-paced, heavy beat that made every man in the place think of sex.
The room was dim, most everything cast in shadows except the area right around the bar. A single spotlight shone down in the center of the stage, drawing everyone’s eye.
I only glanced up and then didn’t look up again.
Until a hushed sort of murmuring seemed to race over the people sitting around the stage. I looked up from my notes. The stage was still empty; the light illuminated nothing at all. The grinding rhythm of the music filled the space as men looked around, wondering where the hell the entertainment was.
Wasn’t Roxie supposed to be up?
What the hell was she dragging this out for? She needed to get on stage, shake her ass, and be done. I wasn’t kidding when I told her I was done watching her shake it for other men.
I began to feel suspicious, remembering how her tight, round ass bounced into my office before disappearing backstage. What the hell was she up to now?
I was just about to abandon the inventory to go see what was going on when a catcall echoed through the bar. As soon as it ended, a few whistles and shouts immediately followed. I glanced back at the stage.
Roxie was there, standing just out of the circle of light but with her leg partially stepped inside. The only thing anyone could make out of her shape was her sleek, slim calf and sexy-as-hell black heels.
She rolled her foot around, flexing the creamy smoothness of her leg, and as more whistles cut through the music, she stepped all the way beneath the spotlight.
The clipboard I held fell out of my hands, landing with a thump on the top of the bar. The inside of my mouth suddenly went dry, as if I’d been walking through a desert in the dead heat of day.
Roxie was wearing my jacket. Her long, bare legs stuck out from beneath it and stretched all the way to the floor. It hung off her frame, too large to mold against her, but it didn’t matter. Just imagining what was beneath it was sexy enough.
She shook out the mess of dark hair tumbling over her shoulders and bent. Roxie dragged her fingers up her bare leg and arched her back as she straightened, giving every single eye in the place a glimpse of her tight black panties, pink bows, and bare waist.
Her hand stopped just shy of revealing her chest, and she slid her fingers over and glided them up and down a tie hanging around her neck. My cock tightened watching the pumping action.
Men in the audience were hooting and hollering, but I barely heard them. My hearing seemed to go out…
That was my tie.
She was wearing my jacket and my tie.
My blood pressure spiked and the room tilted. Desire unlike anything I’d ever felt before hounded me, so strong I had to grip the edge of the bar for support.
Roxie shimmied around and then spun, putting her back to the crowd. Very slowly, the jacket began to slide down. Inch by beautiful inch, the smooth skin of her back was revealed. Lower and lower the fabric drooped until it was painfully obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra.
Abruptly, she spun, clutching the jacket around her waist, baring her shoulders and giving insanely provocative peeks of her bare breasts. It was impossible to see all of them because her hair covered them, and the tie… the fucking silk tie slid right between the perky globes.
My dick began to stir in my trousers, throbbing almost painfully, and I shifted so I was standing that much closer to the bar so it concealed my obvious desire.
Roxie slid the jacket back up as various men yelled for her to take it off, and even as I wanted to pound every single one of these assholes for looking at her, part of me also begged her to drop it.
She began moving around more, dancing, shimmying, and teasing. She rocked the pole toward the end of the stage like no one else. Her upper body strength was incredible, and the way her thighs hugged the metal as she practically dry-humped the pole made me almost bust a nut in my pants. Through it all, the jacket fell lower and lower off her shoulders.
Roxie shimmied her fine ass all the way to the top of the pole and then stopped. Holding herself there, she took off the jacket completely and let it float to the floor.
The men in the place went crazy, but I could only stare. Slowly, seductively, she slid down the pole with grace no one else seemed to understand, and then she stood, sliding her hands over the tie around her neck, her eyes connected with mine.
The corner of her full, pink lips curved up, and she blew me a kiss.
Everyone else in the entire bar fell away. Her eyes never left me as she danced, shook, and touched herself.
I’d never before gotten so hard without a single touch in my entire life.
I don’t know how long she danced. I couldn’t even tell you how long the music played. My entire world seemed to shrink down to only her and her movements. Her and my tie.
If I had any doubt about now being the time to let her know how I felt about her, it was completely erased with that dance.
I wanted Roxie. I was going to have her. She was practically inviting me into her hot, tight body right now.
I was still under her spell, barely even able to breathe, when I felt Cam’s hand slap my shoulder. “Might wanna wipe that look off your face there, boss,” he said, amused.
I stiffened and blinked. Roxie was pulling on my jacket and money flooded the stage around her heels.
“Jesus,” I muttered.
Cam chuckled. “If that dance wasn’t a message, then I don’t know what was.”
I tore my gaze away from Roxie and looked at him. “What are you saying?” I half growled as I blinked. It seemed the rest of the world didn’t want to come back into focus.
“I’m saying I think it’s about time you and Roxie do something about all that tension between you.”
“Cover the bar,” I told him. I didn’t really have to remind him to do his job, but those were the only words I could push past my tongue. I adjusted my hard-as-steel junk and then gave up. Everyone who looked was going to get a damn eyeful because there was no hiding how fucking hard I was.
On my way to my office, Roxie was stepping off the stage, a few drunken assholes salivating at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for her to arrive.
Anger and extreme possessiveness rushed over me, and I shoved my way through the group, practically snarling for them to step back. Roxie’s eyes widened when she saw me, and I reached out and snatched her hand, gripping it tightly in mine, and towed her toward my office.
The entire wall shook with the force in which I slammed the door.
Roxie stood there, her cheeks flushed, her lips stained pink, and her hair a mess. Her violet eyes were round and slightly wary as she stared at me. I blew out a breath and took in the jacket, tie, and heels.
“You danced for me,” I said, the words ripping from my throat.
“Just for you,” she said softly.
A half growl, half moan ripped from my throat, and I leapt at her, plowing into her and shoving her back against the wall. I slid my arm beneath her so I was the one who took the force of the shove, and I pinned her with my body. Her chest heaved
, and I could feel the rapid beating of her heart.
I wrapped my free hand around the length of the tie. “You stole my tie.”
“You can have it back,” she purred.
“It looks better on you.” I used the tie like a leash and pulled her even closer, towing her until our mouths were just barely inches apart.
Before bringing my lips down on hers, I pushed into her just a little bit farther, tilting my hips upward so the hard rod in my pants could be felt along her front.
She gasped. I smiled. “I hope you’re ready for what you just did, sweetheart,” I murmured.
Then I crushed my lips to hers.
9
Roxie
I could count on a single hand the number of men I have kissed in my life.
It might have well been zero though, because the minute, no, the second, Adam’s mouth fused with mine, my past no longer mattered. Every kiss I’d ever thought I enjoyed was proven a lie.
A rush of heat suffused my skin, and I knew if I looked down, I would see a fine pink flush spreading over my skin. Adam’s lips were supple and moist, a soft place to fall while he rendered me almost incapacitated. He didn’t lift his mouth, not one time. Instead his lips rubbed furiously over mine, creating a sort of friction that crackled in the space around us.
Our lips glided across each other, like they knew exactly how they fit together and the exact moment to shift so the pleasure was intensified. Adam slid both arms around me, crushing me against him. The hardness pressing into my center was almost painful, but it was the kind of pain that made my crotch throb. I wound my arms up around his neck, cupping the base of his head with my palm, and let my tongue dart out across his perfectly seductive lips.
He growled. The action vibrated my chest as he sucked my tongue into his mouth, stroking it and coaxing it deeper until it brushed over the roof of his mouth.
One of his hands slid down the small of my back and over the curve of my ass, where he filled his hand with my flesh and squeezed like he wanted me even closer. I wanted closer too, but there was too much between us.
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