by Kitty French
Genie
By
Kitty French
Copyright © 2015 Kitty French
Edited by Charlie Hobson
Cover design by Okay Creations
All rights reserved. This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR
The Lucien Knight Trilogy:
Knight & Play
Knight & Stay
Knight & Day
Wanderlust
Kitty also writes romantic comedies under the pseudonym Kat French
Undertaking Love
Blaze
The Stained Glass Heart
The Piano Man Project (July 2015)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today bestselling author Kitty French lives in the UK with her husband and two young sons.
She also writes romantic comedy under the pseudonym Kat French.
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Website - www.kittyfrench.com
Chapter One
Abel Kingdom wasn’t a man accustomed to paying women to take their clothes off.
Even the ready supply of ice cold, free champagne did little to temper his mood as he sat alone in the VIP box at Theatre Divine somewhere in the rainy, Saturday night backstreets of East London. Below him, the hustle of excited patrons sent up a low buzz from the stalls, and the occasional glance that flicked up towards him revealed eyes laced with the expectation of a salacious thrill. Sharply dressed men with territorial arms around the shoulders of their corset-clad wives and girlfriends, there to be titillated, a prelude to their own private shows when they left for their homes and bedrooms later that evening.
Abel didn’t share their expectation, nor their heady excitement. The prospect of watching the show did nothing for him and the faded beauty of the old theatre did little more. The peacock-blue velvet seats and tasselled curtains were running towards threadbare and the dulled lustre of the gilt cherubs haloed around the balconies and ceiling embellishments had seen better days. Glossy photographs out in the foyer told stories of star turns and celebrity visitors over the years, but none in recent times. It was a tired, jaded place, yet Abel knew enough to see that beneath its shabby overcoat the bones of the building were still strong and begging for better vestments. And he’d give it better, just as soon as he got through this god-awful evening and sat down to talk numbers with Davey Divine, Theatre Divine’s current owner-incumbent.
For the sake of this building, he’d accept the older man’s unwanted hospitality. He’d drink his economy champagne, and he’d watch his low-rent show, and then he’d hussle the theatre right out of Davey Divine’s hands.
Genie Divine wasn’t stupid. Headstrong maybe, and often rash, but she wasn’t stupid. Something was up with her Uncle Davey.
He was avoiding her questions, and it hadn’t escaped her notice that he’d started to swoop on the mail to prevent her from getting to it first. And if she’d needed any further confirmation of her suspicions, he’d done something that afternoon that he’d never done in all of their years together. He’d locked the office door, a clear ‘keep out’ message even though he hadn’t actually said the words out loud. Scenarios scuttled like beetles through Genie’s mind, each more worrying than the last. Was he in trouble? Or, oh God, was he ill?
She placed the liquid eyeliner down on the dressing table, her hand suddenly too shaky to apply a clean line. She’d ask him after they closed up tonight. Taking several deep, calming breaths, Genie unscrewed the lid of an enormous pot of body glitter, lost in thought. Whatever was going on, she was determined to get to the bottom of it before her head hit the pillow tonight. For now though, she needed to put it to the back of her mind. She was due out on stage in under an hour, and as always, the show must go on.
Abel watched Davey Divine run through his outrageous drag act, noting with grudging appreciation that the guy had had the eager crowd eating out of his hand from the moment he’d strutted out into the spotlight. He could practically feel the heat-haze rising from the audience as Divine expertly warmed them up for the main attraction of the night.
The main attraction. Abel ran an irritated finger inside his shirt collar and popped the top button open. Glancing down, his eyes scanned over the flyer on the table beside him, trumpeting tonight’s star turn in jaunty, red circus script.
Genie.
One of the capital’s best kept secrets!
The sexiest burlesque star in London!
Yeah, right. Weren’t they all? Burlesque. Strippers. They were all the same to him. Women who took their clothes off for money. Women who used their bodies to manipulate men. Women who set off alarms in his head for all the wrong reasons. He hadn’t set foot inside a strip joint since he’d turned sixteen years old and been old enough to make his own decisions. He glanced at his watch then scrubbed his hand over his chin; bored, aggravated, and mentally calculating how long it would be before this charade was over with and he could get some sense out of Davey Divine.
He was yanked back into the moment by the sultry slide of a trumpet solo from the orchestra pit to herald the shift of mood from bawdy to burlesque. The crowd erupted into spontaneous applause as the house lights dimmed, a lone spotlight drawing every eye to the centre of the stage as the floorboards opened to allow a dazzling golden genie’s lamp to rise slowly out from beneath. Encrusted with theatrical jewels, it bounced trippy, rainbow kaleidoscope patterns of light around the auditorium walls. The sexy, evocative musical score conjured Turkish bazaars and snake charmers, and what was that scent? Incense? Musk? Spice? Abel leaned forward a little in his seat. He wasn’t fooled for a moment by the multiple assaults on his senses, but once more he found himself reluctantly impressed by the level of expertise. These people sure knew how to entertain.
The orchestra swelled the anticipation to a crescendo with a dramatic flourish and the audience reacted accordingly, their applause thunderous when, at last, the hinged lid of the huge lamp opened.
A gasp. A collective intake of breath. And then several seconds of awe-struck silence as, inch by glorious, creamy inch, the star of the show rose slowly from inside the lamp.
Statuesque and majestic with her back turned towards the audience, she stood with one gloved hand planted on her hip, the other flourishing a huge, ivory ostrich feather fan high above her head.
Despite his best intentions, Abel wasn’t bored any more. He reached for his glass without taking his eyes from the stage. He hadn’t even seen Genie’s face, and already he’d stopped thinking about his business meeting. His eyes followed the nude pink silk corset laced down the length of her delicate back, and the tip of his tongue snaked over his lips as his fingers itched to pull those ribbons open.
The champagne suddenly tasted honey-sweet as it cooled his parched throat. Jesus. He hadn’t seen curves like that in his life, and he’d seen a lot of curves.
His gaze strayed lower, over the frilled silk knickers that encased the rounded perfection of her ass. He was glad of the solitude of the private box, because he was hard for her already.
Down there on the stage, Genie swept the fan behind her with a wiggle, then dropped the feathers gracefully down back inside the lamp.
Turn around.
She was peeling off those long gloves now and flicking them away from herself carelessly. Her arms as she revealed them were fine boned and feminine. Who knew a bare wrist cou
ld be such a turn-on? Abel felt as if he’d been caught watching Victorian pornography. Even though the rational part of his brain warned him that he was falling into her age-old honey trap, the turned-on side of his brain slammed the door on common sense.
Turn around.
Genie ran her hands playfully down the sides of her corset, almost turning to glance out over her shoulder before seeming to change her mind. Frustration spiked through Abel’s body as he leaned both elbows on the edge of the box.
Turn around.
Her fingers ran down the length of her legs, all the way to remove her silver spike-heeled stilettos, which followed the fan into the depths of the lamp. She was left bouncing on her stockinged tiptoes to the sliding trumpet fanfare, swaying that delicious ass in a way that had Abel shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
Turn around.
When she flicked open the catches on her stockings and rolled them down her legs like a wartime sweetheart, he emptied the rest of the champagne into his glass, took a hefty slug, and wiped the back of his hand across his lips.
What was this place? A theatre, or a fucking opium den? He was losing his head, and he couldn’t seem to rein himself back in. He didn’t do this. He didn’t lose control. Ever.
‘Turn around. For fuck’s sake, turn around.’ Abel didn’t even realise that this time he’d whispered it out loud.
And, as if heeding his words, at long last Genie turned around.
From famine to feast, and he didn’t know where to look first. His body burned to see hers, yet it was her face that he found himself most desperate to lay eyes on. Half of him hoped it would break the spell. He knew she’d be attractive. No woman could exude this kind of confidence without the innate knowledge that she was beautiful. But whose kind of beautiful was she? Every woman had her own something special. What was hers? And then he let himself study her, and he knew.
Genie wasn’t a pretty girl. She wasn’t the kind of girl who’d be chosen for the cheerleading squad. There was nothing cute or girl-next-doorish about her. This girl was pure Hollywood gold, with the kind of face that demanded her angled cheekbones be studio-lit, her Bardot lashes batted flirtatiously, and her lips permanently painted red to match the glossy, pin curled waves of her hair. She looked like a girl who smoked cigarettes and bathed in champagne, who knew every dirty word in the dictionary and a few more besides. He couldn’t quite make out the colour of her eyes from his vantage point, but when she turned them momentarily up towards him it seemed that she stripped away a layer of his skin.
And then she glanced carelessly away again, palming her hands over her breasts down to the central clips of her corset. Flick, flick, flick - it was open in her hands, and she was tipping her head to one side as if to ask the audience whether she ought to remove it. Clearly the response was an overwhelming yes, and a small smile played over her cupid’s bow lips as she shrugged one pretty shoulder and then flung the corset wide.
This wasn’t Victorian smut any longer, and boy, she was well past the point of a wartime sweetheart. Genie was a harlot, and her body - clad now only in silk knickers and rhinestone encrusted nipple covers - was a sight that had Abel all but ready to vault from the balcony and screw her hard against the side of that fuck-off lamp. Christ. She almost laughed with delight as she twirled the corset high in the air and then dropped it into the lamp, taking a moment to flip the lid shut with her toe.
Her ethereally pale skin glittered as if someone had dipped her in stardust, and the high, round fullness of her breasts made him physically ache. Yet another reason she could never be considered a girl next door. If girls next door looked like this, the world would grind to a halt because no one would ever leave home.
He wanted to touch her, to fuck her, to possess her every which way. To lay her on velvet and take her slowly until she moaned his name. To rut her naked up against a rough alley wall until the skin on her shoulder blades bled. In fact, what he really wanted at that moment was to march on stage and throw his jacket around her shoulders to stop every other man in the room from wanting the same thing. But then… no, he didn’t want to stop her, because she’d just hitched her thumbs suggestively down the sides of those frilly silk knickers.
She wasn’t going to take them off, was she? Abel had his answer in seconds as she shimmied them down her thighs to reveal a tiny, jewelled g-string that did more to frustrate than to satisfy. The girl was practically naked, and still it wasn’t enough. He watched her, hypnotised, as she lay down and writhed with pure abandon across the top of the lamp, tracking the rise and fall of her body with his eyes, the feline arch of her spine as she threw her head back and let the endless red waves of her hair tumble behind her.
Every breath in the house sucked in when she lifted an amused, knowing eyebrow towards the audience and reached for those sequinned nipple caps. Would she bare her breasts? Just as it seemed to Abel that yes, actually she would, she smiled wickedly and the spotlight blinked out. The show was over.
He dropped his head into his hands in the darkness. She’d looked for all the world like a woman being made love to on top of that lamp, like a woman in the throes of the best orgasm of her life.
No way.
If there was one clear and certain thought in Abel Kingdom’s head, it was that he was going to be the one responsible for giving that girl the best orgasm of her life.
But as the house lights came up and common sense seeped back in to his mind, Abel realised with a sudden wash of loathing that he’d been well and truly played. Genie was the consummate showgirl; she knew just how to make the most of what Mother Nature had given her. Self-disgust twisted his gut at the way she’d forced such a visceral, animal reaction out of him. He knew her sort of woman of old, knew that she would be all smoke and mirrors. Yet still he’d found himself unable to take his damn eyes off her, and he hated himself for it almost as much as he hated her now that she was no longer weaving her black magic on the stage.
Was this why Divine had insisted he watch the show before their meeting? Did he think him such a malleable fool that he’d be weakened by the tawdry curves of a temptress and a few glasses of cheap champagne? The worst of it was that he hadn’t been far from the mark, for a few moments at least. Abel shoved himself roughly out of the chair and headed for the exit stairs. Divine could wait until morning. Right now he needed to get out of this goddamn place, to let the cool rain wash the sour stench of unwelcome memories from his skin.
Chapter Two
Genie glanced towards her dressing room door in the mirror as someone rapped on it and then pushed it open without waiting for her to shout ‘come in.’ Deanna’s slender frame sidled around the door, her camera slung over her kitsch Barbie and Ken T-shirt and a mug of tea in her hand.
‘Tea for the superstar.’ She grinned and placed the mug down on Genie’s dressing table then parked her skinny backside on the radiator alongside it.
‘Cheers, doll.’ Genie winced as she peeled off her welded on false eyelashes. ‘So, how did it look?’
Her best friend clapped with delight. ‘Holy fuck, it looked amazing, G! Better than we even thought it would.’ A worried frown crossed Deanna’s face. ‘Did it feel secure?’
Genie nodded. ‘Safe as houses. You’re officially a genius.’
Deanna had spent the best part of the last three months painstakingly designing and building the elaborate lamp set, and tonight had been its maiden outing. ‘Our best yet, deffo. I took a load of footage for you to see it for yourself.’ Her heavy black fringe, patterned this week with electric blue stripes, fell into her eyes as she leaned forward and slid an SD card out of the camera onto the table.
‘So, who was the stud-muffin up in the VIP box tonight?’ she asked. ‘Davey had the staff falling over themselves to ply him with free champagne before the show.’
Genie caught her friend’s eye in the mirror, non-plussed. She hadn’t noticed any of tonight’s audience individually, but then she seldom did when she was out there on the stage
. The more unsettling question was why her uncle was giving away free champagne, given his recent tightening of the purse strings. She mentally filed the question away alongside the others she was saving for when she cornered him later.
‘I’ve no clue. I didn’t see him.’
‘Well, he certainly saw you. I’d like to think it was the lamp that had him enthralled, but from the way he looked at you there was only one thing on his mind.’ Deanna whistled. ‘And he was hot. Like, super-hot. Like I-want-to-lick-your-face-but-I’m-scared-I’d-burn-my-tongue hot.’ She licked her index finger and made a sizzling sound.
Genie laughed. ‘Well, I’m sorry I missed him now.’ And she was. Attractive men were in woefully thin supply in her life lately, especially ones hot enough to singe body parts, fingers or otherwise.
‘C’est la vie, girlfriend.’ Deanna slid off the radiator and dropped a quick kiss on Genie’s cheek. ‘I’m outta here. I’m starving.’
She rubbed a hand over her ironing board stomach and skipped towards the door, turning back as she opened it. ‘You really did look great out there tonight, G,’ she said softly, every bit the supportive sister that she was as good as. ‘Proud of you.’
Genie nodded. ‘Proud of you too. We make a good team.’
She looked at the door for a few seconds after Deanna had closed it, unexpected tears welling in her eyes as she cradled her mug in her hands. Life hadn’t blessed her with a big, close family, but she’d certainly been blessed with Davey and Deanna, or the double Ds, as she’d affectionately dubbed them. Between them they were her mother, her father, her sister, her brother, and her best friends. She barely ever spared a thought for her birth mother any more, aside from thanking her lucky stars that the woman had at least had the foresight to abandon her baby girl on the steps of her brother’s theatre rather than handing her over to some municipal institution.