Stripped (Stripped #1)(19)
Author: Jasinda Wilder

I do my basic routine, spinning and twisting around the pole, teasing by unbuttoning the shirt but not letting them see anything, then re-buttoning and popping the buttons. The topless part I’ve nearly gotten desensitized to. Nearly. Meaning, I don’t actually start to cry until I have to take off the shorts and they’re next. Since they’re tight, it’s actually quite a feat to get them off gracefully.

Then I’m dancing in nothing but a skimpy thong. I’m close to tears the whole time. They can see my bottom, all of it. The thong is little more than a minuscule triangle over my privates, and barely covers that much. When I dance and move around the stage, they can see everything.

I finish my stage set and retreat to the backstage area to re-gather my nerves. The guys in the club are hammered, and they’re tipping like crazy. I pull a hundred and fifty from the first set on stage, and I had another eighty from the lap and table dances. And I haven’t even been to the VIP rooms yet. But the stage number…oh, god. The catcalls and the suggestions were worse than they’ve ever been. The reaching hands, which is technically against the club rules, but really up to the individual dancers to discourage…they grab me and touch me and try to peel the thong off. They ask me to go home with them. They shout in crude detail what they’d do to me. I blush when they shout those things. I can’t help it. I don’t think they can see the blush underneath my makeup, but it’s there. I blush and I cringe and I swat away the hands playfully but firmly, and I avoid their eyes.

When I’m backstage and Inez is up for her set, I feel my stomach revolting. I hurry into the dressing room and barely make it to the little toilet, where I heave my stomach empty. Tears mingle freely with the sweat on my face. When I’m done heaving, I slump to the cold floor and rest my face against the cool porcelain, and I let myself sob for a moment. I let myself wish I was back home in Macon. I can’t help but picture Mama’s face if she could see what I’m doing to survive.

A fist pounds on the door, and then it opens. “Grey, goddammit, you don’t have time for this!” Timothy is pulling me away from the toilet and dabbing at my mouth with a paper towel. “They want you in the VIP room. Right now. Room three. Brush your teeth and then go!” He doesn’t cop a feel this time, just shoves me toward the sink and then once I’m done, out of the dressing room and through the doorway leading to the VIP rooms.

I catch my balance and my breath, and then shoo Timothy away.

My heart is pounding and my skin is crawling, tingling. I stand outside room three with my hand on the knob, but I hesitate. Something inside me is rebelling, telling me to run, to go back, to leave. But I can’t. I’ll lose the job, and I’m not guaranteed the full-time spot at Fourth Dimension, not yet.

I twist the knob and push the door open. A scarlet leather couch runs in a semicircle around the room, which is lit by a pair of lamps with shades to match the couch. The walls are matte black, and side tables endcap the couch. A bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label sits on one end table, surrounded by bottles of Coors and Bud Light, some empty, some full. The room is hazy with cigarette smoke, and beneath that is the acrid scent of marijuana. One of the end tables has a pile of white powder on it, with some divided into thick lines.

There are four men in the room. Three of them are stunningly gorgeous. The fourth?

He’s a god of the big screen.

The three men are off to one side, near the pile of cocaine. I recognize them all. One is Armand Larochelle, who won Best Actor for his role in Name of Heaven. Armand is tall and slim, with shoulder-length blond hair and sculpted features. The second is Adam Trenton, a character actor and supporting actor in action movies. He recently did a role in a sci-fi action adventure that landed him his first leading role. The third is Nate Breckner, mostly known as a romantic comedy lead, but he’s been doing roles to get him out of that typecasting.

The fourth man is Dawson Kellor. My heart stops, my breath catches. I’ve seen pictures of him, I’ve seen him in his latest films. But none of that does him justice. Not even close. Onscreen he’s breathtaking. Sharp features, penetrating hazel eyes, dark hair somewhere between brown and black. Tall and ridiculously ripped, with sculpted arms and a broad, hard chest. He’s Brad Pitt and Henry Cavill and Josh Duhamel and so much more. That’s just how he seems on screen.

In person…he’s beyond perfection. I can’t look away from him, but his beauty burns me, like staring into the sun.

And now he’s in my club, and he’s staring at me expectantly, and I can’t move. His eyes are quicksilver, a changeable hazel. He’s too beautiful for words, and I’m not sure what to do. My body won’t work.

Music thumps from the speakers, a Jay-Z song. Armand is watching me, a small tube in his fingers, head bobbing to the music. The other two men have beers in their hands and are staring at their phones. They look drunk. They glance at me and then dismiss me by looking away.

“Are you gonna dance or what?” Dawson asks. His voice is darkness, deep and enveloping.

The song ends, and a techno dance beat comes on. I can’t take my eyes off Dawson, but I force my hips to move. I let the music take over and flow through me. I lose myself in his eyes, which seem to darken as I sway closer to him. I know there are other men in the room, but all I can do is focus on Dawson Kellor and hope to get through this night.

I’m in front of him now, nearing him. His knees spread apart, and his hands come to rest on my hips, his palms brushing the bare skin above the denim of my shorts. I’ve never let a client touch me before, but I can’t seem to find the strength push his hands away. My skin burns where he touches me. His eyes are on mine, despite my cle**age in his face.

I’m shimmying to the music, slight, small shakes of my hips, enough to set my br**sts bouncing. My arms are over my head in that awkward pose men seem to love. His gaze flickers down to my jiggling br**sts and then back up to my eyes. I can’t read his expression. Men always wear their desire on their faces, in their eyes. Dawson doesn’t. But his hands are curled around my waist, possessive. I should make him let go of me, but I don’t.

I’ve never been touched like this, never had a man’s hands on my body, anywhere. Not like this. It’s always been stolen touches, brushes across my backside or pawing fingers at my br**sts as I dance on stage.

This…it’s a connection. His hands touch me and I’m sucked in, and I’m not a stripper, for a moment. I’m clothed, and he’s looking at me. At me. Almost as if he’s seeing Grey, instead of Gracie, even though he couldn’t possibly know the difference.