Stripped (Stripped #1)(48)
Author: Jasinda Wilder

I’m a captive audience as he rests his chin on my head and continues to speak, one arm wrapped around me, holding me in place. “I don’t feel enough. Never did. So then I met you. In that stupid titty-club. And you were this…this glorious creature. You were like an angel, trapped in hell. You couldn’t have been more out of place if you tried. I watched you out on the floor, you know. And that dance on stage. You…captured them. All those poor, sweaty, greasy, miserable ass**les. You were so different from the other blank-eyed, apathetic strippers you see in clubs like that. Where the smiles don’t reach their eyes. Where the affected sexuality is just…plastic. Fake. Put on. You? You…ooze sensuality, and you don’t even know it, and it’s like a drug for guys like me. I may have more money and sophistication than those other guys, but I’m just like them. Looking for a cheap thrill, a quick escape. And you? You’re a high we could never get anywhere else. Watching you dance? The way you move? The way you wait until the very f**king last second to take the clothes off? It’s maddening. You don’t even know. You can’t. There’s something inside you, beyond that innocence. I see it. It’s…fuck. It’s bright as the f**king sun, but it’s hidden, because you’re miserable.”

I’m squirming, tearing up, sweating from his heat and from the way he’s talking about me, but I can’t escape his hold, and I have to hear his words. I have to keep listening. He’s ripping this straight out of his soul and giving it to me. It’s a priceless gift, and I’m hoarding it in my heart.

“And I met you,” he continues. “And you made me feel something. I wasn’t drunk. I can drink, you know. I’m not and never was an alcoholic. It was just…a Band-Aid on the wound. Anyway, I saw you, and then you came in to the VIP room and you were…so bright. But so scared. And you made something in me just…implode. Like I’d had an epiphany, you know? Like I knew, I had to know you, had to hold you and touch you and tell you everything. But you keep running. And you kiss me and you get me rock f**king hard, but then you run and you leave me aching and alone and worked up. You know I’ve put on, like, fifteen pounds of muscle since I met you? Because you get me worked up and then I can’t get off on my own, because it feels wrong, and I need to let it out, so I work out. You turn me on, just breathing. You make me feel like I’m someone, and not because I’m Dawson Fucking Kellor, either.”

He backs away from me, and I wrap my arms around his broad shoulders, palms sticking to his hot, damp skin. He stills, and looks down at me as he continues.

“But that doesn’t matter to you. You run anyway, maybe because of that. And I can’t figure you out. You confuse me, and that’s a feeling. I know women, okay? I do. I thought I knew how women think, but you? I can’t figure you out. You never react how I think you will. One second, it’s like you can’t get enough of me and I’m going to make you explode, and then the next you’re about to hyperventilate and having a nervous breakdown because you can’t handle me, or us, or something.”

He’s going a mile a minute, and I’ve never heard him say so much, never heard anyone say this much all at once. It’s just pouring from him.

“You make me want you. Not just…want to f**k you. That feels cheap, even saying it. You’re not the kind of woman who f**ks. You’re more than that. But f**king is all I know, and you’re worth more. And that’s an odd feeling for me. I’ve always been entitled, you know? I’m that horribly obnoxious kind of person who’s always had everything and owns the f**king world, okay? But I’m not entitled to you. I have to earn you. And I can’t even earn the truth of where you come from or why you’re the way you are, or anything. You don’t give me a damned thing, and that’s maddening. But that’s a feeling, too. Wanting you, needing you, being confused, being mad, frustrated, needing a release I can’t find, wanting to even hold your hand like some f**king sappy teenager…it’s all feelings. And that…it makes me feel alive in a way I’ve never known before.”

He finally stops the flood of words. He turns me in his arms, and his hands go to my face. I hold his towel in place with my hands as he brushes my hair out of my face, wipes a strand of blonde hair from my mouth with an index finger. His eyes are all colors, no color, that perfect hazel that’s its own shade of Dawson.

And then he speaks again, in a voice that’s pure magic. And his words…they floor me.

“You make me feel alive, Grey. And…I love that feeling.”

“You feel all that? From me?” He just nods. “I don’t…I’m not…I mean—I’m just Grey. I’m a pastor’s daughter from Georgia. My mom died, I told you that. She was all I had, really, and my dream was to be here, so I came here. I had to earn money when my scholarship ran out, and I couldn’t find a job, so I took the only job I could find.”

“There’s so much more to you than that, Grey.”

“Like what?” I honestly don’t know. I feel like that’s all there is.

“Grace. Fluidity. Beauty. Intelligence. Talent. Potential. Tenderness. Innate sensuality.” He touches me under my chin, and I can’t look away from him. “Tell me one true thing.”

“I’m a dancer.” I don’t hesitate. “Not…not like on stage, not like that. But real dancing. Jazz, and modern, and ballet.”

“Dance for me?”

“What, like now?”

He nods, kisses my cheekbone, and turns away from me, leaving the towel in my hands. I’m stunned, and it’s impossible to look away from his backside as he runs up the stairs, naked as a jaybird. I want him to turn around, but I’m also glad he doesn’t. He comes back down in a pair of shorts, and takes my hand. Leads me through his cavernous, palatial house that he lives in alone, to a huge gym. There are all sorts of weight machines in one corner, a punching bag hanging from the ceiling, one of those big, heavy ones you kick and punch, and then an area of open space.

He gestures at the open area. “I do tai chi. It’s badass, and it’s calming. It gives me a center, somewhere I can be just…nothing but motion.”

I go into the center of the open space, a lightly padded floor beneath my feet. I spring gently, and I realize how long it’s been since I danced for me.