A Dance for Him (6 page)

“Yes.”

For some reason I suddenly feel defensive.

“I have a perfect right to do what I’m doing.”

He sits back in his chair, inscrutable again, steepling his hands.

I look at them as I wait for his reply, only to lose myself in the sight of them. There’s something hypnotic about those strong, masculine hands - hands that felt so good on my body that night …

Fuck, I have to pull myself together so that I don’t start giving him bedroom eyes right there and then.

“And so you do. I’m not denying that.”

“I’ve met them before, white knight types, they think we need to be rescued. I don’t need to be rescued, I have a scholarship but it doesn’t pay the rent. This does, and I get to put something aside for the future. I love what I’m studying, but I’m quite aware that with a degree in Eng. Lit. I won’t get a job quite as readily as someone in engineering would. The last thing I want to do is end up with student loans, especially if I decide I want to try for law school or something.”

“But do you love what you’re doing? I mean, what you were doing on Saturday.”

Why is he bugging me?
I think. I mean, no, I don’t love stripping, it’s just a job that pays really well for the amount of time I spend there.

I remain silent, mostly because he’s still giving me the impression that he’s trying to talk me out of stripping.

Easy for
him
to say, Mr. Trust Fund Famous Author …

He clears his throat.

“For the record, Ms. Lytton, I’m not interested in ‘rescuing’ you, as you put it. Quite on the contrary. You are a very intelligent young woman, and no doubt you have weighed your options, and decided that this is the best way of going about things. That is all fine and I have no wish to interfere with your agency, and your right to do as you wish. However, I
would
like to offer you a new option, assuming I can speak in the strictest confidence.”

I look at him, perplexed. For a moment I wonder if he’s going to try and offer me money for sex.

Which would be really funny, considering that I wouldn’t mind sleeping with him for free to begin with …

“Sure,” I say, somewhat cagily.

“You are an excellent dancer, Ms. Lytton, and I’m sure you enjoy dancing as well. Nothing wrong with that. You’ll still get to do that, under the terms of my offer.”

I raise a quizzical eyebrow.

“The only difference,” he continues, unperturbed, “is that you won’t be dancing at the club. You’ll be dancing at my place. Privately.”

“W-what?” I stammer, my mind all a-whirl with questions. Questions such as: is this a veiled money-for-sex offer? Or does he actually just want a private show on a regular basis? Do I really want to do this? I mean, oh my God, he can’t
really
be asking me this, can he?

Annoyingly, he seems to be recovering his composure in inverse proportion to mine.

“How often are you at the club?”

“Once a week. I’m usually there for five hours.”

“Well then, you can come over once a week. Same day, Saturday, if you like.”

I’m reduced to speechlessness by his businesslike tone, by the easy confidence with which he’s talking about it, as though I’d already agreed to his proposal.

“That way,” he says coolly, “you won’t have to deal with the house cut and stage fees. So much more practical. I’ll still pay you whatever it is you normally get, so you’ll take home more. A good deal all round. Besides,” he continues, as a hint of a smile appears on those perfect sculpted lips, “I think you rather enjoyed dancing for me the other day. So I don’t think it’ll be unpleasant for you.”

Fuck, now he’s being cocky with me. Clearly he smelt my arousal the other day …

My slight annoyance at his egotistical (if correct) assumption is, alas, matched by the speeding up of my heart rate and the twinge of excitement going up my spine at the prospect of seeing him every weekend. In private. At his place.

Wherever that is.

“Are you sure you can afford that?”

He shrugs, again with that enigmatic smile. “I’m not too worried about that. What is it you get typically at the club?”

“Between four to five hundred dollars,” I stammer.

“All right, let’s say six hundred dollars then.”

I don’t understand this man. He was so agitated the other night at the club, then so cool when I ran into him outside, then he was all impassive in class, then slightly anxious when he first broached the subject of my job - but now he’s completely in control, almost to the point of being detached, and even though he’s just raised his bid to six hundred dollars, he doesn’t sound overly eager either.

I just can’t read him. He’s definitely not being the white knight type, and despite the dodginess of his proposal, he isn’t behaving in a particularly sleazy way either - he’s holding my gaze with perfect aplomb, but isn’t leering or anything.

That said, he
does
seem very confident that I’d prefer the deal he’s offering.

The trouble is, he’s right.

I mean, do I really want to go back to the club, where I have to deal with the likes of the creep?

Not to mention that I’m sure Dr. Morland’s place is a lot cleaner than the club. At least, he always smells so good …

And he
is
hot, after all.

But what will he think of me if I accept? And can I really be in that kind of proximity with him on a regular basis without falling hopelessly in love with him?

“Take your time to think about it,” he says, probably picking up on my hesitation, then pulls a business card out of his desk drawer, scribbling something on it before he hands it to me.

He’s written his address on the back of the card, followed by
Saturday, 7pm
.

“If you aren’t there at the appointed time, Ms. Lytton,” he continues, “I will simply assume that you’re not accepting my offer. Which is fine and won’t affect anything that goes on in class. That said, I will look forward to seeing you then.”

There’s something about the way he says that -
I look forward to seeing you then
- in a friendly, seemingly neutral way, and yet with a hint of something more. Something almost
imperious
, as though he expects to be obeyed. It’s a tone I’ve never heard before from him.

It’s a tone that makes me shiver and get very, very wet.

CHAPTER NINE

Bloody alarm clock.

I’ve been staying up to finish a paper for a class, and at three I thought I’d take a nap.

I’d set the alarm for four but I must have deactivated it somehow.

And now, at 5:30 on Saturday, it’s running a bit close to showtime for my liking.

For a moment I think: if I miss this, then maybe my decision will be made for me by default. Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

But why would I want to miss it?

Besides, I’ve already cancelled at the club for tonight …

I have no idea what Dr. Morland’s like, really - even less now, perhaps, than I ever had. And for all I know perhaps he’ll turn out to be an asshole like the rest of them.

On the other hand, he’s hot. What are the chances I’d ever get to fuck a perfect hunk like him - not to mention a perfect hunk who wouldn’t bore me outside of bed? …

It’s with that in mind that I get into the shower.

It feels good to have the warm water splashing onto me, running down my body as I soap myself.

Of course I always showered before going to the club (and obviously after as well) but for some reason I’ve never felt the way I’m feeling at the moment.

Then it was just an obligation - now it’s almost a pleasure, knowing that I’ll be clean and fresh for
him
. For me, too, if I’m lucky …

As I shampoo my hair I can’t help but wonder how far things will go today.

I mean, a man like him couldn’t possibly be paying me six hundred dollars to just have me dance for him, even if it’s all up close and personal.

He’d hardly need to.

So why’s he doing it?

Possessiveness? Maybe he’s just being a bit of a hypocrite - he can go to clubs but he thinks it’s inappropriate for me to work there. So old-fashioned.

Not that I care all that much - it’s a more than generous offer, and of course I’d much rather deal with him than with the average guy at the club, not to mention the creep (well, won’t
he
be surprised if he shows up at the club today and finds that I’m not there!)…

Of course, maybe Dr. Morland just wants to fuck me, and he’s seen his opening, ha! …

So much the better, I think, almost defiantly, as I rinse out my hair. Because I’d be lying through my teeth if I claimed that I didn’t want him to fuck me.

I did love seeing him stare at me in that ravenous, predatory way at the club. And I did experience a strange triumph when I made him come, again and again, just a week ago.

Besides, surely it’s time I did something about my virginity!

I mean, dildos are all very well, but to be “heavier by the weight of a man”, like Margaret says in
Much Ado about Nothing
… God, the very thought makes me wet.

Especially given that we’re talking about not just any man, but Sebastian Morland!

I scramble out of the shower, blow-dry my hair, and throw on one of the outfits I’d been considering for this strange commission.

It’s a combination of a tie-top and a microminiskirt, with a G-string underneath, all in pink. For some reason I suspect he rather gets off on faux-innocence, and I’m more than glad to oblige …

A bit of makeup to go with the outfit, a bag with somewhat more decent clothes in it to come home in, a coat to cover myself up, and I’m off.

Obviously I’ve never gone to the club dressed for work, I’ve always changed there. But I didn’t think this would work quite the same way: “Hi, Dr. Morland, can I change in your bathroom” would rather detract from the mood, I decided earlier.

Besides, I want to totally floor him when I take off my coat!

Of course, the result of being all dressed up like that is causing me to get wet, so I grab a towel to sit on in the car.

With any luck I won’t be
completely
soaked by the time I get there …

I slink downstairs, hoping not to run into any nosy neighbors, and successfully get to my car.

It’s not too long a drive, luckily, and I drive carefully, because the last thing I want is to be stopped for speeding when I’m dressed the way I am, and in my current state.

The address he gave me is in a fancy suburb not far from the city - I suppose that’s convenient, I can’t imagine too many of his colleagues live there, so I’m unlikely to run into any of them.

Wouldn’t they just goggle if they knew, though? A+ student, scholarship girl, in weird sex-for-hire deal with one of their own.

Oops, did I say sex? Well, I guess I did, though technically, I suppose, our deal’s for a ton of lap-dancing. But he probably wants to have some deniability. I’m guessing he’d prefer that I seduce him, rather than the other way round, for just that reason …

Well, there we are. Fuck, it’s a huge house. He must be even more loaded than I’d imagined, trust fund and a bestselling novel notwithstanding. No wonder he can just come up with twenty-four hundred a month just like that, no problem, without even blinking. And that’s not counting the close to five hundred dollars he blew the other day at the VIP room …

With a sort of shock it hits me that he’ll already have spent over a thousand dollars on me by the time tonight is done. I mean, I knew the number in a kind of abstract way, but it’s only just registered that that’s basically my rent and utilities for the month.

The rich really are different …

I wonder if he’s thinking he can buy me. I’m not sure what I think of that - part of me recoils at the idea, but then there’s that other part of me that is perversely turned on by the idea.