Rumor (A Renegades Novella) (10 page)

Grace called out cues above the music. “Remember the eight count, Hillary. Slow down, Jaime. You’ve got a beautiful body, let them watch it move. Better. Kaitlin , think sensual. Rock those hips. Good. Spread your legs, close, spread, close. Pump, pump, pump, sloooow roll… Nice, ladies.”

A smile quirked his lips as he passed through the velvet drape toward the club. She was definitely not the woman she’d been a year ago, and, sweet Jesus, she turned him on in wicked ways.

The place was empty except for one girl behind the bar. The younger one…Kati, Kathy… Kelly, that was it. He took a quick glance toward the stage as he hugged the wall, staying in the shadows, but once he caught sight of the stage, his feet stopped. He couldn’t tell exactly what the women were wearing, but it was definitely Santa themed, and minimal. Short red velvet capes rimmed in white feathers covered their bodies, shoulders to hips. Traditional Santa hats adorned their heads. And thigh-high black patent leather spike boots clung to their long legs.

The music stopped, and he continued to the bar, where Kelly unpacked boxes of liquor.

She gave him a flirty, bright grin. “Well, look who’s back. What are you up to?”

“Helping Gr—”
Dammit
. “Nikki in the back. Think I could get a beer?”

“Absolutely. What kind?”

“Anything’s fine.”

On stage, Grace trotted up the stairs, while the girls created a line. She took center stage in front of the other three, wearing the same outfit. The velvet cape hid most of her body, but the long, toned thighs showing between the boot tops and the cape hem gave him plenty to admire.

A bottle clunked against the wooden bar, and Josh pulled out his wallet without ever taking his gaze off Grace.

“On the house.” Kelly’s voice drew Josh’s gaze for a moment. “And this is in case things with you and Nikki don’t work out.”

She slid a cocktail napkin across the bar—complete with her name, phone number, and x’s and o’s beneath printed in red ink.

He smiled, nodded, and pocketed the napkin with the intention of throwing it away when she was out of sight. “Thanks.”

“Okay, from the top,” Grace said as the beginning
ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum
of “Santa Baby” spilled through the sound system again.

All four of the women moved forward on the stage in unison, stepping toward the audience, one slow, exaggerated crisscross step per beat. Eartha Kitt’s sugary voice filled Josh’s ears as he fixed his gaze on Grace. The other three women were undeniably fifteens on a scale of one to ten, but Grace was that and more. She was a powerful, magnetic presence on stage. Absolutely irresistible.

She’d make a mint stripping… Buuuuut, Josh would keep that idea to himself.

The lyrics,
“So hurry down the chimney tonight,”
coincided with the women’s twirl and deep bend at the waist, teasing the eye with flaring capes and split-second glimpses of more skin.

Heat stirred in his belly. He definitely needed a better view, one that made it very clear to Grace that he wasn’t judging her by where she worked or what she did. He loved what she’d become. It had just taken him a little tap upside the head to realize that.

He picked up his beer and strolled down the center aisle, taking a seat in the front row. Leaning back, he settled into the lushly padded chair, threw his arm over the back of another, and propped his ankle over the opposite knee.

The gazes of all three dancers veered toward him. But not Grace’s. She remained perfectly focused, moving to the music and directing the women.

“I’ll wait up for you, dear, Santa Baby…”

“Three, four, five and six, seven, shimmy…” she called over Kitt’s sugar-soft voice, which sounded far more erotic now than when he’d first heard it.

All four women rocked their shoulders, and the capes fell in unison to their elbows, exposing bare, smooth chests, and jiggling breasts barely contained in red corsets edged in white fur.

Holy mother of God…

Heat flooded Josh’s veins and pooled between his legs. Pressure built in his chest until he wanted to moan with it.

The women leaning back in a provocative stance, rolling their upper bodies like an ocean wave. But Josh had frozen, hand locked around the beer bottle, throat tight.

Grace strutted across the stage in those fuck-me boots with a swish, swish, swish of hips, swinging the cape.

“Five and six, seven and drop,” she instructed the women on another turn, another kick, and the capes fell to the floor, exposing the outfit hidden beneath.

And
Lord help him,
he couldn’t form one thought. Not one fucking coherent thought
.

All he could see was Grace. Her red corset laced up the front, cleavage showing through the V. The fur trim barely covered her nipples. Her breasts spilled over the top, bouncing with every move. Her skirt rode a good five inches beneath her flat belly button, the fabric accented with a wide black patent leather belt to match the boots, and exposed every inch of trim, toned, shapely torso from hip bones to rib cage.

“And roll…roll…roll…” Grace was saying, but Josh had lost track of the choreography.

This was beyond his hottest sexual fantasy. She was gorgeous, sensual, erotic, naughty, and sweet all at the same time. Everything a man could ever want all packaged inside a generous, compassionate, resilient woman.

Every turn, flip, or twist flashed the hint of a red lace thong beneath the skirt’s white fur trim. Every slow, sultry bend exposed her tight ass cheeks—completely bare but for a tiny strip of red lace disappearing between the golden curves.

A sharp spin turned all four women away from Josh as they strutted to the rear of the stage. Their black boots crisscrossed, their hips swayed. Then they all stopped abruptly, and on the next burst of orchestra music, all four women ripped their bodices open with both hands.

“Whoa,” he murmured, riveted to the power of such tight choreography between dance and music. But that thought skipped from his mind when they turned back toward the audience, exposing tiny, tiny,
tiny
red bikini tops. And as they strutted forward, all Josh saw were Grace’s perfect breasts, plump and high and deliciously mobile in a triangle of red. He wanted them in his hands again, beneath his tongue again.

He swallowed hard, his throat so dry the movement hurt. On their way to the front of the stage, they dropped the corsets to the floor. The fingers of his free hand dug into his thigh. His cock rubbed uncomfortably against his jeans, and his chest felt as tight as if he were wearing a corset of his own.

Josh dragged his gaze up Grace’s body—and found her gaze directly, purposefully on his. The sight speared his body with heat, the reaction so visceral she could have been reaching between his legs and cupping his balls.

Then she grabbed one of the gold stripper poles, hiked herself up with one hand in an effortless, smooth move that reminded Josh of the way she’d lifted her body up his the night before, and twirled slowly to the floor, still calling out direction.

“Spin, spin, spin, reach, pull…” Her words mirrored her spiral down the pole, her reach into her hair, her pull of whatever had been holding it up, and the sleek strands spilled in a copper waterfall.

When she reached the floor, her legs spread in an artful, erotic split around the pole, exposing her sex, barely hidden by a scrap of red lace. And her blue-eyed gaze kept drawing his own back. Back to eyes that screamed
I’m strong and confident and I can take care of myself
.

And Josh was blown away by her skill, her strength, her professionalism, but even more by how motherfucking
hot
she made him.

She strutted away, bent at the waist, and exposed her ass before performing some insanely dirty crawl across the stage that made Josh want to pop out of his jeans. The need to reach between his legs and stroke himself simply to relieve the pressure had one hand clenched around the arm of the chair, the other around his beer bottle. That was when he realized he’d hit his limit. Every muscle in his body screamed with tension, needing release.

As Grace gripped the stripper pole and flung her body upside down, spread her legs, and slowly spiraled to the floor with her gaze hot and unwavering on his, Josh hit his sexual-eye-candy limit and forced himself to stand. Forced himself to turn. Forced himself to put one foot in front of the other in a physically, mentally, and emotionally excruciating stride away from the stage.

Grace was breathing hard when the song ended for the seventh time. She pulled herself off the floor and gathered the garments she’d torn off during the dance—not as many as the other girls, but enough to give Josh a great view.

At first, she’d thought him watching her semistrip would turn him off, which she’d convinced herself was better for both of them. Then, as he’d watched her dance, his expression had shifted from skeptic-laced curiosity to white-hot, I-wanna-do-you-fast-and-hard-up-against-a–wall-right-fucking-now.

But, in the end, he’d walked out.

Story of her life, right?

Feeling confused, she descended the stairs with the club staff buzzing around, preparing for the doors to open. Hillary, Jaime, and Kaitlin had disappeared into the dressing room, but just as Grace was about to pass through the drape and into the hallway, Jasmine popped through, already decked out in her outfit for the opening dance.

“Hey,” Grace said. “Something wrong?”

Jasmine crossed her arms. “You tell me. I was coming to see just what you were doing out here to turn the mighty navy SEAL into an overheated, tongue-tied mess of nerves.”

Grace lifted a brow.

“He came back there red-faced and sweating, with his jeans sporting a bulge as big as a football. Then he tripped over the threshold on his way out the back door, where he stuck his head under the hose.”

She frowned hard. “Is he sick?”

“Yeah, honey.” Jasmine snorted a laugh. “I think it’s called Semen Retention Syndrome. Also known as blue balls.”

“Yeah?” she asked, still unsure.

“Hell, yeah.”

Grace’s worry drained, and a smile quirked her mouth. “Now he knows how I’ve felt all these years.”

Jasmine turned Grace toward the hallway by the shoulder and gave her a gentle push. “Get back there and negotiate some relief for both of you.” She started toward the bar. “I’ve got to go bribe—I mean
negotiate
—with the staff for the night.”

Grace’s heels clicked on the cement and echoed off the walls as she strode down the hall. In the back, the girls buzzed around the dressing room, gossiping, laughing, and bitching like always.

She found the back door standing open, but the grind of a power saw drew her gaze toward the storeroom. He hadn’t walked out. He was—in his self-described, heavy-handed way—showing her he cared.

As the staff tested the sound system, the muffled boom of music hummed through the walls. She wandered to an empty dressing table in a corner and picked up the padded chair. As an afterthought, she opened one of the drawers and slipped out an Allure condom—also used as business cards, with the dancer’s stage name imprinted on one side and the club name printed on the other—from the box there. In this case, it didn’t matter whose name resided on the foil. If Grace didn’t use it, the promo goodie would return to the drawer.

Looking at the shiny silver package in her palm made her think about Josh getting hard. Made her think about taking his rigid, hot cock in her hand. Made her think about stroking the condom on. And, ultimately, feeling him slide deep inside her.

Her whole body responded to the instantaneous fantasy—muscles tight, temperature rising, pussy aching.

Shrugging into her velvet cape, she tucked the foil square into the waistband at her hip and carried the chair toward the storeroom.

She wandered in and glanced over the hills and valleys of muscle along Josh’s back. He’d taken off his shirt again—praise the gods—and was leaning over a piece of gypsum board, guiding a circular saw through the sheet. A small plume of white billowed behind the saw, and a fine white mist coated his skin.

He finished the cut, turned off the saw, and glanced up. Through the clear goggles, his eyes widened, slipped down her body, then slid away.

“Hey.” He pulled the goggles off and set them on the board, then gestured to the one strip of mirror he’d placed on the longest wall. “I just put a piece of the glass up for you to see before I went on. And I need to know how high you want the dance bar.” His gaze turned to the plans. “After seeing how flexible you are, I think the height called out in here is too low.”

She strolled in, set the chair down facing Josh, and, still standing, bent at the waist and crossed her arms on the curved back. The move made her breasts fall forward and the cape drape open. “I couldn’t care less about the bar’s height at the moment.”

His gaze darted up, immediately lowered from her face to her chest, and slid away again, but not before the fiery burst of lust lit them from within. He cleared his throat. Licked his lips. Turned his back to her. “We can talk about it after you change.”

He wanted her. Not only could she see it in his expression and hear it in the tone of his voice, she felt it in the air—a crackling, thick, hot desire filling the room. She turned and slowly strode to the doors, but instead of leaving, she closed them. Then turned the dead bolt and pressed her back against the wood.