Stripped (21 page)

“I don’t have dance attire or music or…”

“All right here in my bag.” Stone pulls out a handful of my dance outfits. “Even brought a few for you to choose from. I have the music from the dances you’ve worked on—from your graduation, ‘Pillowtalk,’ our other duet. And Em, I’d be more than willing to dance with you for the audition—you don’t need me to, but if it would make you feel more confident and secure—I’m your guy.”

“Oh my God, how sweet!” A young teenage girl comes crashing our obviously-not-so-private conversation. “You just have to try.”

“You’ve got dreams too, Sunshine,” Stone says. “There’s nothing to lose here. Go chase them.”

I look over at the girl with expectant eyes, along with the rest of our gathered audience who

watch on with anticipation—most through the screen of their cell phones—then back at Stone.

I can’t believe I’m saying this. “Only if you’ll do ‘Pillowtalk’ with me—it’s the freshest in my head.”

His chest releases as if he’d been holding his breath, and our little crowd cheers. “Hurry up then, get changed!”

He rushes me to the bathroom then runs to get the music to the sound guy.

We meet back up in the auditorium.

“This is crazy,” I say, considering the seriousness of what’s transpired.

“That’s why it’s so fucking awesome.”

“How do I let you talk me into these things?”

His eyes get all soft and his tone sweet. “Because you—”

I interrupt without meaning to. “I think I’m going to freak out! What if I get scared of getting hurt again and freeze?”

“You’re not going to get hurt, Em. You’re going to be bloody brilliant. You were principal dancer for the New York Ballet—you’re not going to have stage fright.”

“But it’s been so long, Stone, and dancing for you and dancing up there are two totally different things.”

“Okay, I’ll make a deal with you. If you freeze, I’ll carry you offstage and to the room. Then I’ll go get a half gallon of chocolate ice cream and syrup that I’ll smear all over you and lick off.” He comes in closer to my ear. “My personal chocolate covered Emelie.”

Wow! I’m immediately transported to the scene. “Really?”

“See, baby, win-win.”

The announcer’s voice booms through the loudspeakers. “Our next dancer is Emelie Cartier.”

Chapter Twenty

Stone

What happens in Vegas…

(Nope that saying definitely doesn’t apply this time.)

“Hello, Emelie.” Sir Alastair takes the lead. “What brings you here to audition today?”

“He does.” A nervous Em points over at me in the shadows where I’ve been waiting, trying to give her the limelight for a moment.

“Didn’t we just see him dance?” Sir Alastair asks then leans into Babycakes. “What was his name, Wright?”

“Mmm hmm,” she drawls with sexy intonation. “Stone Wright.”

“Come stand next to your friend,” he says to me then turns his attention to Em. “Tell us where the two of you met and how long you’ve been dancing together.” He continues eyeing us with keen interest.

Emelie gives her most blushy smile ever and stumbles over her words. “Um, I kind of met Stone while…”

Oh shit! She’s not going to tell the…

“…he was stripping at a nightclub.”

…truth.

Oh fuck! The audience detonates like a brick of C4.

Babycakes stands up and points at me to drive her question home. “That man is a stripper?!”

Em laughs. “Yup—a damn good one too.”

The crowd laughs and the camera crews are having a field day.

“Anyway, he asked me to coach him in ballet so he could be ready for his audition today and storm Vegas.”

“Are you very good at ballet, then?” Sir Alastair asks and everyone listens carefully.

“I was a principal dancer for the New York Ballet.”

The assembly goes nuts again.

“Why aren’t you still?” Ripped interrupts.

“I broke several bones in my foot. One even tore through my flesh.”

The judges and audience wince.

“I was told that, because of the amount of strain of en pointe, I’d never be principal again. My dreams died that day and all my hope with them.”

Cries of sympathy follow from the audience.

“Stone may have asked me to coach him, but really he taught me—to believe again.”

The assembly collectively joins together for a long, “Awwwwww.”

“So the stripper and the ballerina.” Sir Alastair smiles and shakes his head in amazement. “Just when I think I’ve seen it all. And Stone, I guess I don’t have to wait for Vegas after all to learn what, or rather
who,
that one other development in your life is.”

I nod and gaze over at Emelie with a huge grin. He caught me.

“Well, Emelie, are you ready to begin?”

“Yes.”

Sir Alastair lifts his hand to cue the sound guy. “Ready the music.”

In this moment, I experience the great privilege of viewing and participating in the full force of Emelie Cartier’s unparalleled talent—her skilled and proficient technique that only comes from experience and her true stage presence—as her performance resurrects her creative soul. She is pure, poetic, unadulterated perfection. She carries her audience with her, holding them mesmerized with her every move.

While we dance, here in this place, on this stage, time stops and
reality separates into tiny particles dissolving into the greater atmosphere. Nothing else matters. All the conflicts in my mind are silenced. The chaos of the world around us and our personal situations fade.

As I lose my soul, I find it again in her.

The amount of time the judges allow the dance to continue is unprecedented. Over two minutes—through the second chorus.

When the music ends, the crowd leaps to their feet in applause.

We don’t move—we’re busy staring into each other’s eyes. We know we just delivered the performance of a lifetime. Perfectly executed, flawless.

As we steady our breaths, the most dazzling smile of pride and excitement radiates from her, causing her entire body to glow.

Sir Alastair calls us to the mic before I can say a word. The judges are smiling and staring in wide-eyed awe. Ripped stands first, crashing his beefy hands together while he turns to see the crowd’s reaction. Sir Alastair and Babycakes join him.

“Oh, the chemistry!” Babycakes praises. “We better see the two of you dance again!”

“Absolutely on fire,” Ripped agrees.

I take a step back so it’s all about Emelie.

“You are by far
the
force to be reckoned with this season, Ms. Cartier,” Sir Alastair exclaims above the commotion. “I can’t wait to watch your performances in Vegas.”

Em screams and leaps into my arms. I squeeze her hard. “Go get your ticket, Love.”

She runs down the stairs, laughing and crying and jumping about. Sir Alastair gives her a hug as he hands her a renewed dream in paper form.

***

“Good morning,” Em says with a sweet sleepy grin as she opens her eyes and catches me watching her sleep in the early morning hours.

“Mornin’.” I sweep her messy hair back with soft fingers.

“Have I told you that you’re wonderful?” she coos.

“A few times last night when I had your legs up in the air, that I can recall, but a bloke doesn’t tire of hearing it.”

“Then, you’re wonderful.” Her face beams like the sunrise. “I never even thought of auditioning. It was the greatest gift anyone ever gave me.”

“All I did was register you; you did the rest.”

“But that… that was everything. I wouldn’t have done that for myself.”

“Guess I’m good for you then, like green veggies and orgasms.”

“As long as it’s not the green veggies
giving
the orgasms.”

I burst out laughing. “Hey, you never gave Clancy a chance!”

She just giggles and cuddles in closer.

“Stone, how are you going to tell your folks about Vegas?”

“I’m not.”

“What do you mean, you’re not? You’re going to breeze through the eliminations—and even that’s an entire week long process—then you’ll be going on tour with the show. They’re going to find out at some point.”

“I’ll keep it from them for as long as I can. If I do get cut early in the week, I’ll just go home like nothing ever happened. No need to cause an uproar. I’ve already prepped them that you and I have been talking about running away for a week retreat in the Sierras. They’re cool for now. If I make it through the culling process, I’ll level with them,” I say. “I think the real question here, Sunshine, is what are you going to tell your dad?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” she admits. “I’m still caught up in the whirlwind of it even happening in the first place.”

“Maybe he’ll be happy for you,” I try.

“No.” She shakes her head solemnly. “He’ll think it’s a big waste of time.”

“I think we should stop caring what they think.”

“Yeah, okay, you go first.”

***

“By the way, Stone, great bathroom hook. Raphael wants one for his birthday,” Violet quips as the two of us hang out helping Emelie pack for our week in Vegas. We leave in the morning.

This past week has gone by in a blur, between avoiding our parents and practicing every possible waking moment.

“I’m so proud of you, Emelie, for taking this risk, this leap, and putting yourself out there again! I told you Stone was good for you,” she continues.

I pipe in with, “I’ve been telling her that this entire time”

“And thanks to him, your room looks great.”

Your room?
“You’ve decided to stay?” I ask with a jolt.

“I’m still working on that one,” Em admits.

That’s a disappointment.

“I wish I could skip out to Vegas to watch you guys. You’re going to be incredible,” Vi says as she hands Emelie those silver strapped stilettos I like. “But alas, this lowly peasant college student has to work. Here, wear these out and have fun. And I swear, if the two of you decide to get hitched while you’re there and you don’t call me so I can at least be a Skype maid of honor I will kill you both.”

“No one is getting married, Vi!” Em bursts out, flustered, turning a lovely shade of capsicum.

I think I could cozy up to the idea.

We check into our adjacent rooms at Planet Hollywood in Sin City.

“Two rooms because?” Em asks as we put down our gear.

“Because I booked them extra early on in our proposition negotiations and the rooms were nonrefundable.”

“You were that sure you’d make it through, huh?”

“I wasn’t about to let the chance to take you to Vegas pass me by,” I say. “Besides, with you on my side, I was sure I could make it this far.”

She just laughs at that, but I know she feels it too. Like we’re invincible together.

We each choose a room and unpack. Now that we’re actually here, my mind demands I pay attention to the issue I’ve been trying to side-step. “It’s going to get crazy, you know. There are nearly two hundred dancers to compete with to make it into the top twenty. And there are only four days and eight brutal rounds of varying choreography to do it in, culminating in our final solos to prove our mettle. Reality check, it’s going to leave us very little time for sex.”

She barks a laugh. “I should have known
that
would be what you were most concerned with.”

“Hey, I’ve got to take care of my woman.”

“Is that what I am? Your woman?”

Before I have a chance to answer, the phones ring in both rooms. We both make a what-the-fuck expression and go to answer them.

It’s
TPYCD
staff—they’re calling for all contestants to meet in the ballroom for a mandatory briefing on the rules.

After three hours, we’re finally being released, but as we try to make our way out we get stopped by a zealous camera crew.

“Look! It’s the stripper and the ballerina!” the
TPYCD
bloke with the microphone says enthusiastically. “I saw you guys dance in LA—freaking brilliant—the both of you! Can we do an interview with the two of you right here, right now?”

I check with Em, who nods excitedly.

“Absolutely.”

We spend the next hour delving into our backstories—individually and as a couple. We talk about how we met, what dancing means to us, what we hope to get out of the competition, and what we think we bring to it.

When we’re finished I ask, “When will the interview air?”

“Next week during the highlights, on the first show of the season.”

Good. That gives us some time to deal with the ’rents if
after
these next four endless, sleepless, torturous days we make it through.

Because the hotel restaurant menu offers mainly caloric sauces and fried foods, Em and I go grocery shopping and stuff what we can into a cooler and the room’s two mini fridges. We have a light dinner and, afterwards, when she goes and takes a walk to call her mum and Vi, I get to thinking and call room service.

Tonight, being our last night of freedom before the morning solos, and possibly twenty-four-hour practice days after that, I decide to make good on a promise—

And lock our adjoining door.

That way she can’t get in.

’Cause I’m a nice guy that way.

I jump in the shower.

Once I’m finished, I wrap a towel around my waist, cue “My House” by Flo Rida up on my laptop and wait for her knock.

Ten minutes later—

“Stone?” She slaps the door with her hand. “Why is this locked?”

“Ask to come in nicely.”

She pauses. “Um, okay. Can I come in?”

“Say please.”

“Please.”

I hit play on my laptop, unlock the door and pose with my arms held up over the doorway, flexed.

“You can open it now.”

When she sees me she asks, “What are you doing?”

“I told you if you came to my house…”

“You’d answer the door like a proper host—wearing nothing but a towel.” She nods with a huge grin.

“I knew you’d remember.”

I give her a private dance and serenade. When the chorus hits and Flo sings, “Welcome to my house,” I change the words to the next line and croon loudly, “Baby, take your clothes off.”

She chuckles, snags hold of my towel, and says, “Let me show you how much I appreciate your hospitality.”

That’s when she loosens the fold, drops it to the floor, and wraps her glorious, beautiful lips around my cock.

“Oh fuck!”

“A proper host deserves a proper gift,” she mumbles as she licks up and down my shaft and cradles my balls.

I’m a goner.

She spends a luxurious amount of time making mouth love to the behemoth, and we are both so grateful. Soon she begins a transcendent sucking rhythm and I achieve rapture.