The song shifts to “Just Give Me a Reason” by Pink and Nate Ruess. I’m not sure why the song filters through my awareness. I force myself out of his grasp and into the center of the room. I dance, and I find myself dancing more like a dancer than a stripper. I know I have to take my clothes off. I can’t get away with just dancing. That’s not my job. But now, more than ever, I don’t want to do that. I want to talk to this man. Not because he’s a celebrity. Not because he was People’s Sexiest Man Alive last year. Not because he’s a phenomenal actor, although he is. There’s something in his eyes that’s drawing me in.
I make my fingers unbutton the top button of my shirt, and I see Armand and the others shift on the couch. I ignore them and spin in place, bend at the waist facing away from them, straighten, turn again, untie the knot and unbutton my shorts. Dawson never looks away from my eyes.
I wonder what he sees in my gaze.
Nausea blasts through me as I slip another shirt button free. I hate this part. My heart pounds with the familiar sense of shame. Now the shirt is open, and my moves are sinuous, silky and serpentine. I roll my shoulder, and the flannel slips, dipping low on one side. Another shimmy and shake of my shoulders, and the shirt falls down around my back. My arms pin the shirt in place, but the tops of my br**sts are bared, my crossed arms covering my ni**les. My hips sway and rock to the music.
I’m caught in his gaze again, and everything fades away except his eyes.
And then I force my arms away, let the flannel fall to the floor. Armand sucks in a deep breath, and I hear one of the other men groan in appreciation. Dawson doesn’t move, and his expression doesn’t shift except for a widening of his eyes. His gaze rakes over me then, from head to toe and back. I go back to dancing, accentuating the bounce of my br**sts, running my hands over them, lifting them and posing, all the things I’ve learned get me tips.
This is harder than stage dances, harder than lap dances or other VIP room work. This is personal. Other men look at me and they clearly want me, but something in Dawson’s gaze speaks of more than desire. There’s possession in his eyes.
I toy with the zipper of my shorts, glancing down at my front and back to Dawson, the calculated coy glance that I don’t feel. I lower the zipper and pull the edges away, showing the triangle of red fabric and the pale skin beneath.
I’m struck then, apropos of nothing, by the memory of Candy, on my first day, telling me I had to get my privates waxed. It hurt, and I nearly died of shame.
The song shifts again, to another nameless dance beat, and I begin the swaying shimmy that leads to my shorts sliding off. Before I can push the denim over my backside, however, Dawson voice fills the room.
“All right, boys. Out.”
“Aw, come on, Dawson. It’s just getting good,” Nate says.
Dawson doesn’t answer; he just casts a long, hard stare at Nate, who sighs in frustration. “Fuck. Fine.” He gets up, and the other two men go with him.
When the door closes behind them, Dawson stands up slowly. It’s like watching a lion rise from the grass, all coiled power and silky grace. He moves toward me, eyes hot and dark, almost the same stormy color as my own somehow. He grabs my wrists in huge, powerful hands.
“Leave them on.”
I don’t struggle in his grip, and I’m not dancing. Any time I’m at work, I’m dancing. Every move is a dance. From table to table, booth to booth, onstage to offstage, it’s a dance. Even if it’s just the exaggerated sway of my hips and the bounce in my gait, it’s a dance. I’m never still.
But now I’m frozen by the heat in Dawson’s eyes as he stares down at me. I’m in the high-heeled boots that make me six feet tall, but Dawson stands easily four inches above me.
“Why?” I ask.
Men always want me to take it off. And I’m a stripper, so I do. But this man is stopping me, and I don’t get it. I don’t dare think of the raw power in his eyes, the easy strength in his hands, the possessiveness in his touch.
Dawson doesn’t answer. He just puts his hands on my hips and gets me moving to the beat. He moves with me. He’s dancing with me, swaying with the beat. I let him. I shouldn’t, but I do. Something in the vibrancy of his presence erases my capacity to resist him.
Then his hands push at the denim, and fear hits me like a ton of bricks. “No, you can’t—” I stammer. In my nerves, the Georgia accent is thick.
“Yes, I can. You want me to.” His voice wraps around me, slides over me like blood-warm water.
I shake my head. We’re still dancing together, moving to the music. I’m staring up at him, lost. “I don’t—I don’t do extras. You can’t touch me.”
“Yet here I am, touching you.” His palms slide up to my waist, spanning the space between br**sts and denim. His hands are enormous, powerful, yet impossibly gentle.
His touch is fire. I’m trembling, shivering. I gasp when his palms slide down again, and then his fingers hook into the belt loops and tug down. He tugs the denim, tugs again, and then they’re off and collapsing around my ankles. I step out of them and try to breathe.
His palms slide like lava over my waist to my naked hips, and I’m trembling, frightened, terrified. Consumed. He’s touching me. No one has ever touched me like this. Seeing desire in a man’s eyes one thing. Feeling his desire in the raw strength of his grip on my skin—that’s something else. Dawson’s touch is hypnotism made flesh. I can’t resist it. I don’t know what’s happening to me, but it’s terrifying me. I don’t want to want this, but he’s right. I do want him to. I’m devoured by his hands on my hips. He hasn’t touched my bottom, hasn’t touched my br**sts. Just my waist and my hips. And Lord help me, it’s like something is eating away inside me, pushing some kind of desperate need through me.
I don’t know what it is I need, except it has something to do with this man in front of me, who has stripped away my clothing and my strength and my confidence in one smooth move. I’m naked in front of him. The thong is no cover. Not for the way his eyes see through me.
“Don’t be scared.” His voice is warm. Almost kind.
I shrug. “I ain’t…I mean, I’m not.”
He laughs, a single huff. “You lie, Gracie.”
“What am I afraid of, then?” I find my voice somehow, and pretend insouciance I don’t nearly feel.
“Me.” He caresses my hips. “This.”