Striptease Page 9

  If she thought what they’d done was something she could turn her back on, well, that wasn’t going to happen. He had his pride, but he also had a strangely vested interest in Melanie now. As long as he didn’t lose her on the drive to her place, he planned to let her know the extent of that involvement.

  He needed to do it before she could get on the phone with one of her girlfriends and “bond” over the size of his dick or the way he played too rough or whatever it was about sex and guys women gabbed about. He sure wasn’t going to call her up and gab about whatever was going on with her.

  Yet knowing all that, he still wasn’t clear on why he was chasing her down, why he had this urgent need to set her straight. Pure selfishness on the part of his dick was undoubtedly the biggest reason. He wouldn’t work this woman out of his sexual system anytime soon.

  And, sure. His pride was involved. He didn’t like thinking he’d disappointed her. Or left her dissatisfied. Ego or no, however, he knew that hadn’t happened. She’d come twice during the, what? Ten minutes they’d been in the bedroom? Fifteen tops?

  Women didn’t come like that if they weren’t having fun. What he couldn’t figure was, if she’d been having all that fun, why the hell had she taken off the way she had? He hadn’t exactly kicked her dog or burned off her cat’s whiskers.

  What he should do was back away, let her tuck her tail and go. It wasn’t like he was looking for a relationship. Sure. He could get off nicely on spending a lot more time with her naked. But soon enough he’d be outta here, off to New York, maybe to L.A., once he hooked up with the right project and made the right connections. He never had fooled himself into thinking a guy could afford a woman along with his career.

  Career obsession aside, he’d spent enough time with Melanie in the office to know he wasn’t imagining the more personal tension sizzling between them. Acting on it had pretty much been inevitable. The when and the where there in the middle of the cookout might not have been his best-ever exercise in spontaneity, but the bait itself?

  “Give me a friggin’ break,” he muttered, rolling over a freshly patched pothole and bouncing in and out of another. After seeing her shadow work that pole, he’d never flinched once about adding the voiceover to her video production. She knew her body; she knew what she liked. She knew what he liked. And his edited version of her video had shown her exactly how right she’d been.

  He’d told her he was visually inclined and she’d given him a hell of show to watch, offered him more to look at than skin and lingerie. She was creative. Innovative. Spectacular. Not the type of woman to panic over a wrong step, a mistake. What they’d done was not a mistake.

  No, he thought, easing his way down the narrow streets into Midtown, cursing foully as Melanie shot through a yellow traffic light, making him run the red. She had to be all bent out of shape about how she’d lost that control she prized so highly. He shook his head.

  What better time to let it go than during sex? Any man would appreciate the way she’d come undone. As smart as she was, as sharp, how could she not know that? She had to know that, and she had to be in denial. The woman was some piece of work.

  And, for now, she was his.

  He pulled through the security gate and into the parking lot of her small complex, stopping his truck in the space beside her car. She cast him a brief glance that he was hard-pressed to interpret before heading down the shadowed walkway between the converted condominiums. All he could do was follow and hope she didn’t bust his chops for stalking or trespassing or just plain pissing her the hell off.

  It was when she reached her front door, shaded by a brick archway covered with ivy, that he realized how shaken she was. He walked up behind her and hovered at her back, watching her hand tremble as she tried to work the key into the lock.

  The tremor turned the simple act of opening the door into what appeared to be a major feat of motor skills. And that made him feel like shit.

  Without looking up, she took a shuddering breath, reached back and offered him the key. He took it, deftly shoved it into the lock and turned. With her push, the door swung open. Taking two steps inside, she held out her hand. But he’d already reached around her and dropped the key onto the table in her entryway.

  Her bags slid from her shoulder to the floor. She let them fall, using one foot to shove both toward the table. But before she had a chance to move even a step away, Jacob took her hand and pulled her into the living room. He’d learned his lesson; he wasn’t giving her another chance to escape. This time—if the fact that she’d let him inside meant there was going to be a this time—they were going to do this right.

  She gestured toward the rear of the condo. “The bedroom’s in the back.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her body to his. She was such a perfect fit. “For later. For now, this’ll do.”

  He lowered his head, determined to finish the kiss they’d started earlier. But Melanie wasn’t having any of it. With the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth, she watched his mouth descend, then turned her head so his lips brushed her cheek.

  Okay, he thought, and left them there, nuzzling the soft skin along her jaw and beneath, sliding his hands down to the swell of her ass and drawing her close.

  Well, hell. She wasn’t having any of that, either. She wedged her fists between their bodies and pushed him back, causing him to bite down on the several nasty things he wanted to say.

  Instead of asking what the hell her problem was, he settled for, “What’s up, Melanie? I can kiss you below the waist but not above?”

  “I don’t need to be seduced.” She reached for the hem of her white cotton tank top and, once it was off, unhooked the back clasp of her bra. “I mean, it’s nice, but it’s not necessary.”

  With the bra’s cups and straps dangling, she pulled his T-shirt over his head and off. Only the silk-and-lace lingerie hanging loose between them kept their skin from making contact. “I assumed you’d rather get straight down to business.”

  The woman had a chip the size of King Kong’s hairy butt on her shoulder. One corner of Jacob’s mouth twitched. He wanted to laugh even more than he wanted to tell her the fuck off. His reaction wasn’t about anger, but about wondering whether or not she was worth the effort.

  Or if he was totally wasting his time here, doing what he could to show her how to have fun.

  Then he wondered if having fun was against whatever personal rules she lived by. Just his luck she’d be all work and no play in bed as well as out. Except he didn’t believe that for a minute, not after living through the last few hours and having her straddle his lap.

  No. This was all about kid gloves, mint juleps and magnolias, and he figured the investment would be time well spent. “Believe it or not, Ms. Craine, foreplay is not proprietary to women.”

  “I don’t recall saying that it was,” she said, her mouth getting all uppity and bowed.

  He rocked his hips against hers. “Yeah, but actions speak louder than words, sweetheart.”

  She huffed, rolled her eyes.

  And he grinned, slipping his fingertips beneath the waistband of her shorts and teasing the skin there above the curve of her ass. When she shuddered, he held her closer, his hands drifting lower to cup her sweetly rounded bottom. At that more intimate contact, her full-body shivers set in.

  “Cold?” he asked.

  “Hardly.”

  “Hot?”

  “Sizzling.”

  “Hmm.” Now they were getting somewhere. “I’d say sizzling’s only about half as hot as you need to be.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  “You think I can’t take you there?”

  “Actually, no,” she said in that snotty tone that he’d be quite happy never to hear again. “I’m sure you can. I just didn’t know if you wanted to expend that much effort.”

  “Trust me. It’s no effort.”

  A brow went up. “That sure of yourself, are you?
”

  Easy answer. He shook his head. “No. I’m that sure of you. Unlike when making your little skin flick, you weren’t exactly alone in that bedroom earlier, you know.”

  She wanted to look away, but his gaze held hers. “That was just…the heat of the moment.”

  “The moment, huh? That was it? You’re saying you can’t do that again?”

  “Good grief, no,” she said, and frowned. “I’m not saying anything of the sort.”

  “You think I can’t do that again?”

  She gave a small shrug and looked away. “I’m wondering why you would want to.”

  “Why would I want to have sex?” he asked after picking up his jaw.

  Melanie closed her eyes. “No. I know why you would want to have sex. It’s just that we already did. You came, you conquered, made your conquest and all that.”

  “Wait a minute.” Where in the hell was she coming from? He raised a hand and forced up her chin. He wanted to see her eyes, to know what she was thinking. “You think because I had you once I don’t want you again?”

  “It’s been known to happen. More than a few times, I’m sorry to say,” she said flatly. Then honesty widened her eyes and she softly added, “But, no. I’m hoping that’s not the case with you.”

  It really was unbelievable the way some guys screwed over women and made the rest of the male population pay for their sins. Still, as much as he wanted her to understand exactly how hot she was, he didn’t want to get in too deep. He wasn’t here to save her from her personal demons.

  He picked his next words carefully. “Here’s the deal, Melanie. I want you in ways I doubt you’ve ever imagined. But one furtive quickie a day is my limit. This time, let’s take our time and make this more of an adventure.”

  The look in her eyes almost made him think twice. The hope, the need, the uncertainty—all elements that could easily mean death to a single man. He might have been worried if not for the fact that both of them were fully aware they were offering one another nothing but fulfillment in bed. That he could handle.

  So, as much as he hated what he was about to do, he found the clasp of her bra and hooked it back into place. Then he scooped up her tank top from the floor, slipped it over her frowning forehead and down over that soft skin that was making him righteously insane.

  His own shirt he didn’t care about. But getting Melanie out of her clothes, stripping her naked in his own time and way…that was something he wanted more than he’d thought possible. And handling that realization was going to require more work than the other.

  “Now.” He stepped back and held both of her hands. “I want to see your pole.”

  She blinked. Then her eyes widened as she understood exactly what it was he was asking. And, at that, her faced flushed a beautiful shade of peach.

  “Why?” she asked, pushing a hand up through the hair at her nape. “It’s just part of my workout routine. It’s not like I have a stripper fantasy or anything.”

  “Yeah,” he said, taking her hand and more than a bit of pleasure in getting in the last word. “But I do.”

  He led her down the hallway, past a dark bathroom and a bedroom as starkly black-and-white as her office. At least she was consistent—and obviously Little Miss Sunshine at home, as well as at gIRL-gEAR. He’d have to buy her a gallon of bright orange paint for her birthday, he thought, and frowned.

  O-kay. That was strange, thinking of her birthday and buying her gifts. He shook his head and pushed away the unsettling thought as he reached the last room in the back of her place.

  The room with the pole in the center.

  The pole that he’d thought about every time he’d dreamed about her and come awake with one of his own.

  She followed him to the doorway, and when he glanced at her from over his shoulder, she gestured for him to feel free to take the tour. But he shook his head. He was not here to look around.

  He was here to be entertained. To see the live show that her tape had captured. To watch the very uptight Melanie Craine let it all hang out. He took a seat in her desk chair, swiveled it forward and booted up her PC.

  “What are you doing?”

  He glanced back to see her still standing in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest. So uppity. As if the world would end if she let herself go. “Looking for your music files.”

  “Why?”

  He found the bulk of her MP3s and a collection she’d saved as “dance.m3u” in her My Music folder. He launched her media player and opened the file, adjusting the volume of her speakers. Then he turned back around, looked her up and down, and grinned. “Because. I want to watch you dance.”

  He thought for a second that she was going to get huffy and stomp away. She did that thing with her nose, lifting it enough so she had to look at him through the bottom half of her lenses.

  He wondered why she didn’t wear contacts—not that he was complaining. He sort of liked the way she looked hiding behind her black retro frames.

  Hiding. Hmm. He wondered what she was hiding from. And why, now that he’d figured it out, it didn’t bother him more than it did. More than it probably would if he stopped to think about it—which he wasn’t going to do.

  Finally, Melanie made her decision. She walked into the center of the room and took hold of the pole, wrapping one knee around it. She shook her head slowly, her gaze direct and challenging as she told him no.

  “I’ve danced for you once already. I won’t do it again. But,” she added, her hips now swaying to the music’s bass beat, “I’ll dance with you if you want to dance.”

  He thought about that for a minute. About dancing with her. About being too close to watch her body move the way he wanted to. Too close to watch, but right there up against her and able to feel. All of her. Every move.

  The bumps and the grinds and the cha-cha-cha. Her legs winding in and out of his, her hips pressing to him. Her arms raised, her breasts lifted and rounded, the perfect handful he so wanted to get palms and fingers and mouth back around. Her chin up, her head back and all that soft skin of her neck his to nuzzle and kiss.

  He could taste her already.

  Yeah. He liked the concept. Liked it a lot. He pushed himself out of the chair, caught off guard by the surge of lust that drove through him as he stood and faced her. She wasn’t doing anything but standing there, leaning into the pole, her eyes lit brightly with his favorite sort of mischief.

  But he felt himself seconds away from pulling a caveman stunt and dragging her off to his lair to mate.

  Her mercurial moods intrigued him, enchanted him and made him wary as hell. But right this moment nothing mattered except here and now and making sure she understood that he intended to fully enjoy every inch of her body, every moment they spent together naked in bed. Or wrapped tightly together while standing.

  When he reached her, he kept the pole between them, lifting his arms and grabbing it with both hands high overhead. He remained still, watching as Melanie moved, her hips swaying side to side, her pelvis tilted toward his, first on one side, then the other, never making contact but coming close to his thighs with each pass.

  The music switched gears and so did Melanie. She placed her hands on his bare chest, slid her fingertips toward his sides and stroked with her nails from his armpits up to his wrists. When she reversed direction for the trip back down, he had to brace himself so he wouldn’t grab her and haul her straight to the floor.

  By the time she reached his waistband, she’d worked him into a sweat—and seemed pleased about it. Her fingertips slid from his sides to his belly, just there above the line of his shorts.

  He ground his teeth, unsure which would break first—his jawbone from the pressure or his cock from the anticipation.

  With beautifully nimble fingers she released the button of his fly and dragged down his zipper, never touching his erection the way he wished she would…more than anything. Even more than he wanted to let go of the pole and grab hold of her, he wished she would
grab hold of him.

  What she did, though, was a worse sort of torture. Because now that she’d eased his shorts and his boxers down his hips to the floor, now that he was the one standing bare-assed naked while she remained clothed, she was back in control.

  And he couldn’t remember ever in his life feeling so close to the edge of his own.

  All his best intentions to take his time and do this right were quickly flying in the face of his desire. Especially since Melanie had slipped around to stand between him and the pole, and was shimmying out of her shorts. Her hair tickled his chin, and the scent of her perfume rose in intoxicating waves. She was right here, right now, inches away, and still he waited while arousal grew.

  The file of songs that she’d saved and he’d chosen rang in his ears with the rhythm of sex. Yet that provocatively carnal striptease on tape was nothing compared to the live action version of having Melanie take off her clothes.

  It was when she bent over that he couldn’t take it anymore. She held on to the pole for balance, leaning forward and lifting her sweet cheeks right into his groin, rubbing back and forth over his cock with an invitation designed to cause a saint to fall.

  He reached down and dug a condom from his shorts, kicking out of his sandals and the garments binding his ankles. And then he caressed the backs of her knees, drawing his hands up her thighs until he reached the crevice of her bottom.

  He slipped his erection between her legs, slipped his hands beneath her top and her bra, massaging her bare breasts until she whimpered. He couldn’t wait any longer.

  Not with Melanie shoving back against him, writhing against him, lifting and opening and pushing against him. He moved his hands to her backside and spread her cheeks, thrusting forward into her sweet little sex. She squeezed, and he thought he was going to go off. Grabbing her hips, he stilled and shuddered and hissed at her when she tried to move.

  But she was having too much of a good time, and the sounds she was making fueled his lust until he knew nothing but the way she felt, all wet and warm and soft, and the way the rhythm of his stroke was taking him to oblivion.

  He continued to pump and to thrust, but reached down between her legs and found her clit, circling the tiny hard button and selfishly enjoying the way she squirmed. And then he held his breath and gritted his teeth and turned off what sensation he could to concentrate on her pleasure—a noble determination that lasted about five seconds.