by Cat Johnson
Her body was simply reacting with raw animal instinct. He was a desirable male specimen, and she was a woman who hadn’t been with one of those in a while. That explained the spreading warmth she felt between her legs. She pressed one last time against the bulge beneath the rough denim before she rose and turned toward the audience.
She may be playing to the crowd for tips at the moment, but Leesa remembered her promise to Holly. Soon she’d be getting up close and personal with this man. Very soon. She tried not to let the unwanted lusty thoughts about this stranger scare the hell out of her. Last time she’d felt this way about a man and let other parts besides her brain do the thinking she’d made the worst decision of her life. She’d ended up dropping out of college in her senior year. That led to her being here now, mostly nude on stage in front of a bar full of men and about to take one of them back to a private room to earn some cash by pleasuring him.
The thought lodged a lump of fear in her heart even as her stomach fluttered at the idea of being alone with him—intimate with him—a man who blushed and called her ma’am and at the same time had her absolutely saturated with desire after one glance into his baby blues. Not to mention the temptation of what was contained within those jeans.
Leesa put some space between herself and the cowboy by doing a lap around the stage. As large, sweaty hands shoved bills into the feather-covered garter around her thigh, she couldn’t resist one more glance back at the birthday boy on stage. Leesa also couldn’t stop her heart from picking up speed when she realized that even though Holly was dancing directly in front of him, his gaze had followed her.
The song came to an end and so did the birthday routine. One song per customer. That was Jerry’s rule, mainly because a customer who was up on stage was not down on the floor ordering overpriced drinks. It was time for the private, behind-closed-doors portion of the evening.
Amid the whoops and cheers of the crowd, she steeled her nerves but couldn’t quiet her racing heart as she walked to where the cowboy still sat. From behind Holly uncuffed him from the chair. He didn’t move except to bring his hands around front and rub where the cuffs had been. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to reveal strong forearms. Then Leesa noticed the red lines on his wrists, as if he’d pulled against the restraints. In spite of the fur on the metal, the cuffs had marked him.
“Are your wrists okay? Do they hurt?” She shifted her gaze from his injuries to his face and saw him smile.
“Hurt? Nah. This is nothing.” He shook his head and laughed, a sound that sent warmth coursing through her.
Leesa swallowed hard. It was now or never. “Okay. Good, because your buddies are treating you to one more birthday surprise.”
“They are?” His voice squeaked a bit with the question. She smiled.
“Yup.” Reaching down, she grabbed one of his arms. His skin felt warm and slightly rough from a fine layer of hair.
He rose willingly when she tugged him from the chair. “What kind of surprise?”
Swallowing hard past the lump in her throat, she pictured that surprise. “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you.”
One handed, he attempted to pull the open sides of his shirt closed and button them while they walked. She shot him a sideways look as she led him down the stairs. “Don’t bother. I’m just going to undo it again.”
His eyebrows shot up beneath the brim of his hat and she swore his cheeks got pinker than before. “Oh.”
Laughing, she pulled him toward the back.
A bouncer nodded to her as she went past and into one of the private rooms, which really shouldn’t be called a room at all since it was more the size of closet. It contained a chair and not much more. Someone had left a box of tissues on the floor next to the chair. The sight of that made it all seem more real. She pulled the door closed behind her and heard it latch with a click. Then they were alone.
Leesa glanced sideways and saw the cowboy staring at the chair and the tissues too. If she didn’t do this now, she feared she’d chicken out. With one hand she pushed him into the seat. He gazed up at her and waited. She had a feeling he’d wait there all night if she made him. She was definitely in charge here.
There was a knob on the wall behind his head. She leaned over and spun it. Music filled the small space and made it seem like they were even further removed from the crowd outside that door. When she pulled back, she saw his eyes focused on her breasts. She couldn’t blame him, after all, she was topless and they were in a strip club. He may be shy, but he was definitely all male.
Leesa ran one fingernail slowly down his bare chest, all the way to the fine line of hair showing just above his buckle. If she wasn’t mistaken, he’d shivered from the touch. It made her want to see if she could make him react that strongly to all her touches. “What do you want me to do, cowboy?”
She wouldn’t have asked that question of just any man, but this guy seemed different somehow. Safer.
He swallowed hard before he spoke. “What are the rules?”
Hmm. Maybe this wasn’t his first time in a strip club if he knew there were house rules. “That doesn’t matter right now. Tonight, I make the rules.”
“Oh.” For a second she thought she’d scared him away with her proclamation, until his eyes boldly met hers from beneath the brim of his hat. “What do you want to do?”
She liked his response. Her choice. She was in control. That thought calmed her nerves a bit.
As Leesa felt the persistent warmth that began between her legs and spread throughout her body, she definitely couldn’t tell him what she really wanted to do with him. Things couldn’t go that far. Not here. Not now. Another time, another place, another lifetime perhaps, maybe it could have happened between her and this sweet guy.
Suppressing that wistful thought, she instead focused on all she could do here and now. “Why don’t I just show you?”
He took his hat off and hooked it on the doorknob. After running his hand through his dark blond curls, he nodded. “Okay.”
Leesa smiled at how he seemed to brace himself in the chair, as if ready for anything, good or bad. She decided to begin slowly, thinking being gentle with her shy cowboy at first would be the best course of action. Swinging her hips in time with the music, she started by running her fingers over her body, from her bare breasts down to the thin string stretched across her hips.
His gaze followed the motion of her hands, but then returned to settle on her face. The intensity in his gaze was starting to make Leesa self-conscious. She turned so she could no longer see him watching. She moved backward, closer until she hovered just above him, then she got even closer. She pressed against him, her ass grinding his crotch. His hands, warm and large, moved to rest lightly on her hips.
Normally the customers weren’t supposed to touch the girls, not even during a lap dance, but tonight Leesa didn’t ask him to remove his hands. Instead, she ground against him harder. His hands slid up to her ribcage. One thumb lightly brushed the side of her breast, sending a tingle through her. Again she could have asked him not to touch her. Again, she didn’t.
She could feel the outline of him, hard as steel, pushing into the soft flesh of her butt. How in the world would she go about doing what Holly had told her to do? Did she just open his pants and grab him? Should she tell him to undo the belt and jeans himself? His massively ornate buckle looked like it wouldn’t be easy to open. Especially since her hands were shaking.
Entertaining all these errant thoughts still didn’t change the fact that she hadn’t been this aroused by a man, a stranger no less, in a very long time.
Rotating beneath his grasp, she slowly turned to face him again. She straddled the cowboy in the chair and pressed close. Once more she felt the electricity coursing between them. Her breath caught in her throat.
The sexual chemistry was palpable. He definitely felt it too. Leesa could tell that simply by looking at him. His eyes, heavily lidded with wanting her, focused intensely on her face. His hands g
rasped her hips tightly. She felt every quickened breath he took, even as her own gasps filled her ears. He pressed her closer, guiding her gyrations against him. His gaze never left hers, as if he was watching for her to react.
If a reaction was what he wanted, he got it. Every movement increased her need and brought her closer to orgasm. Gripping the back of his chair for support as her legs weakened, she leaned forward until her nipples grazed his bare chest. At the contact he let out a sound that seemed half-pleasure, half-pain. He increased the speed of their thrusting and Leesa’s body erupted in waves of pleasure.
Eyes closed, she rode the orgasm, and the cowboy, for what felt like forever, but at the same time, not nearly long enough.
She’d just let a customer make her come. Never had that happened before. Never had she wanted it to happen before. If she didn’t move off him, he’d likely do it again she was wound so tightly right now.
When she finally opened her eyes and, panting, pulled back enough to look at his face, it was to find he had beads of sweat forming on his smooth upper lip. His erection was still pressed between them. She could only imagine what it felt like for him to be that hard and squashed in tight jeans.
She remembered she was here for his pleasure, not her own. Leesa shifted her position so her now-wobbly legs straddled only one of his thighs. Still recovering from the unexpected climax that had rocked her, she reached down and touched his belt with hands that felt weak. After focusing her brain enough to study how it opened, she fiddled a bit and managed to release the buckle, all as he watched. Luckily it hadn’t been as difficult as she’d assumed because she didn’t think she had the concentration or the strength to wrestle with it at the moment.
With hands that trembled, she undid the button and zipper on his jeans and pushed the fly open wide. No longer constrained, his erection sprang up, tenting the fabric of his navy blue boxer shorts. She touched it through the thin layer of cotton, raising her gaze to his face as she did.
Breathing heavily, he stared at her hand as it lightly stroked him. When he realized she was watching him, he raised his eyes to stare into hers. His tongue peeked out and nervously licked his lips as he drew in a shaky breath. She continued to watch him as she reached beneath the elastic band and touched the warm, velvety skin covering his rock-hard erection. She stroked him slowly, gently at first. As his breathing quickened, so did her speed until his eyes closed and she felt his body tense beneath her.
He bit his lip as his hand covered hers. She watched with fascination the sight of their hands joined, clasped around him. Squeezing her fist tighter around his length, he moved their hands together. Slow at first, then faster. His breath increased with the speed of their stroking.
Suddenly he released his grasp. He reached down and grabbed a tissue from the box next to the chair. With teeth clenched and eyes slammed tight, she felt his shaft throb in her hand as he came into the tissue.
Now that the deed was done, Leesa wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself. He, on the other hand, seemed perfectly comfortable with the situation.
Recovering quickly, he opened his eyes and let out a small laugh. He shook his head as he grabbed more tissues and wiped off his hand. When he’d wadded up the whole mess and pitched it into the corner where it landed in a garbage pail she hadn’t noticed before, he turned his attention back to her. Once again she felt the full scrutiny of his intense stare.
“That was—” He shook his head once again, as if at a loss for words. His voice was soft and breathy.
“Yeah, it was.” Her own voice came out pretty breathless too. She swallowed hard and realized she was still perched on his leg and he could probably feel the hot wetness not contained by the G-string. She moved to get up but he grabbed her hand and stopped her.
“Wait. Can I see you again?”
“See me?”
See her how? Was he talking about coming back for another hand job tomorrow? Or maybe for more than just a hand job next time. After what she’d done with him, he probably expected she did that and more with all the customers. Why wouldn’t he make that assumption?
“Yeah.” He nodded. “When do you get done here? Maybe we could meet up afterward for a drink. Or tomorrow. I have a thing I have to be at for a few hours, but I could take you out to lunch, or dinner if you’re not working.”
She felt her brows rise. “You mean like a date?”
“Yup.” He grinned. “I really want to see you again.”
Why? For sex, or did he really like her? There was definitely mutual attraction. She felt it too, but he didn’t even know her. He knew nothing more than what she’d done with him for the past half hour or so.
Maybe he truly wanted to get to know her. Could he really be as nice as he appeared? It all made her head spin. “Um—”
A knock on the door interrupted her answer, not that she had an answer to his question.
“Hey! Times up. One of the other girls needs the room.” The bouncer’s voice sounded through the thin door, knocking her back to reality.
She glanced down at the man beneath her and realized his jeans were still wide open and his boxers exposed. “Okay, Bruno. Give me one minute.”
Leesa rose and this time he let her, mostly because his hands were busy dressing himself. She pulled the edges of her vest together and crossed her arms over her bare breasts, suddenly feeling exposed now that the fantasy moment between them had been shattered by real life.
With his shirt buttoned and tucked into his buckled jeans once again, the cowboy stood, hat held in front of him by both hands. “So, about our date…”
Leesa glanced at the door, knowing their time was very limited. That was probably for the best. Where the hell could this thing with him go? She knew the answer to that. Nowhere.
“I’m sorry. I don’t date customers.” She turned to go when she felt his hand on her elbow. She paused and waited.
“Oh. Okay. Um, then here. This is for you.”
Looking back, she saw he held a folded bill in his hand. He thrust it toward her. Her gut took a plunge. She shook her head. “Your friends are paying for the lap dance.” The rest, she suddenly didn’t want money for.
“I know. They told me they were paying, but this is a tip. From me.”
Leesa swallowed hard. She had done it for the extra cash. Hadn’t she? Then why didn’t she want his money? Because taking it for what she’d done over and above the bought-and-paid-for lap dance made her something she never even imagined she’d become. Even if in another time and another place she probably would have done it with this guy simply because she liked him.
With lids lowered to hide the tears welling in her eyes she grabbed the bill. “Thanks.” Then she left the room and him behind her and didn’t look back.
She was vaguely aware of one of the new girls working the pole up on stage. She was conscious enough of her surroundings to be relieved she wouldn’t have to perform again too soon since the rest of the girls on the shift had finally arrived. Hopefully she could hide until he and his friends had left. She walked straight to the locker room and found Holly there.
Holly’s face lit up when she saw her. “Well? How did it go?”
“Fine.” She kept her head buried in her locker, pretending she was putting her tips in her purse when really she just needed time to regain her composure.
“His friend gave me the money for your lap dance since you disappeared in back with the birthday boy so quick.”
Leesa looked up and took the money Holly offered her. “Thanks.”
“Did you, you know, earn any extra while you were there?”
Leesa knew exactly what Holly was asking. “Yeah. I did.”
Of course Holly would have yelled at her if she told her she didn’t set a price in advance, didn’t ask for payment up front, didn’t even ask for money she’d been so…what? Wrapped up in enjoying him?
She glanced down at the folded bill. It was a twenty. She felt like laughing and crying at the same time. She
’d sold her soul for twenty dollars and because of that, she somehow felt that she’d never ever be the same.
Holly’s hand touched her shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She lied.
“He wasn’t an ass or anything, was he? I really thought he looked sweet.”
Leesa could hear the concern in Holly’s voice. That concern just about did Leesa in. Coupled with the fact that he truly was sweet, the kind of guy she’d probably fall for if she hadn’t just serviced him sexually for cash, the tears fell in earnest now.
Still hiding her face, Leesa shook her head. “No, you were right. He was a nice guy. Really. I’m fine. Just tired. I’m going to splash some water on my face and try to wake up before I need to go on again.”
“Okay, sweetie. Take your time. Let the latecomers entertain the crowd for a bit, then I’ll go up. Take all the time you need.”
“Thanks.” Leesa slammed her locker door and headed straight for the private, single-stall bathroom next to Jerry’s office instead of the public ladies’ room out front. His door wasn’t closed all the way.
She tiptoed past, not in the mood for him to call her inside and yell at her for bothering him during his meeting before. Through the crack it looked like he was alone now and talking on the phone.
“Yeah, she busted into the office and saw both him and the cash.”
She stopped dead in her tracks.
Jerry had kept his voice low when he’d spoken, which was something he rarely did, so it caught her attention and made her listen closer, as did what he was saying. He had to be talking about her. She stepped off to the side of the door, out of sight but within hearing.
“Come on, Johnny. Do you really think that’s necessary? She’s just a stupid bitch. Who’s she gonna tell?”
Leesa swallowed hard. What or rather who had she seen that she wasn’t supposed to have? What was bad enough to make Jerry’s brother, Johnny, ask him to do something even a lowlife like Jerry didn’t want to do?
“No, you’re still in charge. I’m just saying, I think knocking her off is a little drastic considering—”
