Electrified

by Rachel Blaufeld

  Heading up the braided ropes dangling from the ceiling, Sienna planned to start swaying from the rafters before moving around the stage, lingering more toward the pole, avoiding the front. She didn’t want to get caught up in Carson’s smile or dimples. She shouldn’t be so intrigued by him. He was just a man lusting after a stripper, and she was a young girl trapped in a stripper’s body trying to live her life. A life without conflict and definitely no love affairs.

  Sienna was trying to convince herself to pull back, but she kept stepping forward. The little break away with Asher would be good. She needed space, air to breathe, and time to reaffirm her resolve.

  This was what she told herself as she inched toward the edge of the stage, slowly unzipping her cat suit, revealing her glimmering skin and cleavage, the flaps opening right to the edge of her nipples, exposing the firmness of her side cleavage. With her teeth nipping her bottom lip, her gaze somewhat down, her lashes covering her eyes, she gave one more zipper pull and her suit was now all the way open.

  There was nothing left to the imagination when she flipped her head straight up, her hair whispering through the air and landing back down her back, her sculpted breasts and a tiny see-through thong peeking out from the cat suit left dangling open. Her eyes were open now. Open and staring right into warm brown eyes trained on her. Carson wasn’t taking his gaze off her, and she wasn’t able to move hers from his either.

  With their eyes locked, Sienna strutted backward, never taking her sights off the man who was making her body boil with lust and her brain want to seek flight. She kept her baby blues homed in on him as she finished on the pole and the stage went dark.

  Sadness swept over Sienna as the darkness stole Carson’s warm expression from her. She was in trouble, big trouble. She had to get away for more than a day. There was a rogue cowboy out there looking for her, and she was falling quickly down the rabbit hole when it came to Carson.

  Her trouble was bigger than she thought as she headed backstage. This was a time to be clear-headed, not in a Carson-induced fog.

  “Hey, Sie. Wait up!” Mike said as she zipped her cat suit back up and headed straight toward her dressing room.

  “Hey, Mike, what’s up?”

  Mike frowned, and hung his head. “Listen, your guy wants to come back and see you. He came and found me because he saw me watching you, and he asked me to bring him back after your dance. Shit, I’m sorry to even bug you with this, but I thought you’d want to know after you went to lunch with him.”

  “No, that’s cool. I just don’t know what to do. I sort of like him, but I don’t know what he sees in me other than what he just saw onstage. Plus, I don’t really want to be involved with someone right now.”

  “Sienna, honey,” Mike rumbled in a low voice. “If he only liked what he saw in the show, he wouldn’t want to come back and visit. He would be hightailing it out of here to jerk one off. Let him come back and chat…that is, if you like him. Nothing wrong with that.” His tough-guy expression lightened up and he placed a hand gently on her shoulder, turning her to face him directly.

  She gave it a moment’s thought, then said, “Sure. Give me fifteen and bring him back. You can post Billy at the door. Tell him I’ll knock if I need him.”

  “Sure thing, Sie.” Mike grinned big-time.

  Sienna was panting by the time she made it the few paces back to her dressing room, and it wasn’t from dancing. She was out of breath thinking about Carson and his sexy forearms.

  Forearms, really?

  His forearms and his eyes and his big muscles and the dimple. She shouldn’t see him, but she wanted to more than anything in her life. So she was going to take the risk and see him because she couldn’t battle her heart anymore. She wasn’t strong enough, had never felt anything close to this, and by God, she wanted to experience it.

  While tossing off her shoes and changing into yoga pants and a white tank, Sienna heard a knock on her door. She looked out and found Billy standing there with Carson. Something heavy hit her chest. Nothing exactly tangible, and definitely not a feeling she’d ever felt before, but it was strong nonetheless. It was a mixture of excitement, anxiety, bottomless lust, and most of all, an enormous gutting sense of being overwhelmed.

  She put up a finger and motioned for them to wait a minute, then shut her door. Leaning back against the door once it was closed, allowing the hard wood to cool her off while taking deep breaths, Sienna told herself everything was going to be just fine. She was in charge, and although she obviously was having trouble controlling her emotions, ultimately, she had this. This was good, despite feeling like her heart was about to crash head-on with who was standing outside her door.

  She took a sip of water to calm herself, then reopened the door and motioned for Carson to step inside.

  “I’ll be out here if you need me, Sienna,” Billy said and nodded.

  “Thanks, Billy,” she said while shutting the door.

  “Hi. Sorry I asked someone to be at the door, but Mike and Asher wouldn’t allow it otherwise, and I didn’t feel like arguing,” she said very softly to Carson. Overcome with shyness all of a sudden, Sienna didn’t know what to say next.

  “Can I sit here?” Carson asked while pointing to the chaise.

  “Yes, of course. I’m being rude. Come in and make yourself comfortable. Would you like a bottle of water? I don’t have anything stronger back here.” She moved around the small dressing room, unsure of where or how to settle.

  Carson fixed his calm gaze on her. “You don’t have to entertain me, you’re working. I just wanted to come back and say hi. You were great tonight, better than great. I don’t know how to explain what watching you does to me.”

  She somewhat relaxed, stilled her movement, settled on the small stool at her vanity, bracing herself against what she had to say. “It’s what I do for a living, but I’m afraid you have that part of me mixed up with who I am. Actually, forget that, because outside this club, I don’t know who or what I am either. I’m always working. I guess you could say I’m a workaholic, so when it comes to living life, I’m inexperienced.”

  Sienna wasn’t sure where this was coming from, but she was going with it. She needed some way to explain her naïveté when it came to relationships. She didn’t want to look foolish when it came to men, although she was incredibly so.

  “Fuck,” Carson said, rubbing his hands back through his hair and down his neck, then leaning his head back into the cradle his hands made. “I didn’t mean to minimize you and make you think I was just after you for your stripping, I mean, dancing. Shit, I’m screwing this up and now I’m swearing and stumbling over myself.”

  “It’s okay. I get it. I’m as unnerved as you.” She looked down at her bare feet.

  Still keeping distance between the two of them, Sienna remained seated at her vanity table while Carson sat somewhat uncomfortably on her purple velour chaise, obviously searching for something to say.

  “I admit I was initially smitten with ‘Sienna,’ the adult dancer. But now after coffee and lunch, I like you even more. Sienna in a ball cap, without makeup, dressed for the grocery store. That Sienna. The real version.”

  Who is the real Sienna?

  “I’m sure it’s hard to separate the two,” she said. “Sienna from the stage and this Sienna sitting here in front of you, because it’s hard to distinguish the two, even for me. I don’t have a ton of practice.”

  Carson nodded. “I get it. It’s like when I was in the FBI, and I tried so hard not to let the agency define me. Either way, I’m glad you let me come back. I wanted to hang out a little more with you since I’m leaving in the morning.” He let out a long breath and tried to fit his large body more comfortably on the suddenly fragile-looking chaise.

  Sienna felt the thing, the one she couldn’t name or describe, tighten in her chest when he mentioned leaving, but there was no way she was going to address it. She only said “Thanks” for the millionth time. “Thanks for coming tonight, too. What
are your plans back east?” she asked, trying to keep her disappointment from her tone, but failing.

  The pair made small talk for a while, ignoring the obvious tension over their weekend coming to a close. Carson explained he’d be mostly working over the next few days, and would probably catch dinner with a friend one night.

  Then he admitted to wanting to know something altogether different, forcing the conversation into a direction they had obviously been avoiding.

  “I plan to be back to Vegas a lot in the next few weeks,” he said. “Can we see each other again?” He offered an overly hopeful grin.

  “That would be fun, you have my number.” Realizing she was giving in to her heart, Sienna started to backpedal on her original excitement. “Actually, I’m going away for a night or two this week for some R&R, so next weekend will be jammed for me, making up for lost time and stuff. So can we play it by ear?”

  Stop protecting yourself. You want to see him.

  Carson frowned. “Not sure if I’ll be here next week or the week after, because I have to go back east for a day or so and straighten out my schedule. We’ll figure it out. I’ll make it all happen, even if you’re busy.”

  “Okay,” she said in a hushed voice.

  Shifting subjects, Carson asked, “So, what do you do now? Now that your dancing is over for the week?” He finally gave up on getting comfortable and leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees.

  Sienna shrugged. “I go home, unwind, and get ready to enjoy my day off.”

  “Can I walk you to your car?”

  She winced and said, “I don’t drive myself here. I take a club town car to and from work. Asher insists.” Then she threw her hands in the air, feigning defeat.

  “Would it be too forward of me to offer to drive you?” Carson stood and stepped toward her.

  Sienna was stunned. She’d never been faced with this type of decision before, and she was speechless. Asher and Mike would pitch a fit. She’d be risking something, everything, or nothing.

  “Umm, I think so, but it would have to be cool with Asher and Mike. They take my safety very seriously.” She tilted her head to look up at the man looming over her.

  “I’m down with that. You’re a well-protected commodity,” Carson said jokingly.

  She thought so. Or at least hoped so.

  Sienna joined him, standing up in the middle of her treasured private space, nervous about him seeing an even more protected spot. Her house or her heart; she wasn’t sure. “Let me just get ready and we can walk out and tell them,” she said as she wrapped a little purple scarf around her neck, then threw on a lightweight gray cashmere cardigan over her tank. Slipping her feet into black boots, she grabbed her tote and blew out the candle burning in the corner.

  “Come on.” She started out the door because if she didn’t get a move on, she was going to either implode or chicken out.

  Carson placed his hand on the small of her back for the second time in one day, and her skin burned just as it had earlier under his light touch. A fire was scorching her entire body from just the light trace of his fingers on her back, and she couldn’t help but to rush a little toward Asher’s office.

  She wasn’t sure whether she was hurrying to catch more of Carson’s warmth, or relieve herself of his hand. But Sienna didn’t have time to dwell on it because she found Asher pacing when they entered his office. Obviously he’d learned that Carson had been in her dressing room.

  With Asher’s protective instincts on high alert, Sienna knew she had to tread lightly. “Ash, hey. This is Carson. Carson, this is Asher,” she said warily, motioning between them.

  The men eyed each other, obviously sizing each other up in that uniquely male way that made her want to roll her eyes. Carson held out his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, Asher took it, shaking his hand firmly.

  “Ash…Carson is going to drive me home instead of the town car.”

  Asher’s head snapped toward her. “What? Really? Excuse me, Carson, can you give us a minute,” he asked as he motioned for Carson to wait outside the office.

  Carson looked to her, silently asking what she wanted him to do. If he didn’t, Asher would combust, and she wasn’t in the mood for one of his overprotective tirades. So she nodded, and he stepped outside the office to wait.

  As soon as Carson was out of earshot, Asher started in on her. “Are you certain, doll? Do you feel comfortable? This is a big step for you, the girl who said she didn’t want to date.” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes. He can be trusted. I like him. Plus, he’s former FBI. I’m sure he’s capable. It’s just a drive.”

  “What if he wants to come in?”

  Oh shit. She steadied herself by holding on to the back of Asher’s enormous desk chair, then said, “I don’t think he will.”

  Asher shook his head. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Sie, he is a male. One who’s been watching you strip onstage all night.”

  Sienna squeezed the back of the chair tightly and pasted on a neutral face. Then she shook her head firmly and frowned, silently disagreeing with Asher.

  He pressed his lips tightly together, then sighed. “I’ll trust you, but either way I’m going to be five minutes behind you. I’ll be home, just footsteps away, in case you need me.” Then he grabbed her, kissed her forehead, and murmured, “Be careful.”

  Asher then opened the door and glared at Carson, warning him with his eyes just what a responsibility he had been tasked with in driving Sienna home.

  Luckily, Mike was at the back door, so Sienna was able to let him know the plan. He whispered in her ear, “Want a tail?”

  Sienna put on a brave face once more and shook her head. She seemed to be doing a lot of that lately, she realized—denying her feelings.

  Mike turned to Carson, no longer whispering or being gentle, and said, “Hey, man, go get your car. We can’t have Sie walking around front and getting in a car with a customer. The crowd would go nuts, the media would be alerted, and it would be bad for so many reasons.”

  Carson couldn’t argue with that, so he pulled his vehicle around back to pick up Sienna. As he grasped her fingers to help her into the low-slung car, Sienna felt a small shiver travel up her spine, wondering if letting Carson take her home was a very, very bad idea.

  And she realized that at the moment, she really didn’t give a damn.

  ONCE THEY were on the road in his small black sports car, Sienna remembered Carson didn’t know where she lived, so she gave him directions. It only took them about fifteen minutes to get to her place this time of night, with Carson shifting and driving like a bat out of hell through very little traffic. They turned in front of Asher’s house and pulled down the driveway toward the back, where Sienna’s small carriage house was located.

  When Carson pulled the car to a stop and cut the engine, the air grew heavy with silence.

  Sienna didn’t know what to do. Say good night? Wait for Carson to say it? Was he going to kiss her? It was as though they had been on an epic date since lunch, but she had actually worked a shift in between.

  “May I walk you in?” was all Carson asked.

  “Yes.” She said it so softly, she wasn’t even certain she heard herself. Sienna forced herself out of the car, wary of what would happen next.

  The two of them walked up the tiny path leading to her house. She opened the door and switched on the light, flooding the entryway in an amber hue. She put her bag down on the bench to the left of the door and turned around, meaning to thank him for the ride, when Carson pulled her in for a kiss.

  Feather-light and closed-mouthed at first, Carson broke away for a second, smoothing the hair down Sienna’s back while looking straight into her eyes and asking, “Is this okay?” before moving forward.

  Sienna didn’t answer with words. She couldn’t. She just nodded once and leaned back in for more.

  This time, Carson deepened the kiss. He parted her lips, slid his tongue inside, and took her to a place she had nev
er been with his mouth, his hands, his body, and everything else. The pair stood in the middle of the entry, the golden light shining down on them, the rest of the house pitch-black, and the real world falling into oblivion.

  The kiss went on and on, no end in sight, and Sienna was more than fine with it never ending. Carson held her tightly, almost supporting her weight, which was a good thing. Her body felt boneless, she was so shamefully overpowered by the kiss.

  Carson kept Sienna steady as they explored each other’s mouths, and she thought to herself with some amazement that this was her first real kiss. There were a few chaste ones on her honeymoon night with Elon, but that was it for kissing during her marriage.

  Disturbed by the direction her thoughts were taking, Sienna shoved them from her mind. She was consumed with Carson at the moment, and she wanted him to take over all her brain space, devour her body, and inhabit her soul.

  Carson’s mouth was warm and soft, and he kept nibbling at her lower lip like he could do it all night. And she wanted him to.

  After a few moments, Sienna talked herself into pulling away so she could invite Carson inside her place.

  And my heart?

  “I guess I should ask you to come in and offer you a drink, but we got sidetracked.”

  “Not sidetracked,” Carson said as he traced her lips with his thumb.

  They were eye to eye, and he didn’t take his gaze off her, as if they were having a silent conversation. It seemed he was allowing her time to digest what just happened. Somehow he seemed to know that it was more than just a kiss to her, and that perhaps they were both trying to figure out what it was.