by Kitty French
What thoughts ran through their minds? Were these well dressed women wishing they looked even half as good as Genie, or were they imagining themselves up there as the centre of attention? Were they jealous that their husbands wanted her? Or maybe they wanted her too, were looking at Genie’s beautiful curves and wondering how she’d feel in in their hands. It was easier to guess at the thoughts filling the heads of the men sitting in the audience. Right about now they’d be willing Genie to turn around and show them her tits, waiting for her to go further, to look their way as she slipped her panties off. They’d be shifting in their seats to accommodate their hardening cocks, imagining themselves fucking Genie over that lamp. He knew because he’d had those same thoughts when he’d watched her show - he didn’t delude himself that they were original. And now, despite the fact that he hated it with every inch of his being, he was having them all over again.
Genie peeled her corset off, and he held his breath until she turned around and let him see her breasts. Knowing that he’d made this woman come filled him with fierce pride; he wanted to tell every other man in the place. To make them burn with jealousy.
Fuck. What was she doing to him? He threw the whisky down the back of his throat, hating himself for being no better than the paying audience, for being as bad as the men who’d watched his mother strip all those years ago with those same feral instincts driving their actions.
Would these people go home tonight and think of Genie as they fucked their wives? Or would they hang around, hoping to catch a glimpse of her at the stage door? Did they harbour dark, lustful ideas of dragging her down some filthy alley and shoving notes down her bra as they forced themselves on her?
Looking back at Genie, he rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, too hot even though he wore only a tee shirt. The girl had incredible tits. He’d been so close to seeing them the other night, to glimpsing her nipples, and he’d stopped her. How had he found the strength to do that? Right at that moment he had no clue, because the only thought in his head was how much he wanted her to take off those tassels and let him see her no doubt pink and perfect buds. Every last inch of her creamy skin glittered as she lay back over the lamp, and he wanted to go up there and lay his body over hers, hide her from everyone else’s eyes and feel her curves pliant beneath him.
Her act was drawing to a close now. She sat upright on top of the lamp, and, as she reached for those itty-bitty tassels right before the lights went down, she turned his way and looked him straight in the eye.
Fuck. Had she known he was there all along? He backed up, breathless, closing the door and standing in the shaded stairwell as she took her bows to rapturous applause and cheering.
Minutes passed, and beyond the door he could hear the sounds of the evening winding down. The dwindling chatter of the crowd, the laughter of a woman, the rustle of coats. He heard it all as he stood, and after a while he made his way along the corridor, past the staircase, and out of the stage door at the rear of the building.
The dark skies overhead held no stars when he leaned back against the rough bricks and looked up. Or perhaps it was that the lights of the city obscured them from his view. He longed suddenly for home, for the fresh air and wide, star-studded Australian skies. This place wasn’t for him, these people were not for him. He’d come here hoping for resolution, and instead he’d found himself conflicted, a night watchman for a woman he didn’t understand.
He’d never been much of a smoker, yet in that moment, with one foot braced against the wall, he really wished he had a cigarette.
In her dressing room, Genie wrapped a slippery green silk robe around her body and sat still, drinking in the silence, thinking of Abel watching her tonight. He was so goddamn contrary; hell-bent on hating strippers, yet the look on his face had told her how much he’d enjoyed the show. Who was he trying to kid? Himself, or her? And why did it even matter to him so much? Jesus, it was theatre, a show designed to please and to tease, nothing more and nothing less. Sexy, harmless fun.
His overreaction to the performance made her crazy, his determination to make it - and her – into something seedy charged her with anger. He was filling her head once again for all the wrong reasons. She needed to centre her thoughts on saving the theatre from him, not on proving herself to him as a woman.
Tiredness stole over her bones. She needed her cosy pyjamas and her bed, and unusually, she decided to head upstairs and award herself the luxury of bathing in her apartment bathroom rather than down in the shower cubicle of her dressing room. The big old theatre felt a lonely place tonight. Maybe it was the fact that her uncle wasn’t around any more, but she found that she wanted the comfort of closing her own front door more than she wanted to avoid getting glitter in her bathtub.
Tying the belt of her robe, she let herself out of the dressing room and made her way upstairs, without a thought for the keys she’d left downstairs in her bag until she was on the top floor and found herself unable to open her door.
Crap. She didn’t want to go all the way back down again. She leaned her backside on the table that stood beneath the landing skylight, taking care not to knock over the lamp set there to cast a warm creamy glow over their living space.
She glanced towards Abel’s door, her mind spinning. There was a spare key to her door on Abel’s key ring, not that he knew it. She had a key to his door on her set too, not that he knew that either. She and her uncle had kept a spare for each other so they could come and go as they pleased, flopping on each other’s sofas for a cuppa and a gossip. She hadn’t given a thought to the fact that Abel had her door key until now, and now that she had, she wanted it back.
Should she knock on his door then? She wasn’t worried about waking him. He’d looked far from ready to sleep when she’d seen him a little while back. As she stood there and deliberated, the sound of his footsteps jogging up the creaky stairs took the decision from her hands.
He appeared on the landing a few seconds later, his dark eyes flickering down the length of her legs exposed by the robe. The lamplight turned his skin burnished gold and deepened his thick, dark hair to almost black.
‘If you’re hanging around to tout for business, I’m not interested.’
The bastard. Genie went from tired to red-hot furious in a heartbeat.
‘Fuck off, Abel. I’ve just about had it with your smart wise cracks. I don’t judge you, and you have no right to judge me either.’
He shrugged insolently. ‘Just tellin’ it like it is, darlin.’
She hated him. Hated him calling her darlin’ in that derisory way. Wanted him to call her Beauty in that sexy way again. Hated him for making her want to hear him say it again.
‘You don’t fool me for a second, Abel Kingdom. You enjoyed the show tonight.’
He turned away from her towards his door, his laugh harsh. ‘In your dreams, baby.’
‘In yours, more like,’ she said, trying not to think about the fact that he had been the star of her bedroom fantasies that very afternoon. ‘I saw the look on your face tonight. You were no different to anyone else out there watching the show.’
He stilled, the muscles of his back working beneath his tee shirt. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said levelly.
‘And you’re lying,’ she countered even more quietly. He turned around. ‘Why, Abel? Why won’t you admit that you enjoyed it?’
He stepped towards her into the amber pool of light thrown by the lamp, towering over her as she stood in her bare feet. Up close, he was a broad-chested, menacing man, yet she knew with certainty that she didn’t need to fear him physically. He stared down at her, and she watched his eyes as he decided what to say next. She saw him swallow, watched raw emotion flash across his face, and the nerve that jumped in his cheek as he clenched his teeth. He was a man battling with himself, and she wanted to know what drove him.
‘I don’t need to explain myself to you,’ was all that he said. ‘Go to bed.’
His shutters slammed down again. She practically
saw them falling over his eyes.
‘I’ve left my keys downstairs,’ she said. ‘There’s a spare in your set.’
He frowned, fishing his keys out of his jeans. ‘I have a key to your door?’
‘You did, until now,’ she corrected. ‘I’ll have it back, please.’
‘Do you have one for my door?’
Genie sighed. ‘Yes.’
‘Then you can have yours back when I have mine.’
He really was a world class wind-up, and her temper flared. ‘Stop being a dick and give me my key, Abel.’
He flicked through the keys and identified the one for Genie’s door, then stepped forward and slid it into the lock.
‘Don’t call me names when I’m helping you out,’ he admonished her silkily.
She half laughed at the absurdity of his statement. ‘You’re not helping me. You’re trying to take everything I have. Believe me, I’ve called you far, far worse in my head. Be glad you only heard dick and liar.’
‘I haven’t lied to you, Beauty,’ he said, after a heartbeat, his hand still on the keys in the door. ‘Not once.’
‘You’re lying to yourself too if you believe that, Abel,’ she said, her words softened by his term of endearment. ‘I saw you the first time you came here. You were turned on watching me on stage. And again, watching me tonight.’
‘You’re dead wrong,’ he muttered, his eyes nailed to her door. He was close to her, and she could almost feel the anger contained in his taut body.
She wasn’t wrong and she knew it, and she sensed that this went to the core of him. Reaching out, she placed a hand on his chest and saw him close his eyes in silent resistance.
‘Is it so bad to be turned on by me like this, Abel?’ she said, feeling his heart beating hard against her palm.
‘Don’t fuck with me, Genie,’ he ground out, pushing her door open. ‘I mean it.’
It was one of those moments when sense goes out the window and instinct takes over. Genie tugged at the belt of her robe and shrugged it off, letting it fall to the floor in one fluid motion, revealing her body in nothing but the nipple tassels and tiny crystal g-string she’d left the stage wearing.
‘Is it so bad to want me when I look like this, Abel?’
He turned towards her and dropped his eyes, his palms scrubbing over his jaw as if he didn’t trust his hands if they weren’t occupied.
‘I told you not to fuck with me, Beauty,’ he breathed, almost agonised, and she saw the exact, dangerous moment that his resolve snapped.
He shoved the keys into his pocket and then his hands were on her waist, lifting her up onto the hallway table, sending the lamp flying as he parted her thighs with his hip to let him in between them. Genie gasped when he tipped her chin back with his hand and dipped his head to her throat, the erotic drag of his hot and open mouth down her skin. The clean, aromatic scent of his hair surrounded her, dark silk falling over his brow as a low, animalistic growl rattled through his chest.
Genie put her hands on either side of his stubbled jaw and lifted his head to hers, desperate for his kiss yet still shocked by the intensity of it when he finally gave it to her. Hard enough to bruise, designed to punish, profoundly sexy. She gulped down air and dragged his head down again when he lifted it, his crotch hard in hers as he clamped her against him with his hand splayed on her back, his other hand cupping the back of her neck. He held her as a man holds a woman he adores, and he kissed her as a man kisses a woman he needs to fuck more than he needs to breathe.
Her hands moved under the bottom of his tee shirt, and he broke off for the briefest of seconds to drag it over his head before pulling her into him again, skin to skin. The sensation blindsided her; the heat and the beauty of him. Tanned deep bronze in the way that only a man who spends his life out in the sunshine can be, with a fine trail of dark hair traced on his midriff that she wanted to follow all the way down into his jeans. His hands move to cover and cup her breasts, making her moan into his mouth.
‘I warned you not to fuck with me…’ he muttered again, still angry even as his mouth gentled over her jaw, grazing the skin beneath her ear, drifted over her collarbones to the swell of her breasts in his hands, somehow lewder for the scant cover provided by the crystal tassels than if she’d been naked.
‘You’re covered in fucking glitter,’ he spoke against her skin as he dragged her hips forward to the edge of the table and trailed his tongue over the top curves of her breasts. ‘You too,’ she whispered, smoothing her fingers over the gold dust that had transferred itself onto his shoulders, his cheekbones, his abs.
She drew in a shuddering breath when Abel lowered his head and licked around the edges of the sequinned tassels. No man had ever touched her in costume like this before. Having his mouth slide around the tassels was just about the sexiest thing she’d ever seen or felt, and her body screamed for his tongue over her nipples.
‘Take these off,’ he said, tugging lightly on the tasselled ends, his restless mouth roaming the curves her breasts. ‘I need to taste all of you.’
Genie groaned with frustration, wanting him to see her too. ‘They don’t come off easily.’
Abel grumbled low in his chest, like an animal denied his dinner. Genie understood; she wanted him to feast on her just as much.
‘And this?’ he said, bending to kiss his way down her stomach and lick along the top edge of the crystal g-string. ‘Is this welded on too?’
She shook her head, although he hadn’t waited for her reply in any case. He’d already dropped to his haunches, his fingers splayed on her inner thighs, holding her open. His hands were firm and tanned against the smooth ivory of her skin. He moved the barely-there barrier of her g-string aside with one finger and studied her, intent and intense, his lips parted just enough for Genie to be able to feel the warmth of his breath between her legs.
Genie’s heart stopped beating for a few seconds. She’d thought that she’d wanted him to touch her in the lift, but nowhere near as much as she wanted him to put his mouth on her now. And then he did, slow, warm and sure, the sweep of his eyelashes dark on his cheek, his earlier restlessness replaced by unhurried sensuousness; pure gold. Watching him, she smoothed her fingers over his hair, saw each stroke of his tongue a second before the sensation hit her flesh.
The first orgasm Abel had given her had been urgent and extreme, driven by the need for speed. Tonight he took his sweet time, paying attention to her reactions, licking her slowly, circling his tongue harder when it made her fingers grab into his hair to rock herself onto his mouth for more. She lost focus when he laughed, low and sexy, then eased his fingers inside her, drawing her clitoris into his mouth. He had her and he knew it, holding her in his mouth as her muscles jerked and she dug her fingernails into the smooth bulk of his warm, sports-star shoulders.
His breathing was almost as shallow as hers for a few seconds, and he turned his face to drift barely there kisses along her inner thigh before rising to his feet. His cock strained hard against his jeans, but he caught hold of her hand when she reached down to release him.
‘Go to bed, Beauty.’
‘Come with me?’ she asked, quiet, wanting him, wanting to give to him as he’d given to her.
Abel shook his head, and Genie could feel him retreating even though he was as standing as close as he could possibly be.
‘That’s not how this is gonna go.’
Confusion clouded her mind. She couldn’t get the measure of him. He wanted sex with her really, really badly. He might not have said it with words, but his cock couldn’t lie.
‘How is it going to go then, Abel? You get to help yourself to my body but I don’t get yours?’
‘Don’t pretend you didn’t like it,’ he said. ‘You were the one who took your clothes off, lady. I took it that you needed servicing.’
‘Needed servicing?’ she said, repeating his dumb insult because it took her by surprise so much.
‘You heard me right.’ He scooped her forwards o
ff the table with his warm hands on her ass and set her down on her feet. ‘And now you’ve been serviced, so we can both go and get some sleep.’
Genie hated that the sound that left her lungs sounded like a strangled cat, but it was all she could manage, to articulate the rage and frustration and loathing that formed in her chest as Abel touched his fingers to his brow in mock salute and disappeared into his apartment without glancing back.
Inside his front door, Abel kicked the nearest chair so hard it flew across the room and made for the shower. Again.
Inside her front door, Genie heard the smash. Half of her wanted to go and force him to take what he so obviously needed. The other half of her wanted to smash something herself, preferably something heavy over Abel Kingdom’s stupid, beautiful head.
Chapter Nine
The next morning found Genie restless, still wound up and confused as hell. For a man she’d known for barely a week, Abel took up an inordinate amount of her time and her thoughts. She couldn’t handle his attitude towards her; the way he made her want him and showed her that he wanted her - then refused to take her. He’d given her two bone-melting orgasms, yet for the most part he seemed like he couldn’t stand the sight of her. She wanted to make him come so hard his knees would buckle, yet at the same time she wanted to clamp her hands around his throat and stop his breath. It was exhausting, and she was more than aware that the sexual tension was distracting her from the real and urgent business of raising enough money to keep hold of the theatre. She’d called a meeting with Deanna and the newly recruited Divine Girls later that day. She could only hope that between them they could formulate a plan of action, because left to her own devices, all Genie seemed able to think about was the infuriating man across the hall.
Abel looked up from the plans he’d spread out on the dining table, hearing the knock on the door. Folding them in two, he crossed to open it and found Genie there with a bacon sandwich in her hand.
