The Stranger (Blitzed Book 1)

by JJ Knight

  I’m completely on fire. I want to back away, but my feet refuse to move. My breathing is shallow, and he has to know how I’m feeling. He’s so experienced. There is no telling how many of the women on his show he’s been with.

  He grins at me as he works his way down. He’s so close, I can study his face, the shadowed jaw, firm lips, dark brows. His hair has a little curl to it, just enough to make the short cut fall in a wave. He concentrates on the hooks, his eyes down. He’s touching me. Blitz Craven has his hands all over me.

  The corset tightens around my middle as he works, sending another rush of heat on a path to my belly. When he’s finally done, he goes around to the back to tighten the strings.

  I want to ask him where he learned to fit a corset, but my throat is too tight for words. I’d sound like a strangled mouse. So I just stand there, listening to the whisper of the cords sliding through the metal grommets. It’s sexy, him dressing me, as if we’re a couple and he’s preparing me to go out onstage to perform.

  Or maybe to wear something just for him.

  He pats my shoulder. “All set, Princess.”

  I inhale a deep breath and realize he hasn’t cinched it too tight. I can take in air.

  “I need something more formal,” he says. He rummages through the rack again and comes up with a jacket with tails in the back. When he slips it on, my heart speeds up. He’s really something in the formal getup, even with the jazz pants. Or maybe because of the jazz pants, tight around his waist and thighs, loose around the ankles. Black as night, a complement to the jacket.

  But he knows it. He whirls in a circle, his shoulders a blur, the tails flying, then halts, arm out, hand reaching for me.

  “I only do ballet,” I say. I don’t know steps for contemporary dance, or jazz, or anything else. I’ve never danced with a partner.

  “And you’re amazing,” he says. He runs forward, arm still outstretched, and takes my hand.

  The world spins as he turns me around, then suddenly I’m in his arms, leaning on my back. He holds me inside the crook of his elbow.

  I look up, and that’s it. I get it. His star power, why he has his own show. It’s that look. That grin. God, he’s sexy. You can forget everything when somebody holds your gaze like that. As if you’re the only woman in the world. The most beautiful. And he has eyes for no one but you.

  Except I did that before. I fell just like this. And it was more forbidden than this. The most forbidden thing that exists. It destroyed my family, wrecked my carefree life.

  I swallow hard, my grip on Blitz’s arm like a vise.

  He recognizes the change in me and lets me up. “The corset really suits you,” he says. His eyes drop to my cleavage.

  I look down. I do actually have cleavage. That’s not usual. I’m sort of slight, but the boning pushes out what little is there so that it seems to be overflowing. The sight of it sends another zing through me. Blitz is admiring me. Blitz Craven. Me.

  Now that I’m vertical again, I unfasten the hooks on the corset as fast as my fingers will let me. My family expects me home to check in before doing a volunteer shift in the church office. I can get away with a small delay, but I’ve used it up.

  “I can’t really do a tour right now,” I say. I fold the corset nervously. “I’m expected somewhere.”

  Blitz removes the top hat. “Can I take a rain check on that?” He holds his arm out for the corset and I pass it to him. But his eyes never leave mine, keeping me in their gravitational pull.

  I have to look away before I can force my feet to move me toward the door. “I — I won’t be here again until Friday afternoon,” I say. It’s only Tuesday. “You’ll know your way around by then.”

  He carefully sets the costumes back on the rack and shrugs out of the jacket. “I’ll save myself for you.”

  “O—okay.” He can’t mean that. And he can’t be interested in me, of all people. There are tons of beautiful dancers here. Suze is single. And Betsy. He can have flings with them. I can’t afford to lose the little freedom I’ve gained by being caught with him. Even the storage closet was a bad idea.

  So I don’t even say good-bye. I just turn and jerk open the door to fly home.

  Chapter 5

  I spend lunch with my parents, trying desperately to shake free of the feeling of being in Blitz’s arms. By the time I start the short walk down the block to the church for my volunteer work, I’ve given up trying to change the subject in my head.

  I’ll just have to mindlessly file papers and obsess about him.

  The weather is warm and beautiful, a perfect fall day. San Antonio has been a good home these past four years, away from the memories of Houston and all that happened there. I give in to the urge to spin in a circle, arms outstretched.

  An elderly lady walking her dog smiles at me, probably amused by my energy and youth. I feel young today, like I’m supposed to, despite the heaviness of my life.

  I have very little contact with the outside world. Even now, walking down the street to the church with fewer than one hundred members, my father is undoubtedly out on the porch, ensuring that I don’t bump into some miscreant boy on the way, as if someone could impregnate me with a greeting.

  But I can’t be contained. I’m happy, excited, charged up by my encounter with Blitz. It’s so rare I meet someone new. I half walk, half skip as I circle around to the side of the building and go straight into the church office.

  The secretary is the only person in the building on a Tuesday afternoon, as it’s the day the priest visits shut-ins, mostly elderly parishioners in nursing homes or who no longer leave their houses. I’m in charge of much of the paperwork, and I know from filing it that we have as many members who can’t make services as we do those who actually show up on any given Sunday.

  When I arrive, Irma is digging through the bottom drawer of her desk, her chestnut hair in a sloppy topknot. She’s forty or so and always dresses in paisley pastel dresses. I know her entire wardrobe.

  She rolls her chair back the moment she sees me and says, “I’m forwarding the phone to the back, I have to run to the dentist!” She shoves the drawer closed with her foot. One thing Irma has going for her, she always looks busy, even when there is absolutely nothing to do.

  “That’s fine,” I say. “I’ll hold down the fort.”

  Irma punches the buttons to send calls to the telephone in the library storage room.

  “You’ll get two calls if you’re lucky,” she says.

  “Has Crazy Eddie already checked in today?” I ask.

  Irma laughs. “Yeah. Ten minutes of telling me about the Virgin Mary on his toast this morning.”

  “He used that one again?” Eddie is eighty-five and loves to find holy images in his breakfast food.

  “Yes, he’s recycling,” Irma says. She slings her purse over her shoulder. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

  As she leaves, I’m torn between actually doing my work and sneaking a search for Blitz on the Internet. There’s really nothing I do here that has to be done on a deadline. Of course I’m going to look him up.

  When she’s out the door, I jerk open her top drawer and pull out a set of keys to the electronics cabinet. It holds the wireless microphone the priest uses during Mass, a projector, and a laptop.

  I pull out the ancient Dell and hurry back to the storage room. Then I remember the alarm and go back to the office and set the small console on the door to beep in the back room if someone comes in. I’m supposed to do this anytime there’s no one at the front desk, but it also keeps me from being discovered with the computer.

  When I’m safely in the storage room, hidden between two shelving units, I crack open the laptop. It’s not used for much as far as I can tell, but it still connects to the Internet. I’m forbidden from anything like this at home, but my friend Mindy, who is sixteen and also volunteers at the church, showed me how to turn it on and do searches.

  I type in “Blitz Craven.” I’m instantly rewarded with dozens
of pictures, links, and video clips from his show. Where to start?

  There are images of Blitz with all sorts of women. Blond. Brunette. Every skin color and body style. He definitely doesn’t seem to have a type.

  There are stills from his show, a stage lit up with colored lights, him dancing with all manner of partners. I recognize some of the girls in dance costumes and out in street clothes, always on his arm. So he dates the women on his show too, sees them off camera.

  I guess I can start at the beginning. I click on the Wikipedia entry for Dance Blitz. It says:

  An American reality show where the star, Blitz Craven, auditions women to be both his dance partner and his future wife.

  Wife?

  Whoa.

  There are references to the Bachelor, which Aurora mentioned, and Dancing with the Stars. Apparently they were templates for the new show. Each season of Dance Blitz starts with twenty-five dancers. Blitz trains each of them to be his partner and eliminates several each week.

  At the end of season one, he got down to three girls and decided none of them would do. The show was so popular that he got a second season to try again.

  So why was he at a small dance academy in San Antonio?

  I see a section titled “Twitter Scandal” and scroll down. Now my heart is hammering.

  Just weeks before the big finale to season two, which was supposed to be a live televised event, Blitz’s Twitter account posted a photo of a naked woman with the caption “Ate me like a gorilla.”

  My face flames. I can’t imagine the Blitz I met saying or doing any of these things.

  The woman was one of three final contestants scheduled to be on his show. She filed an invasion of privacy lawsuit. The Tweet went viral. The show’s sponsors pulled out, and every feminist group in the world called for his head on a platter. He apologized publicly, but it did nothing to stem the damage. The network suspended the show indefinitely.

  Yikes.

  I compare this description of Blitz to the charming man who held out his hand to me and it doesn’t fit. But then, there was the corset in the storage closet. That definitely seemed like a Blitz move.

  There’s another tab that draws my eye.

  “Censored episodes.”

  I click on the link.

  It’s a video of the second episode of season two. I glance around the room. I’m at church of all places, watching Dance Blitz. But I can’t help myself.

  I press play.

  A black stage is suddenly illuminated with a single light on a red satin bed. A woman is sprawled on it in a black gown.

  Blitz arrives and they begin a dramatic dance on and around the bed. They do a dang convincing job of simulating sex and in a flash, Blitz jerks the dress off her, revealing a black bra and a very tiny pair of underwear with no back.

  They dance a little more, then the video abruptly ends.

  What happened?

  I go back to the Wikipedia article.

  Apparently in a bid to avoid being eliminated, this dancer continued to strip all the way, but naturally that part hadn’t been aired. A few images were leaked, but the article doesn’t have any.

  I want to see them, not because of her, but for him. I want to see his expression. How he felt about her.

  If it was the same way he looked at me in the storage room.

  I type in “censored Dance Blitz” and click on a few links. I don’t get anything useful right away, but finally buried in a thread I find some embedded images that haven’t been deleted.

  These were taken by cell phones of audience members watching the show as it was recorded. Heat rushes to my face to see the naked woman, arms in the air, flaunting herself in front of Blitz.

  He looks ready to eat her up. His expression is wolfish, his eyes devouring her. Parts of me burn that I haven’t paid any attention to in a long time. I wonder what happened after this moment and scroll through the comments. Someone came and wrapped her in a robe, apparently, but there are no images. The people posting are only interested in the naked woman.

  And no, that isn’t anything like how he looked at me. He was mischievous, charming, cute. When I moved away, he was a downright gentleman. He never pushed.

  I scroll back up and look at him, then her, then him.

  I sit back, my breathing faster than I expected. My body is so hot. Images of Blitz collide with feelings I once knew, ways I once felt. I was so young then, though, barely figuring out what went where. But the urgency is the same. The need.

  The beep beep beep of the door opening sends me into a panic. It’s only been fifteen minutes! My hands slam the laptop shut and slide it under the shelves.

  Assuming Irma has forgotten something and might pop her head through the doorway, I snatch a box of newsletters and begin flipping through them.

  After a moment, I realize it could be someone else coming in, so I stand up to investigate. I’m almost to the door when Mindy charges through, nearly running smack into me.

  “Oh!” she says. “Livia!”

  I press my hand against my chest and laugh. “What are you doing here on a Tuesday?”

  “My mom told your mom that the secretary was going to be gone while you were here. Naturally, they sent me to make sure you didn’t do anything naughty!”

  We both dissolve into laughter at the thought of Mindy making sure I stayed straight. She was the only reason I ever defied my parents’ orders.

  Mindy looks around the storage room. She’s dressed a lot like me, loose jeans, plain sweater, no makeup, simple hair. Hers is light brown. She’s homeschooled too.

  “At least Mom didn’t come up here herself,” I say. “You are not going to BELIEVE who showed up at the dance academy.”

  “Blitz Craven!” she says.

  “What?” My face floods with shock. “How?”

  “It was all over the local news. He’s helping underprivileged dancers realize their dreams!”

  “What did they show?”

  “Just him talking at some press thing. He wasn’t at the academy yet.”

  My elation collapses. “Did your mother tell mine about that?” My mind races. If my parents find out about Blitz, they might stop me from helping with the wheelchair ballerinas. Then I won’t get to see Gabriella!

  “She didn’t,” Mindy assures me. “I don’t think she knows. She doesn’t pay attention to stuff like that.”

  “They’ll take me out of dance classes for sure if they know someone like Blitz is there,” I say.

  “I get it,” she says. “I know.”

  Mindy doesn’t know about Gabriella. I’ve considered telling her a dozen times, but I just can’t. It’s too big a secret. My parents have never spoken of their granddaughter and have forbidden me to bring her up. I love Mindy and being rebellious with her, but giving my baby up for adoption is not something I can talk to anybody about.

  “Are you sneaking Internet?” Mindy asks, glancing around for the telltale laptop.

  “I was!” I say. “I found censored images of Blitz Craven!”

  “You didn’t!” Mindy plops onto the floor. “How?”

  I sit next to her and pull the laptop back out from beneath the shelf. “There was a dance they had to edit because the dancer stripped naked,” I say.

  “Show me, show me, show me.”

  Her eagerness is childlike, and I know we’re being immature and silly. We’re both sheltered, living in a bubble of homeschool and church created by our families. Mom found Mindy’s mother through a homeschool group and eventually recruited the family to our church. Mindy also has a younger brother, so they can all congratulate themselves on socializing us even while keeping us away from the evils of public school.

  But while Mindy has more access to media and the outside world, I had the benefit of a normal life up until I got pregnant. So we can swap stories, her regaling me with current movies and world news, and me explaining what it was like to have P.E. and sit next to boys in darkened classrooms.

  I show
Mindy the image and she squeals. “Oh my God, look at those boobs!” She presses her hands against her chest. “Is there anything showing more of Blitz?”

  I hadn’t even thought of that. My fingers click back up to the search box and my body flushes as I type the words “Blitz Craven naked.”

  Results begin appearing. Blitz has done a million nude shoots, it seems, although they are all proper, for magazines. Still, we click on one after the other, Blitz stretching on a stage in nothing but his own skin, leg carefully blocking the goods. Laughing as he’s surrounded by women in leotards, probably contestants on his show. They cover him with their hands. And one particularly sexy one on a black leather sofa, a satin sheet wound across his hips.

  I can’t take my eyes off him. This man was dancing with me just an hour ago.

  “Man,” Mindy says. “He’s really something. So what happened?”

  I tell her about meeting him, and the ballet class and the corset in the storage room.

  She starts fanning her face. “Oh my God! You were alone with Blitz Craven in the dark?”

  I nod, the memory of it flooding back to me.

  “Are you going to see him again?”

  “I guess,” I say. “I don’t know which classes he’s doing. But next week, for sure.”

  Mindy stands up and paces back and forth. “This is incredible! Imagine! My friend and Blitz Craven!” She drops down beside me again. “How old is he?”

  I check the Wikipedia entry. “Twenty-six,” I say.

  “You’re nineteen,” she says. “That’s not bad.”

  I shove her shoulder. “Blitz Craven and I are not going to be a thing,” I say.

  “You don’t know that,” she insists. “It sounds like he was flirting with you pretty hard.”

  “I guess.” I don’t know. This is where my experience is definitely lacking. I’ve never had a proper boyfriend. I couldn’t call Gabriella’s father that. I’ve never been flirted with, not by anyone as old and experienced as Blitz, for sure.

  “He probably acts like that with everyone,” I say, gesturing at the pictures. “He’s known for liking tons of women.”