Playing for Keeps (Hope Valley Book 10)

by Jessica Prince

  “All right, cowboy.” She leaned in for one last kiss. “Then I’ll see you later.”

  “That you will, Thumbelina.”

  And I couldn’t fucking wait.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Charlotte

  The door to the dressing room opened, and McKenna came sauntering in. She headed straight to my station with a shit-eating grin stretched across her face. “Guess who’s in the audience tonight,” she sing-songed.

  “He usually sits farther back, like he doesn’t want to be a distraction,” Marin added, shooting me a knowing look. “But he’s sitting really close to the stage tonight.”

  I rolled my eyes at my reflection before leaning in to make sure my red-painted lips looked perfect, all the while trying to pretend like I didn’t have a riot of butterflies flapping around in my belly so hard it was a wonder I hadn’t been lifted off the ground.

  “That’s because I invited him. We’re . . . dating.”

  At my admission, the room filled with the shrill sound of delighted squeals and shrieks.

  “I knew it!” McKenna declared. “I knew it was just a matter of time before you pulled your head out of your ass and saw what was standing right in front of you.”

  “In all his hot, smoldering, sex-on-a-stick glory,” Layla added, making everyone around us laugh.

  She wasn’t wrong. My man was fine.

  I stopped with the wand of my mascara halfway to my eyes. My man, I thought to myself. This was the first time I’d been able to think that and not have it followed by that sinking feeling of shame deep in the pit of my stomach.

  Dalton was a good man. One of the best, and there wasn’t a single thing I had to be ashamed of when it came to being with him.

  That was new, and as I studied my reflection in the mirror before me, my shiny red lips slowly pulled into the biggest, whitest smile.

  “Aw, look at her,” Marin cooed. “She’s all twitterpated!”

  I shot her a look. “No more Disney movies for you, Mare.”

  “But she’s not wrong,” Sloane joined in. “You look different.” Her expression grew more astute as she studied me closely. “Like, happy.”

  McKenna came up behind me and placed her hands on my shoulders. “It’s a freaking great look on you, babe,” she said softly.

  I looked at her in the mirror, her eyes glistening, and reached back to place one of my hands on hers. “Thanks, Mac.”

  She sniffled and gave her head a little shake, visibly gathering herself. “Okay, enough of the mushy stuff. Move your cute butt. You’re going on stage soon.”

  I always got off on the high that came with performing in front of a packed club, but tonight was different.

  Sure enough, just like Marin had said, Dalton was sitting front and center, close to the stage, and as I danced, I felt the music flow through me in a way it never had before.

  I was still new to this whole scene, so most of the time I was on stage, I was playing over the steps in my head, hoping I didn’t mess up or stumble. But tonight, my body moved like water, the choreography coming to me like it was second nature. The rest of the club disappeared, and it was only him in the audience, watching me.

  The other girls on the stage with me faded away, leaving just the two of us alone. I was performing solely for him, and he only had eyes for me. It ramped that high up to a million.

  Before I even realized, the song neared the end and the packed club came back to life in an eruption of cheers as we struck our final pose.

  The lights glaring down on us went black, and we quickly scuttled off the stage amidst whistles and applause.

  My chest was heaving, and a thin sheen of sweat covered my skin as we pushed our way back into the dressing room.

  “Damn, girl,” Alma panted, just as out of breath as I was. “You were on fire tonight. Where’d that come from?”

  I grabbed a towel and dabbed at my neck. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, whatever it was, keep it up. You killed it out there.” She moved past me, giving my butt a stinging slap on the way to her station.

  Smiling like a lunatic, I hurried to change into my costume for the next number, feeling eager and giddy to get back out there.

  As amped up as I was to see Dalton, I’d forced myself to take my time cleaning the heavy makeup from my face and taming my hair from sprayed-to-death to a manageable height. It took a good long while to brush out all that hairspray so I looked more like myself and less like a primetime news anchor from Texas, but I was proud of what I’d managed to pull off by the time the last girls called out their goodbyes and left me in the dressing room alone.

  My last performance had been the final one of the night before the club shut down, so I knew the crew was currently out front, finishing up their cleaning and closing everything out before heading home. In just a matter of minutes, the club would be completely empty. I’d already talked to McKenna and got the okay to lock up once I was finished, and as I slipped my street clothes back on, I was filled with a sense of anxious excitement.

  As I’d hoped, Dalton was waiting for me in the back parking lot, propped against his truck like he always was. His eyes locked on me, his brow arching in question when I didn’t move out of the doorway.

  “Took you a while. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. I just had to do something. Will you come here for a second?”

  I could see the curiosity lining his handsome face as he pushed off the truck and started toward me.

  “You were fuckin’ magnificent tonight, baby,” he grunted as he got closer. As soon as I was within reach, he moved to grab me by my hips, but I dodged his touch, moving back into the building. “What’re you doin’?”

  I smiled, feeling like a giddy school girl as I continued walking backward. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  The skin between his eyes puckered as he frowned. “Somethin’ that prevents me from touching you?”

  “Only for a little bit.” I turned when I hit the end of the hall, shooting a seductive look over my shoulder as I climbed the stairs to the back of the stage. “Come on.”

  He followed me up, and I held the deep red velvet curtain aside for him to step through and out onto the main stage.

  Just like I’d planned, the club was completely dark, with the exception of one lone spotlight shining on an empty chair that was sitting right in the middle of the stage.

  Dalton looked around, his curiosity growing with each passing second. “What’s going on, Thumbelina?”

  “Patience, cowboy,” I chided, placing my hands on his shoulders to guide him toward the chair. “Have a seat. I’m about to show you.”

  He complied when I applied pressure, folding his large body down into the chair, and as I moved to the edge of the stage to plug my phone in the dock we used for rehearsals, my hands began to shake.

  “Tonight, while I was performing, I felt like I was dancing just for you,” I said, my voice coming out low and breathy as need crawled up my throat, making my words thick. “That gave me an idea.”

  “Oh yeah? And what idea is that?”

  I hit the button on my phone, and a second later, “I’ll Surely Die” by The Rubens started playing through the speaker. I slowly turned to face him. “To give you your own private show.”

  Dalton

  Fuck me.

  The song she’d turned on had a slow, deep, almost hypnotic melody, and as she began to move, those hips moving like water lapping on a sandy shoreline, my cock stood at attention, rock hard in one second flat.

  She moved closer, her body undulating with the pulsing beat of the music. She was a goddamn vision as she danced, lifting that long, silky curtain of hair off her back and shoulders just to let it slide through her fingers like a waterfall.

  She dropped into a crouch, her tiny hands landing on my knees and forcing them wide so she could fit between them as she rolled her whole body back up and spun around, her back to me. Then she bent forward, that luscious roun
d ass of hers right in my face. It was all I could do not to lean forward and take a bite.

  When she turned back around to face me, a devious grin on her face as she toyed with the hem of her shirt. “Hmm. Think I should take this off?”

  “Fuck yes,” I hissed as my dick pulsed behind my fly, giving it’s all to bust through.

  The outfits she wore when she performed left little to the imagination, but it was still a far cry from my very own striptease, and at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to see her and feel all that smooth, soft skin against me.

  She removed the shirt in a slow, seductive tease, revealing a lacy bra in a pale mint green that looked incredible against her skin. The first thing I noticed was the scar where that fucking bullet tore through her. It was the first time I’d seen it, and I felt my jaw clench as my arousal start to fade, but before I could fixate on it, Charlotte spoke, pulling my mind from uglier things.

  “What about these?” she teased, tugging at the waistband of her leggings. “Think these should come off too?”

  I was quickly losing the tenuous grip on my self-control. “You don’t take ’em off yourself, I’m gonna rip ’em off your body.”

  The giggle that worked its way up her throat was husky, telling me she was getting off on this little show just as much as I was.

  The pants came off much quicker, leaving her in nothing but that bra and a goddamn thong in the same matching lace. Oh fuck me.

  This was the first time I’d ever seen this much of her skin, and I couldn’t decide where to touch or look first. It was sensory overload.

  Before I could reach out and smooth my palms over the globes of her incredible ass, she spun again, this time straddling my lap. Her tits were pushed up high thanks to that bra, and as she began writhed like she was riding me to the finish line, I couldn’t help but lean forward and dip my tongue into the valley of her cleavage.

  Charlotte’s head fell back on a low moan, and she lowered herself onto me so her center rubbed against my throbbing length.

  “Mmm,” she hummed, lifting her head to look at me with glassy, half-mast eyes. “Already hard for me.”

  “Baby, there isn’t a moment in the day when I’m not hard for you.” I grabbed hold of her hips and forced her down harder on me. “You drive me out of my goddamn mind.”

  She rocked her hips against me again while pulling that plump bottom lip between her teeth. “The feeling’s mutual,” she whispered softly.

  I leaned in, trying to taste those lips, but she had another idea. Whipping around, she maintained her straddle, but this time, her back was pressed against my chest as she ground her ass against my crotch, rocking and rolling her hips like I imagined she would if I were inside her.

  “Jesus, fuck, baby,” I grunted, bringing my hands up to grasp her waist. One hand moved up across her ribs toward those fantastic tits, while the other skated across her belly, moving south. “You wet for me right now, Charlotte?”

  “Ah, ah, ah,” she teased, lifting herself up and moving out of my reach. “Did I say you could touch yet?”

  I clenched my hands tight, my blunt nails digging into my palms as I fought to keep from throwing her down on the hardwood of the stage and driving inside her.

  I held my breath as she dropped down to her knees and reached for the fly of my jeans. The zipper sliding down was as loud as a gunshot, ricocheting through the room, but it was still a wonder I could hear it through the blood rushing in my ears. Then her delicate hand slipped inside and wrapped around my aching length, and I was done for.

  “Christ,” I barked when she pulled me free.

  She bent forward and I nearly came out of my skin when her pink tongue poked out and swiped along the underside of my cock. “Charlotte,” her name grated out of my throat like sandpaper as I watched in rapt fascination. She’d barely started and I was already worried I was about to blow. But that was what happened when a man had to wait months on end for the woman he was quickly becoming obsessed with.

  She reached the crown and opened her mouth wide, sucking the fat head like a popsicle and wrenching a grunt from deep within my chest. “Jesus, baby.”

  Those hazel eyes lifted, looking up at me through the fan of her long lashes, and that view had to have been one of the sexiest, most erotic things I’d ever seen in my life.

  My throat worked on one heavy swallow after another as her head bobbed up and down, meeting the fist she had clutched around the base of my shaft. Her lips looked so fucking good stretched tight around me, and her hot mouth felt like heaven. My cock glistened from her saliva on every upward glide.

  She removed the hand she’d been using to jack me and took me deep into her mouth, the head of my dick hitting the back of her throat, and when she swallowed around it, I let out a sharp curse.

  “Fuck me, baby. Just like that. Take me deep.”

  She did it again and again, staring up into my eyes the entire time. Then her nose bumped that thatch of hair at my groin. Never in my life had I been with a woman who could take all of me, and that was all it took to set me off.

  “Shit, Charlotte. Gonna come,” I warned so she had time to move back, but she didn’t. She kept sucking and slurping until the hot wet of her mouth became too much. That tingle at the base of my spine erupted, and I came down her throat, long, hot spurts exploding from my balls. She swallowed every drop I had until I was drained completely dry and my muscles had turned to mush, and only then did she pull away, swiping at her swollen, red bottom lip to get the last drop of me before sucking that finger into her mouth.

  Just like that, I snapped.

  Grabbing her under her arms, I whipped her around and pulled her back into my lap, her ass nestled against my spent dick.

  “Keep dancin’ for me, Charlotte,” I ordered as I drove one hand beneath the waistband of that miniscule thong. My fingers homed in on her pussy, and I let out a groan when I felt the wet that had gathered between her thighs. “Fuckin’ soaked,” I rasped, feeling my cock stir back to life. How that was even possible after how brilliantly she’d just sucked me off was beyond me, but she was the only woman who could spur that quick a reaction time.

  “You get this wet just from sucking me, baby?” I asked as I dragged my fingers along her slit.

  Her chest shook on a stuttered gasp. “Y-yes.”

  I gathered up some of that arousal and lightly circled her swollen clit. “You want more?”

  “Please,” she begged on a tiny whimper.

  “Then don’t stop dancing.”

  She started moving again, bracing one hand on the seat of the chair at my hip and reaching up to wrap the other around my neck. She flicked and circled her hips, begging me to press harder, circle faster, and I was all but willing to give my woman what she wanted.

  “Dalt,” she moaned, dropping her head back against my shoulder. “This was just supposed to be for you.” Her motions contradicted her words as she chased after my fingers.

  I grinned against her neck, scraping my teeth along that sensitive cord. “What can I say? I’m all about equal opportunity orgasms.”

  With that, I drove two fingers into her. She cried out at the same time her pussy clamped down around my digits. Her hips started rolling in time with every thrust of my fingers, and it didn’t take long at all before her nails were digging into my scalp and she was chanting my name like a prayer as her release washed through her.

  I stayed with her the whole time, dragging it out just like she had with mine, and when it finally left her, I removed my fingers and gently cupped her, silently staking my claim.

  “So,” she panted some time later, “how was that for my first ever lap dance.”

  I smiled and nuzzled her hair. “Not an expert or anything, but I think that might go down in history as the best fucking lap dance ever.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Charlotte

  I was a mess of nerves as I waited for Dalton to pick me up for dinner with his parents and sister. Hayden and I
vy had gone with me yesterday before my shift at Whiskey Dolls to find the perfect dress. Hayden had sworn up and down that the one I’d ended up buying was going to knock Dalton on his ass—changing the word ass to something more PG since Ivy was with us—and Ivy had insisted I looked like a princess.

  With their encouragement, I’d left the mall feeling confident and sure of myself, but now that there were barely five minutes on the clock until he was set to knock on my door, I was doubting absolutely everything.

  The dress I’d ended up with wasn’t black or ‘little’ if you were being technical, but it was tight, and it definitely showed skin.

  I’d been drawn to the olive green color of it first, thinking it would complement my hair and eye color, and I’d been right about that. The sleeveless midi-dress fell just a few inches above my ankles, and that was where the modesty of it started and ended. The sweetheart neckline plunged all the way to the bottom of my sternum, and the slit at the thigh came up, up, up, nearly all the way to my hip. A bra and panties both were out of the question, and as I stared in the mirror, I suddenly felt more exposed than when I flaunted around on stage in racy lingerie or barely-there boy shorts.

  I’d done my makeup in shimmery golds and bronzes and wore a killer pair of strappy gold stiletto sandals that I was absolutely in love with. My hair was loose and parted down the middle, my normally wild waves only slightly tamed.

  Maybe I should have gone for something more demure?

  I was actually contemplating stepping across the hall to ask Ms. Weatherby her opinion when a knock interrupted my internal freakout.

  Oh well, I thought to myself. Nothing I can do about it now.

  With a large, bracing inhale, I moved through the apartment, grabbing my tiny gold purse off the kitchen counter on my way to the door, and as soon as I opened it, I nearly choked on my tongue.