Page 41 of Due South

Someone wolf-whistles, and while I don’t like it when I pass by construction sites, it seems okay and even welcome. I want their approval. I want their desire. I want them to covet me, find me attractive, wish to ravish me because I am irresistible. I want them to want me, and I want to hear them do it. I’d like to hear Evans, but I don’t think he’d do that because he’d be worried about being disrespectful. It wouldn’t be, not here, and I’d know, because it’s a special kind of game, but I like that he might not dare because he doesn’t want to hurt me.

I work buttons of my shirt open while I continue to move up against the pole, and my body feels alive, on fire with power and sex. When I get down to my underwear, I hope they won’t have disintegrated by how wet I’m going to be. Thinking about everyone watching me…

I use the pole to drop back into a dip and shake my hair out of the loosely pinned bun it’s been in all day. It practically reaches the floor and drifts around my shoulder as I snap back up and wrap a leg around the steel before sliding and twisting down the pole. I don’t know if that particular move was at all sexy, but the audience seems to like it.

Audience. There are people watching me, viewing my body as nothing but a sexual object. It should feel demeaning, but it doesn’t. I like it and it’s turning me on. The only way to make it better would be if I were rubbing myself against Evans and the hardness in his pants no one gets to know about except me. Oh, is that man finely made.

I pretend the pole is him, as hard, and now as warm from the heat of my body. Taking off my shirt, I drop it to the floor, and there are more sounds of eager approval from the audience. I close my eyes against the lights and hoist a knee to wrap my leg around the pole, my skirt inching up my thigh because it’s too tight to do otherwise. Which means they can see my garter clips, my stockings. I picture Evans in the back of the room, trying so hard to be cool but probably failing because this is too much for him. The lingerie I wear for myself because it’s retro and makes me feel sexy and works under the clothes I favor has come in handy this past week.

Sliding a hand from my ankle to my thigh, I tease at the tight strap, snap it against my skin, my mouth forming a breathy O when I do. It was just a little sting and I don’t think I’d like more, but the sensation…everything is heightened.

I undo the clip, struggling, but no one seems to care when I come to a stand and roll down first one stocking and then the other, stepping out of my shoes for only a moment before replacing them because you’ve got to wear shoes when you’re working a stripper pole, right?

The thought makes me flush, and the real world comes slamming back into this fantasy come to life. I’m in a seedy strip club, humping a pole for strangers. I nearly have to leave. But there’s not much left to the song and I let the excitement overpower the doubt, unhooking my skirt and teasing it over the top of my garter belt before letting it drop.

And then I’m loving on the pole again, spinning giddily and bending my knees until my butt nearly hits the floor, sliding back up with the hard metal between my breasts. The cheers are louder now, and though they’re encouraging me to “Take it off! Take it all off!” I can’t. Not for them. Not right now. I like the idea, but to actually do it—too much.

For the last beats of the song, I strut to the front of the stage and take a fucking bow. Because I’m proud. I’m proud of owning a desire of mine. I’m proud of being desired by these men. It’s shallow, but it feels good and after not being able to claim that as something I’d wanted for so long because having a body that wants pleasure is a sin, it feels important. Not a spring break lark—not that I ever had a spring break—but it means something more than that to me.

The announcer says something, but I can’t hear because I’m grabbing my clothes off the floor and running off the stage. After I’ve managed to drag my clothes back on, the manager’s trying to talk to me, but I can’t hear anything. All I want to do now is be with Evans. My heart’s racing and the panic is cresting because what did I do?

As I’m stumbling out the stage door, someone catches me up and I almost scream. But I can tell by the feel of the hands gripping my biceps, the smell of the man standing so close to me, the concerned softness of the words that follow—it’s Evans. “Lucy? Are you okay?”

“Get me out of here, please.”

Chapter Fifteen

‡

December 23rd

Evans

That I cando.

I tuck Lucy under my arm and steer her out, giving a back-off glare to any guy who looks as though he might approach her. It’s not like I can call her mine forever, or even much beyond tomorrow, but in the too-early hours of this morning, I can protect her from unwanted attention and do what she’s asked.

I’m not sure what’s wrong because she looked so goddamn sexy and brilliant and happy up there. Like she was having the time of her life, as if she was celebrating herself and jeez, was that the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Well, that’s actually a stiff competition. And all of those moments have happened with Lucy.

Who needs my blood to stop rushing into my dick and go back to my brain so I can take care of her.

I guide her out to the car and help her into the passenger side, hustling to get behind the wheel because I don’t want to leave her alone for even a second. When I slide in, she’s looking at her hands, shaking her head.

“Lucy, talk to me. Are you okay?”

She looks up, her brown eyes pleading. “Was that disgusting?”

“Was it—” Disgusting? How can she even… “—God, no, Lucy. That was…it was freaking awesome is what it was.”

“You weren’t appalled that I took my clothes off in front of all those guys?”

“No. I was a little worried, but only because some of them looked like they wanted to eat you alive. But other than that, I was, uh, really…”Hard. Hard and throbbing, aching with want, my craving for her thrumming through my veins. But despite what we’ve done with each other, I don’t know if she’d be cool with the idea of me getting a raging hard-on while she danced, especially now she seems to regret it. But I can’t not tell her—besides, what if that’s exactly what she needs to hear? “I was really turned on. You were so sexy, and it was unbelievably hot how confident and badass you were up there.”

She sniffs, and I want to offer her a tissue or go old school with a handkerchief, but all I have on hand are some crumpled fast food napkins from my glove box. So that’s what she dabs her eyes with and then blows her nose into. She’s even cute when she blows her nose, though it sounds like an unhappy goose.

“So you liked it?”

“To the extent that it will feature heavily in my jerkoff fantasies for the rest of my life, yes.” That provokes a giggle and I’m glad. “Is that all you were worried about? Me? Because you shouldn’t be.”

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