Free Stripped by Brenda Rothert Page A

third shift. But tonight he
didn’t think he had a chance.
    Abby asking him to watch her dance had almost undone
him on the spot. The way her cheeks had flushed…and the image of her as an
angel or a vixen, either one, had made him hard. He hoped she hadn’t noticed.
    He wondered if seeing her dance would get the
fantasies out of his system. They had intensified since she’d told him about
accepting another man’s number. He was wondering if she would move on to
someone new before he even had a chance to sort out his feelings for her.
    Tomorrow would help him figure out just how deep he
was in. Maybe she would strike him the same way she had the first time he’d
seen her dancing at the club: as just another woman with a great body. 
    But as he once again grew hard just thinking of her,
he doubted it.

 
     
    Chapter 6
     
    Abby hadn’t felt nervous before dancing since her
early days at Mickey’s, but she did as she stretched on the stage, waiting for
Chris to walk through the door she’d left unlocked.
    It was mid-morning, and the club was empty. It was
so different from the flashing lights, blaring music and crowds of onlookers
she was used to that it didn’t even feel like the same place.
    She wore a camisole and body-hugging boy shorts,
because she had decided not to strip during the dance. It was too intimate. For
anyone else, she could, but not Chris.
    “Hi,” Chris called as he walked in.
    “Hi,” she said, the knot of nervousness in her
stomach intensifying as she jumped up. “I got this chair out for you.”
    “I get to come up to the stage?” he asked, raising
his eyebrows as he climbed the stairs. The chair was on the opposite side of
the stage from the pole, so he could see her well.
    “Yes. Sit,” she said, disappearing backstage to turn
on her music. “Should I start with the new one or warm up with an old one?”
    “How many do you have?”
    “A lot. I try to do a new one every month. Let’s
see…Fiona Apple? Aerosmith? Smashing Pumpkins?”
    “Smashing Pumpkins? I used to listen to them. What
song is it?”
    “Ava Adore.”
    “Nice,” he said, smiling. “Just surprise me.”
     Abby advanced the digital music player to the
Smashing Pumpkins song.
    As the music started, she swung her hips, too
nervous to meet Chris’ eyes. She moved slowly, rhythmically, hooking her legs
around the top of the pole and letting her body slide slowly down to the floor
before she reached up to grab the pole and parted her legs into the splits in
the air.
    She was halfway through the song before she could
bring herself to look at Chris, who sat staring at her with his legs open,
resting his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward eagerly. The baseball cap
he wore made him look young, the ends of his hair flipping up beneath it.
    Abby smiled at him as she swayed her back against
the pole, bucking her hips as she slowly made her way to the floor. She quickly
grabbed the pole again, swinging herself around it until she wrapped her legs
around it once more.
    Usually Abby was engrossed in the dance, focusing on
every touch of her body and flip of her hair she had choreographed along with
the steps. But she couldn’t stop thinking of Chris’ eyes on her and wondering
what he was thinking. As she moved down the pole, she felt a tingle of arousal
at the feel of it between her legs.
    As the song ended, she approached Chris, smiling
seductively. He opened his mouth to speak and she pressed a fingertip to his
lips as the Fiona Apple song started.
    She started the lap dance slowly, running her
fingertips down his shoulders and arms. His eyes never left hers, and her
arousal flared at the heat she felt from him. This was her chance to touch him
however she wanted, in the name of the lap dance. She flipped his hat off and
ran a hand through his dark blond hair, down his neck and back to his cheek.
The day-old stubble gave her an unexpected thrill.
    As she straddled his lap, keeping her feet on the
floor, Chris’