Stripped Read online

“Which is this? Love? Or war?”

  “Both. Neither. It’s whichever you make it, babe. ” His voice rumbles in his chest, vibrating against my spine. His hand is around my arm, the other wedged between us, keeping his towel in place.

  Oh, god. Oh, lord, help me. I can feel him, all of him, pressed up against my backside.

  “Dawson, why are you doing this?”

  “Why are you fighting it?”

  “Because—it’s all so much. You’re…you overwhelm me. ”

  “I’m just a guy. ”

  I shake my head. My hair clings to the beads of water on his chest. I’m hyperaware of how my br**sts sway. He makes me aware of myself, of my body. “No, you’re more. You’re so much more. You’re…this—this experience. I’m getting…I get swept away in you, when I’m around you. I lose myself when I’m with you. ”

  This gets him. I feel him tense at my words. “Do you have any idea the effect you have on me?” He laughs gently. “You turn me inside out. I’ve never…I’ve never cared before. Not this much. Not about anyone. After Mom died, I just kind of shut down, and I never really recovered. Dad was always weird and quirky and reclusive, but when she died, he just—vanished. I basically raised myself…well, Vickers the butler was there for me a lot. And Betty, the housekeeper. ”

  I can’t help laughing. “You had a butler named Vickers?”

  “Shut up. ” He laughs. “I didn’t name the guy. And ‘butler’ is just a catch-all kind of word. Think Alfred from Batman. He did everything for Bruce, you know? That’s how Vickers was. Ran the house, kept track of everything. Made sure I went to school and shit. He wasn’t a ‘hugs and tuck me in at night’ guy, but he bailed me out of a few scrapes over the years. ”

  He pauses, breathes in, his chest swelling against my back, and exhales deeply. He’s pushing away memories. I know a little about that.

  “Anyway. You, and me. What you do to me. You can’t distract me from this. You need to know. ” He leans closer and his nearness makes my skin prickle, and my ni**les harden. Traitors. I feel that now familiar hot throb down deep. “You make me feel things. And you have to know what a big deal this is for me. I started acting—really acting, you know? Taking it seriously and doing roles I chose—because I wanted to feel. I had to act it out onscreen, because I couldn’t feel anything when I was just Dawson. Nothing, except this vague sort of loneliness. I was used to it, because I grew up alone. Vickers was all stoic and British, and Betty was just this frumpy lady with her own kids to worry about. So I stopped feeling things because it was easier. Being in Hollywood, you grow up around the life, you grow up in it like I did. Drugs and booze are just normal. I did my first line of coke when I was…twelve? I learned to party early. It filled the holes, kind of. Then, when I hit puberty, girls were part of it. I always had swag, you know? Always. It was just easy. And girls? They filled the spaces in me, too. But…all of it was fleeting. It was my life. Girls, drugs, booze, parties, shooting films all over world. Being a star. It was great—it was the life everyone dreams of. But it was always just me. Alone, after party ended and the girls went home. Meaningless. None of those girls meant anything. A whole messy train of clingy bitches I used for distraction. They couldn’t do shit for me when it mattered. ”

  I try to turn in his arms, but he won’t let me. He’s speaking into the hair at the top of my head, his breath warm on my scalp. I stay still and let him talk, taking in these revelations. Each word makes Dawson more and more real, and that much more all-encompassing, absorbing, intense.

  “I was working on the last Cain Riley flick. We were shooting in…Prague? Yeah, Prague. Last couple weeks of shooting. I’d been partying like a f**king rock star for days, going to shoots wasted. But I’d nail the scenes. Cain was this dark and brooding kind of character, all hard edges, a badass. So the half-wasted slur and the ‘I don’t give a f**k’ glaze to my eyes in the whole movie was real. I didn’t give a f**k, but it worked for the character. I was so strung out. And then one day I woke up in the back of a club in the nasty back end of Prague. I’d passed out, and they’d shut the place down, just for me, so I could pass out. Like I would’ve known or cared had the club party gone on while I was out. But whatever. I woke up, and I had blood on my face, under my nose and chin. There was puke everywhere. They’d just…left me there. Let me puke. It had become so commonplace for me to pass out that they didn’t bother checking on me, because I was always fine. Take a few shots, do a line, drink some coffee. Go shoot the next scene. ”

  Dawson tips his head back, drifting away into memory.

  “And I realized, you know, they didn’t care. As long I shot good scenes, they didn’t care. And I was gonna end up like my mom. It was pure luck that I hadn’t died that night in the club, that I didn’t just OD like Mom. So then I tried to sober up on my own and push through the rest of the scenes, trying not to end up like her. So…I finished shooting Veiled Threats and went into rehab. That was when I disappeared. Rehab was more to get myself away, you know? I mean, shit, yeah, I had a problem, but it wasn’t addiction to the drugs. It was addiction to the feelings. I felt things when I was acting, when I was strung out. Numb, good things. But empty things. You know? Maybe you don’t. Maybe you feel too much, feel it all so much that you can’t make any sense of it. That’s what I think your problem is. You feel too much. ”

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  I’m a captive audience as he rests his chin on my head and continues to speak, one arm wrapped around me, holding me in place. “I don’t feel enough. Never did. So then I met you. In that stupid titty-club. And you were this…this glorious creature. You were like an angel, trapped in hell. You couldn’t have been more out of place if you tried. I watched you out on the floor, you know. And that dance on stage. You…captured them. All those poor, sweaty, greasy, miserable ass**les. You were so different from the other blank-eyed, apathetic strippers you see in clubs like that. Where the smiles don’t reach their eyes. Where the affected sexuality is just…plastic. Fake. Put on. You? You…ooze sensuality, and you don’t even know it, and it’s like a drug for guys like me. I may have more money and sophistication than those other guys, but I’m just like them. Looking for a cheap thrill, a quick escape. And you? You’re a high we could never get anywhere else. Watching you dance? The way you move? The way you wait until the very f**king last second to take the clothes off? It’s maddening. You don’t even know. You can’t. There’s something inside you, beyond that innocence. I see it. It’s…fuck. It’s bright as the f**king sun, but it’s hidden, because you’re miserable. ”

  I’m squirming, tearing up, sweating from his heat and from the way he’s talking about me, but I can’t escape his hold, and I have to hear his words. I have to keep listening. He’s ripping this straight out of his soul and giving it to me. It’s a priceless gift, and I’m hoarding it in my heart.

  “And I met you,” he continues. “And you made me feel something. I wasn’t drunk. I can drink, you know. I’m not and never was an alcoholic. It was just…a Band-Aid on the wound. Anyway, I saw you, and then you came in to the VIP room and you were…so bright. But so scared. And you made something in me just…implode. Like I’d had an epiphany, you know? Like I knew, I had to know you, had to hold you and touch you and tell you everything. But you keep running. And you kiss me and you get me rock f**king hard, but then you run and you leave me aching and alone and worked up. You know I’ve put on, like, fifteen pounds of muscle since I met you? Because you get me worked up and then I can’t get off on my own, because it feels wrong, and I need to let it out, so I work out. You turn me on, just breathing. You make me feel like I’m someone, and not because I’m Dawson Fucking Kellor, either. ”

  He backs away from me, and I wrap my arms around his broad shoulders, palms sticking to his hot, damp skin. He stills, and looks down at me as he continues.

  “But that doesn’t matter to you. You run anyway, maybe because of that. And I can’t figure y
ou out. You confuse me, and that’s a feeling. I know women, okay? I do. I thought I knew how women think, but you? I can’t figure you out. You never react how I think you will. One second, it’s like you can’t get enough of me and I’m going to make you explode, and then the next you’re about to hyperventilate and having a nervous breakdown because you can’t handle me, or us, or something. ”

  He’s going a mile a minute, and I’ve never heard him say so much, never heard anyone say this much all at once. It’s just pouring from him.

  “You make me want you. Not just…want to f**k you. That feels cheap, even saying it. You’re not the kind of woman who f**ks. You’re more than that. But f**king is all I know, and you’re worth more. And that’s an odd feeling for me. I’ve always been entitled, you know? I’m that horribly obnoxious kind of person who’s always had everything and owns the f**king world, okay? But I’m not entitled to you. I have to earn you. And I can’t even earn the truth of where you come from or why you’re the way you are, or anything. You don’t give me a damned thing, and that’s maddening. But that’s a feeling, too. Wanting you, needing you, being confused, being mad, frustrated, needing a release I can’t find, wanting to even hold your hand like some f**king sappy teenager…it’s all feelings. And that…it makes me feel alive in a way I’ve never known before. ”

  He finally stops the flood of words. He turns me in his arms, and his hands go to my face. I hold his towel in place with my hands as he brushes my hair out of my face, wipes a strand of blonde hair from my mouth with an index finger. His eyes are all colors, no color, that perfect hazel that’s its own shade of Dawson.

  And then he speaks again, in a voice that’s pure magic. And his words…they floor me.

  “You make me feel alive, Grey. And…I love that feeling. ”

  “You feel all that? From me?” He just nods. “I don’t…I’m not…I mean—I’m just Grey. I’m a pastor’s daughter from Georgia. My mom died, I told you that. She was all I had, really, and my dream was to be here, so I came here. I had to earn money when my scholarship ran out, and I couldn’t find a job, so I took the only job I could find. ”

  “There’s so much more to you than that, Grey. ”

  “Like what?” I honestly don’t know. I feel like that’s all there is.

  “Grace. Fluidity. Beauty. Intelligence. Talent. Potential. Tenderness. Innate sensuality. ” He touches me under my chin, and I can’t look away from him. “Tell me one true thing. ”

  “I’m a dancer. ” I don’t hesitate. “Not…not like on stage, not like that. But real dancing. Jazz, and modern, and ballet. ”

  “Dance for me?”

  “What, like now?”

  He nods, kisses my cheekbone, and turns away from me, leaving the towel in my hands. I’m stunned, and it’s impossible to look away from his backside as he runs up the stairs, naked as a jaybird. I want him to turn around, but I’m also glad he doesn’t. He comes back down in a pair of shorts, and takes my hand. Leads me through his cavernous, palatial house that he lives in alone, to a huge gym. There are all sorts of weight machines in one corner, a punching bag hanging from the ceiling, one of those big, heavy ones you kick and punch, and then an area of open space.

  He gestures at the open area. “I do tai chi. It’s badass, and it’s calming. It gives me a center, somewhere I can be just…nothing but motion. ”

  I go into the center of the open space, a lightly padded floor beneath my feet. I spring gently, and I realize how long it’s been since I danced for me.

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  “Can you put on some music?” I set my purse to one side and unbutton my shirt, toss it by my purse.

  I’m wearing a button-down blouse over a tank top, and a pair of capris. Good enough for dancing. I’m excited at the idea, but nervous. Dawson pulls his phone from his pocket and fiddles with it, then plugs it into some dock built into one of the walls. Music swells through the space, and it’s such perfect music to dance to. I’ve never heard it before, but it’s all Dawson. It’s symphonic, orchestral, but with heavy gothic overtones to it, and guitars and drums layered through it, giving it a hard edge. The lyrics are pensive and dark and vaguely religious. I can’t help but move.

  There’s no technique to this; it’s just pure movement. My body flows, stretches, twists, and becomes an extension of the music. I leap, and bend, jeté and roll into pirouettes, and there’s nothing but the music and my body moving. Such purity of expression forces things inside me to give way.

  I’d forgotten about dancing. I’d let it go in the face of work and school. I’d lost it. Lost that part of myself, and now…Dawson has given it back to me. I dance, and I dance. Another song by the same band comes on, and I keep dancing. I feel him watching, and I don’t care.

  No, that’s not true. I do care. So much. I feel his gaze, and I dance harder for it. I want him to see me as I am. He’s asked me several times to tell him one true thing, and so now I do. I tell him one true thing, not with words, but with something more tangible, something that comes from deeper within me. Words can lie. Words can deceive and delude and conceal and avoid. But the things you do, how you move, how you touch, those things cannot lie.

  When the music ends, I’m left panting, heaving, sweating. Dawson is standing with his arms crossed, an expression on his face that I can’t decipher. I catch my breath and wait. He comes toward me, his eyes are hot green-gray, the color of desire. He reaches for me, smearing sweat on my arms, brushing the hair from my face, infinitely gentle, touching me with pent-up desire.

  He hesitates a beat, and then kisses me.

  And now I’m lost all over again. God, his kiss devours me. Sucks me under with the riptide force of his heat and power and sexuality and dominance. Even the light taste of toothpaste on his lips is sensual. I inhale the scent of shampoo in his hair and the citrus aftershave or lotion or whatever it is. His hands touch me and caress me and hold me and incite need inside me. He kisses me, kisses me, kisses me.

  And I kiss him back.

  I’m free. I give in completely.

  Chapter 13

  He’s all there is. All there will ever be. I’m falling through eternity, and his touch is the fabric of that forever. His kiss is the substance of infinity. These thoughts make no sense even to my own mind, but they remain true in some strange way.

  His arms are like prison bars, but it’s a cell I have no desire of escaping. He’s all contradictions, hard yet soft, sweet and salty, perfect and flawed.

  My hands are curled against his bare chest, my nails scraping his skin as our mouths merge. My ni**les are pebbled against his chest, stiff through the material of my bra and the thin cotton tank top. His shorts are a barely-there layer of slippery rayon, and I feel the stiff, thick, hot intrusion of his manhood against my belly, physical evidence of how I make him feel. That presence, that thickness against my stomach, it scares me. It’s huge and hard as rock, and…I want to see it. I want to touch it. I want to feel it…and to taste it. I feel sinful and wrong just thinking that, but so help me, it’s true. I want to taste all of him. I want to feel all of him.

  I want to give him all of me.

  But he needs to know he’d be the first, the only one. I try to make the words come out, but I kiss him instead.

  I’m lifted, cradled in his arms, and our kiss doesn’t break as he carries me through his house. My hands clutch his shoulders and his neck, and I gasp for air into his mouth, panting, eyes closed, fighting for clarity and lucidity and unable to be anything but swept away by need.

  We’re in his room. I’m on my back on his bed. I pull his lips down to my greedy mouth. Strong and insistent fingers strip away my shirt and toss it aside. My bra is black and basic, clasped in the back by three hooks and eyelets. I arch my back, and he makes short, efficient work of unlatching it, pulling it from me and setting it aside.

  I cross my arms over my chest, and he lets me. He lounges
on his side next to me and stares into my eyes. “Let me see you, babe. ”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head.

  He laughs, and traces an idle pattern on my belly with his forefinger, lazy, roaming circles leading downward to my khaki capris. His eyes are on me, and I force my lids open, force my gaze to his, and lie stone still as he pinches the edges of my waistband together and releases the clasp. I don’t move as he slowly unzips, baring a sliver of black lace to match my bra. I continue my still acquiescence to his stripping of me as he takes the waistband of my pants in his hands and works them down over my generous hips. I don’t help, but I don’t hinder, and soon I’m naked but for my underwear.

  A familiar state of undress, but I’ve never felt more vulnerable.

  His eyes burn green-brown-gray, hints of blue at the edges. Unmitigated desire and fire scorching me from his gaze. One hand on my belly, then a single finger dipping under the black elastic, beneath the Victoria’s Secret printed in pink script. I blink, twice, and swallow the pulsating knot of fear. That finger, his right index finger, slides around the circumference of the elastic, from hip to hip, and then again, gently tugging down. I do not lift my hips; I keep my eyes on him and let him strip me.

  He’s already stripped me bare. Now he’s merely completing the task. He’s seen everything else, and now he’ll see me completely nude.

  But he stops when the underwear are just barely covering the top of my cleft. “You take them off. If you want this, take them off. ”

  This is my last chance; I see that. If I deny this now, he’ll know I’m too afraid.

  Am I?

  I’m not nauseous, not hyperventilating, not doing any of the things that usually accompany my strongest emotions. I’m terrified, because I feel the three words of truth bubbling on my lips.

  Well, there are two truths vying for utterance, and both come in three-word sentences.

  I go for the easier one. “I’m a virgin. ”

  He doesn’t respond at all. He just stares at me for a long, silent moment. Neither of us even breathes.

  Then he quirks one eyebrow. “That explains a lot. ” He licks his lips, and in that tiny motion, his nerves are revealed. “How, though? I mean, how can you be a virgin and a stripper? That doesn’t…it doesn’t make any f**king sense. ”

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  I swallow hard and try not to feel the distance rising between us. “It just happened. I told you my dad was a pastor. I grew up in a very strictly conservative home. Until you, I’d only even kissed one other boy, but that was him kissing me when I wasn’t ready and didn’t want it, and it didn’t even last half a second, so it doesn’t even really count. No one…no one has ever touched me like you, looked at me like you, held me or kissed me or anything. No one has ever wanted me, and…and, more importantly, I’ve never wanted anyone before you. I don’t…I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m scared. Of this, of you. Of everything. ”