try it,” she said as she opened her coat and revealed the skimpy ensemble she wore beneath.
Her body-skimming leopard-print baby doll barely covered a black lace bra and panties. And her bare legs led down to a pair of black stiletto heels.
The damp night air was cold. Damn cold. Her nipples turned to pebbles when she let the coat fall open.
Drew glanced around the neighborhood, then back at her. “Cover yourself up!” he stage-whispered.
“Why? Worried that your neighbors will see me?”
Cass had hidden for too long behind lies that never hinted at the dancing she’d earned her living on for so many years. She didn’t miss stripping—okay, well, she did occasionally miss the empowerment it gave her.
She missed the raw, female power she had over every man in a room when she stepped out onto a stage and wrapped her leg around the pole.
But she’d finished that chapter of her life and didn’t intend to go back. She didn’t want to dwell on the mistakes she’d made or the people she’d hurt when she’d been young and reckless. She had other ways of commanding power now.
Yet she did want Drew to know all of her and accept her for who she was and who she had been. If he couldn’t accept her, he wasn’t worth any more of her time.
“Please let me in. I have to show you something, and I don’t want you to say anything until I’m finished, okay?”
“Um, okay,” he said, sounding perplexed as he stepped aside.
She entered the apartment and looked around to make sure she had enough room to dance. Definitely enough space for a one-woman show.
“You’ll want to sit down for this,” she said, and he did, easing down onto the edge of the couch as if he might need to hop up again and flee the room at any moment.
She placed the portable stereo on his dining room table and hit the play button for the CD that was already cued up. The music started, and she let her coat slide off her shoulders and onto the floor, where she kicked it aside.
Cass had always understood the power of focusing her dance on a specific guy, making him believe he was the only one in the room she was taking her clothes off for. So she did. As she started to dance, her body moving as if making love, her gaze locked on Drew, she could read the emotions playing across his face.
Interest, confusion, arousal, mistrust and, finally, appreciation. He sat back a little, continuing to watch as she removed the baby doll, sliding it over her shoulders, down her waist, over her hips and legs.
She kicked it aside, then did a little spin as she unlatched her bra, opened her arms and flung it aside. As she danced before Drew, her chest bare, she felt as if she’d just bared something more. As if she was showing him her heart, opening up that place where he could hurt her the most, and where there also might be the greatest potential for pleasure.
And that, she realized, was the reason she’d run scared before. Her heart had been telling her she didn’t just want sex with this man. She wanted to see what else might happen. In spite of her happy life, for once she actually wanted the complications.
Finally she hooked her thumbs into the sides of her panties and shimmied them down over her hips, let them fall to her feet, met Drew’s gaze and held it as she slid her hands over her torso and breasts.
She worked her hips, lowered herself like a cat to the floor, crawled toward Drew and then twirled onto her back, where she ended the dance with her legs crossed in the air.
When the song stopped and the room was silent again, she could hear his steady breathing, but for a few moments he said nothing.
Then finally, “Wow.”
“Did you like it?”
“You dance like a pro.”
She pushed herself up to a sitting position and rested her arms on his knees in front of her.
“The truth is, I worked my way through college by stripping.”
Drew stared at her, slack-jawed, and didn’t say a word.
She took a deep breath and kept going. “I was Cassi, with an i, and I could work a pole like nobody’s business.”
“That’s why you don’t like me calling you Cassie?”
She nodded. “I’m tired of hiding my past. If you don’t like it, then I’m definitely not the girl for you.”
“Let me get this straight. You