Careful What You Kiss For (3 page)

All she could remember was the flash above the Madame Claire’s head. And the words she’d said. A do-over. The psychic had said it was possible.

What if the idea for revenge that Tensley had tossed off had actually happened? If she’d punched Rhonda Reardon. What if — this strip joint was now her life.

A wave of nausea turned her knees to Jell-o. She grabbed the metal handrail for support as she half-teetered, half-fell down the few stairs, then sat at the bottom and closed her eyes. It’s not possible, she’d said. In my world, it is, Madame Claire had answered.

It couldn’t be true. She wouldn’t let it be true. She’d click her heels together three times, like Dorothy, and …

Then she heard his voice, inches away, rocketing straight through the music. “Been a long time.”

Her stomach did a double backflip. She remained perfectly still.

Warm breath ruffled the hair over her ear, caressing her skin. “I want a private dance.”

Tensley opened her eyes and turned to the one man she’d never been able to get out of her system, even though he’d shattered her heart so badly, it had never properly healed. Virtual gymnasts began spinning, twirling, leaping, falling off a balance beam in her stomach, until she had to press a fist tight to her middle to make them stop.

“Max.”

Max still had thick, dark hair that waved at the ends. But his lanky teen body had filled out considerably, given the muscles now straining at his T-shirt. His shirt was a dark ocean blue. Like his eyes.

In that moment, everything else around her fell away, fading into a dull background of noise as though she and this man were the only two people in living, breathing color, while the rest of the world melted into black, white and shades of gray.

Max.

Over the years, she’d done everything she could to get him out of her mind. None of it had worked for long. Their sophomore year of college, her best friend had tried to help.

“Put him into a mental Tupperware container,” Kate had advised, “and store it on a shelf in your mind.”

As hard as Tensley tried, as soon as one of Max’s legs went into the container, the other one climbed back out. “He won’t stay.”

“A plastic garbage bag, then.”

“I think I have Post Traumatic Distressed-Romance Disorder.”

“Put him in a metal safe.”

What if she lost the combination? “A file folder.”

“Just put him in something, already.”

“He’s in. The file folder.” Tensley had felt bad about squashing him flat, though.

“Now shove that folder into the Tupperware container.”

“But — ”

“Put the container in the metal safe and lock it.”

“I don’t think — ”

“Do. It.”

So Tensley had tucked the folder inside the plastic container, placed it in a safe, turned the key and imagined Max’s blue gaze disappearing from her life forever. His eyes had been her downfall, with their lethal combination of danger and vulnerability. Those eyes had made her forget he held their high school’s record for the highest number of detentions.

Now those eyes had her locked in once again. As she sat on a stair offstage in a strip club, wearing almost nothing.

Of all the seeing-him-again fantasies she’d indulged in over the years … because of course the lock on the safe had broken, she hadn’t sealed the Tupperware container right, and the folder had torn … this one had never entered the picture.

Tensley hugged herself tight, staring at the floor.

Maybe he would go away. Maybe everyone would go away.

Another male voice, from beside Max. “Hey, buddy. D’ya mind?”

Tensley looked up. The man in the striped shirt, the one she’d been playing with while on stage, grinned down at her, but his words were meant for Max. “I wanna buy this girl a drink.”

“Later,” Max replied, his eyes never leaving Tensley.

Striped-shirt man pulled out another twenty, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. “But Lila and I had a, you know, connection. Isn’t that right, sugar?” He wiggled an eyebrow, beads of sweat lining his forehead. He held up the money. “How about I help you stash this away?”

Tensley stared up at him and then turned to Max, struggling to keep the desperation she felt from reaching her eyes. There had to be some scrap of dignity she could hold onto in this situation.

Or not.

Max extended his hand. Waiting. As though he was Johnny in
Dirty Dancing
. And she was Baby. She’d always wanted to be Baby.

Tensley raised a trembling hand, laying her fingers in his. They were as strong, and as warm, as she remembered.

“Hey,” striped shirt man protested, running a nervous hand through his hair. “She was dancing for me.”

Max ignored him, drawing Tensley up and away from the stairs as the other man’s protests wilted away.

They wove through a blur of customers and writhing women, lights and music pulsating around them. Max held her hand tight, sending tingles through her body. Tingles she hadn’t felt for a long time.

Tensley pressed her other hand to her chest, trying to slow her escalating heartbeat. He led her to a corner, behind a blue, see-through curtain that hung from the ceiling, lit from behind by a row of lights along the floor. Everything had a bluish tinge, including the lone chair.

Max
. It was really him. He would get her clothes; take her out of this place.

He dropped her hand and sat down. “Dance,” he said.

Tensley’s heart thudded to her toes. “What?”

He sprawled on the wooden chair, legs spread, one arm resting on his thigh. “Private dance. Remember?”

After all this time,
that’s
what he had to say? He strode up like Johnny Castle and was going to treat her like some — some — stripper?

If that’s how he wanted to play it, Baby was coming out of the corner with her fists up. “You want a private dance.” She jammed her hands onto her bare blue-tinged hips, as if that would force the wobble from her voice. “It’s been, what, fifteen years — ”

“And four months.”

“Fifteen years and four months and you don’t say ‘how are you, what have you been doing, it’s great to see you, you look amazing,’
anything
.” She stopped to catch her breath.

“Don’t need to ask what you’ve been doing.”

“You have got to be kidding. I don’t work here.”

One eyebrow rose as his gaze traveled the length of her body.

She should have been embarrassed. Furious. Terrified. She was, but she was also …
damn
. Turned on. Just what she needed right now, when she couldn’t think straight as it was. “Okay, so it might look that way, but trust me, I do not,” she snapped. “You think I’d leave my family’s business for this?”

His lips parted, but she didn’t give him a chance to speak. She was fighting too hard to keep herself from moving closer to him, from pressing her body against his to feel his heart beating.
Not going to do it. Not going to —

“How about we talk about you. And how you cheated on me with Rhonda the big-boobed wonder.” She’d promised herself that when she saw him again, if she ever did, he would only see all she had now, all she’d made of herself. She wasn’t the same naïve girl he’d known. She had experience now. She’d grown into a successful woman. Without him.

Ow.
Tensley pushed her fingers harder into her hips to make the pain in her heart stop.

It didn’t work.

His jaw worked as if he was trying to decide what to say, but kept changing his mind. Finally, he gestured toward her chest. “So this is about Rhonda?”

As if. At least — she hoped not. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She folded her arms.

His eyes held hers. “I remember.”

Her breath caught. God help her, she also remembered. That was the whole problem. The scrap of fabric that passed for a thong was becoming damper by the second as she thought back to her arms, legs and heart wrapped around Max. With difficulty, she managed to say, “Don’t change the subject.” But she had to look over his head to get the words out.

He turned toward the main stage area. “You might want to start dancing.”

Tensley followed the direction of his gaze, where she saw a short, barrel-chested man pushing his way toward them. “Why? Who’s that?”

“Your boss.” This time, Max was the one to avoid her eyes. “If you don’t dance, he’ll bring me another girl.”

Another girl. Over her dead, thinner-than-ever body. “Fine,” she said between clenched teeth, “but only until that creep goes away and since I don’t even know
how
to dance, it’s not going to be anything great.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

He had one hell of a nerve, telling her she was wrong about anything. “I can’t dance and never could, which means you must be thinking of someone else. That’s no surprise, since — ”

His words, rough and low, cut through hers. “You never did believe you were special. Guess you still don’t.”

The second flashback was so vivid, it bent Tensley forward. Max sharing with her, and only her, his secret affinity for the works of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, the sidelong looks he’d given her in class, the fiery sweet touch of his fingers beneath the desks in the back of the room that practically had her climaxing during Senior English.

And he’d only been touching her hand.

She had given Max everything, including her virginity, and it had nearly destroyed her. And now he had the balls to say she’d never believed she was special.

She wasn’t going to dance for him. Wasn’t even going to keep talking to him. She’d find her clothes on her own and run, not walk, out of this place and leave him sitting in that chair, looking like a fool —

Oh hell, no. Her body had started dancing again, moving easily and provocatively, as though she had done it for years. Which she hadn’t. She
hadn’t.

Max held up a fifty-dollar bill.

Tensley’s alleged boss turned around, though he continued to watch her over one shoulder.

Her hands reached for the ceiling, one by one, breasts moving in time to the music. She felt a lazy smile cross her face as she thrust her crotch toward Max, teasing her bottom lip with her teeth. A mating dance.

One he was responding to, though he appeared to be doing his best to look nonchalant. He raised the back of his hand to his mouth and cleared his throat, while shifting in his seat. That fold of denim appeared to have become pretty well … filled up.

Good.

No.
Not
good. Tensley’s rational thoughts were being shoved out of the way by an overwhelming urge to grab the waistband of Max’s jeans, rip that zipper open and take hold of him. Now.

Remember the Tupperware. Slam him back in there, legs and everything else.

It took a full minute of picturing plastic containers, in all colors and sizes, before she could clear a path through the haze of desire flooding her senses. Finally, she shoved him into a purple one and found her voice, scratchy as it was. “Bet you’re a regular here.” She should have known things would turn out like this for him. He probably had a wife and kids he’d left sitting at home so he could hang out in a strip club.

“Didn’t say that.” His voice sounded scratchy, too.

“Talk to me,” she commanded as her abdomen rippled, crimson nails dragging themselves along her skin.

“You charge extra for that?”

“If I had to charge by the number of words coming from you, I’d be broke.”

A short laugh. “So Tensley found an attitude.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Max, I am not a stripper,” she hissed. Her hands cupped her breasts, offering them up.

Again, his eyebrow lifted. “You’re giving it one hell of a try.”

One of her hands traveled to her thong, pulling the string playfully away from her skin.

Max straightened, suddenly alert. “Stop.”

What was she doing? Tensley forced her free hand to grab the one that had hooked itself into the string, wrestling with herself until she’d managed to pull her wayward fingers back. With a concentrated effort, she made her body stop moving, which left her standing awkwardly, legs spread and her breath coming fast, while the music continued to play.

He glanced at the crowd, then back at her. “You okay?”

She shook her head, willing her eyes not to fill. “Told you I couldn’t dance.”

“You know that’s not the issue.”

The only thing she knew was that mortification could spread as fast as molten lava. She felt her cheeks flame. “You seemed to be enjoying yourself a minute ago.”

He pulled his mouth tight, averting his eyes.

So he thought she’d sunk so low, she didn’t deserve an explanation. That she was a stripper no longer worth his time. And he had the nerve to criticize her for not thinking she was special.
Welcome to the world of me.
She closed the distance between them to grab his face between her hands, the stubble of his whiskers raking the sensitive skin of her palms. He’d talk to her if she had to force him into it.

This time his voice sliced straight through her. “Damn it, Tensley. Don’t touch me. Back up.”

“Don’t touch you.” She choked on her laugh. “Why, afraid you’ll catch something?” All of the Tupperware containers opened at once, spilling their contents until her lungs squeezed the breath from her. The hard stares of Max’s friends, her friends, the popular girls. The things they whispered, just loud enough for her to hear.

Rhonda’s lips on Max’s.

There had been only one other time when she’d felt so naked, so vulnerable. Max had been there that time, too. But he’d taken her into his arms and held her close, as if he’d never let her go.

He shot to his feet, causing her to stumble backward. The lighting cast shadows across his face.

She squeezed her eyes shut, crossing her arms over her breasts and drawing her chest inward, sinking into herself. “Get me out of here.
Please
.”

“Tensley.” He was close enough that his breath caressed her cheeks. She felt him tuck something into her hand, his touch shooting sparklers of anticipation up her spine.