Stripped (34 page)
Brandon’s body recoiled. The image came unbidden—a glimpse of moist swollen flesh, seconds before her honeyed flavor soaked into his tongue. He could smell the sweet musk of her arousal and swallowed hard. Shut his eyes to block out dewy skin even the lack of lights couldn’t hide from his mind.
When he looked again, she moved around the fire pit, a snake dance of the deadliest kind. He swore. She was fantasy. Every man’s Jezebel. Alluring. Beckoning. Daring him and every other bastard in the room to indulge in what they wanted to see. The secret forbidden pleasure of chimera.
On one heart-stopping crescendo of bass and tams, the stage went dark. His temper surged to the surface. She’d defied him. Natalya had ignored his insistence she stay off the stage and exposed herself to danger.
Son of a bitch!
Driving an open palm against the stage, he blocked out the bellows of protest, angry men taken to the brink and left unfulfilled. He shoved past one who’d surged to his feet as if he sought to climb on to the stage after Natalya and stormed toward the backstage door.
Halfway across the room, one solitary blue light broke through the blackness, illuminating Fantasia’s seventeen-foot-tall brass pole. Brandon froze and slowly turned around. Every instinct he possessed warned him to escape backstage where he could remain ignorant of what was about to happen. He had a better chance of surviving a bullet than what came next.
Instead, like the other lemmings in the room, he gravitated closer to the stage, his eyes riveted on the upside-down dancer at the top.
N
The World Is Not Enough
, she scanned the crowd, looking for the man who assessed from a distance, his stare unseeing, his mind focused on potential, not what lay before his eyes. Her song choice, one Sergei would surely appreciate, gave her the slow rhythm necessary to both perform and observe.
At the opening crescendo, she loosened her leg grip, pushed into a slow spin, and descended head-first, rotating around the pole like a diamond on display. Three feet from the bottom, she smiled at the collective silence, hooked her right knee around the pole, and elongated into a swanlike backbend. Her hand caught the heel of her black stiletto and pulled it to her forehead. The other stretched above her dangling hair. As her muscles stretched, a slow burn spread across her belly.
It felt good to push herself beyond the half-assed entertainment she gave Dmitri. This came from her soul, an exercise in unrestrained freedom. She’d defied Brandon. Defied Dmitri. Right now, in these few precious moments she could be herself. Not a CIA agent. No man’s lover. Just Natalya, the same girl who’d danced for tips because she loved to do so and thrived on pushing her body to abnormal limits.
The spin came to a gradual stop, and she gripped the pole with both hands, gracefully arcing her feet to the floor. Sultry vocals kicked
in, and Natalya threw her weight into a ground move, wrapping her body around the brass in synchronized time with the sensual rhythm. As the chorus emerged, and the bright strings built in strength, she gripped the cool metal in both hands, hooked her ankles, and undulated her way up the solid shaft.
Halfway to the top, she tucked her left foot behind tight, elongated her right until it was perpendicular to her waist. Holding the pole in her right hand, she leaned back until her fingers touched, then nothing. She lowered her arms slowly, using only her abdomen muscles to drop her upper body into another tight backbend.
This one she held only for a beat before she grabbed the metal shaft at her cheek and kicked both legs off, extending her body horizontally. She turned her smile to the crowd, looking over the faces once more as she held the position, widening her legs into splits, easing them closed over the scope of several musical bars.
Nothing in the crowd. Only wide eyes and slack jaws. She shifted her position, bringing her breasts to the pole, one hand over, one hand under, horizontal for a heartbeat before she propelled her legs skyward and latched her ankles around the brass. Hands free, she crossed her arms over her chest and dangled in a painstakingly motionless crunch.
Then, as the music infiltrated her veins, she threw herself into the dance, Iskatel´ forgotten as she resumed her artful ballet. Curling into her body, she grabbed on with both hands and flung herself into a sit-spin. Her toes pointed in a
V
toward the ceiling, head back, she focused on an extinguished light to keep from losing her equilibrium. The spiral ended as she planted her heels vertically on the pole and lowered herself into the splits, the insides of her thighs flat against the smooth brass.
Without losing a beat, she eased out of the trick, caught the pole under her arm, cocked one knee around the metal, and shimmied all the way to the top. Beneath the heat of the solitary blue light, she wedged herself by armpit and hipbone and kicked her feet to her head.
She grabbed the tops of her ankles, arched her back, and touched the very tips of her four-inch heels to the crown of her head.
A collective murmur rumbled through the crowd. Exhilarated by the dance, Natalya smiled as she lengthened her legs and reached one arm toward the sky. Hand-over-hand, she inched upside down. She spread her legs, eased them together again with a graceful backstroke kick. Adrenaline pumped through her veins as she prepared for her second freefall.
Taking her legs away from the pole, she dropped into a pike, then snaked in a half circle, winding her left leg around the length of metal. Natalya pushed her upper body skyward, locked her ankles around the brass, and let herself plummet toward the stage below.
Her palms connected, her ankles tightening to slow her fall and ease her body to the ground with an undulation from shoulder to toes. She looked up into the crowd as she let go completely to roll onto her back and gyrate against the floor. Her gaze fell on Brandon, his tawny eyes stormy, his expression a maelstrom of fury.
B
A taunting smile danced upon her lips as she sashayed around the pole, her gaze never leaving his. Damn her! She was playing him. She knew good and well he was seconds away from exploding both physically and verbally, and she was goading him.
And then she was upside down again, palms and heels braced on the floor, a backbend that filled his head with erotic images of all the things he could do to her in that position. Split her down the center with his tongue. Stand between her thighs, slide into her tight body as her rosy-tipped nipples stared him in the face.
He choked down a groan. God, he wanted to fuck her. No. Not fuck her. Every man in the room wanted to slam home inside that supple body, and he’d already done that. Brandon wanted something the rest of them couldn’t have. He wanted that woman who made a brief appearance when she’d come apart against his mouth. When he’d spontaneously kissed her in the car. The fragile glimpse of innocent femininity that peeked from behind tight shutters when she held a lion cub in the crook of her arm.
His chest tightened to painful limits. If she didn’t scramble off that stage soon, he’d suffocate in this smoke-filled room.
In slow motion, she lifted one leg, curled an elegant calf around the pole, and crept her hands toward the base. Inch by inch she caterpillared her way up the long metal shaft. No wonder she’d cracked a man’s chest in half—the strength in her thighs rippled with every gravity-defying extension. Part ballet, part gymnastics, part striptease, all combined into one erotic
cirque du soliel
that outclassed every pole routine he’d ever witnessed.
Kate had said Natalya was good. This routine didn’t even come close to that simplified description. If he possessed half the management skills he was supposed to, he’d force Natalya to take the stage nightly. That is, if he wasn’t so busy falling for her.
And damn it, he was. With each elegant spin, every upside-down and sideways twist, the realization sank in further. Whoever she was,
whatever
she was, he was falling hard. Fast.
Fucking terrifying.
He glanced sideways, making the mistake of noticing the pained grimace on the man’s face at his left. The sudden urge to backhand that look of bittersweet pleasure gripped Brandon’s mind. Though Natalya’s bikini covered more skin than the swimsuits he’d find at a family-friendly pool, he couldn’t tolerate the devouring eyes. She belonged to him.
He stepped aside before reflex could overrule his sense. A strong hand clamped onto his shoulder, stopping his single-minded trajectory
toward the backstage door. Aaron’s voice rumbled with laughter that didn’t cross his face. “Too much for you to handle?”
Brandon glowered at his best friend. He shrugged off Aaron’s hand. “Screw you, Mayer.”
The laughter broke free. “You should see your face. I’ve seen starving wolves that look more approachable.”
Aaron’s jab brought home all the sound, logical reasons Brandon had been angry with Natalya. Not because she exposed her body, but because she exposed
herself
. If Mayer could read his reaction to the auburn-haired vixen onstage, Brandon would put money on it someone else could too. Like the someone else who’d been peeking through his window. The assholes who’d finally accepted his thrown gauntlet.
He went ramrod straight and scowled at the stage. Damn her. She hadn’t just defied him, she’d pulled things inside him out into the open and marked herself as a target.
At the top of the pole once more, Natalya twisted her body into a knot. Upside down, sideways, upside down again. One arm linked around the metal, her toe touched her head, stealing his breath. His gut ground down like a vise. Beneath his loose dress pants, his cock swelled to painful limits. So graceful. So limber.
She caught the pole beneath her arm, extended her body horizontally, and held the position, spinning as the chorus repeated to a strong, abrupt end. As the vocals faded, the bass guitar thrummed twice. Natalya let loose, plummeting down the pole so fast, Brandon was certain she’d hit the ground and break a leg.
At the last chord, she tucked into a tight ball, stopping her rapid descent less than three inches from the floor. The stage went dark. The crowd burst into riotous noise. Aaron lunged for a drunken buffoon who was stupid enough to climb onstage, leaving Brandon to storm through the backstage doors.
He needed a beer first. Just to take off the edge so he didn’t follow through with the fleeting idea of strangling Natalya.
C
Of course, the rapt faces caught her eye, stroking her ego, but she’d seen nothing of significance. Not a single flinch that might indicate one of the suits stretched out in a chair might be Iskatel´. Jill had disappeared as well. More reason to suspect Iskatel´ wasn’t a man at all. A suspicion that gained more evidence with each passing hour.
Natalya lifted to her toes and looked sideways to the bar where three security guards restrained four red-faced, struggling men. She laughed quietly. It had been a long time since she could claim she’d started a brawl.
Her gaze settled on Brandon, ten feet away from the backstage doors and heading for a beer tub. She grimaced inwardly. The man was downright furious. Standing that close to the dressing rooms, he snuffed out her brief hope that she’d danced him out of his anger. Natalya shrugged. He’d get over it once he stopped to listen to the throaty demands for an encore. Favorite dancers brought in more money. Influential clients brought the drug ring he’d been tracking closer. His narcotics team would reap the rewards while Fantasia reaped the financial benefits.
A flitting shadow caught her attention. Beyond Brandon’s shoulder. Closer to the door. She rose to tiptoe, waiting for Scott to stop the figure.
But Scott wasn’t there. Preoccupied with the fistfight closer to the bar, no one stood at the door.
She frowned as the door opened and a distinctly masculine form slipped inside.
Natalya bolted down the long hall. A glimpse inside the lounge revealed only empty couches, the dancers having poured into the main house to use their talents in soothing the boisterous crowd. She stood still, head cocked, listening for noises. Props guy maybe? Harvey?