Chapter 5 Jane
FIVE
JANE
I’m on my second glass of Cabernet when Chance walks—no, struts—into the room, his eyes pinning me to my place in the corner of the couch.
As he passes the switch on the wall that controls the overhead lights in both my living and dining areas, he flicks them off.
Now the only light is coming from the small table lamp next to me, and I suddenly realize I should’ve made rules or stipulations for this portion of our deal.
Like, all lights on, with at least two feet between us, and for the duration of one song, not to exceed three and a half minutes.
Then maybe I’d actually have a decent chance at resisting Chance.
“It’s fixed?” I ask as he stops in front of me. “Just like that?”
“Yep. Just like that. It was one hell of a clog, but everything’s running free and clear now. You can go check it if you want.”
I know I should, but I can’t seem to make my limbs move.
Besides, I’d heard the water running, so it’s pretty safe to assume he’d flushed the pipe after clearing whatever had been blocking it.
But even if he didn’t really fix it, what was I going to do?
It’s not like he was a real handyman I’d hired to do the job, and I’d be no worse off than I was before Addie came up with this harebrained scheme.
I suppose I’d be able to call off the dance portion of the deal if he hadn’t held up his end by fixing my sink, but the wine has loosened me up enough that my inner horndog now rules, and no way in hell am I turning down the opportunity to have this man as my private dancer, if only for one song.
He’s tied the sleeves of his coveralls into a knot at his lower abdomen, I guess so they won’t fall off, because God forbid he puts them back on and covers up all that yummy goodness.
I raise the glass to my lips and then drain the rest of the robust red wine as he comes to a stop in front of me.
He holds my gaze, takes the glass from my hands, and sets it on the end table next to the stack of Cosmo magazines.
“Twenty ways to make him beg for it, huh?”
I blink up at him. “Excuse me?”
He picks up the top magazine and holds it out for me to see. Sure enough, the lead story of that issue touts untold secrets of how to bring a man to his knees. “So, tell me, Jane,” he says with a cocky smirk. “How do you make a guy beg for it?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I answer, my pulse kicking up a notch. “I don’t actually read them.”
I snatch it from his grasp and place it back where it belongs, cover side down. Not so that he can’t see the articles advertised, but because the sexy model in her mini-dress with her hair blowing in “the wind” and the do me expression on her flawless face makes me look like a hobo in comparison.
“Then what’s with the mountain on the table?”
“I like looking at the fashion pages.”
A wicked grin slides over his too-handsome face. “You like looking at a lot of things.”
My stomach quivers in trepidation, like I’m slowly climbing toward that first drop of a roller coaster and it knows it’s about to be left behind as the rest of my body plummets to the earth. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing yet.” He pulls his phone from his pocket and thumbs over the screen a few times, then music starts playing through the small but powerful speaker he’d brought.
Trey Songz’s “Neighbors Know My Name”—a slow, sexy song about fucking his girl so well she can’t stop screaming his name (I swear, the man is trying to kill me with innuendo)—fills the space of my little apartment.
“Keep your eyes on me, Jane. I’m gonna give you a lot more to look at. ”
His hips start to sway from side to side, mesmerizing me like he’s a snake charmer and I’m the idiot snake who can’t tear my gaze away.
Large hands skate over the front of his body, from his chest all the way down to where the hem of his white, ribbed tank is bunched at his waist. One thumb hooks under the shirt and slowly lifts it up as the other hooks into the band of his underwear and tugs the front down low.
Chance pulls the bottom of his shirt over and behind his head, anchoring it at the back of his neck so it looks like one of those gun harnesses you see cops wear.
I find it oddly sexy that he doesn’t take it completely off.
Don’t ask me why. It’s not like it’s covering anything up or leaving parts of him to the imagination.
Everything his torso has to offer is now on full display for my viewing pleasure.
Things like his eight-pack of abs (ten, if you count the two obliques that slash into that delicious V) and the short, dark blond hair that flows over his pecs to meet in the middle, then continues as a thin trail that bisects the aforementioned glorious abs and picks back up beneath his naval to lead straight to the promised land. Halle-fricking-lujah.
His body continues to undulate and move in ways much too fluid for someone with as much muscle mass as he has.
It’s sexy and erotic, like he’s making love to the air, and for the first time in my life, I know what it’s like to be struck dumb.
I couldn’t answer the simplest of questions right now if my life depended on it, so it’s a damn good thing that it doesn’t.
“Touch me, Jane.”
His words snap me out of my stupor, and I close my mouth, which I only now realize has been hanging open like a boy seeing his first pair of tits. Could I be more pathetic? Come on, Janey, toughen up! I meet his gaze and attempt to appear bored. I arch a brow and say, “No thanks, I’m good.”
“Mmmm,” he hums while dragging his bottom lip through his teeth.
“I’m betting you’re better than good, Jane.
” Grabbing my hips, he drags me out of my corner to the center of the couch then braces his hands on the back of it, on either side of my head.
He bends his arms like he’s doing a pushup, bringing his upper body in close, and speaks directly into my ear.
“I’m betting you’re actually very, very bad. ”
All the air is pushed from my lungs. I let my head drop to rest on the back of the couch as he nuzzles my neck, bathing my skin with his warm breath. My breasts grow heavy, and my nipples tighten. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I almost sound drunk, but two glasses of wine aren’t enough for that. No, it’s not the fermented grapes making my speech lazy and slow. I’ve got a full-on buzz from too much Stripper Pale Ale.
He chuckles and pulls back far enough to look me in the eyes as he yanks my ass to the edge of the couch and spreads my legs apart. “Oh, I think you do, Jane. That’s okay, though. You hold on to your facade as long as you can. It’ll make it all the sweeter when I bare the real you.”
“You’re delusional.” Except that he’s not.
He’s actually dead-fucking-on and I don’t know how it’s possible.
It’s one thing to be able to read people—and I have no doubt that in his profession he’s gotten quite good at it—but it’s quite another for him to look into my eyes like he can see all my filthy secrets.
“I’m not baring anything to you. This is only a dance, remember? ”
“It is,” he says, “until you tell me it isn’t.”
“Cryptic much?”
His only response is a smug grin as he places his hands on either side of me, shoots his feet back, and drops on a downbeat in the music.
I gasp when he buries his face against my sex, then undulates his body rhythmically with the bass as he slowly works his way back up.
He makes sure to drag every part of his body through my legs, just barely grazing me—and yet it’s like he’s pressing me into the cushions as intimate as it feels.
Once again, he’s back in his power position, hovering above me and grinding his pelvis against mine, mimicking the act of fucking me right here in my living room.
The thin material of his coveralls might as well be gauze from the way I can feel what they’re covering, and Sweet Mother of God, the man is hard as a rock.
I don’t even know how to process that. My limited knowledge about strippers is that they never get even remotely stiff.
Something about being sexually desensitized in their work environment—like how gynecologists aren’t sporting raging boners from looking at a dozen vaginas every day.
But for whatever reason, Chance’s “sensitivity” is off the charts.
He holds my gaze with those fuck-me eyes, and it’s getting harder and harder not to tear the rest of his clothes off and do exactly as those deep blue pools are suggesting.
Without warning, he hooks his arms under my thighs and stands, lifting me up in one smooth motion so I’m on sitting on his shoulders.
Normally a very innocent position to be in—I’ve played many a round of chicken fights in my parents’ pool growing up—except I’m facing the wrong damn way.
I let out a surprised squeal and grab on to his head, since it’s buried between my legs and the only thing I have within reach at this height.
I don’t hear his growl as much as I feel it penetrate my yoga pants and panties and vibrate over my sex.
A tiny moan escapes me before I can stop it, and my fingers clench in his long hair.
Chance does an about-face and carefully slides me down his body, but as soon as my feet touch the floor, he spins me around and presses a hand between my shoulder blades.
“That’s it, baby,” he says, pushing me down until my hands are braced on the coffee table. “Bend over and let me get at this ass.”