Learning Curves (2 page)

If you asked, she’d just say she was looking after her investment, making sure he was fit to perform, but Brandon knew it was more than that. June was, despite the moxie and the showmanship, what his grandma used to call “good people.” She’d been good to him when he needed it the most and God knows his own flesh and blood had rarely, if ever, been interested in making an effort where he was concerned.

“We got a no-show.”

“Hell. Tony?”

“Yup.”

“No-good son of a bitch! I knew better than to book him from Jasper but he swore Tony’d mended his ways.” She paused. “So who’ve you got going on?”

“No frigging idea.” He counted on his fingers. “T’Shaun and Kirby already performed tonight. Lucas and Ian aren’t scheduled to go on ’til after Tony, but they’re both new. Neither one’s got the experience to headline.”

The silence on the radio stretched out, an unspoken solution hanging between them.

“No,” Brandon said firmly. “Forget it.”

“You said yourself there wasn’t anyone else.”

“I don’t dance anymore.” He scowled, although June couldn’t see it. “I blew out my knee.”

“Knee, schmee. You wiggle, you jiggle, you flash your dimples. What do you need your knee for?”

“Forget it, June.”

“Honey, you can do this show with your eyes closed. And remember, it’s just one night. It ain’t the rest of your life or anything.”

Brandon sighed. It wasn’t the dancing he objected to. Before he tore his knee, he’d loved to dance. Still did. He just couldn’t do it five nights a week anymore like he used to.

He was a good-looking guy, tall, fit and—while he didn’t like to brag—not deficient in the equipment department either. Hell, girls had been telling him that since he was thirteen and it hadn’t hurt his stage career at Foxe’s Den. And he liked women. The way they smelled, the way they fit in his arms, the way they felt when his cock was buried deep inside their bodies. But in all years since he’d discovered women, he’d never once experienced a real connection with any of the ones he’d taken into his bed.

He wasn’t indiscriminate. He liked his women one at a time. But the ones in the audience never saw him as a person but as some sort of sexual automaton. Sexy but sexless. Tall and strong and lean but when the fantasy was over, not someone they’d ever want to see in the light of day. And while he sure as hell wasn’t looking for the future Mrs. Myles—after bearing witness to the volatile roller coaster his own parents had endured, the very thought made his blood run cold—it still took a lot out of a guy knowing he was the kind of person a girl wanted to fuck but never acknowledge.

In the early days, he’d needed the money. Every penny had gone to keeping his dreams of learning alive. Of escaping the poverty and neglect of his childhood. He was used to going it alone. He’d learned the hard way that love didn’t prevent you from being disappointed or betrayed. His mom. His dad. Even his grandmother had left after a fashion, dying when he was twelve.

So he’d learned to fake it. Smiled and flirted with all the women, onstage and off. Danced for their money, took a few into his bed. But at the end of a long, hard night performing, he’d felt like he’d given away another piece of himself. And he’d wondered how long he could keep giving pieces away until there wasn’t anything left.

That was why he stopped dancing. The injury had been real, but if he’d really loved it, he could have found a solution. Choreographed routines that took pressure off the ligaments and kept performing. But he’d had enough. He still designed the numbers for most of the male dancers and handled the scheduling and back-of-the-house details, but he hadn’t been on stage in over two years.

Christ.

Running a reluctant hand through his short-cropped hair, he finally pushed the radio’s two-way.

“I’ll do it, but only because there’s no one else. Call Randy in the booth and tell him to cue up the Coltrane routine.”

During intermission, Leanne flagged down one of the servers and ordered another soft drink. Dancers circulated around the room. Sometimes they’d stop and dance on a table, bending every so often to let the women at their feet slip another bill in their g-strings or whisper a saucy come-on in their ears.

The women at the table beside theirs laughed as T’Shaun, the muscular black man who’d just performed, led one of their party by the hand toward one of the unmarked doors.

Watching with envious eyes, Brittany and Tamara both sighed.

“Private lap dance,” they said simultaneously and burst into a chorus of tipsy giggles.

Surprised and maybe a little turned on, Leanne couldn’t help but turn around and watch as the stripper led the woman into the private booth.

What would it be like to go into a room with a man whose only goal was to provide sexual satisfaction? To let him touch you, turn you on, without worrying about satisfying him or wondering whether you’d have an orgasm or if you’d have to fake it again? To enjoy the sensations without thinking about anything except the arousal and excitement he elicited?

God, had she
ever
had sex like that?

Would she ever have sex like that?

If she was being honest with herself, the answer to those two questions had to be no and it seemed bloody unlikely.

As the house lights dimmed in anticipation of the next performer, she couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in the private room right now. Where was he touching her? What was he saying? How wet and turned on was she getting, fantasizing about a man who was being paid to excite her and maybe, if she was really into it, make her come, only feet from dozens of other people?

“Ladies, please welcome back to the Foxe’s Den stage for a very special performance, the one, the only—Brandon!” The anonymous announcer’s voice boomed, shattering her erotic musings.

The house lights darkened completely, and the women in the crowd cheered and hollered. As the strains of an instrumental jazz number began, Leanne couldn’t help wondering why it seemed she’d always been too busy studying or researching or writing to have time for something as basic, as elementary, as her own sexual satisfaction.

When the next performer stepped onstage, moving slowly and seductively to the music, Leanne knew why. Until this exact moment, she’d never seen a man as lust inspiring as the one removing his clothing in front of her.

Now that she had, the only thought in her mind was how soon she could get him alone and next-to-naked and touching and kissing her body until she came.

He’d forgotten how good it felt to perform. There was something almost electric about dancing, about moving in time to a great piece of music and giving expression to the notes the musicians hadn’t played as much as the ones they had. Now as he circled the outermost edge of the platform, working free the buttons of his white dress shirt, he gazed into the darkness and tried to gauge tonight’s crowd.

June had always told him that a good dancer dances with the audience, not just for them, so as he moved, he peered out at the audience, trying to make out the faces visible beyond the perimeter of the stage. T’Shaun was right—the women were lively and vocal tonight, determined to enjoy themselves.

He slid his shirt off his shoulders inch by inch. A suggestive catcall distracted him. Moving in time to the raucous hoots of approval, he paused and a woman tucked dollar bills inside his waistband. He spun around, reveling in the feel of his body moving easily after so long. It might not be sex with a warm, willing woman but it was damn close.

Then he saw her.

She sat in the middle of the room, at one of the large tables. Against the bright lights of the stage, he couldn’t make out details like what she wore or the color of her hair. What was so arresting was her stillness. Absolute stillness, her eyes completely focused on him.

It wasn’t the fact that she was watching him that turned him on. Hell, he was used to that. Nor did the seemingly stunned expression of burgeoning sexual arousal differentiate her from the hundreds of women who’d watched him in the past.

What made this woman so distinctive was the awe and respect in her gaze as she watched his performance.

His cock twitched and jerked. Just knowing this woman watched made him hard. He couldn’t remember the last time something like that had happened while he performed. If ever.

He glanced at her again and this time, she met his look, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted. Never breaking the connection between them, he began to strip off his pants, rolling his hips in time to the urgent strains of Coltrane’s saxophone. Her eyes were riveted to his body and the growing bulge being revealed inch by inch by his methodical striptease. She licked her lips and Brandon felt another rush of blood to his groin, this time so strong and urgent he nearly missed a step, shifting his weight awkwardly to recenter himself in time to the music.

He’d danced like this, stripped like this, hundreds of times, and he’d never gotten so carried away. Or so turned on. The fantasy he inhabited seemed, in this suspended moment, startlingly real. As if they were alone in an otherwise empty room and his teasing movements were only a lead-up to the inevitable. A private erotic prelude that made them both horny and aroused, so that when they finally touched, when he finally kissed her tight nipples and let his fingers slide into her slick cleft, stringing her along on the edge of orgasm before sinking his desperate cock into her welcoming pussy, it would be electric.

The frantic hooting of the women around the stage brought him back to reality. Christ, he’d gotten rock-hard, lost in his fantasy, without even realizing it. Because for those few stolen moments, his performance hadn’t felt fake at all. His pants dropped away and he picked them up in time to the music.
Get a grip, man.
Brandon chided himself for getting so carried away. But as he moved to dance away across the stage, the urge to let her know he’d seen her watching and felt the connection, however momentary, overcame him.

He winked.

Leanne wasn’t sure whether to put her face in her hands or just dive underneath the table. But there was no denying this dancer’s magnetic force and the wild sense of sexual potential that emanated from him. Watching him, she’d even forgotten where she was. For one brief moment, it really had seemed as if they were alone and he stripped just for her.

Strong, defined muscles outlined his chest and arms, his abs tight and firm. His dark blond hair was cut short and his face conveyed a strong reserve Leanne found strangely appealing. Self-contained, even watchful, behind his overtly sexy, chiseled persona. She could relate to that sense of self-containment—she experienced it every day.

But it was more than just his body or his looks, as magnificent as they were. His performance had been truly magnetic. Unlike the dancers who performed earlier in the night, there’d been an ease and fluidity to his movements. He didn’t just move to the music, he played a duet with his body. And for a few moments, he’d been dancing just for her.

Wishful thinking.
For pro like him, his job depended on making every woman feel special, but still…The need to see him again overwhelmed her. She wanted to know if the crazy thrumming sensation he’d fired up low in her belly was a fluke or if it could be magnified, taken further. Maybe, if she—

“Did you see him?” Gillian’s throaty whisper interrupted Leanne’s fevered planning. “He couldn’t take his eyes off me.”

“Y-you?” A shiver of apprehension threaded through Leanne’s gut as she came down to earth with a crash.

Was Gillian right? Had she totally misunderstood his intentions? After all, what guy would be interested in her, with Gillian sitting only feet away? And on the heels of that lowering thought, another, more bitter one.
Why does she always get the good guys?

Gillian peered at Leanne scornfully. “Well, duh. The guy was sporting a total hard-on. I’m sure they jerk off before they come on stage to maximize their take and all but you could totally see it when he tore off his pants.” She paused, considering. “You know, maybe I should hire him for my own private performance. It’s not like the ring’s on my finger yet.”

The bridesmaids tittered but Leanne felt deflated.

“You’re getting married,” she argued, struggling to be heard above the music. “You’d jeopardize that by fooling around with some guy you met in a strip club?

Gillian shrugged. “Right. Like Jeremy won’t take it while he can still get it.” She turned back to the stage and peered at Brandon. “He’s yummy and totally hung. So what if he’s just some himbo dancer? This is my night. And what I want, I get.”

In a burst of determined activity, she opened her purse and extracted a business card.

Leanne watched as she quickly scrawled a note on the back. She was too far away to read what it said but it wasn’t hard to guess its contents. She bit her lip to stay silent when Gillian called over one of the servers and held out the card between manicured nails.

“Could you see that my note gets to the dancer who’s on stage right now? I’d like to talk with him after the performance and was hoping he’d have a little time to spare me.” The waiter nodded and Gillian slipped the card—and some cash—into his front breast pocket. The whole party watched as the young man wove his way through the tables, toward the door marked Employees Only.

Gillian smiled and smoothed her flawless hair before whipping out a compact to daub her nose with powder. Shame her morals weren’t as perfect as her makeup, because there was no compact big enough to hide those flaws. Turning back to the stage, Gillian watched the dancer possessively, a tight, predatory smirk on her enhanced lips while the rest of the hen party tittered and gossiped.

Leanne’s heart sank. When it came down to it, she didn’t like Gillian. She never had. She’d seen firsthand how she lied and manipulated the people around her to get whatever she wanted. Over the years, Gillian decided rules of fair play and honesty only applied to other less deserving people, not her. She played up her beauty and her delicate blond appeal for all it was worth—and in Gillian’s mind it was worth an amazing amount. To date, it seemed as though she was right, because she’d never been called to account for her flagrant transgressions and grandstanding. But Leanne liked Jeremy. He was, despite his wealth and family connections, a good guy, straight-up and honest. And for some unknown reason, he was crazy about Gillian.

Personally, Leanne thought he could do better marrying just about anyone else. But she wasn’t comfortable sitting by and doing nothing while Gillian planned out-and-out infidelity. Maybe if she appealed to the dancer’s better nature, she could stop this whole mess from going any further. If not…Well, at least she would have tried. She’d learned the hard way that Gillian didn’t brook open defiance of her dictates, but that didn’t mean she had to abdicate her own standards either. She just had to go about it more subtly this time.

“Excuse me. I—I have to go to the washroom.” Their eyes fixed on Gillian’s anticipated conquest, no one at the table even bothered looking up when Leanne grabbed her purse and hurried toward the door that led backstage.

A quick glance assured her that the bouncers were occupied at the entrance and the bartenders were overrun with drink orders. Now all she had to do was convince the dancer not to take Gillian up on her offer. Then she could leave and her awful night would finally be over.

Backstage was a rabbit’s warren of small rooms and dimly lit corridors. Leanne discovered the cleaning supplies, bar stock and the mechanical room before she finally located the door with a handwritten sign marked Dressing Room.

Pushing it open, Leanne found herself in a tiny room with makeshift counters and a motley collection of furniture, including a battered sofa that bore years of wear and tear and a small fridge that hummed noisily in the silence. Along one wall, above the worn countertop, someone had hung a bank of mirrors and above them, a row of small globe lights. They were off and a single fluorescent fixture illuminated the utilitarian space.

Gillian’s business card was propped up against the mirror, next to a small radio handset and a neatly folded pile of street clothes.

Moving quickly, Leanne pocketed the card but not before reading the note Gillian had penned on the backside.

I like what I see and I’d be happy to make it worth your while if you’re willing to show me more. G.

Ugh. Leanne couldn’t imagine propositioning any man as baldly as Gillian had—she really did have no qualms about going after anything she wanted, did she?

Refusing to get side-tracked by her nemesis’s amorality, she crammed the note in her pocket. She hurried back to the door and opened it a crack. A thunderous round of applause and whistles reverberated from the stage. She slammed it shut. His set must be over. She had to act quickly or she was going to have a hard time explaining her presence here. To Brandon or Gillian, for that matter. Leanne being hauled out by bouncers wasn’t something that would escape Gillian’s notice, no matter how many fruity drinks she’d consumed. And if she learned of Leanne’s interference, there’d undoubtedly be hell to pay.

Yet even as escape plans tumbled through her mind, she remembered the torturous sense of excitement she’d felt watching Brandon perform. How her body had responded to the mere promise of his sexual prowess. And experienced a fleeting moment of regret that she hadn’t been able to talk to him after all.

Only in her wildest dreams could she ever imagine seducing a total stranger, but she would have liked a chance to see if the peculiar magnetism he’d exerted on her body had been real or just a fiction of her overheated, under stimulated body.

Well
, she thought wryly, turning the doorknob once more,
on the bright side, at least I have a new star in my vibrator-induced fantasies…

Offstage, Brandon shrugged into his robe and made his way back to the dressing room. He’d forgotten the rush of dancing in front of a live audience. They’d been jazzed up tonight, calling him back for two encores.

Pausing outside the green room, he thought about going back on stage again more regularly. Fact was, he’d missed it. Not every night, of course. But once in a while…It might be fun.

He opened the door, still distracted by the idea of a return to the stage, and stepped inside, eager to change.

And plowed into a warm, softly scented body.

His arms came up and he felt the whoosh of her breath as he knocked her back into the room. He came to a screeching halt just inside the door.

“I’m sorry,” he said, tightening his hands around her torso to stabilize her, and got his second shock in as many seconds. Whoever he’d flattened definitely wasn’t June. The woman squirmed free of his hold and knelt to gather the small purse she’d dropped in the collision. She looked up from her knees, meeting his eyes reluctantly. He did a double take.

Holy crap!
The girl from the floor. His brain seized at the sight of her face, his voice harsher than intended. “What are you doing in here? This is off-limits to patrons.”

Standing now, tucking her purse over her shoulder, she licked soft, pink lips and grimaced. “Looking for the ladies room?”

He scoffed and she blushed, the scorching color rising across her cheeks at the obvious untruth. His eyes swept over her, taking her in. Pretty, in an understated sort of way. Her shoulder length hair curled around her heart-shaped face, and just a hint of makeup highlighted her features. Not tall, but the way she held herself gave the impression of height. She had great legs, shown off to good effect by a knee-length denim skirt and a pair of tall black boots. Her sweater revealed a few details he hadn’t been able to make out from the stage, namely some seriously tempting curves.

Understated but classy. And appealing as hell.

“You should have turned left at the bar about three hallways ago,” he chided, trying to marshal his face into an appropriately stern expression.

She was looking at him a little unsteadily, two bright spots of color on her cheeks. He tried to take heart from the fact that she wasn’t as composed as she appeared at first glance.

“Look,” he continued when it was obvious she wasn’t going to tell him why she was there, “I don’t do private dances, so you need to leave.”

Another flush of color rose across her pale cheeks. Her eyes sparkled, whether from embarrassment or disappointment he couldn’t tell. But the deep blush set off her dark hair beautifully. He swallowed and tightened the belt of his robe. Given that five minutes ago he’d been next door to naked in front of two hundred women, he knew his newfound modesty was ridiculous, but he still felt underdressed.