Until now.
She shivered.
She should have been shuddering in revulsion. What kind of man went to a strip joint to get his jollies anyway? Only the lowest sort. The sort that couldn’t get a woman any other way perhaps?
But that man could easily get a woman. Hell, he could have almost had her.
She barely held back her moan of mortification, aware that Dyson was already watching her with an edge of violence in his expression.
And here she had taken such pride in the fact that unlike her friends, she was not ruled by her hormones. She did not come unglued by pesky desires. She controlled her needs, not the other way around.
Well, she had sure as hell come unglued today.
And those pesky desires? They were torturing her, wetting her expensive French lace panties and causing her clit to throb and beg for more. Just one more hard breath. Just one more of those pulsing, heat-radiating little climaxes that only made her hungrier.
She pressed her thighs together, wincing at the incredible sensitivity of her swollen clit. Right where he had breathed on her. Where his breath had touched her. It might as well have been his fingers, the results had been so devastating.
He was bad to the bone. She had seen it in what little of his expression had been visible. His eyes had been hidden by the dark glasses, but his lips . . . She licked her own lips. Those lips had been expressive. Full of sensual hunger, but with a restrained, taut appearance that suggested utter control over himself and his environment. His muscles had been tense, his body restrained. Like a panther coiled and ready to spring.
She could have sworn she heard him growl at one point.
Oh God, this is so not good. So not good, she thought as she pulled at the long jacket she had literally stolen from the dressing room. She would have to mail it back to Cherry. But she couldn’t have taken the time to find her clothes. To actually dress. He had jumped for her, started to chase her. There had just been no time.
She cranked up the air conditioner further, hoping to alleviate some of the heat burning inside her body, and pushed back the regret tearing through her even as she ignored Dyson’s further mutterings.
The ultimate bad boy. The man of her sexual fantasies, and she had no choice but to run from him.
This was a wake-up call. A warning, she decided. Fate was telling her to watch herself because she was beginning to step into dangerous territory. That wannabe slut that tried to run rampant inside her needed to be reined in before she messed up beyond any possible chance of repair.
Because God help her if she actually went to bed with a man like that. Her heart was the least of what could be broken.
Breathing in deeply, she had to forcibly remind herself that she was safe. Her suddenly traitorous hormones might be going crazy, but there was no way the bad boy with sizzling breath was ever going to find her.
Cherry didn’t know her real name. Neither did the owner of the club. She was confident there wasn’t a chance in hell she was ever going to meet him again.
She ignored her hormones’ howl of regret. They could just chill out and forget it. She could dream of bad boys. She could write about them. Well, try to write about them anyway. But in real life . . . Well, a person had to realize reality started somewhere. Right?
She wiped the sweat off her brow as she turned to look at Dyson. He was pulling his cell phone from the clip on his belt.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling your father.” For the first time since he had moved into her home his expression was almost interesting. It was stamped with male arrogance and command. A little bit too late, but it was there.
“Why?”
“Because he needs to have a talk with you. I’ve had enough of this—” He froze when the Trailblazer swerved with a jerk, then righted itself, his narrowed gaze piercing into her.
“Nothing happened,” she stated calmly. “I got spooked. That’s all.”
“Spooked taking dancing lessons?” he snapped.
“No, spooked giving a lap dance,” she stated calmly.
The silence that filled the Trailblazer then was scary. She risked another glance at him. He was staring back at her with a cold, assessing gaze.
“There was no one there but the club owner, that dancer, and two bouncers,” he said with obviously forced control. “I checked.”
“Well, he must have come in after you checked.” She swallowed tightly.