Striptease. Alison Kent

she’d positioned to cast her shadow onto the wall. Her silhouette faced that of the glass sculpture in a mirrored pose, the sculpture she’d brought home from work and placed on the bar stool. The shadow of the pole ran down the wall in a line between the other two shadows.

      Jacob’s fascination with the female nude had inspired her, had made her want to show him that she was much more than the single fraction of her personality he’d seen. His harping-shrew video of her was totally skewed. As skewed as the sexed-up version she was about to make.

      Satisfied with the placement of the shadows, she closed her eyes, splayed her fingers low on her belly and got into the music. Feeling it first with her head and her shoulders, she nodded and swayed to the bass in the beat. She kept her eyes closed as her torso began to move and the first tingling waves of excitement tickled the base of her spine.

      Whenever she danced, she forgot everything but her body. Her brain lost all ability to handicap sensation and she melted into what felt like pure liquid motion. She felt that way now, sliding her hands from her thighs to her knees, dipping forward before raising her arms overhead with sinuous grace, stretching high, grasping for something that remained out of reach.

      Something like Jacob Faulkner.

      Instead she took hold of the pole.

      The thought of Jacob brought another tingle, this one centered lower in her body, deep between her legs. Slowly, she got to her feet, shoulders rolling side to side as she pushed up from the floor, her hands sliding high on the pole again. She turned, faced the room and arched her back, tilting up her pelvis and lifting one knee waist high.

      Oh, yeah. She loved the feel of her body when she danced. The stretch of muscles, the pull of tendons, the strength in her abs and her arms. So sensual, so…sexy. An arousing awareness of all the things that made her a woman. The very things she wanted Jacob to know.

      Swaying to the music’s rhythm, she spun to face the pole and hooked her knee behind it. She secured her hold with one hand and leaned back, the fingers of her free hand brushing the floor before she slowly rolled back up. Her lower body undulating, she twined both legs around the pole, moved her hands to the hem of her cropped T-shirt and pulled it over her head.

      She still wore her bra, the lacy push-up cups giving her the figure she wished she had naturally. The figure her mind’s eye pictured Jacob seeing. And wanting. Desperately wanting and aching to touch.

      She smoothed her hands up her stomach to her breasts, cupping their light weight and tossing her head back with the pleasure invoked by imagining his hands covering hers. His hands moving to her shoulders and pulling down the straps of her bra.

      She left them dangling there and turned to face the wall, taking in the shadowed ridge of material against her arms as her body continued to sway. Oh, but she wished she could see his face when he watched her undress just for him.

      While her own nerve endings prickled and teased, she wondered how dark his eyes would grow, how hot they would flash, how long it would take him to get hard. How hard he would get. She wanted to stand behind him, run her hands from his shoulders to his wrists, wrap her arms around his waist and slide her palms down the bulge behind his fly.

      Instead, she slipped her fingers between her own legs, pressing and pulling slowly up the front seam of her leggings until she reached the elastic waistband.

      Then she began to sweat.

      She felt the first buzz along her hairline, the second between her breasts. She imagined the feel of Jacob’s mouth nuzzling her there, breathing in the scent of her skin perfumed with nothing but arousal. Her breathing quickened.

      She wanted to cup his head close, to guide his mouth to her taut nipples still covered by padded lace, to thread her fingers into his hair, which she knew had to be the texture of exquisite silk…

      …as would be the soft skin between his legs that covered his testicles, and the skin drawn tight along the shaft and over the head of his penis. She moaned deeply in the back of her throat, where she imagined holding him, sucking him.

      She wanted to take him as far into her mouth as he wanted to go. Her groan became a desperate whimper and, as she shimmied off her leggings and kicked them into a corner of the room, she imagined her tongue swirling up and down and around his cock.

      She was unbelievably wet. The scent of her arousal was musky and mingled with that of the sheen of clean sweat now covering her skin. She stood in nothing but her bra and bikini panties. Even the soles of her feet were damp against the hardwood floor. The music swept her along, the notes reminiscent of the feel of hot sex, erotically potent, electrically charged.

      She reached back and released the catch of her bra, all too aware that the video continued to capture her every move. Moves she’d never anticipated, spurred on by feelings she’d never expected to experience when she’d set her plan into motion.

      She’d gone too far to stop, but she was not about to share the rest of this intimate dance. As the soft ivory satin and lace slipped from her arms to the floor, she took hold of the pole, swinging around and switching off the videotape.

      She watched the garment fall in shadow, realizing that would be the last movement Jacob would see. But she continued to watch. To watch and to imagine that Jacob was doing the same. That he was watching, was touching, was the one bringing his hands to her breasts, tugging at her nipples. Oh, how she wished for his mouth.

      With her bottom lip caught between her teeth, she massaged and kneaded until her touch became unbearable and her arousal equally in need of relief. She spread her legs, her hips working the music’s rhythm, rocking left, right, pumping forward, back. Bending at the waist, she drew her hands from her ankles to the crease where her hips met her thighs. And then, hooking her fingers into the elastic leg openings, she tugged her panties down and stood there, totally uninhibited and completely nude.

      She splayed her hands over her abdomen, sweeping her palms down over the soft line of dark hair until she captured her swollen clit between the tips of her index fingers. She couldn’t help it; she cried out, the pressure sending her close to the edge. But she wasn’t ready to come. Not until she’d imagined Jacob’s deeper exploration.

      She reached between her legs, her flesh swollen and bare, soft and sensitive beneath her practiced stroke. This is how I like it, she wanted him to know. Right here, softly, touch me, tease me, circle here, then slip inside. And she did, crying out at the penetration of one finger, then two.

      She moved to the music and to Jacob’s imagined caress. Her body responded, and she took herself over, shuddering, shivering, wishing, oh, how she wished Jacob were here to physically finish what his image had started. Instead, she finished herself, released a final trembling sigh and pulled her hand from her body with a last lingering touch.

      Several deep breaths later, she doused the hot lights, stopped the music and ejected the tape from the camera. Then she slipped back into her clothes. Jacob wouldn’t be in the office again until Monday, she realized, tugging up her leggings. That gave her time to concoct a clever comeback should he ask her what she was trying to prove.

      She wanted to watch the tape, to see what he was going to see, but knew she’d never have the guts to send it off if she witnessed herself baring all. No, she thought, tucking the tape into the padded mailer she’d addressed earlier.

      As much as she’d rather have Jacob discover the rest of her personality’s facets one-on-one, he’d made the first move in this sex, lies and videotape business.

      Her striptease was simply move number two.

      IF NOT FOR THE CHANCE to spend time with Renata, Jacob wouldn’t have come. It was August in Houston, and it was too friggin’ hot for a cookout. Damn fool thing to do, he grumbled, forgetting where he’d put his cajones. That particular forgetfulness made it hard not to be whipped and dragged around by Chloe’s sugary-sweet pleas.

      He grumbled again and exited the Southwest Freeway into the historical neighborhood where she and Eric lived. The woman had better make good on her promise of free-flowing beer. That was all he