About That Night...

She breathed deeply, committing to this course, knowing that once she stepped down this path she’d be obligated to follow where it led. Turning back would only be a disappointment for her, and for him, though she knew Nick’s emotional psyche wasn’t riding on tonight’s outcome.

Hers was. She needed to know she was capable of passion. Tonight was her chance to prove it. Pushing all doubts from her mind, she tugged the jacket down her arms with trembling fingers.

The music faltered, fading away and not resuming until after what sounded suspiciously like a growl.

Dropping the jacket, Julienne nudged it aside with the toe of her pump, never stopping her sinuous motions. She let her eyes drift closed and her arms float up. In lithe, airy measures, she lifted them above her head, caressing the air, giving Nick a glimpse of bare skin and the promise of more to come.

Twisting to the side, she arched her back so her leg peeked through the slit in her dress and was rewarded with another stutter in the music, which had grown higher in pitch, strained.

With a smile she rocked her hips back and forth in a suggestive motion as old as time, a motion that wrung a response from her own body, dampened the tiny silk string of her panties, made her breasts swell heavily. The long smooth motions of her dance heightened the sensation of leather against silk, of lace against skin.

Naughty girls love to sigh with pleasure.

Julienne had never been more aroused in her life, hadn’t dreamed she could feel this way. And that amazing realization gave her the strength to coil her arms behind her and reach for the top of her zipper. One tug and red leather gaped open to reveal the lace corset below.

The music stopped completely and she waited, waited, but it didn’t resume. She was left to dance alone to the sound of Nick’s breathing and the beat of her own boldness. Arching her back, she lifted her breasts to the rafters, felt the lace ride upward along her torso, the garters tug the stockings up her thighs.

She let her dress drop to the floor.

“Ah, beautiful,” Nick choked the words out on a groan, his passion echoing through the theater, resonating through her.

Stepping out of the puddle of red leather, she swung her hair back and shimmied around, needing to see his face, to gauge his reaction to the sight she must make, dancing in her very sexy underthings on a stage in an empty theater for a man who was practically a stranger.

She couldn’t have imagined his expression if she’d tried. There was nothing tepid about his look, a look that declared there was nothing tepid about her. His look was lust, pure and simple.

He lusted for her.

Julienne’s reaction had everything to do with knowing Nick wanted her, of witnessing the profound appreciation on his handsome face, a feeling of being so very beautiful to this man in this moment that each breath tasted sweeter.

She’d been praised throughout her youth for her intelligence and skill, lauded during her accelerated academic career, but this feeling, this feeling was all about being a beautiful, desirable woman who had a night of opportunity at hand with a hot-blooded man.

A world of opportunity, judging by the hunger she saw when Nick extended his hand, beckoned her nearer.

“Come here, Jules.” His harsh whisper shot across the distance between them, filled her with the strength of his longing, made her tremble in response to such raw honesty. “I’ve been watching you move, watching you expose your beautiful body and I want to touch you. You look like sex.”

His eyes, glazed and heavy-lidded, fixed on her, captured her with the potency of his words. “Can you imagine my hands on you, Jules? I want to slide them down your creamy neck and along your shoulders. I want to free your breasts and touch them. Can you imagine my mouth on your nipples?”

Julienne’s stomach swooped in on itself at his hot words, a longing, desperate pull of sensation that made her gasp. “Yes.”

“Then come here. Let me touch you. Let me pleasure you.”

His blond hair was a pale shock in the darkness, his words bridging the distance between them, his words a promise that set her into motion with hip-swaying steps that fired his expression even hotter.

He caught her wrist, his fingers tightening around her like a vice as pulled her toward him. “Hop on. I’ll help you.”