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“Well then. I think this has all been a misunderstanding.” Igor looks at me pointedly. “Take him to the back, Athena. Make sure he has no cause to regret it.”
“Of course.” I nod to Mikhail, gesturing towards the curtain dividing the main floor from the hall leading to the champagne rooms. “This way,sir.”
Natalia
Isee his mouth twitch in a smirk at that, but he follows me as I lead us back. My heart is still pounding in my chest from the near-miss of being let go, as much as Mikhail’s sudden appearance.He paid double,I think, as I push the curtain aside.Maybe there’s something to consider about what Ruby said earlier.
I take him to the first available room, which is bigger than the one we’d ended up in the first time. They’re all roughly laid out the same: stages with half-moon sectionals wrapping around half of the stage, but each has different lighting, and each is a different size, meant to be able to accommodate different party sizes or numbers of dancers. This room lights up a soft pink when I switch the lights on.
The music I pick has a steady, hypnotic beat, and I half expect him to approach me the way he had the first time. As much as he’d paid, Idefinitelyexpect him to try to take advantage.
Instead, he walks past me, going to sit on the couch.
Not just sit. Helounges,sprawling expectantly on the white leather as he watches me, his gaze as predatory as I remember it. I have that feeling of being watched, of being prey, but it doesn’t spark the same fear that I feel when I’m walking home alone.
It should. Iknowthat it should. It’s as if every self-preservation instinct I have switches off when I’m close to him.
In a situation like yours, that’s very, very bad.
I can’t let my guard down, but it feels as if it crumbles when he looks at me. The only way I can seem to keep it up, to stay guarded, is to be angry with him. Most of the time, he doesn’t make that very difficult.
If I make him angry now, though, and he leaves–I’m out of a job. I’m on my last straw with Igor, and I know it.
Even as I think that, though, the possessive gleam in his eyes rouses the same anger I felt in his car, felt on the stage.
Who the fuck do you think you are?
“Just because you paid more doesn’t mean you get more than a dance, you know.” The words tumble out as I stride towards the stage, hips swaying.He likes it when I challenge him. You can push a little. Just don’t offend him too much.
I grab the pole, swinging myself effortlessly up onto the stage. I arch around it, swaying towards him, and I see the heat in his eyes as he watches me, his gaze raking down my body.
“Nothing else was negotiated,” I continue, gazing down from my position on the stage. I let my hands slide up, over my head, arching back against the pole. His gaze slides down, settling between my thighs before it returns to my face, and I see him shift where he sits, clearly aroused already.
He grins, cocking his head to one side. “You look gorgeous in that lingerie,” he says offhandedly, raking his eyes across me again. “How much for you to take italloff as you dance? I want to see you entirely naked, dancing for me. How much will that cost?”
I feel myself flush, heat creeping up my neck and into my cheeks. My first instinct is to tell him no, that I’m here to dance and nothing else. That I work within the rules of the club and nothing else. That he’d be better off finding one of the other girls here.
The words die on my lips as I look at him.I hate you,I think, tangled feelings of anger and jealousy and fear twisting in my chest. No one has ever confused me as much as he does. I have no reason to care if he goes to someone else for favors, but I do. I should want him gone, want to never see him and his arrogant, cocky, all-too-handsome face again, but I find myself considering his proposition.
He could be worth a lot to you.Ruby’s voice echoes in my head, and I hesitate.
“Tell me how much,” he urges, his voice deeper suddenly, silkier.
I suck in a breath and name a figure that seems outrageous to me.He’ll say no.
Mikhail laughs. “Take it down by a quarter, and I’ll agree,” he says, but even as he tries to negotiate with me, I see the lust in his eyes.
He wants this. He wants it badly enough to pay.
“That or nothing,” I tell him, circling the pole, my body swaying in time to the music. “And every time you ask for something more, the price doubles.” As I say it, I hook my fingers in thestraps of my panties, pushing them down a little on my sharp hipbones, rotating as I tease him. “How badly do you want it?”
He laughs again, with real feeling this time. “You drive ahardbargain,” he murmurs, shifting on the couch again, as if my attitude turned him on even more. “Fine. I’ll pay exactly what you asked for. But you strip it all off. Slowly. You let me seeeverything.”
I nod, feeling my heartbeat speed up in my chest.This is a transaction,I tell myself, but it feels like more. The room, large as it is, feels suddenly small and intimate as the music changes to the next track, the beat the tiniest bit slower, still hypnotic and seductive. I swallow hard, my body moving automatically to its rhythm, trained for so long to respond to music as if it were a part of my very blood and bones.
“That’s it,” Mikhail murmurs, his hands flat on the couch on either side of his thighs. “Dance forme, Athena.”
His voice is so low I’m almost not certain I heard him correctly, his words lost in the music. I don’t start to strip at first, moving through the rhythm of the dance first. I run my hands over the pole, wrapping my leg around it as I spin, watching his face heat and tense with anticipation as he waits for me to give him what he bargained for.
