Beauty From Pain (Beauty 1)

He watches me a second before he says anything. “I was just wondering if, when you’re back home and you’ve become a huge success, if you’ll write a number-one hit about us?”

“I really hope not.”

“Why not?” He sounds offended. Or disappointed.

I watch my fingers strum the strings so my eyes don’t have to meet his. I don’t want to see them when I explain. “Because the best songs are written from the heart and the emotions you feel must be one extreme or the other. I’d have to be desperately in love or devastatingly hurt by you.”

Lachlan settles back onto the couch and kicks off his shoes, casually propping his feet on the coffee table. “Have you ever experienced either of those things?”

“I’ve never been desperately in love.”

“Does that mean you’ve been devastatingly hurt?”

I think of Blake and the way I felt when I found out he was married. “I’ve been hurt and it felt shattering at the time.”

“I don’t think you can’t have one without the other, so the two must coincide.”

He sounds like he knows a little something about love and pain. “Is that your opinion because you’ve experienced both?”

He laughs loudly and I look up from my guitar. “Hell, no. I’ve never been in love, so no one has ever hurt me.”

How is it possible that someone as beautiful as Lachlan has never had that experience? “You’ve never even thought you might be in love?”

“Never. What about you?”

Blake is in my thoughts again, reminding me just how wrong a person can be when it comes to love. “I thought I was in love once, but I was dead wrong.”

“I’m guessing he’s the one you were telling me about last night?”

I almost forgot about that. “Yeah, that would be him.”

“Did you ever dance for him?”

That came out of left field. “No. I never even told him I did it.”

Lachlan gets up from the couch. He grabs my wrist, pulling me to his side, and sets my guitar in its case. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

He leads me to the gym and stops outside the door. “This is why Mike was here. He was installing this for you.” He opens the door and I see a shiny new pole toward the back wall. I cross the room and touch it before I look at Lachlan and smile.

Damn, he wasn’t kidding. He freakin’ installed a pole for me. Or for him.

“I want you to dance for me.” He opens one of the cabinet doors and takes out a box. “And I want you to wear this while you do it.”

I lift the top to find a black one-piece romper inside. The sides of the waist are cut out, leaving only a thin strip to cover me down the middle between the top and bottom. It’s hot and not like anything I’ve worn while dancing. When I take it out of the box, I have another surprise underneath: a pair of red f**k-me pumps. I hold one up—they look like they’ll fit me perfectly.

He swallows hard. “Will you do it for me?”

I know in that moment that I’ll never be able to tell him no to anything. I want to be the woman to make his fantasies real. “Yes, I’ll do it.”

He leans forward to kiss me and catches my bottom lip between his. “Now?”

“If it’s what you want.”

“Oh, it’s what I want.”

“But I need a minute to get ready.”

“Absolutely.”

I take the box from his hands and go to his bedroom. I quickly line my eyes with black kohl and make them smoky with gray and black eyeshadow before adding a fresh coat of mascara to make my lashes extra lush. My hair is windblown from riding in the convertible, so I brush it out before I flip my head over and fluff it with the hair dryer. I leave it down because I like it to cascade when I’m upside down on the pole.

I slip into the romper and damn, is it ever skimpy. There’s way less of it covering me once I get into it because it’s stretched so taunt from my shoulders to my crotch. I put the pumps on and give them a test drive as I walk circles in the bathroom. I wouldn’t want to walk too many blocks in these tall-ass things, but they’ll be fine for what I’m going to do.

I inspect myself in the mirror. I’m hot as hell and it boosts my confidence to an all-time high. I’m about to make Lachlan’s fantasy a reality.

I go to the gym and wonder where he is. I ease the door open and see him sitting in a chair facing the pole. He’s waiting for me with all the lights off except the ones over the area where I’ll be dancing. I walk up behind him and lean around to whisper in his ear. “Close your eyes.”

I connect my phone to the receiver in the cabinet by Bluetooth because I need to use my own music. The deep, dark thumping bass of “Angel” by Massive Attack begins and I put it on repeat because I expect this performance to run long.

I take my place by the pole and inhale deeply before I start my performance. “You can open your eyes now.”

When he sees me, he begins to smile. Big time.

I turn my back to him and reach over my head to grasp the pole. I slowly bend my knees and slide my bottom down it and then back up again as I peer over my shoulder at him. I circle with slow agility and hold the post with one hand as I step out and whirl around a few times. It’s total amateur stuff until I kick my leg up and over to lock the pole behind my knee and climb the brass staff while swiveling upward.

I do a series of elaborate spins and stunts that took years to master. When I finish the lengthy routine, I’m upside down. I reach for the floor with my palms and spin several times before dismounting. I look at Lachlan when I stand and I’m not sure he has even blinked since I started.

The music is still playing and I walk to where he is sitting. The song playing is one of my favorites to dance to because it’s bizarre and almost hypnotic. I love the way it makes me feel, like I want to lose control and do strange things.

“Baby, you’ve f**ked my mind without touching my body.”

I turn my back and smile as I lower my bottom to give him a lap dance. He grabs my hips and I swat his hands away. “You know the rules. You can’t touch the dancer.”

He sits all the way back in the chair and I take a seat on his lap with my legs spread on each side of his thighs. I put my hands into my hair and lift it from my neck. I lean against him with my back to his chest and let it fall into his face. I’m torturing him. I know this, but it’s all part of the fantasy.