Rumor (Renegades 3.50)

“He came back there red-faced and sweating, with his jeans sporting a bulge as big as a football. Then he tripped over the threshold on his way out the back door, where he stuck his head under the hose.”

She frowned hard. “Is he sick?”

“Yeah, honey.” Jasmine snorted a laugh. “I think it’s called Semen Retention Syndrome. Also known as blue balls.”

“Yeah?” she asked, still unsure.

“Hell, yeah.”

Grace’s worry drained, and a smile quirked her mouth. “Now he knows how I’ve felt all these years.”

Jasmine turned Grace toward the hallway by the shoulder and gave her a gentle push. “Get back there and negotiate some relief for both of you.” She started toward the bar. “I’ve got to go bribe—I mean negotiate—with the staff for the night.”

Grace’s heels clicked on the cement and echoed off the walls as she strode down the hall. In the back, the girls buzzed around the dressing room, gossiping, laughing, and bitching like always.

She found the back door standing open, but the grind of a power saw drew her gaze toward the storeroom. He hadn’t walked out. He was—in his self-described, heavy-handed way—showing her he cared.

As the staff tested the sound system, the muffled boom of music hummed through the walls. She wandered to an empty dressing table in a corner and picked up the padded chair. As an afterthought, she opened one of the drawers and slipped out an Allure condom—also used as business cards, with the dancer’s stage name imprinted on one side and the club name printed on the other—from the box there. In this case, it didn’t matter whose name resided on the foil. If Grace didn’t use it, the promo goodie would return to the drawer.

Looking at the shiny silver package in her palm made her think about Josh getting hard. Made her think about taking his rigid, hot cock in her hand. Made her think about stroking the condom on. And, ultimately, feeling him slide deep inside her.

Her whole body responded to the instantaneous fantasy—muscles tight, temperature rising, pussy aching.

Shrugging into her velvet cape, she tucked the foil square into the waistband at her hip and carried the chair toward the storeroom.

She wandered in and glanced over the hills and valleys of muscle along Josh’s back. He’d taken off his shirt again—praise the gods—and was leaning over a piece of gypsum board, guiding a circular saw through the sheet. A small plume of white billowed behind the saw, and a fine white mist coated his skin.

He finished the cut, turned off the saw, and glanced up. Through the clear goggles, his eyes widened, slipped down her body, then slid away.

“Hey.” He pulled the goggles off and set them on the board, then gestured to the one strip of mirror he’d placed on the longest wall. “I just put a piece of the glass up for you to see before I went on. And I need to know how high you want the dance bar.” His gaze turned to the plans. “After seeing how flexible you are, I think the height called out in here is too low.”

She strolled in, set the chair down facing Josh, and, still standing, bent at the waist and crossed her arms on the curved back. The move made her breasts fall forward and the cape drape open. “I couldn’t care less about the bar’s height at the moment.”

His gaze darted up, immediately lowered from her face to her chest, and slid away again, but not before the fiery burst of lust lit them from within. He cleared his throat. Licked his lips. Turned his back to her. “We can talk about it after you change.”

He wanted her. Not only could she see it in his expression and hear it in the tone of his voice, she felt it in the air—a crackling, thick, hot desire filling the room. She turned and slowly strode to the doors, but instead of leaving, she closed them. Then turned the dead bolt and pressed her back against the wood.

Josh turned with a look of confusion. But as soon as his eyes met hers, a nervous tic pulled at the skin beneath his left eye.

She’d only seen Josh nervous once in all the years they’d known each other—when she’d asked him to move in with her while he recovered from shoulder surgery. The expression he’d had then was the same one he had now, one that said, I-want-that-but…

With determination fueling her steps, Grace started a slow, sexy walk toward him, extending her legs, crisscrossing her boots, holding the I-want-to-fuck-you sultry look she constantly required of the dancers.

“You left before the number was over.” She laid her hand on the gypsum board, toying with the edge with one finger. “Missed the best part of the show.”

He was fighting to keep his gaze on her face, but it kept slipping, and the heat there deepened. “If that’s true,” he said, his voice low and rough, “I’m glad I left when I did, or I would have definitely embarrassed myself.”

She stepped close and purposely met and held his gaze as she pressed the tip of her index finger to the center of his chest. “So…you didn’t hate it.”

She let her gaze follow her finger as she drew the tip upward along his sternum. The barely there white mist cleared to show tanned skin beneath. Then she arched to the left, creating a curve around the top of his pec muscle and dragged her finger down at an angle sharp enough to brush his nipple as she passed. The nub hardened beneath her finger, and Josh sipped a little breath of surprise. She continued in a slow, downward angle until her finger touched the waistband of his jeans. And, yes, there was definitely a substantial bulge there. One she desperately wanted to explore.

/> “Seeing me dance like that doesn’t…I don’t know…disgust you on any level?”

She scraped her lower lip between her teeth and placed the tip of her finger at the original starting point. Then followed her previous pattern, this time, arcing to the right.

“The opposite,” he murmured, voice rough. “Seeing you own that stage is ridiculously hot.”

Her smile deepened, her confidence soared, and with it, her lust broke free, spilling through her body like glitter.