Bought for Her Innocence

Her fingers found his mouth and traced the seam with such a possessive touch. Expelling a harsh breath, he forced himself to relax. He never invited the woman he slept with to touch him, never lingered in the moment after seeing to their pleasure and his own. “Because it was that good.” Her long lashes cast shadows over her cheeks as she struggled to keep her eyes open. “Tomorrow, I swear, Dmitri, you can have whatever you want,” she offered magnanimously, as if she was a goddess granting boons.

He wanted to tell her she had already given him something precious—her trust. But he kept the words to himself. “You can, instead, answer my question now,” he said, wondering anew at how at ease she had been with her body.

Theos, the woman was like a sensual missile, and thinking that about her made him think of her with other men and right now, he didn’t want to go there.

It seemed being in bed with Jas meant every thought he had left him feeling either raw or uncertain or both.

“What?” she said, suddenly tense.

“What did you do all these years at Noah’s nightclub, Jas?”

His heart hammered at her continued silence. Propping himself up, he looked at her.

Her shoulders became a rigid line, her gaze not meeting his as she pulled up the duvet to cover herself up.

“Jas, whatever it is—”

“I was a pole dancer in his underground nightclub.”

While Dmitri grappled with that, she met his eyes. Full of fake defiance and shadows of shame, her gaze did nothing to abate the rage building inside him. “A pole dancer?” he repeated, disbelief and fury and guilt all rolling into his tone.

“I jumped in only because one of the girls was sick one day and was terrified of losing the spot. I told myself it was just for one night. Apparently, awful as I was that first night, I was still a huge hit. Guess I owe it to my father for his contribution toward making me look exotic.” Loathing spewed out when she said that word. As if she hated that about her and what it had enabled her to do.

“But the tips, Dmitri, they were ten times what I got waitressing. Suddenly, I could at least dream of leaving that life. I could imagine a different one.” Her voice became small; her entire body scrunched into herself.

Shame, Dmitri realized slowly—that emotion in her voice was shame. Was that why she had hidden the truth from him until now? Why she thought she was beneath him?

If only she knew his roots...

“So I practiced until my legs felt as if they would fall off, until the heretofore unused muscles in my thighs and calves burned as though there were knives lodged inside them, put on mere scraps of lace and took to the stage. I tuned out every man who looked at me as if I was a morsel of meat instead of a woman with wants and fears, I loathed myself a thousand times for every night I went up there, but I did it.

“I was an instant super hit.”

He blinked to clear the haze of red that covered his vision. “So what did Noah threaten you with that you came to me finally?”

She flinched, her gaze shying away from him again. “In the past year, I went from the side to center stage, and the show went from a huge floor show to an outrageously expensive, custom show.

“Suddenly, the men I’d tuned out all along were too close, their hands pawing me, their comments and their looks getting worse and worse. Noah, unwilling to lose their business, relaxed the security. So in the guise of congratulating me, they kept cornering me everywhere I turned after the show. Even then, I somehow managed.

“Until...he said customers were asking for personal performances. That they were willing to pay upward of thousands for one dance, that they wanted me to get more familiar with them... Some of the girls told me it wasn’t that bad, that they made more money... But all I could see was turning into my mother, hating myself for the rest of my life, falling for one of those men who didn’t even know the real me, deluding myself that one of them would actually want me for something more than a quick...

“I couldn’t bear to do it. I didn’t have the guts to see it through anymore. It just felt as if I would never ever get out of that life if I stayed any longer. There was only so much I was willing to do to repay Andrew’s debt.”

Men, driven by lust and hunger, leering and pawing at her, because the kind of club that Noah owned wouldn’t be anything like the one he had just acquired... The picture her words painted nauseated him. He shot out of the bed, his blood boiling, his emotions raw.

She sat up in the bed, her hair mussed up, her expression so vulnerable that it caught at his chest.