Sienna was trying to convince herself to pull back, but she kept stepping forward. The little break away with Asher would be good. She needed space, air to breathe, and time to reaffirm her resolve.
This was what she told herself as she inched toward the edge of the stage, slowly unzipping her cat suit, revealing her glimmering skin and cleavage, the flaps opening right to the edge of her nipples, exposing the firmness of her side cleavage. With her teeth nipping her bottom lip, her gaze somewhat down, her lashes covering her eyes, she gave one more zipper pull and her suit was now all the way open.
There was nothing left to the imagination when she flipped her head straight up, her hair whispering through the air and landing back down her back, her sculpted breasts and a tiny see-through thong peeking out from the cat suit left dangling open. Her eyes were open now. Open and staring right into warm brown eyes trained on her. Carson wasn’t taking his gaze off her, and she wasn’t able to move hers from his either.
With their eyes locked, Sienna strutted backward, never taking her sights off the man who was making her body boil with lust and her brain want to seek flight. She kept her baby blues homed in on him as she finished on the pole and the stage went dark.
Sadness swept over Sienna as the darkness stole Carson’s warm expression from her. She was in trouble, big trouble. She had to get away for more than a day. There was a rogue cowboy out there looking for her, and she was falling quickly down the rabbit hole when it came to Carson.
Her trouble was bigger than she thought as she headed backstage. This was a time to be clear-headed, not in a Carson-induced fog.
“Hey, Sie. Wait up!” Mike said as she zipped her cat suit back up and headed straight toward her dressing room.
“Hey, Mike, what’s up?”
Mike frowned, and hung his head. “Listen, your guy wants to come back and see you. He came and found me because he saw me watching you, and he asked me to bring him back after your dance. Shit, I’m sorry to even bug you with this, but I thought you’d want to know after you went to lunch with him.”
“No, that’s cool. I just don’t know what to do. I sort of like him, but I don’t know what he sees in me other than what he just saw onstage. Plus, I don’t really want to be involved with someone right now.”
“Sienna, honey,” Mike rumbled in a low voice. “If he only liked what he saw in the show, he wouldn’t want to come back and visit. He would be hightailing it out of here to jerk one off. Let him come back and chat…that is, if you like him. Nothing wrong with that.” His tough-guy expression lightened up and he placed a hand gently on her shoulder, turning her to face him directly.
She gave it a moment’s thought, then said, “Sure. Give me fifteen and bring him back. You can post Billy at the door. Tell him I’ll knock if I need him.”
“Sure thing, Sie.” Mike grinned big-time.
Sienna was panting by the time she made it the few paces back to her dressing room, and it wasn’t from dancing. She was out of breath thinking about Carson and his sexy forearms.
Forearms, really?
His forearms and his eyes and his big muscles and the dimple. She shouldn’t see him, but she wanted to more than anything in her life. So she was going to take the risk and see him because she couldn’t battle her heart anymore. She wasn’t strong enough, had never felt anything close to this, and by God, she wanted to experience it.
While tossing off her shoes and changing into yoga pants and a white tank, Sienna heard a knock on her door. She looked out and found Billy standing there with Carson. Something heavy hit her chest. Nothing exactly tangible, and definitely not a feeling she’d ever felt before, but it was strong nonetheless. It was a mixture of excitement, anxiety, bottomless lust, and most of all, an enormous gutting sense of being overwhelmed.
She put up a finger and motioned for them to wait a minute, then shut her door. Leaning back against the door once it was closed, allowing the hard wood to cool her off while taking deep breaths, Sienna told herself everything was going to be just fine. She was in charge, and although she obviously was having trouble controlling her emotions, ultimately, she had this. This was good, despite feeling like her heart was about to crash head-on with who was standing outside her door.
She took a sip of water to calm herself, then reopened the door and motioned for Carson to step inside.
“I’ll be out here if you need me, Sienna,” Billy said and nodded.
“Thanks, Billy,” she said while shutting the door.
“Hi. Sorry I asked someone to be at the door, but Mike and Asher wouldn’t allow it otherwise, and I didn’t feel like arguing,” she said very softly to Carson. Overcome with shyness all of a sudden, Sienna didn’t know what to say next.