Love the Way You Lie(6)

“Just my mother, as far as I know.” He gives a rueful smile like I’ve disarmed him. Which only proves he came here armed. “I’m just glad I got Kipling and not Rudyard.”

I like him this way. More open. Less threatening. It eases me enough that I run my hands down his chest, drawing a shudder from him. “Did you grow up with Mowgli and Baloo?”

“Until I was sick of them,” he says. “I had a big book, the kind you can only find in a garage sale. The paper yellow and the binding turning to string.”

“It sounds lovely.” My hands play lower—at the flat, hard plane at the bottom of his abs. Strippers often chat up the customers. Some of them come for more than a rub down. They want to talk, to flirt. They want to use us like therapists and then fuck us after. It’s a kind of foreplay.

I tell myself that’s why I’m talking to this man. No other reason. Not because I want to.

“It was,” he says, “at the time. I’d get lost in them. I wanted to go live in the jungle.”

“And then you grew up and realized you were already there.”

His smile is pleased and sly. He likes this. “Is that where we are? The jungle?”

“The ground is made of concrete and the trees are full of glass. But there are snakes here. There are hunters.”

“I thought it was just a story,” he says lightly.

“Stories are powerful.” They’re life and death. They’re survival. There wasn’t much to do locked up in my room except read. And dance. I am a world away from that life, but that still holds true. I still spend most of my time reading and dancing.

And I’m still locked up, in a different way.

He looks too curious for my comfort. “So what stories do you tell?” he murmurs.

I shrug, for all the world nonchalant. “Same old story. Broken home. Ran away. Now I’m a stripper.”

It’s a sanitized version of the truth.

He frowns, uncertain, a furrow between his eyes. It makes him look younger than his scruff and his swagger and his size would indicate. Not like he feels sorry for me, though. Instead he looks like I’m a puzzle. Something to figure out.

The VIP room is really a miniature of the Grand. And his lap is my stage. His thighs are solid beneath my ass. I’m sitting, legs spread, arms at my side, chin up—totally open to him. It’s dark here, but designed so he can look at my body up close. Except he’s not looking at my body. He’s looking at my eyes, and it almost takes my breath away, the wildness I glimpse in his.

And I need to take this spotlight off me. “So what do you want, Kip? What do you like?”

Dark lashes hide his eyes. “I’d like your real name.”

“It’s not for sale.” And I’m still not sure why I wanted to tell him. It had almost slipped out. He’s like a truth serum to me, and that’s the most dangerous thing of all.

“Honey—”

“I’m here because you’re paying me,” I say, desperate to push him away. Desperate to hide. “Don’t forget that.”

He looks at me, and I watch his eyes harden. I can see the branches and brambles that he grows between us, feel the thorns where they push me out. He wants to dislike me. He wants to hate me. I don’t know why, but I recognize the cold, hollow feeling in my gut when he looks at me. And I brace myself.

“You want to know what I like?” His gaze roams leisurely over my body. Then he looks me in the eye. “I want to fuck you, Honey. That’s what I’d like.”

My eyes fall shut. What is that feeling inside me? Relief? Disgust? It feels almost like gratitude. He wants to fuck, like every other guy wants. He’s not here to expose my identity, not here to drag me back. He just wants to get his rocks off.

“That’s not for sale either. I’m here to dance, to shake my tits. To rub them against you. That’s it.”

His eyes narrow. He doesn’t like how crude I’m being. He knows it’s a weapon I’m wielding, but he’s not injured. He’s fighting back. Oh yes, there is something wild left in him. If he were in the jungle now, I’m not so sure he’d be the boy. He’s much more likely a panther. Dangerous. A predator. “Hands or mouth, your choice.”

“I said no.”

“These rooms aren’t just for dancing. I know that as well as you.”

Yes, these rooms are for more than dancing, but that doesn’t mean I do more. I don’t have to, especially if I don’t like the way the man treats me. That’s a rule Ivan has for us. A twisted form of protection. I start to leave, but his hand squeezes the back of my neck. I grow still.