Stripped (22 page)

The song ends, and a female DJ comes on, chatters momentarily, and then breaks my heart. “Goin’ way back for this one, y’all. This is the ever-delicious Tim McGraw with ‘Don’t Take the Girl.’”
 

Mom’s favorite song. I bawl uncontrollably, and I let myself miss her, really miss her, for the first time in months.
 

When I’m done crying, I have to do something, or I’ll fall apart.
 

If I still have a job after being a no-call no-show Saturday and yesterday, my shift will start in about twenty minutes. If I don’t go, Dawson has won. He’s paid off my tuition, room, and food plan, basically leaving me with no reason to work.
 

I never said I wasn’t stubborn.

I don’t stop to think about it. I just point the expensive SUV toward Exotic Nights, and I marvel at how quickly I’ve come to feel comfortable in this vehicle. When I pull into the parking lot, however, I can’t believe my eyes. There are no cars in the parking lot. Sure on a Monday afternoon there aren’t many people, just Timothy and few of the diehard regulars, but there’s usually
someone
. The lot is empty. I park the Rover and go to the front door, and my heart stops.
 

There’s a piece of printer paper taped to the inside of the door, with a short and simple message printed on it in a huge font.
 

CLOSED PERMANENTLY. FUTURE HOME OF BOB’S BOOZE CAVE.

Is this a joke?
 

I pull at the door handle, but it just rattles, locked. I go around to the side, to the door that leads to the backstage area and the dressing rooms. It’s locked, too, but that’s not surprising, as it’s always locked from the outside.
 

The club has been sold? What? I stand in the parking lot, baking in the late afternoon heat, sweat trickling down between my shoulder blades, my head spinning. How could it have been sold to a liquor store? It may not have been a thriving franchise like Deja Vu, or an upscale place like Skin
or Spearmint Rhino, but it still turned a pretty profit. We served crappy booze to down-on-their-luck middle- and lower-class working men. But…a liquor store? Bob’s Booze Cave? Really?
 

My head is about to explode.
 

Then…the penny drops.
 

No.
 

No.

Hell
, no.
 

He did not.

I spin on my heel and storm back to the car. I sink into the leather seat of the Rover…what I’ve actually begun thinking of as
my
Rover…and try to decide if I’m going to scream, cry, laugh, or all three.
 

He did it. I know he’s behind this. He has money to burn, and he said himself that money means nothing to him. But would he drop—I don’t even know how much…several million dollars?—just to make sure I don’t go back to stripping?
 

He just might.
 

In fact…I know he would.

I race the Rover through the streets of L.A. toward Beverly Hills at a speed and recklessness that would have made Dawson proud. In thirty minutes I’m at the gate of his neighborhood, and the guard just waves me through. How does he know me? Does he know this car? Did Dawson tell all the guards who I am? I resist the urge to squeal the tires down the wide street to his house. It’s a neighborhood after all. I pull into driveway at a sedate pace and park under the arch. His Bugatti is backed into the only open garage bay. A battered red pickup truck sits in the driveway, a massive beast of a machine with fat, knobby black tires and lifted spring-things making the mammoth truck even taller. Dirt coats the truck, and I hear the engine popping as I make my way past it. It doesn’t seem like Dawson, this absurdly masculine truck, but then again, it does. I pound on the front door with my fist, clutching my purse strap at my shoulder with my other hand. I’m shaking all over, even after a half-hour drive to calm me down.

Dawson answers the door wrapped in a too-small white towel, his hair wet and plastered to his head, drops of water running down his sculpted chest. He has a toothbrush in his mouth and a dab of foamy toothpaste on his chin. He pushes the door open and holds it, and I move in past him. He smells delicious, like something citrus layered over shampoo and deodorant.
 

My hand moves of its own accord, reaching up to wipe away the toothpaste from his chin with my thumb. I’m standing close to him, and I feel the heat billowing off him.
 

I’ve momentarily forgotten why I’m angry at him.
 

He’s got the toothbrush clamped between his molars on the right side of his mouth, and he’s leaning against the door. His towel looks dangerously close to falling off, but he grabs it with one hand, pulling the toothbrush from his mouth with the other. “I was wondering if I’d get a visit from you.” His voice is cool and amused, but his eyes are stormy and overcast-gray, the color of pensive tumult and boiling emotion.

 
“You…you…” I can’t get words out.
 

He’s as naked as a man can get without being actually nude, and it’s awfully distracting, because I have visions running through my head of licking the drops of water from his chest. I physically stop myself from actually doing it by grabbing the doorframe.

“I was in the shower,” he finishes for me. “And you look sweaty enough that you could use one yourself.” He leans over me and sniffs. “But you smell good. You’d smell even better if that was my sweat smeared on your skin.” His voice buzzes in my ear, intimate and suggestive.

What devilish new game is this? What is he doing to me? I’m trapped in place. He’s letting the towel slip, just slightly. I can see the V of his groin muscles, and now a shadow of black hairs closely trimmed. He’s going to let it go, right here in his foyer. He’s trying to distract me from being angry at him. It’s definitely working.

I turn around and put my face to the door. “Damn it, Dawson—”

“Did you just swear? I wasn’t sure you ever swore.” His voice is at my ear, so close.
 

Why can’t he just leave me alone? And why don’t I really want him to?

“You paid off my tuition.”

“And your room and board. Don’t forget that.”

“And the club?” I whisper. Another tendency of mine when I’m dealing with Dawson.
 

“Oh, that?” He sounds pleased with himself. I don’t dare look to see his matching smug expression. I can imagine it well enough. “My buddy Avi was in the market for a new property, so I made that slimy fucking worm Tim an offer he couldn’t refuse.” He says this last part in a passable Marlon Brando impression, but I’m so shocked and angry that even his
Godfather
quote doesn’t impress me.
 

“Tim? Timothy van Dutton?”

“Yeah, that little cocksucker. He didn’t want to sell, but everybody’s got a price. Turns out your buddy Tim’s price was two million.” He says this casually.

I can’t help wondering what Candy and the others are going to do, now that the club is gone.
 

“You spent two million dollars to close down the club, just so I wouldn’t work there anymore?” I steal a glance at Dawson, which is a mistake, because he’s loosely holding the towel around his waist, teasing me with glimpses of what lies beneath.
 

He just shrugs. “Yep. It was a filthy shithole anyway, and Tim was an oily cockroach. You can’t honestly say you’re mad about this, can you?”

I pace away from him, struggling for breath and for words. “You…but—my tuition and all that. It had to have been—”

 
“Not even fifty grand.” He makes a dismissive gesture. “Chump change. But it’s not about the money. It’s about you.”
 

Fifty grand. Chump change. My head spins. “I don’t get—”

He stops me with a hand on my arm and gently pulls my back against his chest. He’s wet still, and my shirt sticks to his chest. “It’s simple, Grey. I’m a spoiled brat. I’ve always gotten what I want. Always. And I want you all to myself. I don’t want you working there anymore, and I knew you’d fight me on it, so I took the fight away from you. I don’t care how much it costs, I have to have you all to myself.”

“That’s cheating.”

“Where’s the rulebook for this? What’s that saying? ‘All’s fair in love and war’?”

“Which is this? Love? Or war?”

“Both. Neither. It’s whichever you make it, babe.” His voice rumbles in his chest, vibrating against my spine. His hand is around my arm, the other wedged between us, keeping his towel in place.
 

Oh, god. Oh, lord, help me. I can feel him,
all
of him, pressed up against my backside.
 

“Dawson, why are you doing this?”

“Why are you fighting it?”

“Because—it’s all so much. You’re…you overwhelm me.”

“I’m just a guy.”

I shake my head. My hair clings to the beads of water on his chest. I’m hyperaware of how my breasts sway. He makes me aware of myself, of my body. “No, you’re more. You’re so much more. You’re…this—this
experience
. I’m getting…I get swept away in you, when I’m around you. I lose myself when I’m with you.”

This gets him. I feel him tense at my words. “Do you have any idea the effect you have on me?” He laughs gently. “You turn me inside out. I’ve never…I’ve never cared before. Not this much. Not about anyone. After Mom died, I just kind of shut down, and I never really recovered. Dad was always weird and quirky and reclusive, but when she died, he just—vanished. I basically raised myself…well, Vickers the butler was there for me a lot. And Betty, the housekeeper.”

I can’t help laughing. “You had a butler named Vickers?”

“Shut up.” He laughs. “I didn’t name the guy. And ‘butler’ is just a catch-all kind of word. Think Alfred from Batman. He did everything for Bruce, you know? That’s how Vickers was. Ran the house, kept track of everything. Made sure I went to school and shit. He wasn’t a ‘hugs and tuck me in at night’ guy, but he bailed me out of a few scrapes over the years.”

He pauses, breathes in, his chest swelling against my back, and exhales deeply. He’s pushing away memories. I know a little about that.
 

“Anyway. You, and me. What you do to me. You can’t distract me from this. You need to know.” He leans closer and his nearness makes my skin prickle, and my nipples harden. Traitors. I feel that now familiar hot throb down deep. “You make me feel things. And you have to know what a big deal this is for me. I started acting—really acting, you know? Taking it seriously and doing roles I chose—because I wanted to
feel
. I had to act it out onscreen, because I couldn’t feel anything when I was just Dawson. Nothing, except this vague sort of loneliness. I was used to it, because I grew up alone. Vickers was all stoic and British, and Betty was just this frumpy lady with her own kids to worry about. So I stopped feeling things because it was easier. Being in Hollywood, you grow up around the life, you grow up in it like I did. Drugs and booze are just normal. I did my first line of coke when I was…twelve? I learned to party early. It filled the holes, kind of. Then, when I hit puberty, girls were part of it. I always had swag, you know? Always. It was just easy. And girls? They filled the spaces in me, too. But…all of it was fleeting. It was my life. Girls, drugs, booze, parties, shooting films all over world. Being a star. It was great—it was the life everyone dreams of. But it was always just me. Alone, after party ended and the girls went home. Meaningless. None of those girls meant anything. A whole messy train of clingy bitches I used for distraction. They couldn’t do shit for me when it mattered.”

I try to turn in his arms, but he won’t let me. He’s speaking into the hair at the top of my head, his breath warm on my scalp. I stay still and let him talk, taking in these revelations. Each word makes Dawson more and more real, and that much more all-encompassing, absorbing, intense.

“I was working on the last Cain Riley flick. We were shooting in…Prague? Yeah, Prague. Last couple weeks of shooting. I’d been partying like a fucking rock star for days, going to shoots wasted. But I’d nail the scenes. Cain was this dark and brooding kind of character, all hard edges, a badass. So the half-wasted slur and the ‘I don’t give a fuck’ glaze to my eyes in the whole movie was real. I
didn’t
give a fuck, but it worked for the character. I was so strung out. And then one day I woke up in the back of a club in the nasty back end of Prague. I’d passed out, and they’d shut the place down, just for me, so I could pass out. Like I would’ve known or cared had the club party gone on while I was out. But whatever. I woke up, and I had blood on my face, under my nose and chin. There was puke everywhere. They’d just…left me there. Let me puke. It had become so commonplace for me to pass out that they didn’t bother checking on me, because I was always fine. Take a few shots, do a line, drink some coffee. Go shoot the next scene.”

Dawson tips his head back, drifting away into memory.

“And I realized, you know, they didn’t care. As long I shot good scenes, they didn’t care. And I was gonna end up like my mom. It was pure luck that I hadn’t died that night in the club, that I didn’t just OD like Mom. So then I tried to sober up on my own and push through the rest of the scenes, trying not to end up like her. So…I finished shooting
Veiled Threats
and went into rehab. That was when I disappeared. Rehab was more to get myself away, you know? I mean, shit, yeah, I had a problem, but it wasn’t addiction to the drugs. It was addiction to the
feelings
. I felt things when I was acting, when I was strung out. Numb, good things. But empty things. You know? Maybe you don’t. Maybe you feel too much, feel it all so much that you can’t make any sense of it. That’s what I think your problem is. You feel too much.”
 

I’m a captive audience as he rests his chin on my head and continues to speak, one arm wrapped around me, holding me in place. “I don’t feel enough. Never did. So then I met you. In that stupid titty-club. And you were this…this glorious creature. You were like an angel, trapped in hell. You couldn’t have been more out of place if you tried. I watched you out on the floor, you know. And that dance on stage. You…captured them. All those poor, sweaty, greasy, miserable assholes. You were so different from the other blank-eyed, apathetic strippers you see in clubs like that. Where the smiles don’t reach their eyes. Where the affected sexuality is just…plastic. Fake. Put on. You? You…
ooze
sensuality, and you don’t even know it, and it’s like a drug for guys like me. I may have more money and sophistication than those other guys, but I’m just like them. Looking for a cheap thrill, a quick escape. And you? You’re a high we could never get anywhere else. Watching you dance? The way you move? The way you wait until the very fucking last second to take the clothes off? It’s maddening. You don’t even know. You can’t. There’s something inside you, beyond that innocence. I see it. It’s…fuck. It’s bright as the fucking sun, but it’s hidden, because you’re miserable.”