Reclaimed (Powell Sanctuary #5)

Chapter 4

4

Isla

I notice Aiden’s absence as I finish my set.

Then I hate myself for noticing.

I think I’ve started to look for him as much as he looks for me. He’s not hard to miss, sitting front and center during each of my shifts. I want to know if he’s here during the other nights of the week but I’m too afraid to ask. Too afraid of the answer telling me I’m not as special as he makes me feel.

As I exit backstage, I see Lucien and Cyril leading a group of belligerent drunks out the front. They were obnoxious during my set. Distracting, really. I’m glad to see them thrown out, but I wish it had happened sooner.

My stiletto heels click across the floor as I move to the private room. I sigh at the filled card. Another hour and a half of dancing. This is my least favorite part of the night, but the extra money is an easy way to pad up my savings account. And I only have to do it on Fridays.

I open the door and slip inside the red-light room, flipping the switch to indicate that someone’s inside. A plaque beside the door will glow red until I switch it off.

The music piped inside plays a rhythmic beat, and my hips begin to sway as I spin around.

“You—” The words die on my tongue.

“Me,” Aiden Powell grins from the leather couch.

I keep up my provocative swirl despite the flutter in my stomach and raise an eyebrow. “Getting bold, are we?”

“I can see why you’d think that.” He pats the seat beside him and then cringes.

“It’s clean,” I laugh at his expression.

“Why don’t you come sit down.”

“On your lap?”

He shakes his head. “Next to me.”

“I’m confused.” I slowly cross the room. “I think you’re the first man to not want me to straddle him.”

“I didn’t say I don’t want that,” he rasps, sending flutters to my stomach again.

I sit down beside him. “What are you doing here, Powell?”

“I bought your dances.” Dances. Plural.

“All of them?”

He nods. “There were some men sitting beside me.”

“I saw them,” I cut him off, hoping he moves onto the point.

“They were saying some shitty things about you.”

I scoff and cross my arms. “That’s nothing new. You should hear the things men shout to me on and off the stage.”

“They wanted to do things to you. To degrade you. They were going to coerce you…” he trails off. The knot on his throat bobs on a swallow.

“So you, what, paid for my night so they couldn’t get close?”

“Something like that.”

An irrational well of anger rises up within me. “Well, isn’t that noble of you, Powell.”

“Isla.”

“It’s Stella, ” I hiss, rising from the couch.

“Don’t leave.”

“I’m not.” I throw my right leg over his lap and straddle him, slowly lowering until my bare ass scrapes the rough denim covering his thighs.

His eyes grow comically round as his hands flutter at his sides. “W-What are you doing?”

“What does it feel like I’m doing?” I curl one arm above my head and plant the other beside him on the back of the couch. My hips roll, grinding to the rhythm. “I’m giving you that dance you paid for.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

I shimmy my shoulders, shaking my tits near his face. “Of course I do. You paid for a dance!” I chirp.

“Really—”

I grab his hands and set them on my hips. “Keep them there.”

“Isla,” he groans, the throaty sound sizzling down my spine.

I lean into his neck and place my lips at his ear. “Stella.”

“Fuck,” he grunts, his face contorting as if he’s in pain. When he opens his eyes again, the baby blues blaze with uncontrolled lust. “One dance.”

“I thought you paid for three.”

His fingertips squeeze my fluffy hips. “I’m not going to be able to last for more than one.”

Oh.

Oh.

Holy god. A current snaps to life beneath my skin, sizzling to the tips of my finger and toes. His words alone awaken something sleeping, lying dormant in my stomach. An arousal I haven’t felt in—god, I can’t remember when.

What is this? Hormones? Or is this just him?

My heart hammers wildly at the thought of the effect I’m having on him. And that alone has an unintended effect on me.

I spin around, rising before dropping my ass in his lap and dancing the other way. Maybe some distance will help.

His groan rumbles his chest beneath my back. The vibrations there ripple through me. His legs shift, stretching out before planting back onto the ground and he grips my hips. His fingers clench, trying to hold me still, but then I feel it.

He’s hard beneath me.

Deliciously big and hard. The bulge nestles neatly between my legs, pressing insistently against that spot.

Oh, girl, what are you doing?

I shift and swirl my hips, each pass pressing closer, rubbing us together. The feel of his dick beneath me sends arousal to my core. If I’m not careful, I’m going to wind up leaving a wet spot on his pants, and that might just be the most embarrassing thing ever.

This isn’t like me. I don’t dance for clients and get turned on. Dancing is a job, and it’s as clinical as ever in this room.

Usually, I’m as dry as the desert.

Fuck. What do I do?

Do I get up and take his offer to not dance?

It’s too late for that. I started this and now I need to see it through. He can’t know I’m affected.

I frown.

There’s nothing special about Aiden Powell.

But then I shift my hips with the change in beat, and I brush against him. The ridge nudges against my clit and a whimper falls from my mouth. I bite back a whine of embarrassment and continue my dance while my body burns with the desire to feel it again.

“What was that,” Aiden growls from behind me, his raspy voice clawing against my defenses.

“N-Nothing,” I nearly pant, closing my eyes and praying this song ends soon, before I’m the one finishing prematurely in my pants.

This has to be the most tempting, arousing, humiliating situation of my life and I can’t decide if I need it to stop or if I wish it never ends. How does one guy feel so good, so perfect beneath my body? It has to be the pregnancy hormones. It has to be.

His palm splays hotly across my lower abdomen as he shifts, keeping us flush. His mouth touches my ear as his fingers glide south.

“Let me help.”

I close my eyes and drop my head back on his shoulder. My hair fans wildly around us, blonde curls a tangled mess. His touch dips lower. Lower. He skates the edge of my thong before cupping me solidly between my legs.

“Does that feel good?”

“Yes,” I whisper-pant, pulling a strand of hair from the corner of my mouth.

Feeling him there snaps the remainder of my control. The sensation is too good to resist, and Aiden is Aiden. He’s safe. He’s warm. He’s fucking sexy and his fingers are moving, stroking my clit in time to my hips. Then he’s dipping lower, knuckles nudging my panties to the side and his middle finger slides home.

“Oh, fuck.” A moan breaks free before I slap my palm over my mouth. If anyone hears what I’m doing in here, I’ll be fired on the spot.

I clench my teeth and grind as he slips another finger inside.

“You’re being such a good girl for me, Isla. Ride my fingers, starshine,” he whispers in my ear.

I whimper and grind, chasing the pleasure he’s wringing from me.

“Be quiet, beautiful. I don’t want anyone but me to hear you come.”

A shiver wracks my body as I chase that pinnacle. He makes it easy, stroking his fingers in the perfect motion to hit that spot deep inside. He works in time to my hips, speeding up and slowing down as I do.

I’ve lost the music. I’ve lost the rhythm. I dance to the steady strum of his fingers and the beat of my racing heart.

His lips touch my neck, a light graze from ear to shoulder as he samples the sensitive skin there.

“I feel how close you are.” He circles my clit with his thumb. “Fuck, you’re squeezing me. Are you going to come for me, Isla?”

“Yes,” I mumble from behind my hand.

His free hand skates up my arm, tracing its way to settle atop mine over my mouth.

“Give it up. Come for me. I’ll catch your scream beneath our hands.”

My hips rock and grind, pushing him deeper, faster, until I hit that peak—and for a second everything stops. The breath catches in my lungs. My lower half ceases to move, all except Aiden’s fingers, plunging in and out of me until I grip him and splinter apart.

Our palms silence the shriek from my lips. His breath moves across my ear, carrying words I can’t hear. My world has gone deaf. A white noise blankets the room. The only color I see is red as I crumble, held together only by Aiden’s arms and his lap.

My tits heave with labored breaths, slowing as my world rights itself.

Oh my god.

The post orgasm clarity hits with the force of an oncoming train.

What the fuck did I just do?

A gentle hand pushes a lock of hair away from my sticky forehead. “Hey,” he murmurs gently.

I scramble off him, nearly tripping on my stiletto heels. At the movement, his hand slips free, snapping my thong back into its rightful place. Ow. Shit.

“We shouldn’t have done that,” I stammer.

“The fuck we shouldn’t have.”

“ I shouldn’t have done that.”

Besides the fact I could lose my job, he doesn’t even know I’m pregnant, and that makes me feel things I’m not ready to think about, let alone talk about after I just came on his hand.

I close my eyes and shudder at the memory of his fingers driving perfectly inside me.

Gah! Get it together.

“You should go.”

“I think we should talk.”

“No, Powell,” I say forcefully. “I need you to go.” I take a steadying breath.

“Don’t call me Powell after I just had my fingers in you,” he snaps.

“It smells like sex in here!” I cry.

Aiden breathes deeply, his chest rising with the inhale. “It smells like you,” he rasps.

He’s so not helping my willpower here. “Please leave before we both get into trouble.”

“What are you so worried about? We’re two adults. There’s nothing wrong with what just happened.”

“Last I checked, prostitution is illegal.”

“The hell did you just say?” His face darkens, those lust filled eyes turning hard with irritation.

“There was a money exchange at the beginning of this little tete-a-tete, in case you’ve forgotten.”

He blanches. “That wasn’t what this was and you know it.”

“I know it, but that’s not the type of girl I want you to think I am so can you save us both the trouble of my boss finding out and just go?” I jerk my head toward the door.

He stares at me. I see words brewing behind his eyes. He wants to argue. To convince me I’m wrong, but as far as my boundaries are concerned, I’m not. And I need some time to sort my head out.

“Fine. We’ll talk later?”

I lick my dry lips. “Sure. Another time.”

“You’re heading home?”

“I’m just going to clean up here first.”

“Good.” He nods once. “I might not be able to leave if I knew someone was going to put their hands on you after what we just did.”

His hand touches the doorknob.

“I liked it, Aiden.”

His head rises, turning over his shoulder to look me in the eye.

I continue. “It won’t happen again, but just this once, I’m glad it did.”