Stripped

A/N: I can't even tell you guys how much your reviews have meant to me with this story. I went from being totally unsure about the concept, to loving everything about writing it. Creating a new character is fun for me, and I hope you're starting to love Olivia as much as I do. I don't own John, Randy, Trish, Adam, or Stacy. I do, kind of own Olivia, though sometimes I get the feeling she's her own person, too. Enjoy!

For a guy known as "the rapping wrestler," John Cena was not a hip-hop player. At least, not in the traditional sense. He owned one diamond-encrusted watch, but no other "bling" to speak of. Granted, he grew up in a neighborhood, but it wasn't close to "the hood." He was less about "pimping with the honeys and the ho's," and more about monogamous relationships. And his "posse" consisted of a St. Louis-bred metrosexual and a blonde-haired Canadian. So he knew that hip-hop, in general, was probably not celebrating his ascent within their ranks.

At least he could be found "chillin' in the club" most nights after his shows were over. Not that he wanted to be there. There were about two hundred things John would have rather done than stand around a smokey club, listening to shitty, techno remixes of the songs he loved, and pretending to be "livin' it up." He endured it, mostly for his friends, but the reality was that there was nothing he wanted more than to catch a cab, go back to the hotel, and sleep for more than two hours for a change.

By the time they had arrived to the evening's destination of torture, his head was already throbbing and his knee was starting to bother him. A bad bump in his match with Kurt Angle had twisted his leg in the wrong direction, and now he couldn't even dance. Not that he was very good at that either. Yet another hip-hop inadequacy.

Olivia sat across the room, separated from John by a sea of dancing twenty and thirty-something's. She watched with mild amusement as some blonde tried to capture his attention at the bar, but then averted her eyes to the table before her. Pining for a guy she'd only known a week was silly, and she willed herself to stop wishing he would walk over and talk to her.

When Trish suggested they all go dancing, Olivia knew that they assumed she would be the first to get on the floor and the last to leave. She was a dancer by trade, after all. But a strip tease was one thing – dry humping a stranger in a pack of her horny peers was a little too threatening.

She had her "hands off" policy, as Adam called it, for a reason. Not just because there were a lot of skeezy individuals in her line of work, but because it protected her. In Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts said that kissing on the lips was too personal, the line she wouldn't cross. But to Olivia, a simple touch, at just the right time, in just the right place, was the most intimate of all contact. And she wasn't interested in intimacy.

For more than ten years, there had been only one man on her mind – Brandon. She didn't date that much, never had a serious relationship, and could count the times she'd had sex on two hands. Arykah always teased that Olivia must have put every vibrator company out of business, that there was no way the brunette vixen wasn't releasing her sexual tension somehow. But Olivia wasn't that interested in fucking, whether her friend believed her or not.

Selling sex for a living had it's drawback. Olivia saw her body as something to be bought and sold. Getting a guy off was her business plan, soft boobs and a firm ass were her product. There had been a time when she had valued the act as something beautiful between people who wanted, even needed, each other. Now it was her commodity, her livelihood. She envied those who anticipated a good fuck as something they wanted. Because to her, it was something she had to give up in order to survive.

Some said that what she did was a just a step above prostitution, but Olivia thought it was the same. The guys she danced for didn't need to fuck her to rape her of her dignity. Even without penetration, she felt as though she'd given a little piece of herself away each time she flirted with them and exposed herself. And, after nine years, she wasn't sure she had anything left.

"Hey," a deep voice broke into her thoughts and Olivia looked up with a smile.

"Hey, yourself," she nodded to the chair across from her. John lowered himself into the seat and slid a beer bottle across the table at her. Maybe she wasn't that interested in finding a boyfriend, but she could always use another friend. With a sincere smile, she lifted the bottle to her lips. "Thanks."

"So, Trish and Orton just dumped your ass when we got here, huh?" he asked, looking around the floor for his friends.

Olivia nodded to the corner of the dance floor, where Randy was holding Trish's ass, her legs rapped around his waist as she sucked his neck. "I'm just waiting for him to throw her on the ground," she winked.

John shook his head and turned his attention back to the woman across from him. She had a face that made it impossible to look away. "They usually wait until the car ride home for that," he assured her. "So you're not gonna get out there?" When the new song hit the speakers, he grinned knowingly and wiggled his eyebrows. "Shake ya tail feather?"

Rolling her eyes, Olivia lifted her bottle to her lips again and shook her head. "I danced with Adam when we first got here," she answered. She liked Adam, as a guy who was funny and a hell of a party to be around. And while his arms around her had been, in no way, inappropriate, she found herself uncomfortable, hungry for escape. "I'm not really that into dancing," she added.

With a smile, John leaned back in his chair and watched her over the top of his glass. "Is that supposed to be a joke?" After a week, he still couldn't tell with her, the way she dead-panned everything, whether she was trying to be funny or not. Trish seemed to have it figured out, but none of the guys could catch on, no matter how hard they tried.

Olivia shook her head, put her bottle back on the table, and leaned forward on her elbow. "I dance because I'm good at it. Not because I like it." He nodded. "What about you? I thought you'd be the center of attention out there."

He shrugged his shoulders, his blue eyes never leaving her intense emerald ones. "I hate dancing. And I hate this music. And I hate crowds." Olivia laughed and then covered her mouth apologetically. "What?"

Wiping a dribble of the beer that had escaped her lips, she shook her head and coughed slightly. "I'm sorry. It's just that you're one of the most outgoing people I have ever met in my life."

He was used to it. People saw him as the loud-mouthed champion. He was the guy who always wanted the attention, loved being in the middle of the fans, sharing his success with them. He was the guy who couldn't get enough at in-stores and meet-and-greets. "It's kinda like this part I play," he admitted.

Randy, Adam, Trish, and Stacy knew the John who could be shy and introverted. They knew the guy who would always hang back and let them talk first. He was the guy who hated going to the mall because he was the only one that ever got recognized, or at least the first one. And, he realized as he looked across the table, he wanted Olivia to know that guy, too. He wanted this soft-spoken angel to know who he really was.

"What about you?" he asked suddenly.

She looked around in surprise and then blushed a little bit. "What about me? I sit in my dressing room, go the stage when my name is called, do my thing, and then go back to my dressing room. The fact that I'm an introvert shouldn't really be a surprise to you," she pointed out.

"You know what surprises me?" He leaned forward a little, telling himself to just be direct. He trusted that he could tell this woman something, and that she would get it, without over-analyzing. And while he wasn't sure where that confidence came from, he knew it was real. "That you're so unlike any dancer I've ever met."

She licked her lips and nodded in agreement. "I get that a lot," she started, and then hesitated. Did this guy really want to listen to her talk about the on vs. off stage persona of exotic dancers? One look in his eyes said that he wanted to hear anything she had to say. And it threw her off a little bit. "Sorry," she blinked, trying to regain her train of thought.

"What?" John wiped his hand over his face. "Did I drool? Because I know you're fine, but I was sure I could control it better than that," he smiled.

Olivia just shook her head. "No, um," she sighed and cleared her throat. "Um, I was just gonna say," she started in again, and he leaned forward a little to listen.

She would tell him her opinions, her theories, if he wanted her to. She would tell him anything if he kept looking at her like that. Like he was actually interested in the words coming out of her mouth. From the moment he sat down, and all through their conversation, his gaze had never left her face. Not even a quickie to her lips or her chest. His stare held the intensity and respect of a man who knew how to treat a woman, no matter what she did for a living.

And in that moment, she changed her mind. A touch wasn't the most intimate thing in the world. The look in his crystal eyes was.