The music changed, and Bella remembered that she was supposed to be dancing, not talking. Edward was distracting her. She wasn't doing her job. Snapping out of it, she began to move again. She inched backward until she was once again standing.
"You've been naughty, Edward. Distracting me and all…" She turned the seduction back on, forcing herself to clear her mind of their heavy conversation. Bella stepped up onto the small platforms on either side of Edward's chair. They gave her better leverage over his body.
She shimmied her thong down her legs and flicked it off with a shake of her heeled foot.
Edward turned his eyes away from the sight of the intimate skin that Bella was teasing him with. With all the overarching puzzlement and drama, the hot lust in his veins had cooled, and he found himself reluctant, even a little ashamed to have paid Bella to dance for him like this.
It didn't seem to matter that he hadn't had another way of getting her alone .His guilt rose up all the same.
"I think I like you better when you aren't dancing for me," Edward murmured more to himself than to Bella.
His comment about not wanting to see her dance cut deeper than it should have. Bella sighed, defeated, as she realized that Edward wasn't paying attention. In fact he was looking away.
She stepped down from the platform and moved closer to him, straddled him again, her knees planted on either side of him as she moved her body down his. Her hands trailing down his arms, over his chest and stomach and down his thighs.
A surge of pleasure shot through her as his eyes flickered over her again except then his eyes shot back up to her face and he was once again questioning her.
"Who's that man who's always talking to you before and after your performances?" he asked as the ends of her long mahogany hair brushed against his chest. "He's not a bouncer."
"What guy?" Bella pretended to think of whom he might be referring to, although she knew immediately he must mean Riley. It didn't escape her notice that Edward had stuck around enough to notice her patterns. "Oh… Him… He works here." She shrugged as though it were not big deal.
Edward found himself narrowing his eyes. "He isn't your lover… is he?"
He wasn't sure why he found that idea so unpleasant. But it was, and little stabs of resentment followed closely on the heels of that revelation.
"Ew! Hell no. He's not…" Bella scowled, her shoulders tensing at the thought of Riley and her together. The thought almost made her physically sick. It wasn't as though Riley were unappealing looks-wise. Actually, the opposite could be said. Riley usually didn't have problems getting women to go home with him. Once upon a time, Bella might have been one of those girls, but as soon as she'd gotten to know the guy behind the money, charm, and good looks, she realized he was not someone she wanted to spend her time with.
"He's the owner here; all the girls usually end up speaking with him." She tossed her hair over her shoulders and arched her back, stretched her arms over her head, and began to rotate her hips again.
Speaking with him? Or sleeping with? Edward couldn't help thinking darkly.
"And I really don't want to talk about him…" She lowered her arms again and leaned forward.
Before he could press her for more details, Bella had rubbed up against him again. He could feel her hard nipples brushing against his chest, which he found (to his surprise) were exposed by the one or two buttons that had been worked free on his dress shirt. When had she managed to do that?
"Your time's nearly up, Edward… Just… let me make you feel good," she begged. She bent to whisper in his ear. "No more questions. You can touch me if you want to."
Her last words were almost a plea. She realized she wanted him to touch her. Badly.
Edward's shoulders tensed at her seductive words. Her invitation to touch her was too good to be true.
No, it wasn't just an invitation. The way she had breathed those words… it was more like she was begging him to touch her… to taste her… to ravish her.
"Just… let me make you feel good." He could feel her lips brushing against his ear, could smell the soft citrus scent that clung to her warm skin and hair, so different from the cheap, generic perfume that most of the strippers he'd come to know wore. With his eyes shut, he could almost forget they were in a dark strip club. He could pretend that they were at her place or his, and that Bella was dancing for him like this, was touching him like this because she wanted him and not because Edward had paid her to.
But they were not at home, and the girl straddling his lap was not Bella. It was Isa. Isa had no more true desire for Edward than she'd had for the gaggle of men she had teased and pleasured earlier that night.
Edward opened his eyes. He moved his hand to cover Bella's, stilling her from running her manicured nails down his chest. "I take it you're no longer interested in talking to me anymore tonight, then?" he asked quietly.
Bella pouted. "Don't be like that." She tried to move her hand from Edward's grasp, but he held her tightly. It didn't mean she couldn't still move her body, though, and her hips rotated over his groin.
Bella had never felt this way with any of the other clients she'd been with, and she realized it must have been because she knew Edward in her other life – he was her tie back to reality. In her mind she could pretend that she wasn't a stripper dancing in a seedy club, she wasn't Isa, and Edward wasn't just another client. She was Bella, and Edward was her boy-next-door.
She leaned forward again to sweep her lips over his neck. Her lips brushed the skin, and she could feel his pulse pounding under her mouth.
Don't even think about it, Cullen, the little voice in his head warned him as Bella's lips moved from his ear down his neck. He stifled a groan as his other hand came up to rest on the back of her head. No man – not even Edward, could deny how good it felt to have a woman's soft lips against his skin.
She doesn't really want you. She's not attracted to you. She doesn't even like you, remember? Wake up, buddy!
It was like a splash of cold water to his face. Edward sat up, untangling himself from Bella's grasp. She had said so herself, hadn't she? She wasn't interested in answering any of his other questions.
"No. If you're not going to talk, I should go," he said gently but firmly. Edward rose to his feet. He ran a shaky hand through his hair and expelled a sigh before glancing down at his gaping shirt and moving to do the buttons up.
Bella glanced up at him with shock. "But… You've still got a song and a half left…" Bella gestured to the stereo system.
"No. If you're not going to talk, I should go."
Edward was leaving, a realization that left Bella reeling. Hurt stung through her and she quickly stood to her feet as well.
She'd known this going in. Of course Edward didn't want her; he hadn't paid for her dance because he wanted her. He wanted to ask her questions, the questions that she hadn't wanted to answer and so now he was fed up, and now he was leaving.
She wanted to beg him to stay. But she wouldn't.
She watched, sudden exhaustion hitting her as he did up the buttons of his shirt.
"Fine," she said after a long pause. "I've got other people to see anyway." She reached down to pick up her clothes.
Edward's eyes flashed with annoyance at the way she dismissed him so easily in favour of the men who lounged around outside. As he smoothened down the collar of his shirt, he realized that her doing so only served to support his theory that everything she'd done that night had only been another one of her brilliant acts.
She hadn't actually been seriously attracted to him. It was Bella.
To think that he'd almost believed her. He shook his head at his own idiocy. When Bella finished picking up her things from the floor, Edward leaned down to murmur in her ear. "You win tonight, Bella. But this isn't over." His tone was pleasant, but the promise in it was very real. "I don't give up so easily."
He paused, and before he could second-guess himself, he brushed his lips against her forehead. The corner of his mouth turned up in a wry smile. "Thanks for the dance, sweetheart."
Then he was gone.
Am uploading this from my iPad. Thank God it's the weekend! Will try to get a few more chapters up today!