I expected him to go straight for the laces of my corset, but instead his hands settled lightly on my shoulders. His thumbs swept across the bumps where my collarbones met my shoulders, a teasing caress that sent a shiver through me. I heard him chuckle, and then felt his mouth at the back of my neck, brushing against my hairline. “What do you think might happen in this room tonight, Sassy Belle?”

“That sounds like a trick question,” I said.

“You’re not as dumb as you look,” he said. His hands left my shoulders and slid down my back to the tightly knotted laces near my waist.

“You’re a jerk,” I said, ignoring the heat kindled in me by even these fairly innocent caresses. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“I can’t say anyone has,” he said, sounding amused.

“Well, you are,” I said. “You can’t go around telling girls that they look dumb. What a terrible idea. I can’t believe anyone’s ever had sex with you.”

“Who says anyone has?” he asked. “I could be a virgin.”

Yeah right. Not with the way he’d touched me the night before. “You’ll have to find someone else to pop your cherry,” I said. “I’m not in that business.”

He tugged at my laces, picking apart the knot Scarlet had tied. “I imagine it would be fairly lucrative.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “Virgins cry. Or else they fall in love with you. I don’t have time for that.”

“It’s just business to you, then,” he said. “A monetary transaction.”

“That’s right,” I said, “so don’t get any big ideas.” My heart pounded. Bantering with him seemed dangerous, somehow. Like I was taunting a large and ferocious animal that could eat me in one bite.

He didn’t respond, just started unlacing my corset. He was slow and clumsy, and started loosening the laces from the top, which wouldn’t work and might ruin the corset, but I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to delay the inevitable. I was weirdly nervous. I didn’t want to get naked and get down to business just yet.

Christ, why had he come back? Why had he requested me again? I had a nose for trouble, and this situation was a big fat grenade just waiting to go off. It wouldn’t end well. He was too handsome and too cocky, and my body liked him way, way too much. Definitely a recipe for trouble. I should tell him to leave me alone, walk out of the room, and go work Webster’s party.

I didn’t want to do that, though. I wanted to stay right where I was.

That was the problem. When shoulds and wants conflicted.

“This damn thing is impossible to take off,” he said, tugging sharply at the laces.

“You’re going to break it,” I said. “Start from the middle.”

“I thought the entire point of being a stripper was removing your clothing,” he said. “Not making it incredibly difficult to remove.”

“It looks sexy,” I said. “That’s the point. This corset isn’t supposed to come off when I’m dancing, and zippers cost extra. Nobody forced you to show up and request me tonight. If you don’t like my corset, I’ll go find somebody who does.”

He stopped pulling at the laces and leaned forward, mouth brushing the back of my ear. “You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart.”

And just like that, I went from irritation to desire in less than a second. He could insult my stripper clothes all he wanted as long as he kept talking to me in that voice, low and complex like rich chocolate.

When I didn’t reply, he went back to loosening my corset, doing it properly this time. When he was finished, I turned back to face him, looked up to meet his eyes, and undid the first hook at the bottom of the busk.

And there it was: the powerful feeling I always had on stage, except this was even better, because it was Turner watching me, and I had never wanted any man’s attention as much as I wanted his. He held my gaze as I opened the corset hook by hook, his eyes dark and compelling, never wavering.

The air between us was charged as the sky before a summer thunderstorm. Something was going to happen, and I was kind of scared of it, but I also really wanted to find out what it was.

He wanted me. I could see it in his eyes, and I felt myself responding to it, meeting desire with desire.

I wanted him just as much as he wanted me.

I unhooked the final stud and the corset fell open, baring me from neck to waist.

Without taking his eyes from mine, Turner seized the corset in one hand and tossed it onto a nearby chair.

And then he touched me.

His hands slid over my breasts, skimming across my nipples, and I felt the waiting storm break over me.

I gasped and threw my head back, eyes closing as heat spread through my body, nipples to pussy. He’d barely touched me and I was ready to go on all fours and beg for him. Like a whore.

Well, I was a whore. Might as well own it.

“You are the most responsive creature,” he said, pinching lightly at my nipples and making me squirm. “Let’s take off these panties and see what you’re hiding underneath.”

“I’m not hiding anything,” I said. I opened my eyes again and lowered my head, watching him as he stared down at my bare breasts. “You saw it yesterday. It’s not like I grew a tail overnight or something.”

“I wouldn’t put it past you,” he said. One of his hands skimmed down my side and slid across the silky tap shorts covering my ass. He lifted his hand and spanked me lightly, not hard, but enough to make me jump.

“That’s extra, sugar,” I said.

He chuckled and met my eyes again. His gaze was dark and warm with sex and laughter, and my breath caught because I recognized that look. It was the way he’d looked at me the first time we met, when he knelt at my feet and cleaned my bleeding knees.

It really was him, then. The same man. Okay, obviously he was the same person, there was no disputing that, but I hadn’t really believed it. It was too strange to believe, that Turner was the same person as the Good Samaritan I’d met on the street. Turner was so closed off and commanding and cold, except for when he touched me and heat flared between us like wildfire.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said, shaken now, because maybe that kind man wasn’t lost to me.

Christ. Rule 1, Sasha.

And rule 2.