Страница 34

A wicked smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. He looked different in the darkened room, his face harder, less knowable, his eyes shadowed but for a glimmer of reflection from the candlelight. "Won't it?"

A shiver breezed across her skin, sending ripples of anticipation through her. She hadn't ever seen Russ like this, an undertone of angry frustration coloring his desire. It alarmed her, even as it touched something deep inside her.

He cared enough to be angry that she kept part of herself closed away from him. He cared enough to try to change it, instead of just leaving. If she hadn't sensed that his caring was at the heart of this, she would've let him go. Knowing he cared helped a little bit.

"Okay, um… I suppose you should get undressed." She mentally rifled through the sexual scenarios in her books, searching for something to use, but her books had focused on pleasing a man, not on pleasing herself. That was something she did alone.

Russ's shirt and shoes were off in the space of moments. My, he was an efficient follower of commands.

A devil of mischief roused inside her. "Slowly," she said. "And make it sexy." She sat down on the edge of the bed to watch the show.

Russ lowered his hands slowly to his belt buckle and started to undo it. He rocked his hips from side to side, dancing to an off-tempo rhythm in his own mind.

Emma covered her lips with her fingertips, hiding her smile. The big sweetie couldn't dance.

The buckle undone, he whipped the belt out of the loops in one long pull and then cracked his belt like a whip.

Emma yelped as the end of it hit her dresser, knocking over a candle.

"Crap!" Russ said, quickly righting the burning candle.

Emma slid her hand over her face, giggling and peering at him through her fingers.

Russ tossed the belt aside and returned to the center of the room with a shrug. He began to sing under his breath to the traditional burlesque strip tease theme, "Dah DOOP dah dah, dah DOOP dah dah, dah DOOP dah DAAH daah," as he unbuttoned his pants and pulled down the zipper.

Despite her laughter, Emma found herself watching that zipper go down. Just as he started to part the front of his pants he turned around, his butt to her.

Ass-shaking followed as he lowered his pants, revealing black Jockeys over that rounded skater's tush that she had admired from the begi

He let the pants drop to his ankles, the tops of his socks peering out above the crumpled material. He tried to step out of his pants but his feet got caught up in them, a pant leg turning inside out as it clung to his sock-clad foot. He stumbled, then bent down to free his foot. He peered past his knee at her while he was down there and saw her watching. He narrowed his eyes, and then his face disappeared on the other side of his legs and he started to do a butt dance, bobbing it up and down, side to side.

Emma laughed out loud, the spectacle of his dancing tush above the socks and tangled trousers too much to take.

Then his hands came up and his thumbs looped into the elastic of his Jockeys. He inched them down, the crack of his ass appearing.

"No, no!" Emma laughed.

He stood up straight, thumbs still in his half-lowered Jockeys, and looked over his shoulder at her. "Oh yeah, baby!"

Emma fell over on her side. "Stop! My stomach hurts!"

He stopped dancing and turned around, walking toward her with his underpants stuck awkwardly over his erection, the trousers dragging behind him. "Your wish is my command."

Emma rolled onto her back and covered her eyes with her arm. "Just, just… take it all off, will you?"

His dance had broken some of the tension, making her forget for a moment how serious this all was to him.

"All right," he said softly. "What do you want me to do, Emma?"

She closed her eyes. What did she want? What could she ask him to do that would guarantee excitement and orgasm?

It was too much pressure.

"I don't know," she said. "I don't know what will get me there."

"Forget about that. Start with where we are now. Look at me."

She opened her eyes, turning her head to look at him.

Lord, he was gorgeous. The candlelight licked gently at his skin, shadowing the definition of muscles in chest, arms, abdomen. His thighs were thick and strong, and his erection rose firmly from an unfathomable abyss of dark hair. Her gaze skimmed up his body to his face.