Stripped Bounty by Dorothy F. Shaw Read Free Book Online Page A

going to have a fucking heart attack watching her. But she never faltered. Not once.
    Rosie dropped down and walked back to center stage. As the song ended, the lights dimmed again, and Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love,” the slow version, began. In the shadow, Badger saw the cloak drop to the ground but couldn’t make out what she wore beneath it. He tracked her movement and saw the silk drapes hanging from the spinner sway. The lights came up, slowly, in time with the beat, and Badger’s eyes went wide.
    Clad in a second skin—a red and nearly transparent body suit—Rosie had both scarves gripped in her hands and began climbing upward, using her legs and feet as leverage to propel herself upward. When she’d risen at least three feet in the air, she somehow hooked an ankle, pulled the silk fabric tight over her thighs and suspended herself sideways.
    Badger stood frozen, arms still crossed over his broad chest. He didn’t want to blink, didn’t want to miss a moment of this display. Rosie went through a series of what he could only call aerial acrobatics, the kind of shit he’d only seen on YouTube or in Vegas. She wasn’t Cirque du Soleil, but she was pretty fucking amazing nonetheless. Splits, flips, and spins. Amazing. Un-fucking-believable.
    They’d throw money tonight for her. She was going to bring the rain—an old saying in the business. There wasn’t a doubt in Badger’s mind. Hell, even he’d give up his hard-earned pay for what he was playing witness to at that moment.
    Then it happened, just as he’d predicted, dollar bills flitted through the air, covering the stage below her. Hundreds of them as the crowd went absolutely insane while Rosie spun, her body parallel to the stage and wrapped in black silk.
    She unrolled herself as the song ended, and Blue October’s “Hate Me” began. Rosie stood center stage again, and slowly, peeled off the top half of her body suit, and then the bra top, baring her breasts. She moved to one pole and executed another intricate move, then as she strutted to the other, she unpeeled the bottom half of the bodysuit, revealing a red G-string.
    Badger’s mouth went dry and he ran his palm over his jaw and then the back of his neck. Her dark nipples were fully erect as she again, mounted a pole, hooked it with the back of one leg, and with a swing, arched her body in a perfect arc around it, one arm extended in front of her. Spinning, spinning, spinning…as money flew around her.
    She was fucking beautiful.
    Not an angel or a devil, but something in between.
    Pure temptation.

    A s Rosie’s third song neared the end, signaling the end of her set, she closed her eyes and let the motion of her body spinning on the pole take her away—if only for a few seconds. She knew she’d made a killing.
    Rosie remembered the first time customers had thrown money at her. The sound of those bills flying through the air—like nothing she’d ever heard in her life. She was just a kid, barely twenty years old, dancing at an upscale gentleman’s club in Danbury, Connecticut. There was a lot of money to be made there, and the older strippers who had been on the scene too long had taught her how to make it. Now she was the old one on the scene, but it didn’t matter, right?
    At thirty-six, Rosie wasn’t necessarily old, but on the scene, she definitely was. Old or not, she was leading the parade. And it was fucking raining money…
    Rosie slid down the pole and spun away. The dramatic ending of the song came over the sound system as Rosie walked along the edges of the stage, pausing as customers stuffed bills in the sides of her G-string. She blew them all kisses, nodding, winking, and smiling at many of the regulars that were there for her. Just for her.
    It was crazy, but it felt good. Really good to be wanted or sought after. Appreciated even. Though it was a fucked-up way to earn that admiration, she’d take it. Not like she had anyone special, or anyone at all really, to shower