Page 10 of Bloom in Darkness

Astra

By the time my first set starts, I've already checked my phone four times. Bryn gave me his number before he left this morning, and I've spent the day proving I can be embarrassing with unrestricted access to someone I like. He's also terrible at texting.

Astra: My legs hurt.

Bryn: Sit down.

Astra: Incredible advice. Have you considered medicine?

Bryn: [thumbs-down emoji]

Astra: [picture of the boots]

Bryn: [angry face]

Bryn: Too high.

Astra: I've been dancing in heels longer than you've known me.

Bryn: [angry face]

I'm still smiling when I open my jar of Bloom. The cream is cool under my palms and gone almost as soon as I work it in. I usually stop when the ache softens. Tonight, I take a second scoop for the calves and keep going until the tension there lets go and the jitter under my skin goes quiet with it.

Warmth moves through the muscle the way his hands did this morning, and I shut my eyes for a second while it settles. I want the float, and I want the warmth to belong to him. I cap the jar and put it in the bag before I can stand here negotiating with myself about a third scoop.

The first song hits hard enough to rattle the mirrors. I step onto the stage in a black shirt that clings to my chest and waist, cut short enough that every lift of my arms shows skin, and a thong that seemed like a fantastic idea in the dressing room.

Ten minutes in, it feels better. The Bloom has loosened my hips, and the stretch comes without the usual complaint in my back. Heat sits low in my body. Slick gathers between my thighs, warm enough that the next turn goes smoother, and my mind puts Bryn's hands on my hips, the wall at my back, the weight of his knot, my thighs tight around his waist while he held me like the lift cost him nothing.

I roll with the beat and let my own hands slide over my stomach where his mouth was. The crowd blurs at the edge of the lights. I stop giving them the set they're used to and dance for the memory of him, and the tips start landing in thick folds of cash. By the end I'm breathless and flushed, cock half-hard, thong damp against me, and it's the best I've danced in months. Maybe longer. I love the slide of slick down the inside of my thigh, and the heat, and the fact that he isn't even in the building.

I walk off still riding the high, grab the towel by the curtain, and wipe the sweat off the back of my neck. Then Silas steps into my path. Silas’s scent cuts through the sweetness still coming off my skin, and the high drops out of me so fast my stomach turns. His gaze moves down my body and stays where the soaked fabric clings between my legs before it comes back to my face. "Someone enjoyed himself tonight." My cock's still half-hard. The slick's still there. My body hasn't caught up to the fact that I want the moment to stop. He moves closer. "You've been holding out on us." I step back before his hand can reach me.

A laugh comes from behind him. Sabine walks up with a drink in one hand, looking entertained by the whole thing. "Hands off the merchandise."

Silas lifts both hands and steps away.

I frown at her, pulling the towel lower over my waist. "Merchandise?"

She takes a slow sip before she looks at him again. "You're on the clock, Astra. Staff doesn't touch the talent while they're working." The rule sits wrong on my skin. Last night Bryn had his hands on me in the security office, and his mouth, and then his cock, and none of that was on a clock she could see. She said staff. "I wasn't sure you still had that in you."

I look at her, towel bunched against my stomach. "What?"

"That set." Her gaze moves over me once, clinical and satisfied. "You haven't moved like that in a long time." My grip tightens on the towel. She goes on as if the compliment and the bill are the same sentence. "There's a private room open down the hall. One of the regulars saw the set. He wants forty-five minutes."

“No.” The word comes out before I’ve built an excuse, and Sabine blinks while both of my hands tighten around the towel. “I’m done tonight.”

She tips her head, glass still in one hand. “You have two more sets.”

“I’ll do the sets.” The stage I can manage. A room with a lock and a stranger who just watched slick run down my thighs is different. “I’m not doing the private.”

Sabine’s expression flattens. “Astra.”

“I said no.” The Bloom warmth is still sitting too close beneath my skin, my thong soaked through while more slick works its way down one thigh under the towel. I want a shower, and clean clothes, and the apartment, and Bryn, who isn't here, who sent me an angry face about my boots and is somewhere I can't see.

Sabine steps closer. “You seem to have forgotten something.”

“I haven’t forgotten anything.” Keeping my voice even costs more than I want her to know.