Genie stopped running her hands over the lamp to check for damage and turned to look down at him.

'If nothing else, I hope it made you realise how serious I am about keeping this place.'

Abel made a point of noting something down and then looked back up. 'Six weeks and six days,' he stated baldly.

He dropped down into a central seat on the front row, his long legs thrown in front of him, his notebook discarded on the seat next to him so he could fold his arms across his chest. He looked like a guy watching a game, lounging around in battered jeans and an old tee shirt, totally at ease, even though Genie was sure he had to be anything but. She had seen enough of him to know that the last place he liked to be was anywhere near her work.

'Have you come for a private show?' she asked, unable to resist goading him, even though she was perfectly well aware that it was the last thing he wanted.

'I've seen everything you've got to offer, Beauty.' He shook his head and laughed low, but he didn't fool her. She didn't miss the flicker in his eyes, kind of hunted, kind of hunter.

'You think so?' she asked, looking for his weakness. He had to have one. Everyone did, and she needed to find his fast if she was going to work out how to beat him. There was blatant s.e.xual chemistry between them, and it certainly wasn't that that he was afraid of. She had no doubt that he'd be a confident, accomplished lover. On the occasions he'd let her near, he'd shown her that he was perfectly capable of melting her bones if he wanted to. Not that she wanted him to right here and now, of course. Definitely not. But there was something complicated going on just beneath the surface, a b.u.t.ton she sensed she could press if she could just work out where the h.e.l.l it was.

She wanted to stay in control here, to press home her advantage after the triumph of the investor visit. Fleetingly wishing she'd dressed in something a little less revealing than her cut off jean shorts, albeit topped with a sweatshirt, she hopped up to sit on top of the lamp. The added height of her new vantage point did a couple of things: it placed her in a position of superiority over him, and it brought that look straight back into his eyes again. Interesting. What was it for him? Was it that he didn't like not being in charge? Maybe she was dressed right for this encounter after all.

'Seeing as you're here, maybe you can help me out,' she said casually. Her opening salvo. 'I've been thinking of changing my routine a little.'

She stretched her bare legs out along the length of the lamp, letting her body follow the curves of the prop. 'At the moment, I do this...' She leaned backwards, lying down, unclipping her hair as she went back so that it fell down the side of the lamp. 'And then this...' she ran her hands over her body, and then sighed loudly with dissatisfaction. 'Hang on.' She sat up and reached for the hem of her top. 'I can't do it in this sweatshirt.'

'Genie, quit f.u.c.kin...'

Too slow. Genie peeled the sweat top over her head and then shook her hair out, drawing pleasure from the fact that he didn't look as c.o.c.ky any more.

'That's better,' she said, resuming her position, running her hands over her body again. 'I do this, and then I... oh, h.e.l.l.' She sat up again. 'I really need to lose the vest to show you what I mean.'

'Do not, NOT take any more G.o.dd.a.m.n clothes off, Genie. I'm warning you.' His voice was low and lethal.

She paused.

'You're warning me?'

He stared her down, not moving an inch, but the way his fingers gripped his own biceps hard enough to bruise betrayed him.

'I don't take kindly to being threatened, Abel,' she said softly. 'Especially not in my own home.'

She didn't, but she was also one hundred percent certain that Abel's warning wasn't an aggressive one. Not physically. He was many things, but Genie knew in her gut that this wasn't a man who'd ever hurt a woman with his hands. His words, sure, she knew that already, and his actions, but never his fists. Maybe that was why she felt defiant enough to disregard his threat and haul her vest up, swirling it on one fingertip before letting it fall onto the stage below her.

Abel watched her, his silence practically yelling at her that she was pushing him too far.

'That's better,' she smiled, sliding her hands up over her now naked rib cage. 'You'll just have to imagine I'm wearing nipple ta.s.sels. Would it help if I took my bra off?' She reached behind her, and he was out of his seat and up on the stage in less than two seconds. One fluid movement later, she found herself hauled off the lamp and thrown over his shoulder as if he were rescuing her from a burning building.

She'd tried to push his b.u.t.tons, and it appeared that she'd succeeded. His warm forearm clamped rock solid against the back of her thighs as he strode down the steps at the side of the stage back onto the auditorium floor. He pulled her roughly down his body, and she caught him unawares and snagged her legs around his waist. She wasn't done with him yet.

'Too much for you, pop-eye?'

Her a.s.s was in his hands, and his chest heaved beneath hers.

'What the f.u.c.k are you trying to prove?' he said, more serious than she'd expected.

She shrugged, her hands on his shoulders.

'That you don't understand what I do?'

He laughed, a harsh, unfunny sound. 'I know what you do. You take your clothes off for money.'

Genie slid her hands into the dark hair at the back of his neck. Silk.

'Aren't you the lucky one. You just got it for free.'

He was mad as h.e.l.l with her. The tautness of his body told her so. The grip of his hands told her so. But he was turned on too. The demanding heat in his eyes told her so, the fact that he held her clamped against him rather than pushing her away told her so.

'I don't want what you have to give, showgirl. Free or otherwise.'

Showgirl. That was his b.u.t.ton. Genie moved her hips, and his hands ma.s.saged her a.s.s in a way that contradicted every last one of his words. He wanted it, and she wanted him to admit it. Not because it would change his mind about taking the theatre, but because it would change his mind about her. It shouldn't matter what he thought of her, but there in that moment, it really, really did.

'I'm not just a showgirl, Abel,' she murmured. 'I'm a woman.'

He dropped his eyes to her pale b.r.e.a.s.t.s encased in nude coloured lace.

'I see that.'

'Do you?' she whispered. 'Do you really, Abel?'

He shifted her in his arms, holding her easily, one arm under her a.s.s, his other hand sliding up her back. She'd been close against him before, but now he pressed her slowly closer, vertebra by vertebra. He stopped when he reached her bra strap. Her arms were around his neck, and his mouth hovered breath-close to hers.

'You're playing a dangerous game, Genie.' He brushed his mouth against hers, tasting her, brief and hot and not enough as his fingers opened the catch of her bra and splayed flat on her naked back.

'You don't take your clothes off. I take them off you.'

He peeled her bra from her body as he backed up and rested his a.s.s on the edge of the stage. He jostled her over his crotch, strained denim against denim.

'Play my dangerous game with me?' she breathed, turned on now, losing her grip on her original agenda for the encounter, moving against him, watching his eyes darken to black and demanding.

She closed her eyes when he touched her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, firm palms, a.s.sured fingers, his mouth on hers as her nipples hardened for him.

'Like this, Beauty?' he said, turning around to sit her on the stage, her legs still wrapped around him. He dipped his head and kissed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, holding them in his hands, licking hotly over her nipples. She watched his mouth, her fingers in his hair, her breath in short supply when he raised his eyes to hers.

'Play games, huh? You want me to play with your t.i.ts, like this?' His tongue circled her nipple and he closed his eyes for a second, as if he couldn't help it, as if the pleasure of the moment demanded it. Watching him lick her and lose himself in her body was an aphrodisiac more heady than the most expensive champagne.

'Yes,' she said, barely audible, but he must have caught it anyway, because he opened his dark eyes slowly and she saw the acknowledgment there. Somewhere along the line he'd taken back the power; somewhere in the possessive way he held her, in the way he dictated the pace now as his mouth drifted up her neck. Genie wrapped herself around him, loving the strength of him, the breadth of him between her thighs. He was hard, and hot, and he'd gone straight to her head. If this was his idea of a game, she was ready to play her hand.

'My turn. You want me to play with your c.o.c.k, Abel?' she said, covering him with her hand, between their bodies. The thought of touching him like this turned her on as much as being touched by him. He groaned, jerked a little, his tongue moving in her mouth as she unb.u.t.toned his jeans and his resolve. And then she had his c.o.c.k in her hand, naked and hard for her, his hips rocking against her crotch in a way that told her how far down the line he already was.

She wound her fingers around the thickness of his shaft, her other hand pushed into the hair at the back of his head, holding his mouth to hers as he finally let her give him what he craved. His kiss went from skilled and controlled to ragged breathing into her mouth, his tongue restlessly moving, and she let her tongue slide over his as he sank his teeth into her lower lip and thrust himself steadily into the curve of her fingers. He was lost, eyes screwed shut, his forehead against hers, his hand possessive over her breast.

'Beauty,' he breathed, his voice fractured in his throat. 'Beauty.'

It was the only word he had, and the only one she wanted to hear as she wrapped him in closer with her legs and followed his accelerating rhythm stroke for stroke, holding him firm until he clamped her hard against him and gasped, harsh and animal, his c.o.c.k jerking rigid in her hand. She held him, wide-eyed and breathless, overtaken by mixed up feelings of pride and l.u.s.t and protectiveness. She'd done it. She'd pushed him to a place where he'd lost control, and as his breathing steadied and his body settled, she found she wanted only to do it over and over again.

Abel kissed her neck, slow and open mouthed as his heartbeat slid down towards where it needed to be to survive. She tasted s.e.xy, of warm vanilla and turned on woman. Her nipple stiffened under the lazy slide of his thumb, and the moan she made when he let his fingers drift down to rest on her inner thigh had him half way towards hard again, which was f.u.c.king ridiculous.

Her shorts were indecent, and he was glad of it.

'Your move,' she said against his ear, daring him on.

He slid his tongue into her mouth again and his fingers under the frayed denim.

'You sure you still want to play games, Beauty?' he whispered, pushing the wisp of her underwear to the side and running the back of his fingers over her. 'You want me to play with you like this?' He pushed a finger between her lips, opening her, pausing. 'Yes?'

She opened her eyes, still kissing him, telling him yes with her eyes and her warm, wanting body. He let his fingers hover, brush her, skim where she needed him most. Deep rose spots tinged her usually pale cheeks, and a damp tendril of hair clung to her face. She looked like a woman on the edge of something amazing, and that he was going to be the one to give her that something amazing tapped into a place so base, so primal, somewhere he'd never been before. It was s.e.x on a whole different level. Jesus, he wanted to f.u.c.k this woman just about more than he'd wanted anything in his whole life.

He unfurled his fingers inside her shorts, cupping her, delicately circling her c.l.i.t with his index finger, making her moan and sink her teeth into his shoulder. Her fingers sought his c.o.c.k again, and she was gasping, so close. He could be inside her in three seconds. He needed to be inside her in one. He pushed her back until she rested on her elbows, her body bared and begging for him, and then he opened his eyes and all he could see was that huge f.u.c.king golden lamp. She was right there, open and wanting him, and all he could think of was how she looked draped over that G.o.dd.a.m.n thing performing for other men night after night.

What the f.u.c.k was he doing? This wasn't okay. This was every kind of wrong. Pulling his hand from her shorts, he pushed himself backwards and away from her, dragging his jeans up and wiping the back of his hand over his mouth.

Genie struggled back to sitting, frustrated shock and confusion all over her beautiful face. Mad as he was, he still had to fight down the urge to drag her back into his arms, to fill his hands with her creamy curves and think to h.e.l.l with it. But he couldn't. Not here, with that huge f.u.c.k off lamp dominating his eye line, reminding him who she was, what she represented.

'What's wrong?' she said, the look of l.u.s.t falling fast from her face.

Abel finished b.u.t.toning his jeans. 'You got what you wanted there, eh Beauty? You wanted to prove to me that you could get me going, and you have. Good for you.'

She slid off the stage, still naked aside from her cut-offs.

'Why do you do that?' she said, anger rattling in her voice. 'What the f.u.c.k is your problem, Abel?'

He really wished she'd put some clothes on.

'Don't mistake me for someone who you can wind around your little finger with s.e.x, Genie,' he warned. 'You're a woman, I'm a man. You want to tempt me into f.u.c.king you? Go ahead. Throw yourself at me, it'll be my pleasure. But know this. I'll f.u.c.k you, and then I'll f.u.c.k you over. You won't stop me taking this theatre by flashing your t.i.ts and opening your legs.'

Her sharp intake of breath told him that his words had hurt. A flush of heat raced over her neck and down over the curves of her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He battled to keep his eyes on hers rather than on her body.

'That wasn't what happened there and you d.a.m.n well know it,' she said, covering her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with her hands. It didn't help. It just made him want to cover her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with his hands instead. f.u.c.king, f.u.c.king woman with her delicious curves and her fragility and her head full of theatrical dreams, she was pushing him beyond his limits.

'From where I'm standing that's pretty much exactly what happened,' he said, carefully controlled. 'You took your clothes off and threw yourself at me again. It's getting pretty boring, Beauty.'

He'd told some lies in his life but that was up there with the best of them. She didn't bore him. She electrified him.

'You didn't seem bored when I had your c.o.c.k in my hands ten minutes ago,' she shot back, and he admired her all the more for coming out fighting.

'I'm a man, Genie. We're simple creatures. You touch our c.o.c.ks, we get stupid. It's chemical. Then you stop touching our c.o.c.ks and our brains function again and we go about our business as usual, which in my case happens to mean buying this theatre.' He paused and raised an eyebrow at her. 'So unless you plan to spend the next few weeks in bed with me around the clock, you're going to need a better plan.'

'You really think you're something special, don't you?' she said, shaking her head.

'You seemed to think so too back there.'

She laughed and shook her head. 'Dream on. I'm a woman. We don't get stupid when you touch us. We think about a million and one things at the same time. The shopping list. Buying a new couch. Stuff. You get the picture.'

It was his turn to laugh, shoving his hands into his pockets as he made for the door. 'Liar. The only thing on your mind when I was touching you was how f.u.c.king good I made you feel.'

'Except you didn't, did you? You conveniently made sure you got your own rocks off and then left me half way G.o.dd.a.m.n there,' she shouted, full of temper, and a second later she hurled his notebook at his back. 'Here, you forgot this.' His pen followed the book through the air.

'Abel Kingdom is a selfish f.u.c.kwit when it comes to s.e.x.' Write that down in your f.u.c.king notebook.'

Genie pulled on her clothes and sat for a while on the stage after he'd gone, her back resting against the lamp, drawing idle patterns in the left over glitter on the stage. She'd kind of thought that flirting with him on stage would help her to understand his hang-ups, but it had worked against her completely. All it had proved was that his rivers ran too deep and too fast, and that he was capable of seducing her with a look from ten paces away. The raw s.e.xuality of him overwhelmed her. She couldn't fathom him, and she needed to or he was going to take everything she loved away from her.

She knew also that her parting shot had been unfair. In their encounters to date, she was definitely one up when it came to taking rather than giving.

Looking down, realising that she'd absently written his name in glitter, she scrubbed it out in temper.

Abel sat on the back staircase with his head in his hands. f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k. Genie Divine was turning his world upside down. She was the poster girl for just about everything in life that made his skin crawl, and the fact that he couldn't stop himself from wanting her despite that fact made him hate his own reflection in the mirror in the mornings.

What kind of a man was he? He didn't f.u.c.k strippers. He didn't pay women to turn him on. He refused to align himself with the strippers he'd known and the men who'd paid them. He'd worked too hard to build a simple, clean life for himself to be dragged back into all of that now.

Rationally, he could see that what Genie did was different from the career his mother had been forced into. Or carved out for herself. As a boy he'd felt sure that she had little alternative but to make a living from her body, yet when he'd offered her a way out as a grown man she'd refused his help. It had been a hard truth to face that his mother was content with her lifestyle, that she'd chosen it over a new start in Australia with him. She had always chosen her lifestyle over anything he meant or could offer her.

He'd made decent money, expecting to rescue her, breeze in and take her away from the grit and grime and sordidness. Absence really had made the heart grow fonder, only it had been one-sided. He'd been prepared to forgive the years of instability and fear, had fooled himself that she lived a life feeling guilty for everything he'd endured, had perhaps only done it in some misguided or desperate attempt to provide for him.

Knowing for sure that she didn't need rescuing hurt, and knowing that she didn't care about reconciling with him hurt more. But his unhappiness as a child hadn't mattered to her so why should it now? She'd known how much he hated the smoky clubs she dragged him around when he should have been sleeping, and she'd turned a blind eye to the men who'd smacked him around when they'd had a skinful and were looking for trouble.

He'd turned his back on her. There was nothing more he wanted from her. Almost nothing. Nothing that would persuade him to see her again, he told himself furiously.

Yes, he'd turned his back on her, and he'd turn his back on Genie too. Just as soon as he could stop losing his mind every time she took her clothes off.

Chapter Twelve.

'It's less than six weeks, Dee, and I've barely made a dent. I'm nowhere close to seeing how I can raise the sort of money needed to keep this place,' Genie said gloomily a few days later, her feet curled beneath her on the sofa. 'Maybe it's time to throw the towel in and hand the keys over.'

'It's not like you to be defeatist,' Deanna responded dropping into the armchair.

Genie shrugged. It was hard to keep positive given the enormity of the task and the quickly diminishing timescale. 'Things around here are already so different without Uncle D.' She missed her uncle a great deal, seeing him on hops and catches around shows was nowhere near enough. It was difficult to acknowledge but good to know that he seemed happier than ever since he'd been living with Robin.

'You must miss him.' Deanna nodded, understanding, watching Genie closely. 'How are things with... you know who?' She jerked her head towards the presumed location of the man currently residing across the landing from Genie's front door.

Once more, Genie shrugged. 'You know how,' she said vaguely.

'Not really,' Deanna said patiently, clearly waiting for more.

Genie cast around for the best way to explain. 'It's a bit complicated,' she said, lamely.

'I'm smart,' Deanna said, wide-eyed. 'I can understand complicated things.'

'Not this you won't,' Genie said. 'I don't like him, he doesn't like me, and then every now and then we meet in the middle and rip each other's clothes off.'