Behind closed doors, the real games begin…

Winning it big. That’s the name of the game at Las Vegas’s Liege Hotel and Casino, where the hottest fantasies hinge on a roll of the dice…and the tantalizing knowledge that anything could happen before sunrise.

Dahlia is a burlesque dancer with a brain for business and a bod for sin. Her latest admirer may be a sweet-talking Casanova, but despite what he thinks she’s not giving anything away for free.

Also available from Lauren Dane and Carina Press

Second Chances

Believe

Goddess with a Blade

Blade to the Keep

Blade on the Hunt

At Blade’s Edge

Coming Soon

Diablo Lake: Moonstruck

Diablo Lake: Protected

From Lauren Dane and HQN Books

The Best Kind of Trouble

Broken Open

Back to You

From Lauren Dane

And Cosmopolitan Red-Hot Reads from Harlequin

Cake

And watch for the sequel to Cake, coming soon!

STRIPPED

Lauren Dane

To Ray—forever and ever and a day more than that.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to Laura Bradford because she always believes in me. That means more than I can say. It’s kind of mushy and all, but it’s pretty cool to have your agent be your friend, as well. I’m fortunate to be able to say so quite honestly.

Susan Swinwood—who has a fabulous sense of style and made me laugh a lot at the RT conference. Thank you for buying this story, for your editing suggestions and for dealing with all my pestering with patience.

No list of thanks would be complete without Megan Hart and Anya Bast—both such lovely friends and great sources of advice and information. A more fabulous set of crit partners a girl could not ask for. Dahlia and Nash’s story is far better for your critical eye (or rather, eyes). You read so many incarnations of this story and you never complained. Thank you also for petting me when I got low and kicking my butt when I got whiny.

Mom and Dad—who never censored what I read, who cheered every success, who raised me to believe anything I wanted to do was possible if I worked for it. You raised me to love words and to believe in myself. Those things come in pretty handy. I love you both.

My beta readers: Tracy and Renee—you both rock my socks. Thank you for dropping everything to read for me. Your advice and feedback are invaluable, as is your friendship.

My readers, because without you reading my books, well, I’d be writing this note to myself pretending I had a book deal.

There’s a scene in The Matrix where Trinity is being chased by agents. She’s at the bottom of a set of stairs, pointing her weapons, frozen in fear. She says, “Get up, Trinity. Get up,” because she knows to be frozen by fear is to never make it to where she needs to be. There have been times when I was there, frozen by fear, and an old friend reminded me of that scene. Thank you, Luahiwa.

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

CHAPTER ONE

The low, sensual beat brought her onto the stage like a siren. One gloved arm wove through the slit in the curtain, parting the fabric as she stood, framing her for a long moment. Her dark hair was piled up on her head artfully. Long, fake lashes framed big brown eyes. A deep blue satin dress hugged every curve lovingly. Her breasts pushed up and out of the scooped neckline and as she walked, the slit on each side of the dress showed glimpses of her legs to the upper thigh.

She let the music grab her senses and her rhythm as she slowly sauntered out onto the narrow stage. Dancer’s heels, still very high, led her through the beginning of her routine as she carefully maneuvered the long feather boa to keep from tripping.

Caught in the music, Dahlia’s muscles burned as she did a high kick leading into a round kick, swiveling her body away from the audience—all in a seamless set of movements.

A feather from the boa stuck to the sweat on her neck as she slowly rotated her hips in time with the horns in the jazz band. Her hands rose, slowly winding the boa around her body. Down it went until she finally stepped over it, kicking it to the side.

Giving her back to the audience, she raised one hand into the air as she turned her head, winking over her shoulder.

Rocking her hips from side to side to the smoky jazz beat, she brought the tips of her gloved fingers to her mouth to bite the material and pull it off slowly.

The first glove went over her shoulder, into the bar pit the stage encircled. As she stood in front of the trumpet player, she peeled off the second glove, winding it playfully.

With a bump and grind she circled the band and lay down on the side of the stage near where the bottle service tables were. Kicking a foot into the air, she gave the audience a lot of leg to look at as the folds of her dress slid open. Rolling up onto her knees, she unzipped the front of the dress and shimmied out of it. Then she turned, coyly giving them her back and a view of her boy-short bottoms with a winking kitty on the ass.

The dress dropped as her forearms came up to cover her breasts and she bent, looking at them all upside down through the V of her legs.

The cheers and applause bolstered her confidence. Onstage she was beautiful and desired and that was okay. More than okay. It felt marvelous.

Still facing the band she reached out quickly, grabbing the hat off Timmy’s head. The trumpet player widened his eyes in a choreographed move and she spun, clutching the prop hat just so to cover herself.

Sensual smoke and mirrors. Dahlia didn’t show the audience any more than she’d show at the beach. They wouldn’t see her nipples, and her panties would stay right on her booty with the fishnets below that.

Still playing coy, she waved with one hand, pretending to almost drop the hat as she took the first step back up to the dressing room. And another step and two more. Once her body was in the doorway she turned and tossed the hat back to Timmy. With a hand over her mouth stifling a pretend giggle, she kicked up her leg and was gone behind the curtain.