Seconds lengthened with her damp skin, her heavy breasts resting in my hands and the wet, uncomfortable mess in my jeans making me feel as if I’d pissed myself.

“Um…” it was her voice that broke the trance and the discomfort came in a like soaking splash into that dim, quiet room. Behind that mask, her eyes were shut and the tremble in her hands then wasn’t from arousal. The stiff bearing in her shoulders returned and she sat up, eyes blinking and one small line crowded on her forehead.

“I’ll just…I can’t.” Then she exhaled, cleared her throat. “I’ll…go…” My hand fell away from her and that awkwardness felt thick, full as she stumbled off my lap before I could speak, before I thought I should stop her. She ran from the room leaving nothing behind but the echo of her heels against the hardwood floor and the heavy sensation of surprise and guilt thick in my mind.

I’d been warned.

Warnings weren’t enough, I thought, stumbling through the backstage, fastening my corset, shoving thick curtains out of my way.

What did I just do?

I couldn’t get my arms tight enough around my body, couldn’t make the hard tremor in my hands to stop.

What the hell did I just do?

If I were weak, if I had been some innocent idiot who’d never felt that sensation, who’d been clueless about men and clubs and nakedness, then I probably would have cried. But that wasn’t who I was. That wasn’t who I’d ever be.

Ransom. Why did it have to be him?

Ransom, who’d never noticed the girl behind the shadow, watching, wishing I wasn’t so invisible to him. Ransom, who didn’t even remember rescuing me from my father. Me zanmi, I let him touch me.

Even my hand scrubbing over my face, my knuckles in the corner of my eyes wouldn’t take the image of his fingers, the sound of his deep, heavy pants from my mind. A year and a half I’d watched him. A year and a half I’d wanted him and then this…

Somewhere in my head there was the voice I always heard when I’d done something particularly stupid. It sounded a lot like my grann. I crossed myself at the thought of her, tried not to think about how much I missed her. I tried harder not to acknowledge that two minutes ago Ransom Riley-Hale had his fingers inside me.

You wanted him to touch you. Grann had always been a dirty pervert.

No, Leann’s warnings that hadn’t been near enough. “Be careful of the people who run Summerland’s,” she’d told me. “Be wary of certain elements.”

She hadn’t defined who those certain elements were. Some of them loitered around the stage, mostly dancers, a few of their boyfriends. I ignored them, weaved through the crowded backstage with my head down.

“Hey, sexy.” I didn’t bother replying to the drunk bata making a grab for my arm. But he blocked my path, moving his huge body in front of me as I tried to skirt around the small line of dancers in position for their march onto the stage.

The drunk had cropped blonde hair that was ridiculous, bangs covering his eyes and he reeked of bourbon and cheap cigars. “I’m talking to you!” he tried again, gripping at my leg when I moved out of his reach.

“Hey! Get off me, asshole!” A quick shove against his huge chest and the guy went down, but his fingers had threaded through the fishnet of my stockings, and they tore when I jerked away. Half of the back of my leg was exposed and I jerked away again, tried to kick him when he stared too long at my legs and thighs.

“Come on, baby. I just want a kiss.” His words were slurred, his movements sloppy but before I had to resort to kicking again, two of the bouncers from the floor jogged toward us, taking the jerk down with ease.

“You okay?” one of them asked me, but I waved him off, sick of the smell of liquor and sweat, ready to be done with this entire night.

I didn’t bother with a backward glance and skirted through the throng of people until I slipped into the dressing room.

Summerland’s wasn’t the danger itself. Not when the bouncers kept drunks out of the backstage. The club was beautiful and elegant; burlesque at its finest, true artists at work. They needed warm bodies, choreographers, dancers. I needed some extra cash.

Leann hadn’t liked it, as a boss or as a motherly friend, but she didn’t let my little moonlighting gig threaten my job as one of her dance instructors.

Four months and not a problem. The Summerland dancers liked my choreography. The owner, Misty, was a ball buster, but nice enough to me. Ironside’s presence had never really made a lot of sense. I just didn’t get why Misty let someone like him move around this place like he owned it, but it wasn’t my problem, was it?

Looking in the mirror in the empty dressing room, seeing myself hidden behind the costume mask with my lips and eyes painted to perfection, my dark hair hidden behind that tight, high-dollar wig and my corset only half-way fastened, I finally got the warning. Ironside had become my problem. He was dangerous and, worst of all, he was slick, playing on my need for some extra bank.

“Three hundred bucks for a half an hour of your time. I hear you could use the extra bills.”

“Who’d you hear that from?” I’d asked, trying to not sound as desperate as the man probably thought I was.

He hadn’t bothered answering. A brush of his finger along the broken zipper of my hoodie and a quick glance at my worn and frayed shoes was answer enough.

“You’re a beautiful girl, Aly, and we have a special guest tonight. Half an hour and maybe you won’t have to bust ass so hard this week.”

It had been my aching feet and the looming college tuition I was saving for that had made the decision for me. Still, Ironside had asked me with a smirk, moving the toothpick around in the corner of his mouth. He’d sounded like a snake hissing his way through convincing me to nibble on the forbidden apple. But three hundred bucks? For thirty minutes? That kind of money meant I didn’t eat ramen every day. It meant I didn’t have to take so many shifts at the diner.

I heard another voice then. This one wasn’t as sweet as my grann and there was no humor in the voice.

Tu es un putain, it said. I was a whore.

That was my father’s voice.

Slut? Is that what I’d let Ironside turn me into? Is that what Ransom had done to me?

When I stared back in the mirror I didn’t see the flash and pseudo beauty any more. I saw a desperate young woman. The mask caught on my hair when I pulled it off and the dark make-up smeared against the damp cloth I pulled off the table. This mask, this makeup, this costume, this… assumption—it wasn’t me. I knew who I was before Ironside had convinced me that I should use my body, just for a few minutes.

No. That wasn’t me. That would never be me.

I wasn’t the shamed daughter of Andre Rillieux who left her home, took her mother’s maiden name and tried to forget who her father expected her to be. That scared girl was gone. I’d left her behind. I’d remade myself in my own image.

Nights at the diner, days teaching classes at the dance studio and the occasional odd job here and there kept my head above water. I rented the loft above the studio for very little. I took the bus because a car and insurance were impossible for me. I rarely went out. No big screen TV, no cable; no fancy computer, nothing but a Trac phone for me. Somehow, I managed. Plans, goals, intentions—my list was long and lengthy. I knew what I wanted and how I’d get there. Hiding away in shame and embarrassment wouldn’t do anything but slow me down.

Finally, my face was clean, free from the stage make-up required for tonight’s performance, my brown hair once again loosened from that confining wig. Three faint freckles right on my cheek were visible and I stared at them, tried to focus on those spots to clear Ransom from my head.