He dominates the room with his mere presence, and it's hard to put someone like him in a place you can only compare with a gas station trash can. He shines like a 24-carat diamond in the garbage.

With his back against the cheap black leather couch, his arms draped out like wings of an eagle on a hunt, a lit cigarette glowing from his right hand, he indeed looks way too out of the league for me. No man in a suit with two bodyguards and features as refined as him would seek the stripper me.

However, if I can somehow erase this identity and be Ever me, he is someone I would love to have go down on me at any hour of the day.

Out of my imagination, I take in the man before me and remind myself he is just a client who's here to watch my exotic pole dance while I strip my clothes. But when I walk over to the stage, my heels catching on the rough floor carpeting, I realize I will be baring more than just my body to him.

My eyes capture two men behind the couch, standing with their hands clasped to their fronts and faces looking straight ahead, skipping over me. Their faces are shadows, silhouetted, built scary. My man for tonight came with his security. Everyone in the room is at least three times my figure and a few inches over my height.

From the tip of his cigarette, thick clouds of smoke drift and trail across the man's face, and I notice a smug smile surfacing as he gives me a slow perusal when I step further up the stage and into the light.

From the stage, he is closer for me to notice the color of his eyes and edges of his defined cheekbones, and the perfect cupid's bow of his lips more clearly. He is breathtaking, with polished features, penetrating green eyes, and dark hair- somewhere between black and brown. He is tall and ridiculously ripped under his clothes, with sculpted arms and a broad, hard chest that peeks through the top few buttons of his black silk shirt. His suit jacket is over his lap. He gives a slight jerk of his neck to the back, and both of his men turn the other way. Their presence is still known to me.

Damn, he resembles the hundreds of Henry Cavil images saved on my Pinterest. I'm suddenly that teenage girl swooning over older men. Yeah, he's certainly older than me. Will I ever be so close to him that I can trace his lips with my fingertips? Will I ever have a chance to kiss them?

"Are you going to dance or stare?" The man asks, bringing the cigarette to his lips and taking a slow drag. His voice is dark, deep, and commanding. The smoke blows out of his nose, and his eyes remain locked on my face. His eyes are not on my body but on my face.

I mask the disappointment behind a small, timid smile, hands reaching for the cold metal pole, back arched and tits out. Karl says my smile is way too innocent for a place like this, and maybe that's why the men go crazy when they see me smile.

"You asked for me? Is there a reason for that?"

His emerald eyes take a slow and unapologetic tour down my body. His eyes linger on the swells of my breasts, peeking through the bottom of my top. I fight the urge to tug the hem of my crop top down. He gulps, his fingers tight around the half-burned cigarette as he looks at the pole and then at me.

"Dance."

A commanding asshole. It's better than casual romances, though. At least I won't regret stripping for this man because I can put all the darkness on him and save my light. I clasp the pole tightly, my knuckles turning white as he takes another drag of smoke and leans forward to crush the bud in the glass ashtray, his eyes never leaving my face.

The music comes on, my playlist. I convince myself internally to be entirely professional like all the previous nights, but I don't want to be a stripper in front of this man. I want him to see me for who I am. Fuck it!

I steel my spine and start romancing the pole, a sensual move of my hips, and I'm awarded the first shift in his firm control. I can't take my eyes off the stranger in front of me, but I force myself to stop fawning over his dark and powerful aura. I let the music take over and flow through me. I lose myself in his eyes, which seem to darken as I make a downward fall from the pole, suspending my body upside down.

"Do you love doing this?"

His words stop me midway, unclipping the strap of my crop top. I force back the shyness and let the hook free. My top flew off from my fingers as his answer. "Do you love watching women strip on your command?"

I dare a question for his question and gulp at the way his jaw ticks. He's not happy with my response, or maybe it's the fact that I'm naked except for the jeans cutouts covering my lower half.

He doesn't respond but lights another cigarette and takes two hurried drags before leaning his back against the couch and widening his sitting stance. His knees spread wide, and his hands drape over the couch as his hungry eyes lock on my half-naked body.

I read the unknown command and slowly land on my heels, letting my breast do a sinful bounce. I hate doing this, but that's not what I feel when I do it for him. What makes me tremble with shame as I move closer to him is the fact that we are not alone. There are two other men in the room, and it surprises me how much it excites me to see this stoic, dark stranger unravel due to me and have someone else witness it.

The song changes to Kiss It Better by Rihanna, and I take my position before him. He twists his lips in a scowl as I hold his gaze and begin my routine. A lap dance from me is rare here, and he might be the first one I will gladly do for free.

He watches me dance without a twitch or a word- a king on his throne, immaculate power and commanding and unmoved.

That's until I move closer, dancing more sensually and erotically, using all my training into action tonight, rolling my abs and hips, and loving how free I feel around the stranger. I inch closer enough to dance in the V of his legs. I'm shimmying to the music, slight small shakes of my hips, enough to set my breasts bouncing. My arms go over my head as I gather my hair, and that's when he reacts, the cigarette is forgotten, and his hands hold the back of the couch in a death grip. His gaze flickers down to my jiggling breasts and then to my eyes. I can't pin the expression on his face. I shouldn't want him to touch me, but I want him to.

My eyes move down from his handsome face, sharp and shiny, to his heaving, sweaty chest and stay on the bulge prominently visible in his black dress pants.

He adjusts himself, the hard line of his cock outlined in his pants. He glances down towards it and shifts on the couch, licking his lips.

Then there's a whisper of a touch. A knuckle against my thigh, only the minute hair on his skin touches my skin. And it burns. I feel as I'm on fire, and a little heartbeat between my legs accelerates.

The slouch of his body commands me to dance on his strong thighs and move my body all over him. While I'm not a proud stripper, I can't help behaving like one with him.

As the song reaches its final verse, I perch my ass in the air, pushing my chest closer to his hardened face, taking support of the couch behind his shoulder, and standing straight in front of him.

His chest heaves, and one of his legs stretches out, scraping his shoe along the rough carpet, and he groans. "Come here."

When I remain frozen in between his legs, his hand curls around my wrist, and I jerk out of his hold. "No, you can't -" I stammer, shaking my head.

"Yes, I can. You do want me to. Don't you, Ever?" His voice wraps around me like sunshine flitting into my darkened world.

I shift my weight on my heels and bite my lips, inner conflict taking over. "I don't do extras. You're not allowed to touch me."

He backs away then, dropping his hands on the couch, grabbing the bottle of whiskey and taking a swig from it. "Then I won't touch you. But you can feel me if you want. It's all your doing. Don't you want to take care of it?"

My insides are burning with shame and the fact that I want to do what he is referring to and more. But instead I dance. Naked, afraid, humiliated and somewhat turned on. Not like a stripper, but I dance like a girl trying to seduce a guy into something deeper than a mere bodily connection.

All my motion has gained new confidence, a power I never felt before as I dance for him. I lose myself to the music and desire with which he's watching me. When the final beat hits, I'm panting, my legs trembling slightly and sweat covering my topless skin. The light dims, and my eyes move toward him. The eye contact is terrifying, the bottle of whiskey forgotten, his eyes dark and fierce. I can trace the hunger in them and also the massive bulge at the zipper of his pants. I do want to feel him, but I stay rooted to my place, shamefully biting my bottom lip and giving him a coy smile.

He sets the bottle down and stands up. I back away, walking backward until my spine hits the cold metal pole on the stage. And he doesn't touch me but leans so close that I can smell the musky scent of his cologne, a potent elixir. And then he holds the pole above my head with one hand and gingerly extends his other hand to brush a lock of hair away from my mouth.

"You don't belong here." His lips graze my earlobe as he mumbles the word that confuses me and also hits me somewhere deep inside.

He spins away abruptly and departs with the slam of the door, and I'm left empty, gasping for breath, and with a thick wad of bills on the couch, not stinky dollars but shiny ones.

You don't belong here.

The words keep haunting me. I collapse back against the couch and struggle to breathe.

Then it hits me. No one in the club knows my real name. They know me for Eve.

And this man in a tailored suit and drowning green eyes called me Ever.

***

A/N: What do you think of their chemistry? And this is my very first time writing such intense scenes. I hope they are coming out well.

Please don't forget to hit the star if you like the story. Any suggestions are much appreciated.