Freaky by Nature (4 page)

passionate, m y sterious m an with deep dark secrets of his own.

Her horm ones scream ed as the gurgle of the drain brought her

out of her lust-induced stupor.

***

From inside the pool area, Brett braced one hip against the

wall and folded his arm s across his chest. Holly sat on the edge of

the pool with her head bowed and both hands at her tem ples,

obv iously deep in thought. Hesitant to interrupt, he spoke to alert

her to his presence.

“Hey .”

Holly jerked her head toward him , a look of alarm on her face.

“Brett.” She laid a hand against the base of her neck. “You scared

m e.”

He pushed him self off the wall and walked toward her. “We

need to talk.”

She raised her ey ebrows. “Are y ou breaking up with m e?”

Despite the sev erity of the situation, he grinned, surprised by

her light hum or. “This isn’t the first trouble y ou’v e had here, is

it?”

He sat next to her, careful not to inv ade her personal space.

Close enough to feel the heat generated by her body , y et far

enough away not to intim idate her.

Her pony tail brushed his shoulder as she shook her head in

silent denial.

Determ ined to break past her resistance, he persisted. “What

happened?”

“I m entioned the bicy cle im planted in the m irror and the

flooding when we were at Cam eron’s last m onth.”

His m ind flashed back to her confession. Not only did he and

Sterling apprehend Cam eron’s stalker that day , Brett saw Holly

naked for the second tim e. He m uddled through the sticky webs of

lust and concentrated to rem ain blank. “There’s m ore?”

“Yes. Last week, the locks were cut from ev ery single locker in

the ladies dressing room .”

“Theft?”

“No one reported any thing m issing.”

He watched her tongue trace her bottom lip. He pressed his

lips together to restrain his own tongue from chasing the m oist

path.

“What else?”

“Som eone left a heartfelt m essage carv ed into the m irror in

one of the room s.”

“Carv ed? Like etched in the glass?”

She nodded and her teeth now gnawed that full, plum p bottom

lip.

“What did it say ?”

Her ey ebrows clim bed her forehead as she gav e him a startled

look. “Why ?”

“I m ight be able to use the ev idence.”

“I took a picture for m y insurance com pany . Would that

work?”

Brett paused a m om ent to consider her reaction. Why didn’t

she want to show him ?

“I need to see it, Holly .”

Her ey es narrowed and seem ed to penetrate his suspicion.

“The room is not for public use. If I show y ou, y ou can’t tell

any one.”

“It’s in our contract.”

She grinned at the irony of his assum ption and stood to lead

him out of the room . “We don’t hav e a contract. Max insisted.”

Brett bit back his response. Sterling insisted? Or
Cameron?

Brett followed Holly down the m ain hallway , appreciating the

long, sm ooth curv e of her back that led to a tight, firm ass. The

black exercise pants she wore wrapped her like a second skin and

m ade his tongue num b. The swing of her hips m esm erized him .

Ev en walking she had the grace of a dancer. His cock jum ped. He

squeezed his ey es closed and inhaled a deep breath.

Holly stopped outside an opaque glass door and turned the

knob.

Brett frowned when they entered and he saw rowing

m achines, barbells and treadm ills. “I’v e been in here.”

She gav e him a sm irk ov er her shoulder as they walked

toward another door in the back wall. “Yes, but not in this room .”

Holly eased open the door and his cock scream ed when he

entered the room . Two rows of three m etal poles stood bolted to the

floor and the ceiling. Unable to speak, he stared like an idiot.

She gav e a light giggle. “You’v e figured out what goes on in

here, hav en’t y ou?”

He turned to look at her, afraid that if he said it out loud it

would all go away .

“Stripping,” she answered for him .

Brett beat his rabid libido ov er the head and attem pted to at

least look cool. “No kidding? You teach wom en to take off their

clothes?”

“No, I teach them sensual dance.”

Show me
. Brett alm ost swallowed his tongue to keep those

words silent. His heart raced. In this room , on any giv en day ,

wom en gathered to learn how to m ake a m an sweat. To m ake him

so dam n hot he’d boil in his own blood.

“How m any wom en?”

“Sev eral.”

He wanted to fall at her feet and worship the ground she

walked on. Not one stripper but
several
. “Any one I know?”

Holly shrugged. “May be.”

He gav e her what he knew to be his best
you know you’ll tell me

grin. “I’m going to need y our m em bership roster any way .”

“All of Jack’s girls.”

Brett cocked his head to the side. “So, if y ou’re the trainer,

why do y ou dance?”

“I don’t.”

“Then explain Madam e.”

“Madam e only m akes special appearances. She fills in when

som eone has other obligations.”

Brett turned ov er her confession in his head sev eral tim es. He

didn’t know whether he was disappointed or reliev ed. Jack

m entioned Madam e wasn’t a regular, and Brett was im m ensely

happy she just happened to fill in one of the nights he worked, but

her explanation for last night wouldn’t check out.

“All the dancers were present and accounted for last night,

Holly .”

She lowered her ey es and her v oice. “Yes, they were.”

Brett stepped closer and tipped her chin until her green ey es

m et his. “Why were y ou at The Cathouse?”

She closed her ey es briefly and then opened them . Sm all gold

flecks glittered in the depths. “Som eone is after m e.”

Shock strangled him . He expected her to rev eal financial

difficulty , a gam bling debt, hell, ev en sex addiction, not this.

“A stalker?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t hav e any ev idence other

than the v andalism . You know I don’t get out m uch.”

He released her chin and nodded his silent encouragem ent for

her to continue.

“I danced last night to see if any one new showed up.”

“What about Casanov a on the catwalk?”

“One of Jack’s regulars. I don’t think he’s responsible.”

“How do y ou know?”

“Just a feeling.”

Brett took a few seconds to observ e the other item s in the room .

A clothing rack occupied one corner. Another closet-sized cubicle

was carv ed into the opposite wall. A dressing room , he assum ed. A

black, silky curtain cov ered the length of the back wall. “Is that

the m irror?”

Holly nodded.

He zigzagged through the poles and drew back the curtain.

Just as Holly had explained, a m essage was etched into the glass.

BURN IN HELL

Anger chased arousal from his sy stem . “Why didn’t y ou call us

before now?”

“I really didn’t think too m uch about it. Stripping is not

exactly accepted as art by ev ery one. There are som e pretty close-

m inded people in the world.”

As m uch as he conceded her point, Brett’s rage still held him

by the balls and he fought to rem ain calm . “This is serious. No

m ore dancing until I figure out what the hell is going on. Lock this

door and keep it locked.”

Holly bobbed her head in agreem ent. “I’v e already told the

girls we’d practice at the club.”

She laid a cool hand on his forearm . “Please don’t tell Max.”

Her soft plea distracted his anger. “About Madam e?”

Her cheeks flushed in response.

“I won’t m ention Madam e, but I hav e to fill him in on the

rest.”

“Of course.”

He thum ped the nearest pole. “You really practice on this

thing?”

She sm iled. “Behind closed doors.”

“Wom en with y our talent aren’t usually shy .”

“I wear a m ask, Brett. No one knows who I am . Besides, I only

do it once in awhile. Do y ou know what that knowledge would do to

m y business?”

“Probably increase it ten-fold.”

“Hardly . Let’s just keep it under wraps.”

Brett breathed a sigh of relief as she closed and locked the door.

The fewer m en who ogled her body , the better.

“You’re on y our way hom e, right?”

She shrugged. “Guess so. I’ll com e back later to finish the pool.”

The despondence in her ey es challenged him to pull her into

his arm s and kiss it all away . Instead, he took a lesser gam ble.

“Will y ou call m e first?”

He braced him self for her defiance, and alm ost fell ov er when

she answered.

“May be.”

Careful not to react, he sim ply nodded. “Good enough.”

CHAPTER FOUR

With her head pounding, Holly rushed inside the house and

threw her bag onto the sofa, resisting the urge to follow suit and

lose herself in unconsciousness. Instead, she grabbed two thick

books from the bookshelf ov er the sofa and sat down at the kitchen

bar.

She took a couple deep breaths before she reached for a bottle of

aspirin and dum ped two tablets in her hand. She closed her fist

and juggled the tablets against her palm . Knowing good and well

they wouldn’t ease her pain, she tossed them on her tongue and

swallowed any way .

Ev er since the accident that presented her with her unique

talent, she wished she was color blind. Holly opened the first book,

one she av oided since graduating from college with her psy chology

degree. Surely buried som ewhere in the depths of
Exploring the

Human Mind
there was a logical explanation why all the colors in

the univ erse taunted her. And what did they m ean?

She turned page after page until som ething caught her

attention. Holly bit her lip as she scanned the paragraphs.
Colors

affect mood
. That m uch she knew. That’s why color env eloped

ev ery single person in the univ erse. Her thoughts turned to Brett.

This m orning, he walked into the gy m bathed in pink. She giggled.

Probably not his first choice.

Reading further down the page, she frowned. No psy chological

explanation for pink, just red. Lov e, anger, desire. She paused. His

color had strengthened from pink to red. Her assum ption that he

had been angry about being sum m oned was correct. But what

about the other colors: gray , green, y ellow, blue? She flipped the

page. No gray , but black. Power, ev il, death. Once she read the

explanations for each of the other colors, she was doubly

frustrated.

Instinct had taught her that the colors she saw represented not

only m ood, but aura. Howev er, it wasn’t quite so easy to take the

explanation from her psy chology book and apply it to the real

world. The colors that surrounded Brett were not so cut and dry .

The colors didn’t stand alone. Instead, they m ingled together and

seeped into a glowing ring around him . Ev ery once in a while, one

color was m ore dom inant. A m ood change, she assum ed.

Holly slam m ed the book closed and pushed it across the

counter. Although the second book lay inches from her reach, she

hesitated before dragging it close.
The Art of Aura
. She snorted. Art.

Right.

She exhaled and opened the book to the color chart in the

m iddle. Bright pink, com passion; dark pink, im m aturity or

dishonesty . Her brow wrinkled. Was he bright pink or dark pink?

She rubbed her forehead. Bright. Com passion? He felt sorry for

her? She read further. Gray , fear. Fear? She wouldn’t hav e used

fear to label Brett’s m ood. And what about the green? She glanced

at the chart. Dark green, bluish green, em erald green. Which was

it?

Holly shov ed the open book across the counter and dropped her

head into her hands. Dam n this curse. She nev er should hav e

called for help. The one tim e she let her guard down and decided to

let som eone in, she sentenced herself to this fam iliar punishm ent.

Being alone certainly had its adv antages. Now there was no

possible way to escape the torm enting color.

She lifted her head and winced as another thought assaulted

her m ind. Color wasn’t the only thing she saw. This tim e, piercing

flashes of light and distorted pictures appeared. Why ? Holly

wanted to scream as she stood and put the books back on the shelf.

She was just too exhausted to care.

Just as she decided to giv e in to her exhaustion, her cell phone

jingled from the depths of her bag. She found the phone and

plopped down on the couch as she read the caller ID.
Cameron
. The

one totally real person she knew.

“Holly !” Cam eron said breathlessly . “Max told m e what

happened. Are y ou okay ?”

“I’m fine, Cam eron.”

“You’re not still at the gy m are y ou?”

“No, I cam e hom e.”

“Alone?” Cam eron shrieked.

“Relax, I won’t be here long. I’v e got to go back to the gy m in a

little while and there’s a policem an outside the front door.”

“You’re going back? Seriously , Holly , y ou shouldn’t be there

alone.”

“Som ebody has to clean up the m ess.”