Playing Doctor

Chapter Twenty-nine

Ingredients for a Successful Striptease:

The proper outfit

The proper music

The proper audience

The author of Strip Style neglected to mention one important factor in her chapter on bikini styles: the pain involved in getting said area smooth as silk.

Studying my naked form in the mirror, I wondered if it was worth it. I touched the depilated area, which was inflamed but getting less splotchy by the hour. Soft. And a little more sensitive than usual. I imagined Gray feathering his fingers on me. Would he like it?

My cheeks flushed and I pulled my hand away.

I reached for one of the lingerie outfits I'd bought. It was one of the more risqué sets Magda had talked me into, a black lace thing that cost entirely too much for the little scraps of fabric that made it up. Gray would love it.

I had time before Mena came home from work, so I thought I'd do a dress rehearsal. So once I was dressed (so to speak), I went into the living room with the CD Magda gave me.

The cover looked provocative: several scantily clad young women. I supposed if your name was The Pussycat Dolls you had to live up to the name. One thing was certain: just by the front cover I could tell Magda had picked the perfect music.

I really needed to buy that woman a present.

Inserting the CD in the player, I looked around Mena's living room. The obvious place for Gray to sit while I stripped for him was the couch, so I moved the coffee table to give me room to move. Pursing my lips, I decided to get rid of the throw pillows too. I might decide to give him a lap dance and I didn't want them getting in the way.

"Perfect." I hit play and fast-forwarded to the fifth track. It had to do with loosening buttons, which I thought was completely appropriate. I listened to get the rhythm of the song before I tentatively shook my hips.

Catching a reflection of one of my gyrations in the window, I frowned. I had to do better than that-I didn't want to blow this job opportunity too. So I turned the music up, closed my eyes, and strutted my stuff like I'd drunk a carafe of Sexual Trances at Kells.

The beat of the music got into my extremities. I tried to visualize liquid sex, like the chapter on dancing said in Strip Style. But all I could see was Gray's eyes heavy with arousal as he bent toward me for a kiss.

My hips undulated, slow and sinfully, as I pictured him deep inside me, like yesterday. I raised my arms and threw my head back like I imagined I did when we made love on the couch. I rolled my hips in a sensuous grind. The tempo sped up and shimmied across the room and back.

In my mind, I could feel Gray's eyes on me, urging me on, urging me hotter. One arm still raised, I lowered the other and ran my hand down my neck, over the barely-there lace of the bra, and to the tiny triangle of lace covering the Arrow of Love. I slipped a finger into the side of my panties and snapped the elastic like the book suggested.

"Daphne."

I froze in place but I opened my eyes. Mena stood at the top of the stairs, gaping at me, eyes huge.

After turning down the music, I straightened my back and looked down my nose at her like I would have an unruly intern in the past. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Obviously not." She ran her eyes up and down my body. I steeled myself for the disparaging remarks I knew would come-that I should stick to medicine because I was obviously missing some feminine gene.