Excerpt of Exposed by Megan Ziese

Chapter One

Keira Johnson, aka Sexx, took one last look in the mirror, shifting her red halter top a little more. The D.J. was going to call her name any minute. Even after a week of dancing at the club, she still wasn’t over her stage nerves. She supposed for the most part that, more than worrying about strangers ogling her, she’d been nervous that one day her boss might discover that she’d taken on a second job working nights at Cheaters.

She had worked at the law firm of Douglas and Tremaine for almost six months before she’d finally concluded that one job just wasn’t going to pay the bills. If she was ever going to get out from under her college debts, she was going to have to try something drastic.

Deciding to work nights as an exotic dancer was pretty drastic, but then she’d considered long and hard before she’d finally concluded it was her best option. Nothing else would bring in enough money to get her debts off of her back nearly as quickly, and she didn’t think she had the stamina to hold down two jobs for very long. She didn’t think it would even have occurred to her to check out the exotic dance scene except that she’d discovered pretty soon after she’d started working for the firm that her boss, Devin Tremaine, entertained his male clients at a strip joint fairly regularly.

As far as she’d been able to discover, though, Devin Tremaine always took his clients to the strip club down the street, the Purple Pony. She’d been as casual as she could possibly be when she’d asked his personal secretary, Sarah, on their lunch break one day if he always frequented that establishment. Sarah had given her a strange look, which had given her the uneasy feeling that, maybe, she hadn’t been as subtle as she’d thought, but had assured her that Mr. Tremaine always went to the Purple Pony.

It was for that reason Kiera had chosen Cheaters, even though the Purple Pony seemed to be more popular, catering to a more upscale clientele that probably meant it would also have paid better. Far better, she’d thought, to take a little longer to shed those debts that had been keeping her awake at night than risk the chance of running into her boss and losing the job she expected to make a career out of. Sarah had been Mr. Tremaine’s personal secretary since they’d started the law firm, and she knew him better than anyone else. If she said he never went to Cheaters, Kiera was sure she could count on the information being reliable.

Her own, more limited, knowledge of Mr. Tremaine supported that. Since she’d started working at the law firm, Keira had noticed many things about her entirely too handsome boss. Not to say he was OCD, but he was definitely a creature of habit and always did things the same way. He kept his blonde hair short and impeccably neat, parted just off the side, smoothed straight despite its tendency to curl—not a hair out of place—and it never budged, just like him. He never relented on office policy. He never arrived late, never socialized internally. His clothing and demeanor were always immaculate, perfect. And he expected all the qualities and practices he exhibited to be followed to the letter by his employees, all of them, no matter their job at the company.

It was no surprise to her to learn from many of the female employees that the straight-laced, extremely cold and serious Mr. Tremaine had never dated anyone in the law firm. She had heard horror stories of women who thought they could work their way up the social ladder by engaging in a relationship with him. It hadn’t taken long for them to be shown the door.

Following office policy hadn’t been a problem for Keira but being able to get by with the salary they’d started her off on was another matter. Her college loans and the cost of living in a big city were bearing down on her. She had recently been forced to choose between eating and paying rent—and she didn’t like those kinds of choices. She knew that something had to give, and it wouldn’t be a promotion at work. She hadn’t worked there long enough to expect anything of the sort. The only solution was a second job, which the law firm had expressly forbid. But she didn’t have a choice in the matter. And the only job she could get with flexible hours at night that could offset her loans was a job as a stripper. They paid cash, she worked under a stage name, and she didn’t have to claim the income. She had only taken the job as a temporary fix anyway, hoping that in another six months she would get a promotion and she’d be able to quit the second job.

“Let’s give a round of applause for China. And now introducing . . . Sexx!” D.J. Mike announced on the microphone.

That was her cue. By that time, Keira had taken her place. At the announcement, she stepped out onto the stage, passing China on the way. Dazzled by the spotlights and, thankfully, unable to really see the audience, Keira claimed the stage, using the strut she’d been taught as she slunk with a provocative sway of her hips across the smooth surface. Grabbing the steel pole in the middle of the stage once she reached it, she began to twirl around it sinuously, taking care not to loose her footing. The six inch heels she’d bought for the job were dangerous.

She turned her back to one side of the stage, dipping low as she slid her hands down the pole, using her legs to shake her ass.

The men behind her cheered, waving dollars.

She crouched down and bounced her ass a few times to the beat of the music before turning and dropping to her knees to crawl on the stage in front of the men, keeping her gazed focused on where she was going and her mind on maintaining the sensual movement. She’d discovered it helped to ‘tune’ out her audience as much as possible.

Grabbing the garter on her thighs as she passed them, the men began to insert their money, using the opportunity for a quick feel.

Keira had only made it around half of the stage before the next song in her set came on. She used the pole to get up and turned her ass to the other side of the stage as she tried to seductively slide out of her leather hipster shorts. Turning around, leaning back against the pole for support, she slipped the knot at the neck of her halter and then the one just behind her back, holding the cups over her breasts for a moment before she whipped it away by the strings, twirled it a couple of times to set her breasts to jiggling in a circular motion, and then tossed the halter toward the back of the stage. She slid down the pole then, dropping to her knees, and then crawled in front of the men. Coming up on her knees, she cupped her breasts in front of them, massaging them, playfully jiggling her breasts before sliding a hand down her hip to play with the ties on her string bottoms. When the appreciative catcalls reached a fever pitch from her teasing, she came up on her knees, sidling closer to the edge of the stage to offer her garter for more tips. Allowing her eyes to drift half closed as if she was unbearably excited by them and the feel of her own body, she continued to move with the music, skimming her hands along her torso from breasts to hips and back again to draw the men’s gazes to her smooth skin.

Even focused as she was on undulating her body sinuously, on pretending to be caught up in a sexual haze as she lifted and stroked her breasts, Keira noticed the large hand that snaked out and tucked a twenty dollar bill in her garter, stroking lightly along her thigh. A thrill went through her since she rarely saw anything bigger than a five.

Dropping to her hands and knees directly in front of the big tipper, she shook her breasts almost in his face, lifting them to him in offering.