Lena
A dark club with strobe lights, and loud, eclectic music, filled with dancing people was exactly what I needed.
I could hear the rhythmic beating of the music as soon as I stepped out of the cab. The tightness that’d wound its way through my chest during dinner began to ease. I didn’t know if the easing was from the sound of the music or the contact with Gabe. It was likely a combination of both.
He’d been so calm and resolute throughout dinner. He didn’t take too much shit from my parents, but he didn’t fly off the handle like I wanted to do sometimes when I was around them for too long.
“Thank you for indulging my parents tonight,” I said right before we reached the door of Skins. I lifted onto my tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. Gabe turned his head at the last second, connecting our lips.
Fire shot through my veins at the contact, and I almost melted right there in his arms.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” he said in the deep, gruff voice of his.
I should’ve known that’s how he would’ve reacted to my parents. Very few things got Gabriel riled up. The only time I saw him come close to appearing as if he would lose it was when either one of my parents would make snide remarks regarding me.
Though they were my parents, sitting with Gabe beside me, I felt secure and protected, even from them. That was an odd feeling. My last relationship felt like the total opposite. Either Nate was teaming up with my parents to insult me, or he was telling me what a nuisance they were and how I needed to be grateful that he loved me enough to even put up with them.
I stepped through the door Gabe held open for me.
The club pulsed with the electricity of the hundreds of people who danced in the middle of the floor.
“Do you want a drink?” Gabe asked, low in my ear.
I shook my head and turned, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. “I want to dance. With you,” I replied, my lips almost touching his.
“That can be arranged.”
He smiled wide and led me by the hand to the dance floor. Soon as we hit the dance floor, a dancehall song came on. I started swaying my hips, remembering the song immediately.
“Who’s this?” Gabe asked, his arms wrapped around my waist from behind me.
I leaned back as he bent low, placing his ear next to my mouth. “‘Hold You’ by Gyptian. Came out in 2010,” I answered. “First time hearing it?”
He nodded.
I laughed. “Let me show you how to dance to it.”
I lifted my arms to wrap them around his neck as he stood behind me while I whirled my hips in time to the music. Gabe surprised me when his hips began moving in time with mine. We both danced and grinded against one another as if we were the only two people on the dance floor.
We were the only two that mattered as far as I was concerned. With Gabriel, I felt freer than I had in a very long time. Free to stumble on the dance floor a little, free to laugh and giggle when his beard brushed across my neck, or he ran his hands up my thighs.
Another dancehall song came on. This one was by Sean Paul, and again, my date surprised me when he started rapping along with the lyrics.
“I’m not a total hick,” he said in my ear. “I know some music outside of rock.”
I leaned in and pulled his face into mine, kissing him. “I never would’ve mistaken you for a hick,” I replied with my lips against his.
He laughed, and heat flowed up my spine. His touch, caress, and the sound of his laughter did more to increase my body temperature than all the dancing I’d done and all the sweaty bodies that surrounded us.
Every time one of the strobe lights flashed in our direction, allowing me to see his intense gaze burrowing into mine, I held my breath. I’d tried to hold out. To not give him what he demanded, which was something no one had ever asked of me.
Perhaps, it was the two encounters with my parents that weakened me. Or, maybe it was being back in my home city, which, even for a short period, could feel tiring with all its hustle and bustle. Possibly, it was the deep, dark fear in the back of my mind that remained about my inability to write new music.
Yet, it could’ve been the way my body trembled with each new way Gabe touched me. He ran his fingers down my arms and brushed his hips against mine. His breath fanned across my skin.
I didn’t know which one of these factors made me realize it, but perhaps it was all of them combined. Either way, I wanted Gabe to take me, all of me, in any way he wanted. And I was tired of running from it.
He leaned in, getting next to my ear. “Are you ready to say it now?”
