“No, I’m good,” I answered, not sure how I was speaking after seeing him.
The most staggeringly beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on in my entire twenty-four years on earth. From the very moment our gazes touched across the club, I’d felt like I had been hit by lightning.
Hard and sharp.
Everything inside of me irrevocably changed somehow. I felt lighter.Seen.Almost like I glowed from the inside out.From one look?I was being ridiculous. The man at the bar had been beautiful. The definition of masculinity. His features sharp and undeniable, with a stern expression on his face. Older by how much, I hadn’t been able to tell. But one look, and it’d felt likedaddy wanted to set me on his lap and count down the spankings I’d earned by dancing on the stage in front of strange men.
Daddy?
Spankings?
I shook my head and stared at myself. My face was flushed from more than the dancing and spinning I’d done on stage. My thoughts drifted to the stranger who had been watching me, and my body was covered in goose bumps.
The club had been too dark and the lights set on me as I danced too bright to make out the exact color of his eyes, but somehow, I knew whatever they were was my new favorite color. I’d never had such a visceral reaction to a man. He had taken my breath away.Literally.In that brief moment, probably not longer than five or ten seconds, it’d felt like everyone around us had disappeared. Like we were the only ones who existed.
If it hadn’t been for the song getting louder in volume, I wouldn’t have been able to tear my eyes off him. And for the first time since I’d started working here, I was dying to get out on the floor to go look for him to see if maybe he’d want a dance.
What is wrong with me?I wondered, staring at my reflection.Go home,a small voice inside my head whispered.Run.Whatever sliver of self-preservation I had left inside of me after my life had been derailed from my life plan wasn’t loud enough for me to listen. I cooled down and retouched my makeup before I fixed my schoolgirl outfit again and made sure the pigtails were still in place. Usually, I changed out of my dance costume to something smaller. A teeny tiny bikini or a different costume. Just to keep things fresh and different, since men were visual creatures. But I was too focused, too excited to find Daddy out on the floor.
Daddy?The thought stopped me in my tracks. I’d been reading too many of Kitty’s romance books she liked to recommend.
I’d never been into older men.
And that handsome man who had stared at me like I was his, like he knew everything about me and was dying to find out more, was most definitely older. Not as old as the gray-haired man who had offered me a drink before I’d danced but definitely older than me.
Take a chance. Go look for him,something inside of me insisted.
“Heading to the floor?” Maryanne asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. I turned and smiled, glad that she had decided to borrow my nurse costume.
“It looks great on you,” I said. She smiled shyly.
“Thank you. I’ll have it laundered for you and return it by?—“
“Keep it. There is no way I would look half as good as you do in it.”
“Really?” she asked with real surprise in her voice.
It never seized to surprise me just how much we as women didn’t see just how beautiful we were, from the inside out. There wasn’t a woman I worked with who wasn’t absolutely gorgeous, no matter their style. From the girl next door to the goth princess, each one was stunning. And I’d witnessed each one, including bitchy Gretchen and mean girl Stef, have a moment of self-doubt.
“Totally.”
“Thank you.” She stood a little straighter.
“You got this,” I encouraged, and she nodded. “See you on the floor.”
I stepped out of the dressing room, the small purse hanging off my shoulder, as excitement vibrated within me. I’d never been more hyperaware of just how every nerve ending of my body seemed to be glimmering.
I felt awake.
Alive.
And ready to find the hot stranger. But as I reached the bar, the smile I had on my face started to fade away. He was gone.
“Drink?” Romy asked. I nodded, my throat restricted with a loss I didn’t understand. I’d never even talked to the man. I didn’t know his name. Nothing. But the loss felt monumental.
Not finding him where I’d last seen him cut through me. Deep. I inhaled, trying to calm down and steady myself as I stood right where he’d been. A note of something lingered in the air. Something familiar but too faint to make out clung in the space.
“You did great,” Romy complimented, handing me a cold bottle of water.
