This time, my mouth does curl. Until my attention slides back to Lavender and her dance partner, and something unpleasant curls in my gut.
“No,” I answer without looking up this time. She’s just making a point.
The light flashes over her face, and I see the truth in that. She’s not into the asshole she’s dancing with. She looks bored. Maybe slightly embarrassed. But he is a terrible dancer. He isn’t touching her, just doing a terrible two-step shuffle. In closer proximity than I appreciate, but at least he gets to keep his fingers.For now.But it doesn’t matter how awful his moves are,Lavender won’t leave the dance floor because this is all part of the narrative.
You don’t own me.
Except when she wants me to. When I’m sucking on her clit and slow fucking her with my fingers, when she begs and pouts and promises the world…
I realize Antonio still hovers over me. I lift my hand an inch from the table, and he fades away.
Fuck this.Before I can talk myself out of this ridiculousness, I’m on my feet and heading in her direction.
Down two steps and through the crush of bodies. Her dance partner sees me before she does—before she turns in response to my hands folding around her hips. Her fingers grip over mine, her dark hair swatting my face, her expression fierce… until she realizes. I watch her face soften before she turns, her body relaxing into mine.
Fucking woman.I press my smile into her hair because this tells me all I need to know. The whole buildup to this moment was just to piss me off.
“You dance.” In profile, I see her lips shape the words since the music is too loud to really hear her.
“Only for you.” I press my answer into the soft skin below her ear, her shiver like a reverb between us. Lifting her hand, I slide it to the back of my neck as I move in time with the music. Move in time with her.
When I look across, her partner has slunk away, up by the throng.
Something is inherently intimate about dancing. The focus, the proximity. Touching fingers and swaying hips. The almost hypnotic element, a call and response; one leading, one following. And I’m definitely following the heat and sway of her body. The scent of her skin. The taste of salt on the back of her neck as I press my lips there.
The music changes, the song maybe a remix as a woman’s voice begins to croon in Arabic. Lavender takes my hands, pressing them to her stomach, her movements matching the sultry beat. She knows what she’s doing—knows what she’s doing to me. If nothing else, she can undoubtably feel the hard line of my cock against her.
“Sokkar.” I scrape her lobe with my teeth and repeat the line of the song in Arabic, then English. “Life is like sugar. Sweet and irresistible. Just like you.”
Her husky laughter resounds in my chest. “No one thinks I’m sweet.”
“Maybe you’ve just never melted for anyone else.”Like sugar on my tongue.
She turns in my arms, wrapping herself around me. Our bodies are flush as the music changes, the low refrain allowing for an exchange of words.
“I feel like you’re trying to have your wedding night in front of all these people.”
“No, princess. That experience is one I won’t share.”
“The back seat of the car?” Her laughter trills as she pulls away. “A back alley, maybe?”
I give a slow shake of my head and crook my finger.Don’t run away.
“Be right back.” Her mouth crooks. “I have to visit the little girls' room.”
I watch the horde part for her before I go back to our table. And take stock of Antonio’s stern expression.
“What is it?”
“The asshole.” He hooks a thumb over his shoulder to the dance floor behind him.
“What about him?” I expect him to offer to beat a few things into the—though it’s Lavender’s education that I feel is more pressing—when his expression hardens.
I’ve known him long enough to know that means something.
“Leo heard his friends talking when he went to the pisser. They have GHB and were talking about spiking her on the dance floor.” Antonio makes a jabbing motion with his fist. “His idea. He brought the gear. Syringes. Pills also.”
“That fucker,” I grate out.
