Page 103 of Dancing in the Dark

I stop in place and turn a full three sixty. “Do you want me to?”

“Yes,” she breathes. “More than I thought I would. I bet you’d be good at it, huh? Dancing in a club like this isn’t like dancing at your Aunt Muriel’s wedding. It’s more like making love. It’s intoxicating and sexy and so thrilling, I’ve made myself wet thinking about it.”

“I don’t have an Aunt Muriel.” I tilt my head and start forward again. “But I’d make love to you right here in this club.” My cock swells and aches behind the confines of my zipper. My stomach turns hollow, and my fingers itch to touch. To savor. “I’d make love,” I rasp. “I’d fuck. I’d carry you into a cage and eat your pussy if you asked me to. With or without witnesses.”

“Really?” she pants. “You’d let people see us like that?”

“They wouldn’t see a single part of your body I didn’t want them to. But they’d see your face while you unravel for me. They’d see you cling to me, pulling me closer and riding my tongue.” Fuckkkkk. “Are you wearing a dress, Sera? I’m imagining us in those cages, but for this to work, I need you to be wearing a dress.”

“I’m wearing a skirt,” she moans. “And a top that leaves most of my back bare. I like it when the ends of my hair tickle my spine.”

“You’ll like it more when the tip of my tongue tickles your spine.” My cock throbs with need. With desperation. With a deep-seated desire to plunge inside her pussy. “I need you, Sera. What if I stop moving and you come to me?”

I stop in the center of the pulsing crowd and search.

“Come to me, Sera. Let me touch you.”

“Turn around.”

I spin and search for her bewitching stare. Her long neck, made longer because she’s pulled her hair into a ponytail. I frantically hunt for her thick lips. Her perfect tits. Hell, I’ll accept her bare back, even if it means she’s walking away from me.

I won’t let her get far.

“Sera?”

Her warmth touches my back and brings me around. She’s like fire on my skin. Like magic in my blood. I stop on her beautiful eyes and pocket my phone to free up my hands. “Fuckkkkk.” I cup her face and study her outfit. The handkerchief she wears as a top, held up by strings she trusts more than I’ve trusted anybody. Ever. Her belly is on show, those tattoos I first saw once upon a time right inside this club. Her mini skirt, denim and almost Christina Aguilera in the 90’s short. “You’re every dirty dream I’ve ever had about any woman. Ever. Jesus.” I draw her to the tips of her toes and slide my tongue over her plump lips. “I’m not accustomed to being the most blessed motherfucker in a room, but I look around here, and I know…” I search her glittering eyes. “My luck turned the day you agreed to give me another chance.”

Her phone disappears into a pocket, and her arms come around my neck. Already, we dance, her chest pressed to mine. Her fingers in my hair. “You’re a sweet talker tonight?” She spins, her hands still around the back of my neck, but now she rides my crotch, and her delicate hip bones become mine to hold. “I thought you were erring toward a dirty fuck.” She tips her head back and looks up at me upside down. “Not sweet whispers and declarations of love.”

“I can do both.” I wrap my palm around the front of her throat and hold her in place, then I make a meal of her lips. Her tongue. Her teeth. “I can fuck you from here until you beg me to stop, and I can tell you I love you at the same time. It’s easy, actually.” I slide my other hand down to her thigh. Around, until the tips of my fingers tease her in places I really shouldn’t touch in public. “I’m so fucking desperate for you, it’s embarrassing.”

“I don’t think you should be embarrassed.” She spins again, her perfect double d’s crushed against my chest and her ass filling my hand. “I already settled for mediocrity. I’ve been in a relationship of mild interest. Of convenience and social kindness.” She pushes onto her toes and nibbles on my lips. “Tried it. Don’t recommend.”

“You want obsession now? You want pure devotion?”

“I don’t think it’s too much to ask.” She slips her tongue into my mouth and hums her pleasure. “I’d rather be alone and happy, than with a man who only feels bleh about me. That shit is depressing.”

“Guess I’m not embarrassed, then. Because I have never felt bleh around you.” I lift her an inch off the floor and bury my lips in the warmth of her neck. “I’ve been so fucking desperate for you for so long, I forgot how to speak to women. How to be a normal human being who doesn’t overexplain every little thought and feeling that passes through his mind.”

She pulls back and shows off a smug grin. “Kinda like right now?”

“Nah, I’m merely explaining how ridiculously, obsessively, desperately in love I am.” I straighten my back and lift her clear off her feet, breaking club rules, and a law or two as her legs come around my hips. “I wanna keep you forever,” I groan. “And I don’t know how else to say that except to…” I nip her bottom lip, drawing a pleasure-filled gasp of pain along her throat. “Tell you.” I suckle her tongue and send us both mad. “All my red flags are for you, Sera. Wear them like you wear that flimsy little top.”

She peeks down between us. “You don’t like it?”

“No. I fuckin’ love it,” I exhale an aching chuckle. “But my toxic, possessive, kid-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks brain wants me to tell you what you can and can’t wear in public.” I hold her up with one arm, freeing the other so I can trail my fingertips across her peaked nipple. “If I can see this, then everyone else can see it. That shit sends me wild with jealousy and makes me wanna take you home and lock you up.”

“Maybe I want to be locked up.” She dips closer and slides her tongue against mine. “Maybe I want to be so adored, so wanted, that you can’t bear to let me leave the apartment ever again.”

“You’d let me pack you away and keep you for myself?”

“No. But it would make me ridiculously pleased to know that’s what you wanted.” Slowly, seductively, she draws her hand up and lays it gently over my eyes. From seeing her to seeing nothing at all, she commands my senses and hums by my ear. “See how much better it is to dance without seeing?” She trails feather-soft lips over mine. “How the music sounds better? How my skin feels softer under your fingertips? How my perfume smells nicer in your lungs?”

I draw a deep breath in.

“Good, right?”

I nod.