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Mark Taylor.
“Hate to ruin your fantasy, but I teach ballroom, jazz, ballet, and cardio dancing.” I also belly dance twice a week at Bissara, a local Moroccan restaurant. But I won’t tell Mark that and give him a reason to start eating pastilla on weekend nights. Especially since I don’t know how this date will end.
I have a stripper pole in my house because Cole was a pervert in the best way possible.
So I’ve had it…six years.
she's 28 now
Rolling my tongue with his, I try to surrender beneath the invasion, but the mechanics feel wrong, like I’m leading instead of following, straining instead of letting go. He doesn’t taste right. His lips are too malleable and thin. His jaw is too pointy, and his shoulders feel bony beneath my hands.
I’ve never been a prude, but I’m reminded why the dozen lovers I had before Cole never lasted. Seduction is everything, and Cole knew how to ravish me with a single look. Then he abandoned me. I need to get over him. I know this, and to do so, I need to forget about sentimentalities and just have sex. It doesn’t have to be great. It doesn’t even have to be good. I just need to fucking do it already.
Ten minutes of groping and sloppy kissing, and my pussy’s still as dry and frigid as my emotional state. Is it me? Am I so messed up that I’ll find a thousand faults in every man I try to be with?
I can’t afford to turn down a job. I’m barely keeping my dance company afloat, and private dance instruction is an easy way to bring in money.
“The bulk of my business is private ballroom lessons. Rich old men. Couples looking to spice up their marriage. I could really use the income, but that was… I’ve never had someone show up at my house like that.” My stomach knots. “My address isn’t publicly listed.”
“Everyone knows me.” He offers a large hand. “Trace Savoy.” The casino owner. “I’ve never been to your casino.” I place my palm in his and gulp at the electricity zipping up my arm. “I don’t know how…”
My voice fragments as a memory surfaces. Crowded dining room at Bissara. Dark suit. Blue eyes. He’s watched me belly dance at the restaurant. “You like Moroccan food?” I slide my hand away and flex my fingers at my side.
“I own it as of this morning. I want to discuss your employment at the casino.”
“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear.” His head tilts, expression stony. Like a marble statue. “You work for me now, and I require your presence in my office.”
As I watch him amble toward his truck, the potency of Trace’s gaze hijacks my traitorous libido. He stares at me as if he just staked his claim, and God help me, that notion awakens such a deep-seeded need inside me it takes all my strength to not surrender to it.
Heat tingles across my cheeks, pulses in my breasts, and swells between my legs.
That’s exactly what Cole would’ve said, and the familiar possessiveness wobbles my knees.
The You’re mine, and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it stare that owned me instantly and completely.
“I’m closing Bissara and reopening it at the casino.” He removes a folded document from the interior pocket of his suit jacket.
I only dance at Bissara twice a week, but according to this, he’s tripling my hourly wage? I’m goddamn giddy until I reach the section about my required schedule. “Five nights a week? No way. I teach dance classes on—”
“I’m not engaged anymore.” I avert my gaze. “Then he’s as idiotic as the one you were with tonight.”
“You, my tiny dancer, are an erotic dream dipped in the sweetest honey. A man only needs to look at you to become fiercely protective of your smile.” His finger traces the ridge of my bottom lip. “Of every limber curve.” He feathers a path over the heaving swell of my chest. “Every delicious tremble.”
You’re a flesh and muscle articulation of sex. Each vibrating hip drop, quiver in your thighs, and bounce of your tiny tits plants filthy thoughts in a man’s head. His mouth waters, so he orders more to drink. His slacks become too tight, so he remains at the table, hiding the swollen evidence of his intentions. And he’s hungry, so very hungry he stays and he watches and he eats.”
damn, he makes small boobs sound hot
“Making money gets my dick hard.”
He eyes me impassively. “Have you ever gone to Bissara on the nights you’re not dancing?” No. I glare at him. “It’s a ghost town.”
Heaviness seeps into my limbs and tightens my stomach. I’m attracted to him, and he sees me as nothing but a financial deal.
The controlling controller controls his gait to the front door.
wtf is this sentence..reminds me of the alliteration voice exercises I did for my theater warmup recently
That’s when it dawns on me I didn’t ache for Cole once while Trace was here. It’s both disturbing and remarkable. There isn’t a chance in hell I’ll ever forget what I lost, but for the last hour, Trace’s assjackery extinguished the grief I carry for the man who owns my heart.
At twenty feet away, I know I’m in trouble, because this man is fucking gorgeous. It’s his smile. A heart-thudding, sexy-as-fuck, world-changing smile that shines from the inside out.
The look that follows marks the before and after in my life. The air ceases to exist, and the only thing between us is the anticipation of what is coming. In that flicker of time, with something as inconceivable as a look, he claims me, owns me, and ruins me for all others. It’s a look so defining it puts quotation marks around mine, his, us, and forever.
“You wondered what I would look like?” “My forever.”
I might be on the extreme side of outgoing, but I should probably wait for our date before playing with his butt cleavage.
She was never a huge Cole fan. He was too mysterious and rough around the edges for her tastes.
I came to Gateway after I lost Cole,
always move the engagement ring to my right hand before walking in. No questions. No past.
Dancers aren’t shy about showing skin, and I’m no exception. James can leer all he wants if he keeps his hands to himself.
The freedom in your movements, the pleasure on your face… it evokes feelings that are deeper, hotter”—he bends so close his lips brush my ear—“better than sex.” Shuddering warmth curls through me. “You must not be having very good sex.”
“I imagine sex with you would annihilate every experience a man has ever had.”
My preposterous counteroffer demands a salary that rivals that of a tenured surgeon. It also includes other requirements, such as a wardrobe budget, private dressing room, retirement contribution, health care, paid vacation, and free alcohol at the casino bars.
Am I the best belly dancer in St. Louis? For sure. But he could find a better dancer outside of the city and pay her just enough to relocate. That leaves me with one conclusion. He wants me, and his interest is personal.
I’m drawn to him in a way I haven’t been drawn to anyone since Cole. Trace could be both a job and a solution for my loneliness. Maybe we’ll fuck. Maybe we won’t. What’s the worst that could happen? If it gets complicated, I’ll quit the belly dancing gig and focus on teaching and other side jobs.
Wednesday through Sunday. Three to midnight, with a one-hour break.
“I want to watch your body move.” His mouth grazes my bare shoulder. “Five nights a week. In my casino.”
“I fucking love your body.” “But not my messy personality?” My head falls back on his shoulder.
It’s been nine months since we met in the street on that fateful morning. We fucked like animals that first night, and he moved in a month later. To say it’s been a whirlwind is an understatement. Every second of every day is a combustible haze of touching, kissing, intoxicating delirium that obscures our awareness of the world around us. Inseparable to the point of infatuation, we’re sickeningly, obsessively, can’t-get-enough-of-each-other in love. I can’t imagine this fever ever fading. It’s too strong, too real, too deeply and intricately woven into the fiber of my being.
He took my anal virginity two weeks after we met and fucks my ass every chance he gets. It’s his weakness. One glimpse of that puckered hole and he can’t control himself. He’s already panting at my ear, grinding and rubbing himself against me while his fingers plunge in and out of my pussy. He’s a goner. “I won’t be able to hold back,” he growls.
“They wouldn’t be able to pierce your clit anyway. Yours is too tiny.”
why is this adorable lol
My stomach sinks. “For how long, Cole?” “A year.” My heart stops. “No. Tell them you can’t do it.” “Can’t do that, baby.” He bends forward, dropping his head and avoiding eye contact.
We’ve only been together nine months, but dammit, I haven’t been separated from him for a single night since we met.
We had sex on and off through college, and over the past few months, I’ve considered taking him up on his advances again. But I know I’d regret it. One, he’s the closest thing I have to a best friend. Two, monogamy is a language he doesn’t speak. And three, he’s really not that great in bed.
Perched on the unmade bed with the sheets tangled beneath him, he holds a photo of Cole and me in his hands. I yank it from his grip and return it to the dresser where countless others clutter the surface.
