Part 20 (1/2)

With Hailey, the shoe is on the other foot. Any second, she's going to realize I'm not good enough for her. That I'm a professional liar and a cheat, and no amount of financial or political security will make up for that in her eyes.

Just my luck to fall for a woman with an unwavering moral compa.s.s and the internal fort.i.tude to walk away from wealth and power because it's the right thing to do.

Of course, that she did that just makes me want her all the more.

She twists in front of me, swivelling her hips through the drunken crowd. She's wearing dark jeans and knee-high boots with a sparkly tank top under a tiny jacket. I can't keep my eyes off her.

On the dance floor, I grab her close and spin her around so my front is pressed against her back.

I grind my c.o.c.k into her a.s.s as she tips her head back against my shoulder. I want to hold her here forever. I get her for a minute before she spins away. As the music pulses through the air, she peels off her jacket, baring the long smooth expanse of her arms, golden pink under the dance floor lights. I grab the loose end of the jacket, reeling her in for a quick taste of her mouth.

”This isn't dancing,” she says, her face still pressed to mine, close enough I can't see the smile. But I can feel it.

”This is better,” I growl, banding my arms around her waist as she slides her fingers through the short hair at the back of my neck. I move us to the heavy thump of the music, my thigh sliding between her legs, and we kiss again, over and over again until she's panting and I'm ready to find a dark corner.

But this is our first date, and I want to earn-legitimately, for once in my life-the right to a second. And a third. And a tenth. So when a couple beside us b.u.mp us apart, I keep the few inches of distance and actually start dancing.

This isn't a bad move, because although I'd rather be kissing Hailey, I actually do know how to dance.

And she's impressed, but so am I, because where I've got some moves, she's got more, and they're good.

She rolls her body, mirroring what I do, and we flow together, almost meeting at the hips each time before sliding away. I keep one hand on her at all times-my fingers grazing down her arm, then my other palm cupping her waist as she twists in the other direction.

Her gaze is glued on me. Always dark. Pleased, with an edge of wanting more. I can't keep my eyes on hers, because the rest of her is s.h.i.+mmying in ways that jack up my blood pressure, but every time my roving gaze finds her face again, she's still looking at me.

And her smile gets a little bit bigger. More teasing.

I spin her around, touching more of her now. She glances back at me over her shoulder, her hair swinging away. I can't resist the bare neck, and I press my face into her slightly damp skin, tasting her briefly before pulling back. ”Another drink?”

She nods, and I will my d.i.c.k to hang on, but then she breathes four little words that make my night. ”Back at my place?”

I have her out the door and in my waiting hired car before she can change her mind. I've never been more grateful for a privacy screen in my entire life. I tersely give the driver Hailey's address before slamming the little sliding door shut and hauling her into my lap.

”Uhhhn,” she mumbles as I jerk her tank top up and her bra down, baring one breast. I kiss her hard on the mouth again before whispering that she needs to be quiet, then I dip my head and suck her nipple into my mouth in a harsh, hungry pull.

She pants my name, barely more than a breath, and it bounces around us in the quiet of the moving car. Up front, the driver is listening to something. Talk radio, maybe, or an ad. Outside, there's end of the evening traffic noise.

But right here, it's just Hailey and me, my name on her lips and my mouth on her body.

The nervous tension I'd been feeling is gone now, replaced by something more familiar-the need to possess her, to mark her soul as she's marked mine.

”You were beautiful tonight, dancing for me.” I free her other breast and roll the second taut peak over my tongue, savouring the unique taste of her skin and the still fresh scent of her vanilla perfume. ”You're always f.u.c.king beautiful.”

”But you liked the dancing?” she whispers, sliding her hands over my shoulders, her words slurring slightly. ”Maybe I'll be your private dancer when we get up to my place.”

I chuckle and kiss the inside of her bare arm, pebbled with gooseb.u.mps. ”Almost there. You want your jacket back on, drunk girl?”

”Nuh-uh.” She shakes her head vigorously as she fixes her bra and top. ”I'm going to take them all off...soon enough anyways.”

She tips her head to the side, like she's thinking about the words she just said and wondering if they made sense, and I kiss her cheek, then her mouth, because it's right there.

The intoxicated cuteness continues on the slow, hip wiggling climb to her apartment, but as soon as the door closes behind her, she zips into efficiency-mode, going to the stereo on a bookshelf in her living room.

There she starts rifling through her CDs. She waves her hand over her shoulder. ”You should take your clothes off, I might want to violate you after I find this alb.u.m...”

I slowly strip off my dress s.h.i.+rt, but I leave my jeans on, and settle on the couch. I like this bossy, drunk Hailey. I'm not going to leave her in charge for long, but as long as she's got a plan, I'm game to see where it goes.

She puts on some sultry R&B from the seventies and turns around, right hip c.o.c.ked and her b.o.o.bs deliberately on display.

”Close your eyes.”

”Seriously? I want to watch you strip for me.”

”Serious as a heart attack.” She smiles as she slowly unzips her jeans, then stops before I get to see the good stuff. ”And I'm not going to strip for you, but if you're a good boy, and close your peepers, I will dance for you.”

Her warm, husky laughter surrounds me as I drop my eyelids and tip my head back against the couch. I've wanted to see her use the pole for weeks. I'll take it however she wants to dish it out. The music is a promise of something seriously good-better than good, because Hailey just hopping out of her jeans on a regular night is enough to get me hard.

She moves closer, warm air swirling around me, but then she's gone again on another laugh, leaving me a frozen statue of barely contained s.e.xual frustration. She could torture me for hours, but she doesn't. Fabric rustles, then I hear a soft sound that I a.s.sume is her jeans. .h.i.tting the floor a split second before she breathes the word I've been waiting for. ”Open.”

I blink twice, taking her in. She's wearing my s.h.i.+rt, barely b.u.t.toned, and her curvy legs are bare and she's posed against the pole like a pin-up model.

Jesus. Blood rushes through my head on its way south to my c.o.c.k. ”Wow.”

She plumps her lips in a naughty-as-f.u.c.k pout as the music changes to something slightly more upbeat-and decidedly dirtier. As the singer sighs and moans her way through a chorus about motions and notions, Hailey steps around the pole, one hand holding on above her head, her body angled out and away. Her hair swings wide as she launches herself into the air, twisting one leg around the pole as she slides down, twirling effortlessly.

I can't breathe.

My s.h.i.+rt. Flashes of white lace underneath. The music. Her d.a.m.n smile.

”I've been thinking, Cole...” She drops, inch by inch, into the naughtiest squat I've ever seen and presses slowly onto her tiptoes before rising and circling the pole again.

Flying.

”This thing between us. Maybe I didn't just want you to be my bad boy fling...” She bites her lip, and I just about lose my mind. Keeping my gaze glued on her painfully slow twirl around the pole, my s.h.i.+rt riding up on her hips, I ease my fly down and wrap my fist around my aching c.o.c.k. She flips her hair over her shoulder as she glides her left foot up her right leg, stretching her thigh wide open and flas.h.i.+ng those impossibly innocent panties at me. ”Maybe I like being a little bad, too.”

Jesus. She's going to kill me. ”Take your panties off.”

She winks at me. ”I will. When I'm ready.”

”I want to see your p.u.s.s.y.”

Another slow twirl, and this time when she comes around to face me, her free hand is working on the b.u.t.tons of my s.h.i.+rt. ”Why?”

”Because it's beautiful.”

”Mmm. Try again.”