Page 10 of Shattered Veil

“Ah, chivalry isn’t dead, then,” she murmured, and I couldn’t help but let out a soft breath of a laugh through my nose. “So—dance? Or no dance?”

I considered the sight of her writhing on top of Tommy for less than a second.

“Stay.”

Her smile was blinding, as usual. “’Kay.” Cassie then rocked herself above me. I glanced down to witness the glory that is her body, squeezed my eyes shut for one tight blink, and she noted, “You could at least pretend like you’re enjoying yourself, though. Put your hands on my ass.”

If my mouth hadn’t been stripped dry by this interaction, I would have choked.

“What?”

She laughed. “You look like you’re in pain. Don’t be so stiff. Just imagine I’m someone else.”

“Fuck, that’s impossible…I thought we weren’t supposed to touch the dancers?”

Cassie grabbed my empty beer out of my right hand and glanced at Shawn, who had scooted down several feet to give us a wide berth.

She asked him, “Can you hold this for your friend?”

“Yes!” Shawn grabbed it from her almost immediately, his amused eyes twinkling at the sight before him.

Cassie stated, “Gas Lamp is dancer’s choice as long as it’s not too groping,” and grasped both of my wrists. She placed the palms of my hands on either side of her hips, the glowing strings to the bikini bottom and the dollars tucked away there grazing my thumbs. Her skin was soft on my fingers, and I couldn’t stop myself from giving the area a generous squeeze.

“There you go,” she crooned.

Her tone—her confidence—tempted me. Called to me on a level that made excitement thrum through my veins—attempted to force the façade of my disinterest in her to fall the wayside as she was inviting me in. The feeling was dangerous, and I wanted with everything in me to fall right into it. To say that, fuck, I was in Rome—and I was to do as the Romans do and allow myself to relish in the feeling of her body on mine for as long as she would remain here.

Cassie’s eyes sparkled as she rose up on her knees, brushing the tip of her nose up the side of my face until the fabric of her top was staring at me. The small, gentle curves of her breasts were but an inch away from my mouth, the freckled makeup spatters on her chest shining in the blacklight, and I had the burning urge to bite at the string that held the bottom of the two triangles of material together. Her hands tangled in the hair on the back of my scalp, pulling to angle my face up to hers, and any joking disposition that she had fell away. Cassie looked down at me; her hair shielded us from the world like a curtain, and suddenly, we were in a universe that was all our own. The movement of her hips stopped, her fingers flexed at the roots of my scalp, and her doe eyes turned serious. Our breaths mingled together within the confines of her beautiful, dark tresses, and it was there.

A connection.

A locking of eyes that felt as though it were tying me to the ground itself.

I had felt it before—not with Cassie, until just now—with other women in the past. It would have typically sent my heart racing, I’d yearn to deepen it all with the seal of a kiss or the clashing of our bodies, and I’d fall. Hard and quick. That was how it always happened for me when I’d feel…this. I hadn’t experienced it in a long while—years, probably—but the connection I had with Cassie at this instant didn’t send me reaching for the stars as it usually did. Instead, because of the boundaries I had set for myself combined with the raging sexual tension that I constantly experienced with her, it brought me some sort of twisted grief that I couldn’t come to terms with, and I needed it to end.

Now.

My voice was hoarse as I said, “Get off me, Cas.”

“What?” she whispered. “Why? I haven’t finished. We’ve got more time in the song—”

“I don’t want it. You’re right—this is painful,” I gruffly stated and quickly lied, “I don’t want you on me. I shouldn’t have even spoken up before. I wish you didn’t fucking work here. Please fucking get off of me.”

Cassie blinked rapidly. Her prior confidence—the one that she always wore—wavered, and my stomach sank because it wasn’t my intention to be a gigantic asshole. I didn’t mean to curse at her in an odd tone that made me sound as if I were being actively burned. It all just…fell out of me…and if there were any opportunity for me to pick it all up and shove it back in my mouth, I would have.

Her eyes darted away from mine. “Shit, um, sorry.”

“Cassie—”

Cassie flipped her hair back, exposing us both once more, and her demeanor immediately shifted. She wore a soft smile, but her eyes had hardened—she traced her fingers down my chest, but she was stiff.

“If it looks like we’re arguing, you’ll get escorted out,” she muttered with a brief flash of her teeth.

“I don’t want to argue.”

She returned sharply, “Then don’t.”

Her hands left me, she shifted slightly to gracefully move her body off of mine, and I couldn’t stop—wouldn’t have stopped even if I had the ability to do so. One of my hands whipped out to grab her wrist, and though she halted her actions and smiled down at me with what would have been a smoldering, enticing expression, all I could see in her gaze was…sadness. And that hit me right in the gut.

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