Page 80 of Raven

She drinks her martini way too fast, then brings the chair, elegantly dragging it by its back to the center of the room, like she’s about to perform. I watch her over the rim of my glass as I take sips and sips of whiskey.

“Sit,” she orders in that soft but authoritative voice.

All right.

I obey, and then she takes the glass out of my hand, empty, though I don’t remember when I drank it all, and makes us another round of drinks. When she walks back and passes me my drink, I hold my breath when the sexy minx nudges her legs between my knees and takes a seat on my lap, swinging her leg across her other thigh and mine. She sets her hand on my shoulder. With a cocky smile, she takes a sip of her drink and studies my face.

“So, Raven, tell me something about yourself.”

Touché. She is playing my game, saying my lines, mimicking my moves.

We start talking about nothing. Just short phrases, flirty questions. Sip-sip. It’s one more drink, then another. She notices my glances at her drink when she gets off my lap to make another round and chuckles.

“Trust me, Raven, I am not getting drunk.” She expertly shakes the vodka and ice in a tumbler like she’s done it a hundred times before, and she probably has. “Milena could drink those all night and always have perfect judgment. I’ve been out of the game for a while. I forgot what it feels like, but I like it.”

She flicks her eyes at me from the kitchen, smiles, walks back, never breaking our eye contact. When she perches herself on my lap, I know that I can spend the entire night like this, with her sweet ass on my thigh, her perfume tickling my nostrils, my hand resting on the small of her back as my thumb gently strokes her.

This definitely feels like a date, but I keep the reminder in check—Maddy is a player, just like me.

After this drink, she gets up and sets our glasses on the counter, then turns up the music and stands several feet in front of me.

Her hips start moving, her weight shifting from one leg to another. Her head follows, slowly swaying to the music rhythm.

“Do you dance?” she asks softly.

“No.”

She smiles. “I do. I looove dancing.”

She is dancing, and she’s dancing for me. I can’t get enough of the sight. That slick, long hair, makeup, and the sparkles on her dress make it all look like some fantasy.

I don’t know what happened between yesterday and today, but sweet Maddy is gone. And now I have Milena Tsariuk doing a private dance for me.

31

RAVEN

Henry Miller once said that it’s easy, in a relationship, for a woman to upset the balance of power.

This is what the beautiful girl is doing right now. She’s trying to buy out her pride over agreeing to the blackmail by changing the power balance.

Maddy slowly swings her hips to the music like nobody's business, confidence oozing from her. Like she owns this place, this night, and me, sprawled in the chair in front of her.

I stare in awe.

She is the good Maddy, remember? The quiet Maddy. The "you are an angel" Maddy. I always knew there was something else lingering under her calmness.

I can see it now, sense it with every fiber of my soul, my eyes latched onto her beautiful body. That “something” is slowly breaking out of her. Because of me? I hope so.She is not hiding herself anymore. Her confidence is intense. You can’t learn that. You can’t fake that, either. No, she is in her element. Flawless in her sexiness. Magnetic. This is not her first rodeo. She is used to being around men. Knows how to impress them. Knows her worth, too. And fuck me if it doesn’t turn me on.

Her hands start playing with the hem of her dress, tugging it up and down, up and down, giving me brief peeks of the little triangle of her panties. And then the hem goes up, up, up, slowly uncovering her abdomen, then her bra, until she pulls the tiny dress over her head, letting her hair fall down in a perfect straight curtain, and drops it to the floor.

Holy fuck.

I must not have disguised my reaction well enough because her eyes have a triumphant glint as she keeps dancing in her underwear.

“Do you like what you see, Raven?”

She’s wearing sheer lacy underwear that doesn’t hide much. The hard pebbles of her nipples poke at the thin fabrics of the bra, and I feel myself swell in my jeans at the sight. I am not an expert, but the Agent Provocateur my ex used to wear looks like unsophisticated burlap compared to this.

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