Page 2 of Passions in Death
“You have the best ideas.”
“My best idea ever was deciding to try on those wild pink shoes I saw in the window. Pink shoes led me to you. I love you, baby.”
“I’m the luckiest woman in this club, in this city, possibly the world. Because I have you.”
Swaying to the music, wrapped tight, they kissed. Soft, sweet, even as music boomed out a frantic beat.
Who knew, Erin thought again. Who knew she’d find the woman of her dreams—dreams she hadn’t thought to dream? A woman who’d open her life to love, to plans, to the future.
Everything before Shauna had been the now. Always just the right now, forget tomorrow.
Now she loved, and wanted thousands of tomorrows.
So they danced, then danced some more as a couple, in groups. More cheers blasted as the next holo-band stripped down to G-strings. Becca rushed the stage, stripped off her short, slinky dress, and danced.
More cheers.
“We’ve corrupted her.” Eyes full of delight, Shauna laughed. “She was the poster girl of straitlaced in high school. A complete doof. Now she’s drunk and dancing in her underwear in a sex club.”
“It’s pretty underwear.”
On another laugh, Shauna gave Erin another kiss. “Buy me a drink, gorgeous.”
“You got it.”
They made their way to the bar tended by the owner. Crack, a big, muscular, tattooed Black man, wore a leather vest over his bare chest. He shot them a wide grin.
“Another round, brides-to-be?”
“Girl Power!” Shauna shouted, pumping fists in the air.
“You got that going.” He mixed drinks with his big, experienced hands. “Brought me a wild bunch tonight.”
“More than a few out there would go for a handsome kick-ass dude like you,” Erin told him.
“Got me a one-in-ten-million woman be waiting when I get home.”
“Hey, I didn’t know you had a serious going on.”
“Ain’t been in my place for a while, have you?”
“I guess not.” Erin tipped her purple-streaked shaggy blond bob to Shauna’s mass of red. “Because I’ve got my own one in ten million now.”
“Aw.” Shauna kissed her again. “But we’re coming back, bunches, because I love this place. I thought we’d get all glammed up and go to an upscale bar and… I didn’t mean your place isn’t upscale.”
He sent her a wicked flash of a grin. “Honey, it ain’t the Down and Dirty for nothing. Now, if any of the chicks and slicks in my place hassle any of your group how you don’t want to be hassled, you let me know and—”
“You’ll crack their heads together,” Erin finished. “It’s how he got his name.”
“For serious?”
Face fierce, Crack made a head-banging gesture with his hands.
“We don’t be upscale, but we got standards.” He slid the drinks toward them. “Drink up. This round’s on me.”
Shauna toasted him, then drank a third of the glass in one go. “God, this is so good, and I’m going to get so wasted. Let’s dance some of this buzz off!”
Within twenty minutes, Shauna jumped back onstage to scream out another song, and this time stripped down like Becca.
