Page 13 of Wes

As he withdraws his hand, I ignore the emptiness in my chest when his fingertips no longer touch my skin.

“No need,” I fume, square my shoulders, and smile to a different hostess, who stands by waiting for us.

She grins back, stretches out her arms, and indicates my coat and his jacket, “Allow me to take care of those for you.”

After checking in the items, she hands us the stubs and takes us through a series of corridors and halls to an expansive lounge where a dance floor as large as a basketball court dominates the space. A throng of bodies writhe to the rhythm of some hit song I don’t recognize.

And I don’t care.

I need to put distance between me and the damn man who is playing havoc with my libido. I march straight to the middle of the crowd, close my eyes, and begin to move. Soon, the world hushes around me. Music has always been one of my secret weapons to face the ugliness in my life.

Oblivious to my surroundings, I dart glances around from time to time, but mostly keep my eyes shut tight. I allow the repetitive musical phrases of the pop tunes on the playlist to guide my movements. Unable to distinguish one track from the other, I lose sense of time until the DJ deftly introduces the next song and my heart pumps blood faster in sync with the sexy beat of a rock and roll ballad.

Although I don’t recognize this song, its complex texture sets this piece light-years ahead of the previous ones. I throw my arms up as the marching-band-style drums and sophisticated guitar riffs reverberate through my muscles. The sounds spur me on as a husky male voice blasts through the loudspeakers of the night club and I follow the singer’s demands:

When she sways her hips, I go wild

As she shakes her hair, I just smile

‘Cause I know she’s mine

Yet she draws the line

‘Cause she wants me on my knees

A pair of warm hands captures my waist, and my eyes fly open to find Wes’s bone-melting smile floating inches above me.

Swallowing a gasp of surprise, I take two steps backward.

He takes two steps forward, hands still holding me, hips swaying in tandem with mine.

I press my fingers on the white Henley stretched over his wide torso. The warmth of the skin underneath scorches me as I crank my neck to meet his hazel eyes. The heat in them incinerates my defiance. I goggle at the sight of his mouth descending with lazy deliberation that spikes my heartrate as Wes dips his head to speak over the loud music. His full lips come dangerously close to mine before grazing my cheeks on their way to my ear.

I hold my breath.

“The way you move to my drums put me in a daze, among other feelings,” he confesses.

Under an overload of sensations, my brain stalls, unable to process his meaning fast enough. Taking my silence as invitation, his hands on my hips spin me around. He slams my back against his front, securing me in place with a forearm as hard as steel cinching my waist. The thick wool of his pants can’t hide his erection. It throbs between my butt cheeks.

Air rushes out of my lungs in a loud gasp as my world tilts a hundred-eighty degrees. Eager to hold on to something, I lift my arms and lace my fingers behind his neck as blood zings through my veins. His proximity short-circuits my defenses, my synapses, and my willpower. I shouldn’t, but I lean back, resting my head against his solid chest. I close my eyes and let his band’s song take me to another realm. As we slow dance to his music, I spear my fingers through his honey-colored hair. It’s softer than I had imagined.

He shouldn’t, but he wraps his long fingers around my chin, holding me as his lips skim up my neck. When his teeth sink into my earlobe, I yank at a handful of his hair. The hissing sounds that escape his mouth caress a sensitive spot on my neck. His touch thrusts me into a vortex, but I don’t resist the free fall. I embrace the sensations like the adrenaline junkie I used to be. Hot, liquid pleasure floods my sex. His fingers glide down from my waist to the front of my thighs.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” Wes murmurs inside my ear setting my body ablaze.

I hum in reply when words dessert me.

“No other woman has ever turned me on like you did just by dancing to my drumbeats.”

When his fingers press my thighs against his, he nestles his shaft along my ass crack. Recent events I witnessed getting out of the ladies’ room come barreling back to haunt me.

I snap my eyes open and spot the same brunette swaying her tall frame a couple of feet away from us. She blows kisses to Wes, breaking the spell he had me under. I wiggle away from his grasp, bumping against unsuspected clubgoers who push back and grunt as I make my way through them.

My short legs don’t take me far before Wes catches up with me. With an arm as heavy and as unyielding as an iron band around my neck, he squashes any thoughts of resistance I might harbor as he maneuvers through the crowd. He finds a private room off the main lounge and secures the door behind us before he releases me.

Seeing red, I lunge at him, shoving his ample chest with both my palms. Except for the few inches he moves back, due to my surprise attack, I could be pushing a concrete wall for all that my efforts accomplish.

Frustration at my lack of physical strength combines with shame for my reaction to his touch and the resulting combustion explodes in me with the power of an atomic bomb.

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