Page 49 of Beautiful Enemy

How they’d feel other places.

When I get to the club, I drop off coffee and pastries I purchased on the way with security, wave to everyone as I get ready for my set. I even accept a drink to take the edge off.

The crowd goes crazy when I’m introduced and I take over the booth.

Energy flows through me, hot and electric. A power surge of my own creation reflected back at me.

I take it all.

Without thinking, I look up at his private booth. There’s a crowd in suits and cocktail dresses. A dozen men and women are spilling out of the booth and onto the catwalk.

The hairs on my neck lift before I catch sight of his golden head, angular jaw, and square shoulders through the crowd.

Harrison’s back.

A surge of emotion rockets through me.

Anticipation, nerves, longing.

I watch as a bartender serves drinks, and they toast.

One woman leans over to whisper in his ear. When her hand lingers on the shoulder of his jacket, I almost fuck up my transition.

But someone nudges my shoulder with a champagne bucket of ice and waters. Plus a bottle of champagne nestled in the middle, a number on a Post-it stuck to the glass.

The door, I realize. Fourteen hundred sixty-three.

It’s thrilling. I did this, but it feels like a shared victory. Shared with Leni, the team here, and the man I never thought I’d want to share anything with.

I make a change, dropping in a new song I’ve been working on. As the chorus comes on, the man I’m totally not watching out of the corner of my eye leans over the railing upstairs.

When I lift my chin and catch him staring, I’m knocked off balance by the intense focus on his face.

Each beat I feel his eyes on me is a thrill.

A dirty promise that feels less dangerous with the distance between us.

I lift both hands in the air and flip off the catwalk.

A few of the well-dressed people above gasp, but most ignore me.

Harrison King, a decade older than me and probably a dozen tax brackets above, leans elegantly over the railing separating the upstairs VIP booth from the crowd with a glass in one hand.

Then he lifts the other hand and offers me the same finger I gave him.

Good God.

I’m dead. Slain.

If a billionaire flipping me off makes my ovaries flutter, I’m a fucked-up woman.

But it does, and I am, and the smirk on his face is so sexy it makes me throb.

When my set concludes, I drink a gallon of water and take selfies with every fan before I head to the private VIP lounge. Security offers grins and fist bumps along the way.

Leni descends on me the moment I set foot through the door. “You were fucking rad tonight. Keep doing this, I’ll take you on a surfing trip the next time I’m home.”

“Deal.”

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