Page 18 of Together We Burn
Grabbing her crystal top, she got to her feet and turned to step off the small stage. Before she dashed toward the curtain I stood behind, she brought two fingers to her lips and moved them to her heart, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth to stop the small smile that wanted to shine through when Isaac repeated the move back.
My throat tightened. This was absurd. A stupid feeling of longing forming as I watched the pair exchange their silent promises to each other.
I dragged myself away from the edge, ready to take centre stage and start my assignment. Closing my eyes, I ran my hand over my ribs. Sure, I wasn’t in pain anymore, not enough to stop me from doing my job anyway, but this would be the first thing–besides punching Will–that would require more effort than getting out of bed.
“Pain in power, Stevie,” I muttered, rolling my shoulders back just as the melodious voice belonging toMichele Morronefilled the club as he started to sing the lyrics to “Feel It,” the song Alex had painstakingly chosen for my dance.
Who would have known the actor from365 Dayscould sing like that?
Alex hadn’t tried to talk to me after my impromptu meeting at Will’s this morning, and I was glad he let me cool down without trying to make things better between us.
Mine and Alex’s friendship hadn’t been the same lately, and I wouldn’t say I liked that. I hated that I couldn’t trust my best friend not to keep things from me, that I couldn’t speak to him about what Isufferedbecause it was a big fatI told you so.
But before I’d left for the Lion’s Den, he handed me a USB stick with this song on it and told me he had spent hours choosing the perfect one that would go with the routine I kept stored away for assignments like this. He didn’t even try to hug me, which, if I’m being honest to myself, hurt worse than Jake’s knuckles to my ribs.
Blanking my mind, I channelled Diamond Velvet. She made the slightest glance, graze, or gesture seem erotic, and I needed to remember how it felt when I was her. The power I yielded when I was her, dancing on stage.
I took one step out from behind the curtain. The diamonds on my seven-inch platform heels twinkled off the strobe lights as I made my way to centre stage and placed my hands on the seat of a metal chair that had been placed in the middle, ready for me, pushing my ass upward and arching my back.
The chair became an extension of my body as I circled it, swaying in time with the music before finishing to grip the back. I balanced on the tops of the heels in my well-practised wide second position–glad those barre classes were paying off–and threw my head back, letting the lilac hair cartwheel down my back.
Dropping my heels, I lifted my leg and twisted the chair under until I could straddle it backward. I dragged my gaze slowly over the faces of men watching me, searching for the man of the night, when I sawhim.
His arms were crossed over his chest, the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt tight against his biceps, revealing the ink I’d longed to see along his forearm. His hair looked dishevelled like he had run his fingers through the thick strands, and even though he was shrouded in the shadows cast from the lighting, I’d never be able to miss the flare of his deep blue orbs as they dropped to my open legs.
Jake’s mouth tilted at one side, and his eyes flicked back to mine. My mouth went dry as my heart rate increased, and a spike of adrenaline coursed through my body.
He was here. Watching me. Like no one else was in the room, just me and him and his possessive stare that screamed ‘mine’when he mouthed, “Dance for me, baby.”
Chapter seven
Jake
Ihadnorightbeing here, butfuck,she was a sight to behold.
Purple hair swung past her shoulders as she pivoted on the hottest pair offuck-meheels I think I’d ever seen. Her long slender legs glittered under the lights as her body moved like liquid in time with the music.
If she weren’t working, I’d have rushed the stage as soon as she stepped out wearing something that no one would even pass as underwear. When she moved closer to the front of the stage, I could see the sparkles that shone on her stomach and on the tiny pieces of fabric that covered her nipples and pussy.
Turning around, her back was the same. Tiny specks of glitter glistened under the blues and reds that danced along with her, hiding the scars that decorated her back. Scars no one else would see or inflict on her beautiful skin ever again.
Eight crystals sat across her navel, and I wanted to know if they were stuck on her body or if it was some sort of jewellery. Regardless, the next time I had her naked and in my bedroom, I wanted her to be wearing those beautiful jewels and her fuck-me heels.
Only for me.
My cock stirred in my pants at the image of her pressing those studded heels into my ass, but when my eyes continued their journey down her body to where the flimsycostumedisappeared between the perky globes of her ass, revealing more than I liked to the dirty fuckers watching, leering after her, jealously surged in my veins.
Stefany’s eyes widened when her sight landed on mine. I wasn’t hiding from her, not exactly, but I couldn’t sit front and centre without drawing attention to myself or her when she was here to take down a child trafficker.
Going for casual, I leaned against a wall just off the bar, watching as she straddled a chair backward. For once in my life, I was envious of an inanimate object.
A goddamn fucking chair.
I looked from her wide legs up to her green eyes and the added freckles she had painted on her nose, enjoying the tiny detail she had put into her job. I watched her swallow thickly, the look of shock quickly dissipating and her persona of seductress reappearing as she took the same position as before, pushing her weight down onto her toes and dragging the chair out from under her.
Stefany’s thigh muscles twitched as she remained squatted until she rolled her head to her chest and down, bracing her arms between her legs, sliding them behind like a push-up.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was mesmerising.
