by Max Monroe
“What is your costume?” I called behind her, shaking off my thoughts and dreams and steeling myself for the things to come.
“You’ll see,” she responded on a nearly evil laugh, shutting the bedroom door on her way out. I stared down at my attire for the next few hours and tried to prepare myself to face it. To own it. I had a feeling confidence was the only thing that would ensure my survival, and I had to survive. I had a daughter to go home to.
“Get your hot little ass ready, Win!” Cassie shrieked through the door, startling me into motion. I snatched the fabric and hugged it to my chest while I took one last breath. “Thatch says we need to leave here in about a thirty minutes!”
This is it, I told myself. Chest out, head up, be the woman…Ah, fuck.
I boosted my brain with a little dose of reality, and my vagina rejoiced. Hopefully, this gets me laid.
About an hour later, with strobe lights twirling and an eclectic mix of psychopaths and sexy animals gyrating on the dance floor in front of me, I came to a stop just inside the entrance of one of the giant ballrooms of The Metro beside a pregnant nun and Mr. Rogers.
I honestly had no idea what in the hell Cassie’s and Thatch’s costumes were supposed to mean, but it didn’t matter—because I looked more ridiculous than both of them combined. Covered by nothing more than fishnet stockings, booty shorts, a tight half-shirt that said Daddy’s Little Slugger across my boobs, knee-high black stiletto boots, and pink and blue pigtails accentuated with glitter eye shadow, I was a few beats away from a mental breakdown. If I was honest, I’d been this way for a while. From the moment I put the whole ensemble on, my little bedroom pep talk had been nothing but a memory.
Thatch and Cassie had tried to assure me that I didn’t look like a complete disaster, but with the way those two liked to express things…let’s just say it fell on some pretty deaf ears.
And yet, here I was—some awful part of me hoping Wes would find the ridiculous getup irresistible.
Is this what you were going for with that whole living wild thing? my subconscious mocked.
Shut up, I told it.
As Thatch and Cassie started to move, I walked with them and tried to get myself out of my head. It wasn’t going all that well.
Mildly disgusted with myself, I was happy we were headed toward the bar. Kline and Georgia were standing off to the side, sharing a private smile and laugh, and all I could think was, Where’s Wes?
Kline put his arm around his wife’s shoulder and tucked her into his side, kissing her forehead softly, and smiling like he knew he was the luckiest man in the world. Jealousy pounded like a hammer in my gut. I hated that something so vile was one of the most powerful emotions I’d ever experienced. I wanted to give that influence to positivity and good thoughts, but I wasn’t in charge.
But all that jealousy slid away, morphing in midair to hilarity when their costumes finally hit me. I glanced at Cassie and Thatch, and then back at Georgia and Kline, and then burst out into laughter.
“What in the fudging heck are you guys?” Cassie questioned once we reached them, the haze of pregnancy slowing her normally acute detective skills.
Georgia giggled for a moment until her eyes moved up and down Cassie’s naughty nun costume, and then over to Thatch’s cardigan sweater, nerd glasses, khakis, and loafers.
“What the fuck are you guys?” Georgia asked back as she slid out from under Kline’s arm and moved closer to Cassie.
“We’re Kline and Georgia,” Thatch chimed in, a smug smile etched across his mouth.
A slow rumble of laughter rolled from Kline at that, and I joined him, trying to at least keep the volume low enough that I wouldn’t anger the beast…cough…pregnant woman.
“Who the hell are you guys supposed to be?” Thatch asked.
“We’re you guys,” Georgia explained, and it wasn’t without exasperation. She’d had the winning idea in her fucking grasp, but Thatch and Cassie, having done the exact same thing, snatched it away.
Thatch’s face morphed into confusion as he surveyed their costumes with new insight. “Why the fuck are your pants too short?” he asked Kline. “And why do you look like you’re ready to Hulk right the fuck out of your clothes?”
Kline didn’t respond to that, merely smirking at his much larger best friend.
Thatch bristled immediately. “Dude, that’s not how I wear my clothes.”
Kline’s smirk never faded, not only unfazed by Thatch’s irritation, but fueled by it.
Meanwhile, the girls were seconds away from dissolving into an all-out cat fight. “You guys stole our idea!” Georgia shouted with an angry, accusatory finger in Cassie’s face. “You say you’re dressed like me, but all I see is a pregnant nun who’s ready to give lap dances at a bachelor party!”
Cassie raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, well, you look like an actual hooker.”
Georgia shrugged. “I was just trying to get the costume right, and I know how much you love Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.”
Cassie’s eyes narrowed, and her hip cocked. “Okay…I’ll give you the hooker—”
Thatch held up his hand for high fives. No one obliged.
“—but explain to me what the fluff is going on with your teeth?”
“I’m you, pre-pregnancy,” Georgia retorted. “One glass of red wine and you’ve got immediate True Blood mouth.”
Thatch laughed, but it didn’t last long as Cassie whipped her head around to glare at him.
“What?” he questioned with both hands held out. “She’s not wrong on this one, honey. One fucking sip of Merlot and you look like you just got done feeding ten seconds ago.”
“I will bite your dick off.”
“That’s not gonna help with the True Blood mouth,” I muttered to myself. Kline smiled.
“Later,” Thatch said with a smirk and a wink. “We can’t leave the party before it even starts.”
“You guys’ foreplay is so weird,” Georgia announced.
Cassie was undeterred. “Or awesome.”
“No. Weird. It’s almost creepy. I feel like I’m watching the porno version of the Saw movies.”
“Have you been peeking in our bedroom windows at night, you little freak?” Cassie asked with a grin. “Because we just did—”
Georgia interrupted, holding up one hand in Cassie’s face. “Nope. Stop right there. I don’t want to be disturbed by the weird shit you two get off on.”
Cassie just laughed and slapped her hand away. “Like you should talk. You and Big-dick have boxes full of sex toys.”
“From my mother.”
“And using sex toys your mother sends you isn’t weird?”
“We don’t use them!”
“Uh-huh…sure you don’t.”
“We don’t.” Georgia looked at Kline. “Right, baby?”
Kline smirked. “Am I supposed to lie or tell the truth here?”
Georgia groaned, and he immediately wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her in close.
“I think it’s awesome Big-dick was able to open Georgia’s Pandora’s box of freak.”
Pandora.
The memory of Wes inside me on his desk hit me so hard, I nearly took a step back. Looking around, I searched for him almost desperately while the conversation of the fierce foursome continued all around me.
“Me too,” Kline agreed.
“Kline!”
He grinned down at her. “What? You know I love it when you—”
Georgia slapped her hand over his mouth. “That’s enough oversharing for one evening, thank you very much.”
Everyone laughed at that, even Georgia.
“What do you want to drink, Winnie?” Thatch asked, but before I could answer, Wes finally made an appearance.
Always arriving last to the party, but never failing to look like sex-on-a-stick.
He gained the attention of many a woman as he stood in the entrance of the room in a dashing black suit, crisp white shirt, no tie, and jacket ope
n, with aviators adorning his handsome face covered in a few days’ worth of lick-worthy scruff, surveying the room. And if I said I wasn’t one of them, I’d be lying. He was just so handsome.
When his eyes found mine, a smile curved the corner of his mouth—not a little one—fucking huge.
One point for Cassie’s costume skills.
His strides were long and smooth as he wove his way over to us, his piercing eyes shining like beacons directly at mine the whole time.
“Winnie?” Thatch called. I struggled, almost twitching with the effort, but I finally broke the connection just as Wes made it to the group.
He could tell immediately that I needed saving.
“What’s going on?”
“You’re late.”
He smiled and shrugged, and I got lost in his eyes all over again.
“I was trying to get Winnie’s drink order,” Thatch clarified as he wrapped a casual arm around his wife.
“She’s a big fan of expensive Pinot Noir,” Wes told him casually and winked in my direction.
But when his eyes met mine, they didn’t leave. Time seemed to stand still as he stood there looking at me like there was no one else around—eyes roaming up and down my body, taking in every single little inch of skin revealed—even though we were smack-dab in the middle of a whole slew of other fucking people. Our group, the room, all of it faded away as he used a tiny slip of his tongue across his bottom lip to talk to me. It was so small, an inconsequential movement to anyone else, but he might as well have taken a torch and lit my skin on fire.
Before I could give my actual drink order, Thatch started to sing softly. “I wear my suuun-glasses at night.” His head bobbed back and forth, punctuating each word dramatically. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.
Wes reached up to the top of his head to pat the aviators that sat there.
“Seriously, Whitney, what are you?” Thatch questioned once he finished the chorus. “You know it’s a Halloween party, right?” he continued, looking Wes up and down. With a snap of his fingers, he pointed at Wes. “Wait…let me guess…you’re Wes Lancaster when he’s out trolling for pussy, right?”
“Robin Thicke,” Wes corrected, shaking his head with a grin. He was just amused by the rest of us, but I didn’t miss the glance in my direction at the mention of his “trolling.”
Thatch grinned. “‘Blurred Lines’?”
Wes nodded, and a sly, confident smirk kissed his perfect lips. “That’s exactly the look I was going for.”
“I see…I see…” Thatch added with a nod. “So…you’re hoping women will just rip their tops off and dance around you?”
Wes slid his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “A man can dream, right?” he responded nonchalantly, but his eyes held mine as he spoke, each word driving into me like a perfectly placed spank.
Holy hell, I needed a fan. Or maybe I was coming down with a fever.
The truth?
I didn’t feel sick. But I sure as hell felt like reenacting another night of marathon sex with Wes Lancaster.
A few hours—and drinks—later I found myself in a place I never, ever thought I would be: sitting at a table with a pregnant, naughty nun and a hooker, discussing our favorite Golden Girls.
“Blanche!” Cassie exclaimed enthusiastically, her fervor entirely thanks to personality rather than alcohol. That made one of us.
Georgia and I laughed…and laughed…and laughed. Way more than was necessary or expected, but hey, that’s tequila for you. We’d at least moved on to straight wine.
“What? Why is that so funny?” Cassie demanded, her amusement with the two of us running just as dry as her cups.
“It’s not funny, it’s fucking predictable,” Georgia responded on a hiccupping giggle, snorting so hard at the end that she choked on her own spit.
Oh, yeah. We’re pretty right now.
“You’re drunk, you bitch!” Cassie railed until it trailed into a whine. She wanted alcohol like I wanted the D. We were both sad little sacks while we struggled through the wait.
Georgia just nodded and held up her glass of wine. “Cheers, honey.”
Cassie flipped her off.
As the music switched over to Beyoncé’s “Drunk in Love,” I decided that Harley Quinn needed to enjoy the night. She needed to let the fuck loose and dance her little booty-short and fishnet-wearing ass off.
And that she…was me.
So, that’s exactly what I did without saying another word to anyone.
Because sometimes, you just didn’t need anyone else. You just needed to feel the music and let it consume you. Sometimes, you just needed to forget about what people thought and not worry about whether you looked like an idiot out on the dance floor.
Sometimes, you just had to let go.
As I walked toward the dance floor, I heard Cassie ask, “Win? Where are you going?” but I didn’t slow down.
I just turned around and grinned at her, and then made my way to the center of the dance floor. The beat moved through me like a wave, and as I finally caught it, I shook my hips and raised my hands in the air.
I was just loose enough that I didn’t need to look around the room, wasn’t waiting for someone to join me—all I needed was myself and the music. Two songs in, as irony would have it, the catchy opening beat of “Blurred Lines” started to play. I laughed to myself and shook my hips even harder, the cool kiss of the air-conditioned—thanks to an early roasting room packed full of bodies—space touching skin that rarely even saw my bedroom.
But I put that out of my mind and made eye contact with an older gentleman across the dance floor, and he seemed amused by my dance moves enough to bolster my confidence. If he’d done it differently, in a creepy way, I probably would have wilted. But it wasn’t like that at all. His eyes were kind, and his body language said he could tell I was having fun.
And then, as my eyes moved across the crowd, Robin Thicke himself seemed to appear from nothing.
It actually took me a minute, thanks to the impairments of alcohol, but eventually, I figured out it was really just Wes Lancaster dressed as Robin Thicke.
And that was even better.
He moved toward me slowly, with a sexy little smirk on his lips. Transported by the music and the moment, I couldn’t do anything but keep dancing and watch him get closer.
It took both forever and no time at all, but as the wait burned inside me, the heated connection of our gaze became too much. I’d barely turned away before his chest was to my back and his hands were on my hips, his body following my movements, and I could feel my body moving as it sought contact with each surface inch of his.
His warm breath near my ear, I swore I heard him take a deep inhale as if he was savoring the smell of me.
I doubt he smells so much like peaches, he’d said.
On instinct, I leaned my head against his shoulder and let him take the lead. His hands skated easily down to my hips, and then back up again, skimming the sides of my belly. I sucked in a breath involuntarily.
His hands felt like heaters against the cool of my skin as his fingertips gently slipped beneath the half-shirt and caressed me. Goose bumps danced across my stomach like glitter.
His voice was rough, so close to the edge of control I had to close my eyes tight against the onslaught of arousal as he whispered in my ear, “I couldn’t let sexy little Harley Quinn dance by herself.”
He grabbed my hand, spinning me out away from his body and then pulling me back to him so that we were chest-to-chest, gazes locked, and hips still moving seductively together.
The corners of his lips curled so completely that they grazed the corners of his eyes. Open and free, Wes Lancaster looked at me like I was everything. Not everything he’d been looking for or known he wanted, but like I was everything. Happiness and pain, love and hate, all the words he’d ever spoken and all the ones he never would.
I was lost after that.
Completely consumed by him.
It was just Wes and Winnie. Robin Thicke and Harley Quinn.
There weren’t any questions about what we were or recriminations from the complicated answers those questions might mean.
As we danced there, the music switched over to a sexy, electronic remix of a Disclosure song I loved, “You & Me,” and everything seemed simple.
I wanted him. Now and again and over and over after that.
My hands went to his shoulders without a conscious command, my fingertips brushing at the soft hair of his neckline, and our locked gazes intensified. Heated. Moved from maybes to definites and then some—wanting. Begging. Pleading.
“I want you,” I whispered when the ache in my abdomen became unbearable, and our breaths mingled so completely it felt like there was only one.
Wes sank his hands into my hair and tilted my head to the side, his soft lips brushing back and forth at the sensitive spot behind my ear. “I need you, Win,” he said there, his ardor consuming my entire body and soul.
Moving quickly, he grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the dance floor, through the crowd, and down a darkened hallway, back into the corner where absolutely no light touched any surface. My legs churned in their effort to keep up with him, but I didn’t say a word.
Hidden there, just out of plain sight, I wrapped myself around him like a second skin, and our mouths attacked one another, kissing and licking and biting and sucking frantically until nothing else mattered anymore.
“Leave it,” I whispered as her phone rang from her tiny purse that lay discarded on the floor, groaning and pushing her deeper into the wall before sucking the peak of her nipple into my mouth.
We were in the trenches of my favorite two-person activity, and I had absolutely no desire to add a third—especially knowing whoever was on the other end of her phone wasn’t a model for Victoria’s Secret.
Relax. I’m mostly joking.
I’d been working diligently at the removal of each and every piece of her clothing for the last five or so minutes, but we were so desperate to keep our mouths on one another, the process had been slow going and she’d yet to have the chance to reciprocate.