Then it was back to straight contempt.
I understood where that look came from. I hadn’t been stripping that long, but I already knew that judgement came with the territory. It wasn’t the first time someone disapproved of what I was doing. Hell, I got that daily from Veronika.
But usually you didn’t catch those looks at parties like this, so maybe that was why it had initially surprised me. Right now though, the scowl no longer had me nearly as intrigued as that momentary flash of desire that she so quickly suppressed.
Why hide desire like that at a party like this, when everyone around was feeling the same emotion?
I was very intrigued.
Chapter 2
Ally
I’ve seen enough.
“I’m going to go see what the rest of the party is like,” I announced to my roommate, Candace.
She grabbed my arm before I could walk past her. “But we haven’t said hi to Brenda yet.”
“I know,” I said, tugging my arm out of her grip.
“Aren’t you having fun?”
How to answer that?
I chose redirection instead. “She looks like she’s busy.”
Candace peered over my head to where the bride-to-be was pawing at a stripper. “She does look pretty occupied,” she agreed. “But could you wait just a few more minutes? If she still isn’t free, then we can go together and I can grab another drink.”
I sighed. “Fine.”
I glanced back over at the evening’s entertainment. There were three strippers here but two of them had disappeared into other rooms of the house to spread the party out. The one remaining here was the best looking of the bunch, though. Exotic, with olive skin, chocolate brown hair and full, sensuous mouth. He was saying something to Brenda that I couldn’t hear, but from the wicked tilt of his lip I could only imagine.
I wasn’t the only one that noticed though. Karly sat on a couch close to the action, silently fuming that her stripper was showing attention to someone else. Served her right. She’d gotten far too personal with him, in my opinion.
This guy was the walking stereotype of his profession, which pretty much captured every quality I generally hated in a man. So why the hell couldn’t I stop staring?
We’d made eye contact twice now—but that was completely by accident and certainly didn’t mean anything. I definitely didn’t want him to come my way. I certainly wasn’t looking to run my hands along his tanned, muscular body like Karly had, nor was I curious to hear him whisper whatever filthy things he was saying to Brenda right now in my ear.
I was only staring at him because I had nothing else to look at.
Anyway, that’s what he was here for, wasn’t it? To be stared at and ogled? It’s like if there were some huge painting of two people screwing mounted on the wall, everyone would have trouble not staring at it no matter what their feelings were about pornography.
Or any shocking picture, really. Didn’t have to be of people screwing. Why did my mind go to that image first?
Shaking my head to clear it, I did my best to direct my attention away to something else while I waited for Brenda to get bored of all that hard flesh in her face.
Anything else.
Along the side wall, I found the something else I needed. Well, someone else.
A woman stood with her back to the wall, but wasn’t leaning against it. She was stock straight, like someone had attached a metal bar along the length of her that kept her perfectly upright. She was around the same height and age as Candace, and had blonde hair that she’d pulled back into an austere bun—but unlike my friend she wasn’t flashing a ridiculous grin at everything going on in the room.
“The beefcake is over there, what are you staring at?” Candace asked, noticing my attention wander from the star of the room.
“Check out the scary blonde chick over there.” I nodded in her direction.
Candace assessed the woman as she sipped her drink. “She looks rough.” She tilted her head to the side. “I like her jacket though.”
I looked from the woman’s leather jacket to the one Candace wore over her sparkly party dress. “I think hers is actually real leather.”
“Yeah, ‘cause she probably rides a sick chopper and does wheelies and stuff.” My friend wrinkled her nose. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know.” I looked up at Candace, whose hazel eyes were still focused on her quasi-doppelganger. “I thought maybe you’d recognize her.”
“I don’t think she’s one of Brenda’s friends,” Candace said. “But she seems to be watching her pretty closely.”
I turned my attention back to the bride-to-be. It was a struggle to keep my mouth from dropping open.
“But if she’s here to keep an eye on her, she’s not doing a very good job,” she concluded.
I agreed. Brenda practically had a face full of stripper dick. At least now it was covered by a towel—earlier, the stripper had flipped it up to give her a peek. Brenda’s reaction had reminded me of my little cousin every year on Christmas morning.
I couldn’t believe how she was behaving. Was I supposed to tell somebody about this? What would her fiancé think? I tried not to think about it, focusing on the scary-blonde conundrum once more.
If the woman wasn’t there to watch Brenda, then she must have been there to watch the strippers. At the moment, she was fixated on the one that had caught my eye like a laser, but there was nothing on her face that would suggest she was enjoying the show. Was she his girlfriend? Or maybe she had a crush on him or something? Why else would she be only staring at him and not trying to find the other two?
Or maybe I was just seeing things. If her job was to watch the strippers, it was probably important to concentrate on the one that was currently getting pawed at by the drunken host.
I meant to look away before he caught me staring again, but my eyes were far too slow at taking those particular directions from my brain. He turned around as I looked on, his gaze spearing right through me as our eyes met again. I gulped and gritted my teeth. I wouldn’t let myself be drawn in by this guy. Even if his stare did make me feel tingly in situationally inappropriate places.
He looked away before I did this time, allowing me to exhale the breath I’d been holding and sag against the wall.
“I think you’re next,” Candace teased.
“What? No thanks.” I shook my head.
“He was totally giving you the eyes. You should go talk to him.”
“Why? So I can get next dibs on his dick?” I shook my head. “I’ll pass.”
“I saw a video the other day of a budgie riding a tiny bicycle.”
I glanced over at my friend quizzically. “What does that have to do with anything?”
She shrugged and took a sip of her drink. “I’m just saying, if they can teach a budgie to ride a tiny bicycle, teaching Ally Dylan how to have fun isn’t impossible either.”
I stuck my tongue out but otherwise didn’t respond to her taunt. I wasn’t interested in having this fight tonight, especially given how I really was more consumed by the accidently glances I’d been sharing with the man across the room than I wanted to admit. While the normal part of me would find it both degrading and embarrassing to throw my inhibitions to the wind to paw at some stranger in front of my friends like Karly or Brenda, another part of me found the idea strangely sexy and enticing. That was a part of me I needed to ignore.
“Come on girl, live a little!”
I wrinkled my nose. “Like I’d ever do that.” I nodded over to the far side of the room. “As I’m sure you knew when you brought me here. Why again did you bring me here?”
“Like I said, I didn’t know there would be strippers!”
I returned a flat look.
“Okay, fine! I may have suspected it. But I didn’t think I had to tell you because I thought you would also assume…”
“You thought I would assume that there would be strippers at the future Block Parent of the Year’s b
achelorette party?” I snorted. “You and I think on very different wavelengths.”
“Okay, let’s go grab a drink, Grumpy.” Candace patted my back. “I’m sorry about the strippers.”
I bet.
As Candace steered me toward the kitchen, I leaned in with a whisper. “I still don’t think Brenda would have noticed if we didn’t show up.” Three women I didn’t recognize shouldered past us on their way into the den. “There’s like a million people here.”
Candace stopped and glared down at me. “How would you feel if your old college roommate and her friend didn’t show up to your bachelorette party?”
“I probably wouldn’t notice.”
Candace raised her eyebrow and huffed. “You know Brenda,” she hissed. “Her friends mean everything to her.”
“Shouldn’t her fiancé mean everything to her? I mean, isn’t that the point of getting married?”
“She’s afraid that getting married will mean losing all her friends.” Candace grabbed onto my arm. Her hold was gentle but firm. It meant business. “If we start flaking out before she’s even married, imagine how that will make her feel?”
We passed by the living room where one of the other strippers was dancing naked on the coffee table. He was a mass of hard curves that bulged with each arch or stretch of his body. Even his muscles had muscles, and he knew it. During the brief time it took us to pass the room I saw him flex his biceps no less than three times.
“You’re right.” I gestured for Candace to continue down the hall. She’d gotten distracted. “Can we just go grab this drink?”
She nodded and took my hand, pulling me along. I don’t know how many times I’d reminded her that I was an adult and I didn’t need someone to hold my hand, but she never seemed to remember. Either that or she didn’t care.
We came across the third stripper in the kitchen. A bunch of girls were doing body shots off him.
“Me next!” Candace said, waving her hand in the air.
“That’s right, girl,” he said to his current customer. “Suck it all up.”
I grimaced. Should I try and stop my friend from her questionable decision? I didn’t want to think about this man’s hygiene. I could already smell the cologne off him from across the room.
No. Candace lured me here under false pretenses, she knew what she was doing. If she wanted to get scabies by doing body shots off a male stripper who moaned anytime someone touched him, that was her business.
Candace approached the table. Someone poured the stripper’s navel full of tequila, and she pulled back her short hair and bent for it to a chorus of cheers.
“You’ve got hot lips,” said the stripper.
I rolled my eyes.
My roommate bounded over to me when she was done. “That was so much fun!” She grabbed a beer from the tub of ice and cans on the counter. “Should we go back to talk to Brenda now?”
Another body shot would have almost sounded more appealing. Then again, of the three men at this party, I preferred the one back in the den over the others. It was like I was some new age, messed up Goldilocks, and the three bears in question were male strippers. The one in the living room was too self-involved. The one in the kitchen was too weird. But the stripper in the den with the dreamy eyes? He was just right. Like a bowl of oatmeal I wouldn’t mind gobbling up.
Woah. Where the hell did that thought come from?
“I don’t think I’m ready to go back yet,” I said. “I’m going to go grab a cigarette or something.”
Candace raised an eyebrow. “You don’t smoke.”
“I know. But why should smokers be the only ones allowed to use that excuse to take a break?”
“Are you okay?” she asked. “I could come with you…?”
I shook my head. “I’m fine. I won’t be too long, you go have fun. I just want some air.”
Candace let me go without further complaint. She was probably relieved on some level. I knew how much she loved to party, and hanging out with the one person in the room who wasn’t on board with the pork-n-beans fiesta was probably a bit of a drag.
I found my way to the back door, passing the super muscular stripper on my way. He seemed to be in his element, waving his junk around like he was trying to take flight. He had the smallest testicles I’d ever seen.
Not that I’ve seen many.
The warm air eased over me like a soothing balm as soon as I stepped outside. I leaned against the side of the house and stared out at the yard. The lawn was lush and green, something not commonly seen in California’s current drought. Especially not this close to LA. But it made sense. Brenda was the kind of person who would insist on having a perfect lawn and a crowded, colorful garden. Not that she would tend to it personally.
I’d never thought of Brenda as the kind of woman who would so wantonly throw herself at a stranger like she had today. I mean, I once saw her wear a pantsuit, so I thought we were on the same level when it came to sex.
I was beginning to wonder what I was missing out on that everybody else just seemed to understand. What about it was consuming enough to send a person into a frenzy like that? Was it just me? I hadn’t had a ton of sex before, but I liked to think I was experienced enough to know a thing or two about it.
Yet I couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about. I mean, it was okay and all, but there were more important things to do with your time.
I sighed, closing my eyes and wondering what it would be like to not be such a square. More like Candace. It wasn’t that I wanted to be boring or not have any fun, I just found it hard to let loose sometimes. I’d grown up having to be responsible for myself a lot, and it was a hard habit to break. In the back of my mind, there were always little doubts and fears that I couldn’t ever let go of, reminding me to act responsibly and do the right thing because no one was going to do it for me. I would love to quash that little voice, even if just for a little while.
I headed back inside, determined to try and rejoin the party and have a little fun. But as soon as I did, the music and laughter and shrieks of delight made me realize I wasn’t quite ready after all. Or maybe this really wasn’t the best environment to start letting go of my inhibitions.
So instead, I looked for a place to hide out for a while. Maybe a bathroom with a lock. The one on the main level was likely to get too much traffic, but I knew there was one upstairs that was bound to be quieter.
As soon as I locked myself in and the sounds of the party faded, I felt myself relax a bit. The bathroom was large and had a huge tub that I stared at wistfully, wishing I could just run a hot bubble bath and disappear beneath the suds.
And then maybe that one stripper I’d found to be just right would join me, and…
Shocked again at my own thoughts and half convinced that the party had somehow driven me to madness, I prayed that Candace would want to leave soon.
Chapter 3
Matthias
Where oh where did you go, pussycat?
Nearly half an hour had passed since my dance for the bride, and I still hadn’t clamped eyes on the little brunette girl again. I saw her friend in passing, but she was alone—but that gave me hope that my target hadn’t yet left the party.
Why did she bother me so much? One look of disgust amongst a sea of lustful stares was nothing. I should have been able to slip back into my evening without further delay, picking out one of the girls for a quick fuck before heading out the door.
But I couldn’t get her expression out of my head—neither that first look of judgement, nor the later look of disguised desire. I needed to investigate further, my mind wouldn’t leave it alone until I did.
Donny sidled into the room holding a bottle of tequila. He had the kind of grin on his face that told me he was about to do something stupid. Knowing this crowd, they were going to love it.
“Who wants to play a game?” he asked.
In an instant he had all the eyes in the room glued to him, which allowed me the perfect opportu
nity to slip away. My only objective was to find the scornful brunette and meet her ice with a little of my fire.
Most of the women at the party had been attracted to the den by the hubbub generated by Donny’s game. That made it easier to browse through the remaining faces, but I still couldn’t find the one I wanted.
Upstairs. She was probably upstairs. That would be exactly where I would go if I had somehow wound up at a party that I wanted to hide away from. I smiled and climbed the stairs, unwrapping the towel around my waist.
She might not have known it, but reacting the way she did had started a game between us. And I liked to play dirty.
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