by Falon Gold
Even if God had given her the face of an eighteen-wheeler and the disposition of a saint, the unhappy drew me in for reasons I’d rather not disclose. Just know that I had to try to fix whatever was wrong. That was one of the reason I became a soldier like an idiot who was one more tour away from having PTSD.
I was also an idiot who apparently had to go the hard way to learn anything. Things like this country’s politics and its people’s ways of doing things were jacked up and no one man could fix that, or the last president would’ve accomplished everything he had wanted to while in office. I was also an idiot who still hadn’t learned that some people just wanted to be left the hell alone while in their funk, which I seemed to have an internal radar for.
An unexpected tap on the shoulder had me spinning around on the thick soles of my Timberland boots. Ready for anything, I stood between two couples that had a partner who should’ve left the dancing to the other partner. Looking for the one who’d touched me, my eyes went over a blond head only reaching my chin before I rerouted my eyes downward of course. Don’t know why I just didn’t look down at first.
Holy hell! It was Rent… and she was beaming a smile my way that was bright enough to light the room by itself. Fuck! That smile! And you’d think it was ‘mission accomplished’ after the fact for me, wouldn’t you? Ha! You’d be wrong. People didn’t brush you off, then swap moods and approach you in a matter of seconds unless they’d realized being friendly could net them something. Being on the wrong end of the ‘net’ never turned out good for the one about to be netted.
Not trusting the sudden uptick of her lips in the least, I narrowed my eyes on her face. Brush her off too, Roland. She’s up to no good. To make her back up, I barked at her, “Yeah?” The deliberate harsh tone and volume I used got lost in the bassline and chorus of Juvenile’s Back That Thang Up instead. And I was not loving the irony of my subliminal message getting smacked down by the rapper giving the same deliberate message for a totally different reason.
Her smile widened. Something flipped over in my chest. Her hand extended in my direction.
“I’m Anna,” she mouthed.
Brush. Her. Off. She’s up to no good, Roland. My intuition was repeating itself. There was no need for that; I had heard it the first time it said get rid of her. However, my right hand didn’t listen. It rocketed up to engulf up her smaller one tipped with blood red talons. Well shit, she had exchanged spitting cobra-mode for spell-casting witch. Neither was worse or better than the other, both bad for my old man’s constitution that was already bewitched by her.
Because she wouldn’t hear me over the music if I spoke again, and she more than likely wasn’t a lip reader like me, I bent over our clasped palms to put my lips right against her ear. “I’m Roland.”
Invading her personal space again combined with unapproved physical contact shouldn’t have me feeling as if I had come home, but she’d definitely back that thang up now though, won’t she? We all knew how much she hated people in her space. Only, she stood her ground and quivered like someone had walked over her grave. I didn’t expect that reaction from her, or the way I reacted to her reaction either.
Butterflies started tap dancing in my stomach, and the one backing up was me who stood up fully to get as far away from her as I could while still holding her hand. I didn’t want to react like that after stealing a tiny kiss from her skin with intentions of violating her personal space-rules on purpose. She was supposed to go away and take her silky-soft skin with her.
The urge to cop another feel with my lips was damn near impossible to resist, but a failure to not engage with this woman wasn’t an option for me. A soldier could take only so much defeat, and she’d jumped down my throat in one smooth leap already tonight. I wasn’t giving her a chance to do it again. It was time to go.
Upon releasing her hand, she rose up on tiptoes at the same time her hand lifted to drape around my neck, compelling it to crook toward her. She didn’t have to apply much pressure. I bent down willingly. Dammit.
“Welcome to Dalton, soldier,” she whispered against my ear. “Dance with me.” Her sultry tone set something ablaze within my center.
Warmth spread throughout my belly. Blood rushed through my extremities. All of them. Tingles dived down my spine as the tiny hairs on my nape stood on end beneath her fingertips. I was going up in flames for her for sure. Oh fuck!
When it felt like an involuntary reflex to take her into my arms, to give her whatever she wanted, I knew right then that I should’ve kept hightailing it towards the front door. Getting the fuck out of here even faster than I came consisted of crossing the designated dance space of Italian white tile flanked by a camel-colored sofa and loveseat. They were pressed against opposite walls with decorative pillows and plush cushions.
How badly I wanted to stay now, stay with her was the first sign I should’ve turn around at the porch when the first person I spotted of interest here had the look of the downtrodden. What gave them away every time was their hunched shoulders. Finding those on a leggy blond doing her damndest to be invisible in a crowd when she was the best damn looking person in here even from the back was like catnip to a bleeding heart such as me.
The question was, what exactly changed her mind about mingling with me? Desperately wanting the answer pushed everything I was supposed to be doing to the backburner; locating Kay and Hayden then going home. Getting to know the blond and truly lift her spirits was back on. Even if I had to get to know her with the security nightmare of an unmanned front entrance at my back. Seriously, anybody could walk the fuck in here.
I’d stay even if I had to get to know her as the whole house practically vibrated with another hip-hop tune blasting out of a darkened television in a corner.
Even if I had to get to know her amongst plenty of people making passable attempts at dancing. I hated a crowd and some of these folks just needed to give up and stand still, leaving the dancing to whoever had rhythm.
I would stay even if the woman who held my attention with just her smile couldn’t make up her mind if her name was Anna or… What was it again? Rent. Car note. Electric. Oh, and Credit Card. Where had with the locked and loaded ‘resting bitch’ face gone? This woman looked anything but like a resting bitch even when she was acting like one.
I guessed this was where the old adage ‘looks can be deceiving’ came in, and it was a good copout if you were shallow. If you couldn’t be bothered to look beyond her snarkiness to the shadows of pain more than likely received unfairly at some point in her life. Those shadows would be permanently ensconced in Anna’s bright eyes until she was six feet under if someone didn’t intervene.
Having experience with looking beyond the face people showed the world, I knew she more than likely had a past and presence of mind just as fucked up as mine to explain her snarkiness. Like recognized like, and if she let me, I’d show her that whatever and whoever hurt her didn’t have to define her.
Chapter Three
~Anna~
Roland’s hands encompassed my waist, hauling me into his body, and his orbit. Satisfied that I’d gotten my way, gotten him to stay, my arms glided around his broad shoulders to hold him to me. My fingers walked over the shaved hair at the back of his head. He shivered slightly and stared harder at me.
The man was even bigger than I thought. No wonder he had the same pull on me as the moon did on the tides. If there was a way to get even closer to him with our clothes on, I’d have found it way before now.
A small grin swam across his handsome features as his suspicious demeanor sailed away. Yeah, I noticed my handiwork on his disposition. I had meant to warp his mood, but now, I regretted the hell out of that and leaving a bad impression with him. Bad impressions were my calling card. Wait. When the hell did I learn to regret anything?
I didn’t do regret when it came to anybody except the Jesters, the family that had always loved me warts and all when no one else did. And I made damn sure not to give them a reason to regret
loving me or having my back. Apparently, someone else could make me feel regret though. Why am I not surprised it was a man who made me do it?
He was probably sent here by Karma poking her nose in where she didn’t belong. That bitch had a habit of showing up when least expected to fix things that weren’t broke and collect debts owed for past misdeeds. My misdeeds were extensive and usually involved screwing over men, and there were going to be a lot more misdeeds where those came from if I had anything to do with it.
So, Karma better put her game face on and go back in her bag of tricks because regardless of Roland being able to block out the sun itself, he didn’t have enough body to dish out the penance for my misdeeds. Even if he had somehow managed to maintain his cold facade toward me, it wouldn’t have lasted for long. I spoke men fluently. When I put my mind to something, it got done, and I wanted something from him.
By the way he squinted when he realized who was tapping his shoulder, I guaranteed he knew I wanted something too. He just doesn’t know that the prize was him, and I was going to have him, especially after he’d walked away quietly after I’d chunked him off rudely. Oddly, him brushing off my bad attitude was what made me chase him down; I had to figure out why he was different from every other man that showed interest in me.
Men didn’t normally just walk away quietly whenever I gave them the old heave-ho. They soon learned that I reveled in altercations where I had a perfect cause to lash out too, secretly giving an outlet to the inner pain that has had sway over my life as long as I had been alive. This man didn’t give me a reason to go ham on him. He just walked away.
Well damn, now, I was chasing people too. I don’t ever do that, but I had this time, and this rare occurrence wasn’t going to lead to a setback in my quest to make him stay. If I could help it. Despite Roland vamoosing as soon as I gave him a glimpse of the real me, he wasn’t a pushover, he just recognized a lost cause when he talked to one.
A pushover was the exact kind of man I sought out. So, why the hell was I breaking the status quo to talk to someone who wasn’t a pushover? Because he had broken the status quo when walking away, and that was messing with my equilibrium. He also messed with the design of things that had a perfectly fine blueprint. He mucked up the previous arrangements of the way life worked for me, and he screwed up how I dealt with that.
Things and people that were the equivalent of mind fields, I knew like the back of my hand. Could navigate them with my eyes closed. Roland had upset the natural order of things, and they had to be set right. He and that wench Karma had to be put in their place where people were predictable, disappointing when you expected things from them, got angry with you when you wanted nothing else from them. Just about everyone I knew was as selfish as I had learned to be, but if he was different from everyone else…
If he was a diamond surrounded by lumps of coals…
If he was like the Jesters… then that meant I had already fucked up something good before I knew there was a chance for me have what Kay did with Hayden. That meant I had done the right thing when warding Roland off earlier.
Fucking things up was my chosen MO. I did it unconsciously because being an ass kept more hurt away if I destroyed everything first, and if he was a rarity among men, he didn’t deserve my special brand of bullshit. But, I could have him for at least a few hours with there being no harm, no foul to him, right?
All I needed was enough time to turn him out, turn his world upside down like he’d done mine with just a few words then went on his merry way before I even told him to. I firmly believed that everybody should be turned out at least once in their life in the bedroom, against a wall, in a car, a pool… hell, even in an alleyway if that was all available. And I could give Roland the best time of his life for a little while at least.
Front to front with eye contact firmly established, he rocked to the music at a much slower pace than the rhythm seeping out of the television. He was utilizing a ‘getting to know each other’ tempo that I identified immediately. It was used specifically for talking. Except, talking wasn’t even possible in here. ‘Talking’ wasn’t the only way to get to know someone either. Thank the God for body language that spoke just as clearly though, so I pressed in on him until our thighs scrubbed together.
He sucked in his stomach. A hard length materialized between our hips. It benched to his left, my right, and up my stomach. What. In. The. World was that? It better not be what I thought it was. Nobody had that much pole in their pants, but whatever it was, it wasn’t mine. I’d have recalled bringing that with me.
I froze then leaned back to glance down between us at whatever was encroaching on my space and time with him. Just as I thought, his jeans were protruding out from the apex of his legs up to his belt loop. Yeah, no, that was definitely not mine. And what the hell was he carrying around in his pants, a baseball bat? That would certainly fill a girl up, maybe too much. My womb clenched as if willing to see which way the dice would roll. My brain stuttered. Openmouthed, I peered up at him.
A shit-eating grin had trespassed across his mouth while my eyes were down, investigating. My reaction to my findings had stroked his damn ego. Smug bastard. Oh, it was going to be fun toppling his big ass over on the nearest flat surface and having my way with him before sending him on his merry way again. The latter was the ultimate goal in ‘catch and release’, which had a blueprint I’d perfected long ago.
Returning his grin, I began to rock against him again while letting him think he was leading our dance. I plotted on how to get him out of here. Somewhere private. Close by. Anywhere. He was going down for that grin, and soon. But, somehow, I knew offering up ‘a quiet place to talk’ wasn’t going to cut it with him, or he’d have already requested that.
Shit, that meant he had a strong mindset dammit, and he would have to be worked into a frenzy first then quickly out of his mind with lust before he sunk down a few levels and went anywhere with me now. And I couldn’t blame him for thinking twice about going anywhere with me who had left a bad first impression on purpose. That would be a problem for most. However, I wasn’t most.
We were in the perfect place for creating frenzies and pushing minds out of whack; the dance floor. As if the universe knew just what I needed, the music switched to Teyana’s Do Not Disturb. It was slow song with a pulsing bassline and barefaced, sensual lyrics that left no doubt about what the songstress wanted for the night. What I wanted.
Let it not ever be said again that a white girl cannot twerk. I was fucked up in the head and heart but not the ‘having soul’ department. No ma’am. My dancing instructors were Kay and her mother Natalia Jester, who I called Nat. She and Kay would’ve went to hell first or resorted to beating some rhythm into my dance steps before I embarrassed them with losing the beat or couldn’t find it at all. Hopefully, nobody ever tells Nat that I can twerk courtesy of lessons from Kay, or Nat would beat Kay and me both.
Without lowering my arms, I turned in his. My hands circled his neck to change sides on it. The slit of my butt cheeks cradled his erection. No, not erection, skyscraper. His fingers dug into my hips even harder. I might have a few bruises in the morning, but I’d had worse than what he’d inflict, and he would need to hold on to something during this dance with me.
Starting off in a slow grind of my ass across all his legs, I begin the frenzy-making, dipping at the knees. After putting a hump in my back, I winded back up his body while popping my hips to the beat. Shockingly, he kept up, even when I bent over to grab my knees and make circles with ass against his groin. A few times, he dropped down and wound back up my body, pressing his length into me.
His body against mine was the best thing I felt since discovering that anybody could make money… and what he made me feel was the worst thing because he made me feel something. Irrational warmth had bloomed throughout my entire system, and if a man participated in something as simple as a dance, he’d donate energy to other more complex areas of his life too. A slacker was a slacker. This was n
ot a slacker behind me. The weight of a relationship wouldn’t fall just to a woman with him… who was definitely too good for me.
What sadistic God would mold a man like this then send him my way after I’d been corrupted irreparably? Good thing I wouldn’t saddle anybody with me for longer than a New York minute, especially a man with Roland’s attributes. A relationship with me would ruin his life. He deserved better than what I’d bring to the table; I was emotionally-retarded, and my survival instincts were so acute I carried a blade to bed. Every night.
Two lust-inducing songs and dances later, a sheen of moisture had broken out in more places than one on my body. His head appeared over my shoulder. When he turned his mouth toward my ear, I smiled. He was right where I wanted him to be in his mind, and he was about to whisper what I wanted to hear in three, two, one…
“Let’s go outside and talk, Anna.”
I shuddered. Goddamn that voice of his. It was so much like Hayden’s, like whiskey; smooth on your tongue but wreaked havoc going down and you didn’t care about the burn it ignited in the bottom of your stomach as long as the alcohol dulled your senses to harsh reality then repeated the process with the next swallow. Except, Kay’s man didn’t produce the liquid fire pooling in my gut or whip my system into the frenzy that was supposed to be distressing only Roland.
A cruel twist of carnal craving coiled in my center and was ready to strike. I was the one who’d get bit if it didn’t get what it wanted. What I wanted. What the fuck! I craved Gucci, Prada, Manolos. Not men. They were the providers of material things for me, and that was it. No man was supposed to affect me this much. Most men and most women were tools in every sense of the word as far as I was concerned, but the standing-up lap dance had backfired and I wanted to be used for his pleasure. Yep, we needed a breather.