Chapter 11: Chapter 11
Margret’s POV
And with that truth placed so plainly on the table, I picked up my shot, ignoring Amanda’s protest about my bad form, and downed it. It was sweet, delicious, and just what I needed to clear my head of Williams and Raymond that was still at the bar looking at me. All through the night I had been looking for Williams, thinking at one time or the other he would pop out of somewhere but I had not seen him since. Immediately after we were done with our hooker’s shot, I linked my hands into my friend's waiting arm and dragged them out to the dance floor.
Within seconds I felt boneless, mindless, deliciously untethered. Loretta and Amanda bounced around me, yell-sang the songs, and lost themselves in the mass of sweaty bodies all around us. I wanted my youth to linger a little bit. Away from my routine, overscheduled life with a revenge plan and an annoying but very sexy beast of a boss, I could see I hadn’t enjoyed it properly. Only here, with the DJ melting song to song, did I see how I could have spent my early twenties: under the lights, dancing in a scrap of a dress, meeting men who wanted to devour me, watching my girlfriends be wild and silly and young. I didn’t have to move in with my boyfriend when I was twenty-two and neither did I have a fiancée who was going all out for me; I didn’t have a fat account either that I wouldn’t have to worry about working for the next five years for; I didn’t have a family to want to run back to and neither have I ever had, that someone that bought me flowers or chocolate. I could have lived a life outside the straight-and-narrow world of social functions and glad-handing. I could have been this girl instead—dressed to the nines, dancing her heart out. Dancing on the ground of a local Californian club another nerve-wracking truth stood on, I’d never had the best twenties. For fuck sake I was an ex-con and the only reputation I have was a former glory and a stupid, really stupid doom tale with only as much from my boss…
Toucheeee…
Lucky for me, it wasn’t too late. I met Loretta’s elated smile and returned it.
“I’m so glad you’re here!” she yelled over the music. I started to reply with some similar screaming drunken oath of friendship, but just behind Loretta, set into the shadows off the dance floor, stood my nemesis. Our eyes met, and neither of us looked away. He was sipping his sextail of scotch with a friend, but I could tell by how unsurprised he seemed to be caught staring that he’d been watching every move I made. The effect of this realization was more potent than the alcohol. It heated every inch of my skin, and burned a hole directly through my chest and lower: down past my ribs, and deep into my belly. He lifted his glass, took a sip, and smiled. I felt my eyes rolling closed.
I wanted to dance for him.
Never in my life had I felt so sexy, so completely in control of what I wanted. Never have I felt so powerful with my woman strength or so proud about it. True, I have been able to weave my way around embarrassing situations and pose as a model with my body but I’d never felt like a total grown bitch like the way I did right now, never have I felt sexier, sexualizing my body as a trap, dancing like crazy with a Raymond standing in the shadows, watching me and Williams by the club entrance looking at me as though I was the only human here in this club. This—this moment was exactly how I wanted to start fresh. What would it mean to be devoured, again by the only men who had ever lived within that radar? Raymond’s words played in my head… Did he mean that as explicitly as it sounded—his head between my thighs, arms wrapped to my hips, holding me open? Or did he mean over me, inside me, sucking my mouth and my neck and my breasts? Ankles in the air would likely mean I would need an outlet… a red bubbly thing hinted at red roses, scented candles in an enclosed bathroom with bathtub or Jacuzzi, licking a horny bitch would mean that… oh holy mother of fucks. I got dampened by how excited I felt. A smile spread across my face, my arms stretched up to the ceiling. I could feel the hem of my dress inching up my thighs and didn’t care. I wondered if he noticed. I knew he noticed.
If I thought he’d walked away, it would have deflated the moment, so I didn’t look over his way again. I was unaccustomed to bar flirtation protocol; maybe his attention lasted all of five seconds, maybe it lasted all night. It didn’t matter. I could pretend he was there in the darkness for as long as I was here in the stroking lights on the floor. I wanted his eyes burning through my skin to where my heart thrashed against my ribs. I lost myself to the music, and memories of his hand on my elbow, his dark eyes and the word devour.
Devour. One song bled into another, and then another, and before I could come up for air, Loretta’s arms were around my shoulders and she was laughing into my ear, jumping up and down with me.
“You’ve attracted an audience!” she yelled so loud above the music that I winced, pulling back.
She nodded to the side, and only then did I notice we were surrounded by a group of men wearing tight, dark clothes and grinding suggestively at the air near them. Looking back at Loretta, I saw that her eyes were bright and so familiar, this take-no-prisoners woman who had worked her way to the top of what was now one of the world’s largest media firms and who knew exactly what this night meant to me. Suddenly cool air spread over my skin from the fans overhead and I blinked back into consciousness, still giddy that I was actually in this part of California for work purposes and that I might have dropped a show for a few people I might be meeting with. Actually enjoying myself. But behind Loretta, the shadows were dark and empty; Raymond stood there watching me.
My stomach dropped a little. “I need to hit the ladies,” I told her. I wormed my way through the circle of men, off the dance floor, and followed the signs to the second floor, which was essentially a balcony overlooking the entire club. I walked down a narrow hallway and into the bathroom, which was so bright that a pulse of pain spiked from my eyes to the back of my head. The room was eerily empty, and the music downstairs felt like it was coming up from underwater.
On my way out, I fixed my hair, mentally high-fived myself for putting on a rumple-free dress, and touched up my lipstick. I walked out of the door and right into a wall of man. We’d been close at the bar, but not this close. Not my face to his throat, the smell of him surrounding me. He didn’t smell like the men on the dance floor, awash in cologne. He just smelled clean, and like a man who did his laundry, and who also had a touch of scotch on his lips.
“Hello, fuckgirl.”
“Hi, fuckboy.”
“I was watching you dance, you tiny, wild thing.”
“I saw you.” I could barely catch my breath. My legs felt wobbly like they weren’t sure if they should collapse or go back to rhythmically bouncing across the floor. I chewed my bottom lip, suppressing a smile. “You’re such a creepster. Why didn’t you come out and dance with me?” why was I feeling this way with this man? It was supposed to be pure loathe with him not complete lust with a soaked pussy and puckered nipples and deep, shallow breaths.
“Because I think you rather liked being watched instead.” I swallowed, gaping up at him and unable to look away. I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were. At the bar, I’d assumed brown. But there was something lighter gleaming here in this part of the club, just above the strobes. Greenish, yellow, something mesmerizing. Not only had I known he was watching me—and liked it—but I’d danced entirely to the fantasy of him devouring me. Perhaps at the same time as Williams, both of them trying to prove who was manlier.
“Did you imagine I was getting hard?” I blinked. I could barely keep up with his bluntness. Raymond knew I liked intentional men like this. Bold men, who knew what they wanted and who said exactly what they—and I—were thinking without sounding scary, or rude, or pushy? Was it doing it on purpose? I had known Raymond to be a cunning man, was this him being one? Was this like a back plan against me? Giving me a dose of my own medicine? Well fuck it, I was too drunk and horny to think about anything that wasn’t his dick.
“Wow,” I gasped. “Were you . . . ?” He reached down, took my hand, and pressed it firmly to where he was erect, already arching into my palm. Without thinking, I curled my fingers around him. “This is from watching me dance?”
“Are you always such a performer?”
If I hadn’t been so thunderstruck, I would have laughed. “Never.”
He studied me, the smile still in his eyes but his lips fixed into something more thoughtful. “Come home with me.”
This time I did laugh. “No.”
“Come to my car.”
“No. There is no way I’m leaving this club with you. I told you before, this was also a girl’s night and Williams is around somewhere. I came with him. Unlike…” I swallowed when he swallowed, his Adam apples popping up and down… well damn it since I was hoping that was the moisture between my legs he was swallowing. The evil son of sin flicked the tip of his tongue over his lips and man oh man…. Still, in an innuendo frenzy, he bent and pressed a small, careful kiss to my shoulder before telling me, “But I want to touch you.”
I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t want it, too. It was dark, with flashing arrhythmic lights, and music so loud it felt like it hijacked my pulse. What harm could come from one wild night? No lies, I wanted more and I knew there would be more. You can never fuck Raymond Jones and not want to fuck him again. His dick matched the size of his ego and also his skills on the bed. The only person I think he came second to was Williams. There never could be much harm fucking the two best fuckers in the country… while I was confused with how to play things my way, I could start by bringing fucked by both men. A clear innuendo meant a clear head. I sighed and led Raymond past the restrooms, farther down the narrow hallway, to a tiny abandoned alcove overlooking the DJ station. We were trapped at a dead end, secluded around a corner but by no means hidden. Other than the wall forming the back of the club, the rest of the space around us was open, and only a waist-high glass wall kept us from falling to the dance floor below.
“Okay. Touch me over here.” Raymond’s eyes flashed with mischief. “Now. Touch me… now” I commanded before running my tongue over his bottom lips, feeling over my skin, the burning gaze of someone on me, but I was too horny and caught up in Raymond’s spell to look around.