Now we were at a strip club that pulsed with sex and strobe lights, that practically seduced you into makin’ the worse kinda decisions the second you walked in the door and got hypnotized by the beats and the sway of women’s hips.
“Can’t believe this was your plan. You come here often, Li?” I tried to tease.
This was what Lila wanted to do to celebrate Dane’s birthday.
Watch women undress to the heavy beat of pulsatin’ music that echoed the throb of blood through your body as more and more clothes were shed.
She grinned at me and moved closer so she didn’t have to yell over the music. The air between us was hot, scented with the light musk and bloom of her perfume.
“Dane was twenty-four when he died,” she said, hand to my thigh where it burned through the denim like a fuckin’ brand. “He was overseas for most of his adult life, and when he was home, he was mostly with me. Every year on his birthday I do something fun for him, because he didn’t have much of that in his life.”
There was logic in that, some rebel girl kinda thinkin’ that just illustrated why Lila was the shit. She wasn’t offended by nudity or profanity, by the fact that the family of bikers who had adopted her were criminals runnin’ by their own set of rules.
She was as free as the wild flowers she loved so much.
My resolve weakened further, a hairline fracture breakin’ through to a fault line runnin’ the length of my willpower.
I was goin’ down fast.
“If you wanna make things fun, Li,” I said low, mouth tipped down so I could speak against her ear just to feel her shiver. “We should up the ante.”
Her pink tongue peeked between those glossed lips and traced a path over their full curve, mesmerizin’ me. “What did you have in mind?”
“Two truths and a lie,” I suggested, already flaggin’ down the cute blonde server. “A shot for every one you get wrong.”
She snorted and tossed that long mane of hair over her shoulder, breasts shiftin’ dangerously in the low dress. Under the scent of body oil, beer, and cloying perfume, I caught a hint of Lila’s floral scent that went straight to my cock.
“You lie for shit,” she decreed with a cat ate the canary smile. “Prepare to get schooled, Nova.”
“Oh, Flower Child,” I crooned, leanin’ close just to see desire blacken her eyes. “You wanna try to school me, I’m all too willin’ to sit back and watch you try.”
Three hours later, more than fifteen shots deep, tequila in my throat, salt on my tongue, and lime on my breath, I was laughin’ so hard I thought I’d bust a gut.
“You are fuckin’ with me,” I hollered, slappin’ the table. “You can’t be serious.”
“Deadly,” she insisted with glitterin’ eyes. We were so close, knees slotted together, legs tangled, my arm over the back of the booth, fingers danglin’ over the curve of her shoulder, playin’ in the ends of her kinked-up hair.
I wanted her closer, sittin’ on my lap, preferably naked so I could palm the lush swell of her ass in my palm, but I’d take this.
I’d always liked her too close, even before. There was somethin’ about Lila that invited intimacy. She was always knockin’ hips, huggin’, and kissin’ cheeks, but it was more than that. She had the kinda open, non-judgemental aura that drew men and women to her like bees to pollen.
“Seriously, he paid me fifty bucks just to give me a foot massage,” Lila laughed her throaty laugh and shrugged. “I was sixteen, and I really wanted a kombucha starter kit, so it seemed like a pretty good deal.”
I bent over to grab one of her spike-heeled feet and studied it with mock sobriety. “They are fuckin’ sexy.”
I looked up at her to find her pink lip between her teeth, her eyes low lidded and sultry. “Worth fifty bucks?”
I grinned, runnin’ my hands up her smooth calf to her lower thigh, feeling her shudder under my touch. “Never paid for any of a woman’s time or affection, so I don’t know the scale, but…I’d probably shell out more for somethin’ else.”
“What?” she breathed as I rubbed my thumb on the inside of her thigh.
I shook my head, lovin’ the feel of her, the play of her mind against mine. It’d always been so easy between us, so intrinsic, that I’d never really thought of takin’ our relationship beyond the beauty it already maintained.
But this?
Flirtin’ with her in the dark of a bar with my hands on her body, her curves tucked in that mouthwaterin’ dress, I wondered how I’d always been so blind to it.
“That’s not playin’ the game,” I murmured, caught up in her like a spider in a web. I grabbed her tattooed hand, the one with the sunflower bloomin’ across the back of it, and lifted her fingers as I counted my two truths and a lie. “I’m an ass man, I prefer blondes, and that kiss we had in Eugene’s? Best fuckin’ kiss I ever had.”