“It’s true,” Cleo said with an apologetic shrug when I looked aghast at her. “You’re about as subtle as a flashing neon sign.”
“Damn,” I muttered into my drink, embarrassed but also a little bit relieved.
Everyone knew, and it seemed no one cared.
Priest was ten years older than me and my complete foil, yet these brothers seemed to think nothing of our possible courtship. It made hope spring forth in the soil of my gut like a tender spring shoot.
The obstacles between Priest and I were diminishing by the day. Only one truly gargantuan one remained; Priest himself.
“Stop brooding; it doesn’t suit you,” Cleo teased, bopping me on the nose with her finger. “You look adorable tonight, and it’s about time you had some fun! Come dance. Let some unsuspecting man check you out.”
I laughed, smoothing a hand down my tiny white crop top and popping my hip so the short hem of my pleated black and pink plaid skirt flipped up over my pink fishnet-clad thigh. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
Cleo laughed with me as she linked our fingers and dragged me out into the mass of dancing bodies. Over my shoulder, Tayline said dryly to the guys, “They’re so cute they make me wanna barf sometimes.”
I let the surging energy of the people on the dance floor around me infect me with vitality. We reached Lila, H.R., and Lou, who all hollered in greeting, not pausing as they danced their butts off.
Joy.
It pumped through me to the beat of the music that thrummed against my feet like a kick drum, urging me to dance harder. I held my heavy hair off my neck to cool the sweat gathering on the back of it, closed my eyes to better feel the music, and danced.
I wasn’t as graceful as my sister, the trained ballerina, but I could bust a move, and I loved to dance. The anxiety eating away at my body was stamped out with each beat of my high-heeled Mary Jane’s against the floor, and soon, I was singing along with my biker babes to the pop music that made the brothers at the bar cringe.
“Fuck, you’re sexy,” someone said from behind me a moment before fingers trailed down the exposed skin at my hip and curled in, pinning me in place so they could press themselves against me.
It was, clearly from the bulge, a man.
I tipped my head back. I was short enough to catch sight of his face even in my heels. “Hello,” I said with a little smile.
He was a gorgeous Asian man, his skin tanned and stretched taut over his slanting cheekbones. When he winked, I had to blink away my bemused delight.
I might have been taken by my very own psychopath, but I was still a woman.
“You move well,” he complimented as his big hands found my waist to better move my ass against his groin.
“Thanks.” I tossed my hair over my shoulder to smile at him and let myself enjoy the simplicity of dancing with a beautiful stranger.
“You should know,” he said after a moment, bending to speak into my ear to be heard over the music. “A man over by the bar is watching you. He doesn’t look happy I’m dancing with you.”
I laughed lightly without looking over at The Fallen, who were no doubt scowling protectively at me in the arms of a stranger. They were doubly protective of me because I was Loulou’s sister, and because now, I might also be Priest’s woman.
I shivered with wholesale delight at the thought.
“Uh…” The guy I was dancing with shivered too, but from the way he suddenly pulled away, it wasn’t in a good way. “I’m actually gonna head out.”
“What?” I asked, a little bemused. I turned to ask what his problem was, but he was already gone, moving through the crowd without looking back.
I blinked as the space he’d left behind was swallowed up by dancers again and then shrugged as Cleo pulled me back into her body by my hips. We danced together, my girls and I, twirling and laughing, giddy on comradery and tipsy on good booze.
I closed my eyes again to absorb the feel of them against me, sweat-slicked and sweet-scented. It was what I imagined young puppies felt with their siblings, always touching, always playing, always together. This was the kind of life my outlaw friends and family lived, deep lows and soaring highs. They knew how to lock away grief and fear to suck the marrow out of life when it presented you with the opportunity to appreciate it. So many people believed MC life was about drugs, violence, and crime, but at its heart, it was always and forever about living together as a found family, the kind forged voluntarily by love and loyalty.
When Loulou danced my way, I snagged her wrists and pulled her close for a tight hug that stilled us both.