Property of Pops

5

Coco

My pulse is heavy and quick in my ears.

I can’t seem to stand still, crossing my ankles and uncrossing them just as quickly. Squeezing my thighs together. Laughing at a conversation between Wanda and her cousins, but barely hearing a single word that’s exchanged. This time the general isn’t wearing sunglasses, so I know he’s staring at me. I can feel the heat of his gaze meandering up the backs of my legs and lingering on my butt. I can’t seem to stop myself from cocking one hip and dropping the other, arching my back slightly so he can memorize the pathways of my body.

I’m thirty yards from the man but I can still feel his expert tongue working against my sex, can still hear the way he spoke to me. With such blunt ownership. But is he actually taking it? Or is he pushing me away? The latter is what I deduced based on the way he left my room earlier. Now, though? The hungry way he’s watching me tells a very different story.

“Vegas” by Doja Cat starts to play over the bar speakers.

“Ooooh,” Wanda is saying. “I love this song. We need to dance!”

And I can’t disagree with my best friend—this song is amazing. I’ve already got both arms in the air as she nudges me toward the dancefloor, my single gin and tonic bubbling its way through my system and making me feel loose limbed, uninhibited. Wanda, her cousins and I dance in a circle near the bar. The song ends as quickly as it started, however, replaced by a slow jam. Everyone starts to pair up. Wanda begins swaying with one of the locals who are clearly hanging out in a hotel bar to meet tourists. One of her cousins—who is actually pretty cute in a pale gamer kind of way—approaches me, obviously planning on asking me to dance.

I back up, panicking.

I’m not sure why. It’s just a dance.

But for some reason, the possibility of another man’s hands on me after what I shared with my Dadd—with Walt—feels woefully wrong. Even though I’m trying to escape, Wanda’s cousin doesn’t seem to notice my reluctance and he keeps coming and coming. So I continue taking steps backward—until my butt lands squarely in Walt’s lap at the bar.

He bites off a growl, turning into a laugh for the benefit of his son who is frozen in silent surprise, his drink paused halfway to his mouth. “Coco?” asks Wanda’s father, his eyes ticking between me and Walt. “Everything okay, honey?”

“Yes,” I blurt, tearing myself away from Walt and smoothing my hair in a nervous gesture “I was just…I don’t want to dance and I was trying to, um…”

“Escape?” Walt supplies, taking a long, slow sip of his drink while considering me over the rim of his glass. “Maybe you wouldn’t be so eager to run if you had the right partner.”

“Maybe not,” I concede, semi-breathless. “Is that you? The right…dance partner?”

His chest dips and rises, his intense eyes penetrating mine. But he says nothing.

“Come on, father,” laughs Chris, his tone betraying the fact that he’s not totally oblivious to the tension between me and Walt. “Can’t leave all the fun to the kids, right?”

A muscle jumps in Walt’s cheek. “She’s not a kid.”

“No, I’m not,” I agree—and I’m not sure where my bravery comes from, maybe it’s the liquor or simply the potency of my lust for this man. Whatever the reason, I say, “I might not be a kid, but I don’t know how to slow dance. I’ve only done it once at a high school dance and left my partner’s feet black and blue.” I wet my lips and order myself to hang on to my courage. “Do you think we could go somewhere private for a few minutes so you could teach me?”

Walt is about to say no. I’ve been too bold. Asking to be alone with him in front of his son. In my desperation to be held in his arms, I’ve gone too far. Before he can say anything, however, Wanda’s cousin reaches my side. “Hey, uh…hey Coco. Would you like to dance with me?”

“Actually,” Chris cuts in behind me, obviously trying to save me from dancing with someone I don’t want to. “Actually, I was just about to give Coco a quick lesson…” he says, sliding off his stool with a sheepish smile. “Maybe afterward?”

“I’ll be doing the teaching,” Walt growls, his mouth very close to my ear. Enough to make me shiver. I’m surrounded on all sides by three men, but the only one affecting my pulse is Walt, who has stepped up behind me, his hand on my hip. “Out on the patio, Coco.”

“Yes, sir,” I whisper, my knees knocking together.

Walt looks down at my hand, his jaw bunched. My heart is fluttering, telling me he wants to lock our fingers together. But everyone in his family is watching and he can’t. I know that. Still my stomach sinks with the disappointment of missing out on the experience of his rough, experienced palm against mine. And that disappointment stays with me as he gestures for me to precede him through the crowd toward the exit that leads onto the patio.

I’ve never been comfortable flirting or being provocative. But maybe what happened earlier has sparked something new to life inside of me, something naughty, because I exaggerate the sway of my hips a little more than usual. I toss my hair and give him a little pout over my shoulder. As if he’s my father and I’m in trouble. About to be lectured.

When we’re outside and the slightly humid summer air is washing over me, it happens.

It happens.

The thing I didn’t know I was craving.

As soon as we’ve stepped over the threshold, Walt comes up behind me and hustles me against the wall, out of sight, his right hand yanking up the back of my skirt. All the way to my waist. I’m gasping, growing wet almost instantaneously, releasing excited puffs of air toward the wall, which is only an inch from my face. What is he going to do?

“What did I tell you, Coco?” he grits out against my ear, his thumb hooking into the back waistband of my panties and pulling them down over the curve of my bottom. “You make men hard. Teenagers all the way up through a grandfather like me—”