I watched her subtly from the corners of my eyes. Her head was bobbing to the music as she sipped her champagne. When she was done with her glass, she set it down and turned to me once again. I looked straight ahead and pretended to be engrossed in the dancers.
“You’re really not going to come with me?”
I took the phone from her and typed in my response.
This doesn’t look like my kind of thing.
She took her phone back and typed in another message.
Oh, come on.
I shook my head in response.
“Just for a few minutes,” she mouthed.
She must have seen from my expression that I wasn’t exactly excited by the prospect so she jumped up and tried to pull me off the sofa. When her efforts proved completely useless, she scowled at me and joined the crowd. I didn’t feel good about rejecting her. I was torn between wanting to be with her and not making a complete fool of myself.
I drained my glass and decided to keep my eyes on her, and on everyone that came even remotely close.
When she got on the dance floor, I noticed she kept to a corner so that she could dance as freely as she wanted to, but then men slowly began to eye her. I noticed them, and scowled. One eventually went up to her and joined her in a dance.
She ignored him and carried on doing her thing, and I realized what she had meant when she said she had always wanted to dance with someone she cared about. Another man, it seemed as if he knew the first guy, came up and began to dance on the other side of her. She was sandwiched between the two bastards. I saw the discomfort in her face as she tried her best to pretend these two men were not on either side of her.
I didn’t think. My body moved and suddenly I was pushing bodies out of the way, on my way towards her.
One of the men came so close to her that one of his hands brushed her hip. She pushed it away, but clearly did not want to make a scene. Then the other one moved in and brought his face close to hers. Her reaction was to lean away, which served to bring her closer to the other dog behind her.
Both men were smiling widely, trying to make light of the fact that they were taking advantage of her. She turned in the direction I’d been sitting in, and there was almost a hurt look on her face, but I was not there, I was already more than halfway across the floor. That look on her face twisted my heart. Made me lose all reason. I was no longer in a nightclub where people went to have fun. I was in a bear pit fighting rivals off my woman.
As I reached them they ignored me. There was no reason for them to think I mattered to them.
I grabbed Willow’s hand and pulled her out of the circle of their bodies. Only one of them had a brain. He saw the look in my eyes and immediately started to back away.
The other thought that it would be an idea to challenge me.
He had no idea. No fucking idea.
It was like sending a two-year old toddler into the ring with a heavyweight boxer. I grabbed him by his scrawny neck. Before he could even figure out what was happening, I’d thrown him forward. He flew across the floor and landed on his ass.
The crowd gasped and screamed at the altercation and moved out of the way. The man immediately jumped to his feet, incensed, while I stood my ground and stared menacingly at him. I didn’t want to fight him. He was just a kid.
But when his companion found the guts and came for me too, I let Willow go. Slowly, I began to fold my sleeves up my arms in preparation for them. In a fight confidence is everything. Both men exchanged a look and in that look I already knew I had won. I didn’t blink. My eyes had kept me safe inside and I knew how intimidating they were when I was riled. They waved their arms aggressively and cursed loudly before they walked away.
Willow grabbed my hand. “Come. Let’s dance somewhere else.”
38
Willow
After Caleb had tossed a fully-grown man across the floor as if he was nothing more than a bowling pin, and without even seeming to have to exert himself, my desire for dancing dissipated like smoke.
I wanted him inside me! It was strange though as the very thought of violence would have repulsed me before, but now seeing Caleb switch from his usually calm demeanour was an aphrodisiac like nothing I’d ever known before.
I pulled him along towards the hotel. He followed without complaint all the way to the elevator. He stood next to me as we silently rode up. The bud between my legs was throbbing with excruciating arousal.