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“How it’s been for me.” His face fell. “How fucking badly I’ve needed you.”
“It’s been like that for me too,” Lola said, still twisted to see his eyes, still dancing.
“Has it? Sometimes I don’t know.”
Lola faltered but didn’t stop. These moments of clarity he kept having weren’t helping. She hadn’t anticipated anything from him other than consuming, dumb lust. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You still have a wall up, and I can’t blame you for that. But I’ll break it down with every last tool I have. I’m doing the work, Lola. Even if you can’t see it all the time.”
She swallowed. The finality of it all began to sink in. Once upon a time, Lola and Beau had made a plan to spend all their nights together. Now, they didn’t even have one left. It was another thing Beau had taken away—this was his fault, not hers. He had ruined this.
“Don’t call me that,” she said, angry. “I told you. It’s Melody.”
Beau raked a hand through his hair, disheveling its perfection. “Would you stop moving a minute?”
“You ordered me to dance.”
“Well, now I’m ordering you to stop.”
Lola stilled her hips and looked at the floor. She’d spent the last three weeks studying him. Learning him inside out. Handling him. She could do this. She turned to face him.
“I—” He paused and took a breath.
Lola’s heart began to race. There was no way he’d tell her he loved her here of all places. In the middle of a striptease. Part of her wanted to hear it, but the part that wanted to leave was stronger.
She climbed onto the cushion and straddled him with her knees, careful not to touch him.
“I should’ve stopped this already,” he said. “I don’t want to do this here.”
Lola lowered her voice to a sultry whisper. “Then where do you want to do it?”
&n
bsp; “At home. In our bed.”
She couldn’t resist getting a little closer. He smelled like the man who’d uttered nothings in her ear—who’d made love to her while he’d fucked her. But her love for him had torn through her like a hurricane too many times, trying to bring her down. She gripped the cushion behind his shoulders and steeled herself against the urge to give in to him.
She glanced at his lap. “You’re hard, Beau. Do you want me?”
He groaned. “On your knees, on your stomach, on your back. Every way. Any way.”
She almost sucked in a breath, wanting that too, but she only needed to be strong a little longer. She opened her mouth and finally said what she’d been thinking for weeks. “Your hands are the only ones that ever lit a fire under my skin. God, Beau. I dream about you touching me at night, and I fantasize about it during the day.”
“I want to,” he said. “I need to.”
“I’m right here.”
“You made me promise…”
She inhaled his scent, committing it to memory along with the things that were already there—his foggy-green eyes, his razorblade jawline and sexy cleft chin. His thawing embrace. “It’s too much. You told me once, when you fucked me, it would calm me. I can’t even see straight.”
He grabbed her by the waist, making her gasp, and pulled her onto him. He yanked her thong out of the way and sank a finger in her.
Lola threw her head back, bit her lip to keep quiet and looked directly into the surveillance camera. She didn’t expect the second finger, and she moaned gutturally.
“There’s my girl,” Beau said.
There was an eruption, and Lola looked back just as the door bounced off the wall. Beau was still gawking, knuckles deep inside her when she was hauled backward off his lap.
Beau’s hands were suspended, open and empty. “What—”
A security guard seized his bicep, pulling Beau to his feet. “You’re out, pal.”
“Get your hands—” Beau jerked his arm away. “Don’t touch me.”
The man’s muscles, as big as Lola’s head, stretched the sleeves of a faded-black T-shirt. His face reddened. “Exactly. Did you miss the huge fucking sign out there that says ‘no touching’?”
“She’s my girlfriend,” Beau said, his voice as sharp-cornered as his back was rigid.
Another security guard entered the room and got between Lola and Beau. “You good, Havermann?”
Beau laughed like a shotgun, short, aggressive barks. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“No joke,” the man called Havermann said. He reached up but stopped as Beau raised his hands, a warning to back off. “You don’t touch the girls. Everyone knows that. Automatic removal. Let’s go. Now.”
Beau looked between Lola and the man too quickly to even register her. “She’s not one of your girls. She’s mine, and I don’t like how you’re blocking her from me,” he said to Havermann. “Get the fuck out of my way. Lola, tell them.”
Lola opened her mouth. I have to settle the bill. I’ll meet you out front. She froze, unable to get the words out.
Havermann moved, obstructing Beau almost completely from Lola’s sight. “Don’t worry about her. You got another concern right now—me. Get out, or I put you out.”
“Beau, go,” Lola said suddenly, trying to shuffle around Havermann. She didn’t want it to get physical. “I’ll meet you out front.”
“And leave you here alone?” Beau lurched from side to side to see her better. “Are you out of your mind?”
The other security guard crossed his arms. “You got three seconds.”
