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In my peripheral vision, I notice that the dancer is at the microphone now and is talking to the audience. But the pounding in my head is drowning out everything she’s saying. I can only focus on Sebastian.
“Look, if you think for one second this hasanythingto do with Mike, then you’re dead wrong,” I say. “Andyoucame tomeyesterday. Why? Because you thought I was going to rat on you to your folks about helping me escape the wedding?”
Sebastian opens his mouth to respond, but I hold up my hand to cut him off. No fucking way. I have listened my whole damn life like a good little girl and now it’s my time to speak. Only, something changes in the air—it’s lighter somehow. Literally. There’s a giant spotlight shining down on me as if the heavens have opened up and God himself is shining a torch in my face.
The audience cheers and I blink, my head slowly turning to the stage.
“It looks like we have a volunteer. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hand go up so fast.” The redheaded woman beckons me forward.
Oh shit.
She must have seen my hand go up as I was talking to Sebastian. What on earth have I done? There’s a man in top and tails coming toward me, hand outstretched. I want to recoil, back away. Hide. Ihatethe spotlight.
But that’s Previous Presley talking. Good Girl Presley.
If I want to be bad and spontaneous and free, then I need to do things I wouldn’t normally do, right? I need to change.
I look at Sebastian. There’s a challenge in his dark eyes, a daring. If I’d been here with Mike, he would have been mortified. But let’s be real—Mike would have turned tail the second he figured out what this place was.Trashy, he would have called it.Classless.
But Sebastian is here, with me. He wants me—I can feel it in my bones—and I want him. Desperately. More than I’ve wanted any other man. The gentleman in his fancy black-and-white outfit comes closer, hand reaching toward me. The woman on stage is taunting the crowd, riling them up. I hear cheers and see lights and feel something bubbling and swelling inside me.
I want to be different. I want to be a new woman.
I turn to Sebastian and, without giving my actions too much thought, I plant a kiss on his lips. It’s fast, over too soon and not nearly enough. But I leave a mark on him, a smudge of red across his full lips that’s sexy as hell. My stomach is flipping and turning, twisting like a snake. He watches me, the hunger in his expression so unrestrained it makes my blood sing.
I go to the man in top and tails, and allow myself to be led to the stage.
“She’s dressed to kill, ladies and gentlemen!” the redhead says. I see her name on a poster as I walk to the stage: Penny La Perle. “Let’s give our brave volunteer a warm welcome.”
On the stage, I’m momentarily blinded by the lights. But I gain my bearings and draw my shoulders back, letting the audience’s attention fuel me. I flash back to a presentation I had to give a few months ago in our corporate headquarters’ atrium, which seats two hundred. My hands had shaken as I walked to the podium, terrified about having to present our Learning and Development strategy to so many people. I’d hated every second of it.
Yet now...
There are so many eyes watching me, but I only care about one person. Him. Sebastian’s gaze tracks me across the stage and I take my place beside Ms. La Perle.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” she asks. Up close, I can see the tiny row of crystals that hug the base of her enormous false eyelashes. She looks like a glamorous Barbie come to life.
“Presley,” I say.
“I love the name Presley,” Penny La Perle croons. “Are you ready to put on a show, darling?”
“I sure am.” I look right at Sebastian as Penny hands me a feather boa.
“Just follow my lead.”
Music starts up. It’s slower than before, no doubt designed for less experienced—excuse me,totallyout of their freaking depth—performers, like myself. Penny starts with an easy sidestep and shimmy combo. I follow, like a parrot masquerading as a peacock. The audience whoops. Penny slides her feather boa across her shoulders and I do the same, finding confidence as I feel the music.
“Next we turn,” Penny says as she moves effortlessly around the stage, turning to face the back. I follow her lead, teetering a little on my high heels. The Louboutins were the kind of splurge I wouldneverhave made before, because maxing out a credit card on shoes is irresponsible.
But dropping that plastic to buy something totally sexy—totallyfrivolous—just for me was a big thrill. Even though the whole room is watching, I’m only dancing for him. I swing my hips, undulating back and forth—using the boa to highlight my movements has me feeling high on the power of being on display. Being an object of desire.
And while I know that’s not how women are supposed to want to be treated, right now Iwantto be an object. Because that means I’m not me.
I’m not the woman only good for closing a business deal, the woman dumb enough to fall for lines and flowers. Now I’m just a figment, a fantasy. A fleeting moment in time where nothing matters but feeling good and sensual and wanted.
I watch Penny, copying her but adding my own twist to the moves. When I turn back to the audience, my eyes lock onto Sebastian’s. He’s sitting in that unabashedly male way that gets me hot—legs spread, arms winging out along the back of the velvet sofa. Eyes endlessly black. He’s claiming the space, owning it.
And I want him to own me.
