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“Hi, Luke.I’m ahugefan.”She holds up a stack of cash.“How much for a dance?”
Twenty-One
Liv
“Liv, I… I…”
God, I almost feel sorry for him.Then I remember what brought me here, and that wave of sympathy crashes into the stone wall I built around my heart as I drove away from the restaurant.
“Shhh.”I reach up and press my finger to his lips, halting his stuttering.His eyes are wild as he takes me in.“You look different without your sunglasses.”The music’s so loud that it’s hard to think, let alone have a conversation, but I’m pretty fucking motivated.
“Can we go someplace private?”Those sad brown eyes plead with me, his breath coming in short bursts.If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was close to a panic attack.
“Why, so we can have a repeat of the VIP room?I don’t think so.”I narrow my eyes and lean back in my chair, crossing my legs.“It’s not so funny when this”—I wave my finger back and forth been the two of us—“goes the other way, is it?”
“Nothing about this has ever been funny,” he says hoarsely.
I’m dimly aware that the other dancers are going through the motions with their partners, teasing and grinding and tossing them around.In theory that’s what we’re here to do too.The crowd wants a show, so I guess I’d better give them one.
Digging in my pocket and holding up a ten-dollar bill, I ask, “Is this enough to get you to lose the beard?”
He shakes his head.“Liv, please?—”
“Take off the beard, Hollis,” I snap, crumpling the bill and tossing it at his chest.It bounces off and lands on the ground.“Let me see you.I think it’s past time.”
He complies slowly, pulling it off and the hat too for good measure.
Now that every last bit of his disguise is gone, I can see his face up close, this face that’s become so precious to me.I can see the devastation in his expression, the hopelessness in his eyes.A crack threatens to form in that hard stone wall, but I won’t let it.I refuse.
“Livvie.”He drops to his knees at my feet and rests his hands on my thighs.“You have to believe that I never wanted this.”
“I don’t have to believe anything.”But I don’t slap his hands away, which lets him keep making those gentle back-and-forth motions with his thumbs along the seams of my jeans.
He pushes my knees apart, wedging himself between them so he can scoot closer to me.His hands travel up to my waist, and his fingers tighten as he tugs me so my core presses against his bare stomach.We both shudder at the contact.
“I tried to tell you.I really did.”He plucks my sun-faded Diamondbacks hat off my head, tossing it to the side.
“You should’ve tried harder.”I want to sound harsh and untouchable, but he has his fingers buried in my hair, working them through the strands until he finds the clip I used to hold it all back.He pulls that out too and lets it spill around my shoulders.
He surges up to bury his face in the mass of it hanging against my neck.“God, I love when you wear it curly,” he murmurs.Then he stands in one smooth motion and lifts me up with him.I have no choice but to wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist.He curls one arm under my butt to hold me up.With the other, he cups the back of my head.
“I should’ve tried harder,” he agrees.“I should’ve justdoneit.”He tugs on the hair at my nape, tilting my head back so far that I’m looking at the audience upside down.I’m dizzy from the position, from doing this so publicly.From the strength of his arm holding me up and the solid press of his torso as he molds himself against the arc of my body.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again after the first night you came here,” he says.The music thunders around us, just the way it did that night, but everything’s different now.Everything’s upended.“And then when you turned up at Verdant, I didn’t think there was any reason for me to say anything.I had no idea you’d give a second thought to one of the dancers you saw onstage that weekend.”
The world shifts again as he lifts me upright and spins to sit down on the chair, positioning me so I’m straddling his lap, my knees bracketing his hips.
“I gave you second thoughts and third thoughts.”I don’t know why I’m confessing this.Maybe it’s his fingers on my ankles, leaving little cracks in that stone wall and threatening to crumble my resolve.“There were some nights when I gave you all my thoughts.”
His head falls back on a groan, and I lean forward to press my lips against his Adam’s apple.God, what am I doing?I came here to confront him, not lick his neck.After I left the restaurant, I realized I couldn’t just sit at home with my fury and my unanswered questions.My whole body threatened to vibrate into oblivion if I didn’t find him and force him to confront his lies.And I had a pretty good idea where he’d be.
As I slumped at a table in the very back of the room, I was the one hiding my face while his was on full display.Watching him perform as his full Luke-self had twisted my anger into an inferno of lust and rage and desire.It’s what drove me to volunteer for the onstage show, causing Nick to raise his brows when he noticed my hand in the air and to ask me a quiet, “Are you sure?”I had been… until I was sitting in the chair alongside the other volunteers waiting for the dancers to join us onstage and I started to reconsider my impulsive decision.
And now I’m grinding on his lap in front of one hundred and fifty strangers, wanting answers.Wanting vengeance.Wanting him.That last need is why my mouth is still touching his throat when he speaks again, which means I can feel his words against my lips almost as well as I feel them in my bones, my sinews, my heart.
“After we became friends, I didn’t know how to tell you.”The urgency in his voice as he attempts to explain tries to chip away more of my protective wall.So does his gentleness as he lifts my right arm and runs his lips from my wrist to my elbow before wrapping it around his neck.“I never dreamed you’d actually feel about me the way I feel about you.”
His eyes flash with vulnerability as he repeats the action with my left arm, kissing his way along my sensitive skin and settling my hand on top of the one that’s already gripping his hair.
