WHEN I’M CLUBBING, I dance all out. I throw my body into the techno music, finding the pulse, the beat, the rhythm that perfectly fits each measure and note. The heat of the lights overhead is a familiar weight against my skin, as is the burn in my muscles and lungs, the beat of the music in my body. Tonight I’m dancing solo and it feels good, even if I sometimes miss the intimacy and trust of a pas de deux. You have to trust your partner to be strong enough to lift you high above the stage, to know his part in the dance and support you in yours. Those were good nights.
Someone puts his hand on my ass.
I don’t think so.
Shift onto my left leg.
Jeté.
I’m reaching back with a sharp heel when strong hands close on my hips and lift me off my feet. For a brief moment, I’m flying through the air, connected to the ground only through the man dancing with me. I should pull away but I can’t stop myself from smiling; I miss dancing with a real partner. I land gently, my knees automatically bending into a plié as the hands let go.
I turn my head but he’s behind me already, big body leaning in, eliminating any distance between us. Somehow, even though it’s been five long days since we meet, I’m not surprised it’s Max. For a moment, I tense in anticipation, wanting his hands back on me, lifting me, partnering with me in this dance. This is what I miss most about my ballet days, this connection, the disciplined intimacy between myself and another dancer. He breaks the silence, though, and with it the spell or whatever it is.
“Holy shit, Maple.” He growls my name. Possibly, he yells it because the music is loud and we’re on a dance floor after all. He’s staring at me, his eyes full of emotions I can’t sort out.
I noticed his eyes when I stormed his office, dark and watchful but a deceptively sweet, rich hazel with flecks of green like little secrets that you have to get close to discover. He’s just as gorgeous tonight as he was then and no happier, either.
I look again. But no. So much unhappiness.
“Problem?” I lean back against him, resting my head on his chest as I slide my arms up around his neck. My hips move to the beat, teasing his with dirty circles. The poor baby’s not feeling playful, though. He stands there like the Colossus of Rhodes, a big, broody, expensive statue just daring me to topple him.
Okay, maybe he didn’t come here to dance.
Maybe he doesn’t see the challenge he poses.
“Dance with me.”
Hazel eyes hold mine. “I don’t dance.”
“You’re not dancing right now,” I correct. “But we can fix that. Move your feet.”
“I saw your SOS.”
And...still not moving.
SOS doesn’t compute until I think for a moment. Right. The text I sent to Lola—and not to him. I narrow my eyes at him.
“Breaking some more rules, Mr. Bigshot Billionaire?”
He outright laughs, a devilish smile playing over his pretty, pretty mouth. It’s a miracle I can hear his laughter over the music but we’re pressed close together, so I definitely feel it. His chest shakes so hard he almost throws me off. I press my ear to his chest, grinning up at him. His breath feathers over my cheek, my throat. Laughter looks good on him.
His head dips. “Did you like your flowers?”
“Dance with me and I’ll tell you,” I suggest.
He shakes his head but then one hand settles on my hip, pulling me tight against him as he tries and fails to find my rhythm. His front bumps awkwardly against my rear and one thing is immediately clear: Max was first in line when God handed out penises and he got the biggest, widest dick of them all.
“See? Anyone can dance.” I tilt my head back, grinning up at him. “One foot, two feet, no feet, you move what you have.”
He frowns now, his mouth curving down. I reach up and gently tap the corner. “You’re so sulky.”
He jerks back. I’ll bet billionaires don’t get much constructive criticism and that’s okay. I’m a dancer—I live for that shit. “I don’t know how to dance,” he grumbles.
Right on cue, his jeans-covered hips bump my ass as he loses our rhythm again. He’s not kidding. He really can’t move. I dance with exaggerated slowness until he finds me, us, again.
“You don’t dance well.” I shrug. “I don’t care.”
He snorts. “Says the professional dancer.”
The other guy, the one who wouldn’t leave me alone and kept trying to grab my ass, hovers a few feet away. He’s stupid enough to believe he still has a chance. The delusion is strong with that one. Max’s other hand, the one not cradling my hipbone, splays low over my stomach, his fingers brushing dangerously low. Awareness heats my skin where he touches me.
“I like this.” I close my eyes, the better to feel each shift of his body behind me. I think he may say something else, but words don’t matter right now. We’re dancing and the whole world could be watching and that just makes the moment better. I curl a hand behind his neck, setting the other on his thigh. As if he’s fucking me slow and deep from behind, each roll of his hips making my panties wetter even though I’m almost certain I don’t like him.
When the song ends, however, he stops. I pout, not ready to stop, but his hand on my lower back steers me toward the edge of the dance floor. Eventually we push through the crowd and lock in on the VIP section. Of course he’ll have a table there. I’m sure throwing money around must be a membership requirement of the Billionaire Bachelors club.
People watch us. It isn’t just that I enjoy dancing for an audience—which I do—or like cuddling up against Max—which is a hell yes despite his rather prickly personality. It’s the way he makes me feel as if all of his attention is focused on me and that he’s okay with my taking the lead if that’s what I want. I feel safe with him, especially in a club crowded with drunken assholes, because he’ll step in if and when I want, but otherwise it’s my dance.
He doesn’t so much as pause when he reaches the stupid velvet rope the club uses to separate us masses from the wealthy special snowflakes and sure enough, bouncer dude unclips it with a respectful nod. Max sails straight through, headed for prime real estate loaded with unopened bottles of champagne and one of those dark-chocolate-colored whiskeys that scream money.
I’m not a big drinker, so I pass when Max waves at the bottles. You have to pay for bottle service to sit in the VIP section, but clearly he doesn’t feel the need to actually consume the alcohol.
“Phone,” he demands.
What?
“Didn’t you just go to a whole lot of trouble to return it?” I plant my backside on the already crowded tabletop because my feet are too antsy for full-blown sitting and this way I can swing them back and forth. “That seems like wasted effort.”
“Phone,” he repeats, leaning in. God, he smells good. “Please.”
I imagine his face if I asked him why he smelled like cedar and spice and everything nice. Does he smell like this every morning or only when he makes an effort?
Back off, Maple.
Don’t scare the nice man.
This could be why Madd left you.
Did I sniff Madd? Did I come on too strong, too fast, too much? Funny how I can’t remember now. I give up and I pull my phone out of my bag slung across my front. The bag’s awesome, all silver, beads and tassels. Lola swears I’m either a reincarnated Vegas showgirl or a disco ball wannabe. Whatever.
Max plucks the phone from my hand, taps in my passcode and frowns. “You didn’t change it.”
“What?”
“You should have immediately changed your passcode when I returned your phone.” He shakes his head. “You can’t trust random strangers.”
“Are we strangers? You’ve seen my vulva.”
The grin he gives me is crooked. “True, but if that’s your criteria, then you should trust most of San Francisco.”
“I probably could have Sharpied my passcode on my stomach and they wouldn’t have noticed. Or maybe on my boobs.” I cup them in their sparkly dress-nest and consider the available real estate. “I could fit a four-digit ATM passcode on my left tit, but the phone’s eight-digit number is gonna get cramped. What do you think?”
He gets the cutest little crinkle between his eyes when he’s confused. “What?”
“Are my boobs big enough to hold eight numbers?”
The idea of knocking Max off balance makes me oddly giddy. He’s so logical. I stare at him expectantly, while the crinkle grows to Grand Canyon proportions as he stares at my chest.
He’s actually considering it.
Or he’s really, really checking out my rack.
Finally, he says, “How big are the numbers?”
“Max!”
He grins, and oh my God, I’m in trouble because it’s a total panty-melting grin that sparks joy in my southern regions. It starts in his eyes, crinkling up the corners deliciously, and then spreads to his mouth.
“Gotcha.” He returns his attention to my phone. “I’m putting my number into your contacts.”
“Why?” Max doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who randomly texts pictures of his cat but I’ve been tricked before. “Do you have pets? Because no more than three cute kitten or puppy photos or I’ll initiate the autodestruct sequence. Also, no bathroom selfies. Or gourmet food pictures unless you’re standing on my doorstep about to share.”
“You have a lot of rules.” My phone explodes into song in his hand, pealing out a rousing bar or six of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.”
Madd’s calling.
Max hands me the phone and I decline the call because I’m not stupid. He’s a stupid, bad-news cheater but he was my mistake and it’s hard to let go of the potential I saw in him. Madd gave great fantasy.
Madd is also persistent. When I don’t answer, he texts a picture instead. In the photo he’s cuddling a brown-and-white puppy in a big white tumbled bed. I bought him that duvet cover and now it dips artistically, teasingly, beneath the sharp, sexy line of his hipbones. I think he’s naked. I can almost imagine that’s the thick line of his penis beneath the sheet that’s slipped beneath his lean belly.
Dreaming of u and our fur family.
I swear my heart stops for a second because this is the way I’ve imagined him for months and, now that he’s walked out on us, he wants to be my dream man?
Max growls something so profane that I revise my opinion of his creativity upward.
“I thought he was a dick but puppies are a new level of clickbait,” he says.
I cock my head, trying to figure out the man in front of me. “Wow. You truly don’t have a filter, do you?”
He shrugs, his give-a-fuck either as broken or nonexistent as that filter. “I don’t lie, if that’s what you mean.”
Madd did. Does? I look down at almost-naked Madd again. Is that Madd’s puppy? Ours? A prop for his insta-life? Responses to Madd’s text tumble through my head.
It’s too late.
Why are you doing this to me?
Why don’t I care more?
“Not-lying is good.” My fingers skim over the phone screen, but I’m not going to answer Madd. Not tonight, not ever. “I realize you’re just being honest with me, but I don’t think I’m ready to discuss my ex-boyfriend with you.”
He tucks my phone back into my bag. For just a moment, I feel the weight of his palm brush against my stomach and I fight the urge to lean in. “If you need me, text me.”
“Why?”
He lifts me down off the table while he thinks about it. I’m used to being lifted and moved about, although usually I’ve agreed beforehand and there’s a well-established script. I wouldn’t have predicted that Max’s high-handedness is sort of sexy. Part of me wants to explore what else I might find sexy about him, but that’s just madness. Or maybe horniness. Unfortunately, the guy attached to the very large penis isn’t particularly likable even if he is eminently sex worthy.
His hand settles on the small of my back, fingertips brushing my bare skin. Unlike the creep on the dance floor, I don’t think he even realizes he’s touching me. He’s just there and I’m here and somehow we have this bizarre connection. I should step away but instead I let him steer me in the direction he wants to go.
We’re moving toward the exit before he answers me. “For whatever you need. Because I owe you. Because you clearly need either a fake boyfriend or your own personal bouncer until your San Francisco fans forget about your video.”
If you had asked me earlier what I wanted, forgetting would have topped my list. That’s why I Ride of the Valkyried his ass and issued a personal takedown notice.
I look over at him. “I lost a campaign today. I was supposed to shoot this big dancer, little dancer number with a pink-tutu-wearing mini-me, but now some other influencer will land it.”
“They saw the video?”
I try to be fair. “They claimed their budget was maxed out so they weren’t going to move ahead with the campaign after all, but my agent heard through her network that they booked a different influencer because I was trending for some very unwholesome reasons.”
I’d been so excited to be scouted for that campaign because I’d always loved that brand. They were my first shoes and I still have them in my box of dance souvenirs.
There’s a handful of paparazzi waiting outside the club in the hopes that someone shot-worthy or famous will exit and they perk up when they spot Max. Questions fly: Who’s the date tonight, Max? Are you and Hannah through? How about Melissa? Alice? Are you seeing anyone?
“No comment.” He frowns, his hand at the small of my back urging me toward the waiting car.
Nothing to see here.
Move along.