Chapter 2 A Maenad’s Tale #2
“Shots!” Megan shouted. “Bride’s rules—tonight the maid of honor gets as toasted as the bride!” She glanced at me and asked quietly, so just I could hear, “Do you want me to get NA for you?”
The presidential bridesmaids cheered. I gave a meager wave and found myself shaking my head. “No, it’s okay. I can have a couple of drinks for once.”
There was another expression I recognized.
The conflicted one where she wanted me to have fun but also wanted to take care of me.
Megan had been giving me that look since we were nine years old and I passed out on the monkey bars.
A scream, a defibrillator, and an ambulance ride later, and I became the Girl with the Broken Heart.
Don’t believe me? Check my senior yearbook.
“It’s fine.” I grabbed one of the shots of tequila the bartender had just presented and tipped it back, ignoring the additional lime, salt, and the sear in the back of my throat. “See? Acting my age for one night won’t hurt me.”
The first shot burned going down. The second one burned less. By the third, I couldn’t feel my face, and I was pretty sure I could solve all my problems with the power of dance.
Plus, Megan was possibly going to get her wish. Every additional shot seemed to make the men in this club exponentially hotter.
“Oh, shit, this is our jam, Laney! Remember the eighth-grade formal?”
I had to laugh when the familiar notes of “Blurred Lines” pumped through an EDM mix. “Oh, God. You mean when we did the actual choreography to a song no fourteen-year-old girls have any business dancing to?”
Megan cackled. “Hell, yes. And we’re doing it now, too.”
Seconds later, we were surrounded by chaos, and I was dancing.
Not my usual side-to-side shuffle while I worried about how I looked or whether I was actually keeping any sort of time (spoiler: I usually wasn’t).
Apparently, Not Laney Fisher was hot and danced like a pro.
Not Laney Fisher let her hands do whatever they wanted, gyrated her hips like a belly dancer on molly, and allowed her feet to slide around to whatever rhythm they wanted.
She just…danced. And she loved it.
“Don’t look now.” Megan pulled me close so she could speak into my ear. “You have an audience. There’s a guy watching you, and he is stupid hot.”
“What? Who?” I turned to look, but Megan yanked me back to face her.
“I said don’t look. Just dance. Did high school teach you nothing? Men love nothing more than watching two chicks pretend to get it on. Trust, he’ll make his move when you’re ready.”
“When I’m ready? Or when he’s ready?”
Megan slipped her hand around my waist and winked over my shoulder at whoever our audience was. “With this guy? Based on the way he’s watching, I’d say he knows the difference. Oh, Kev is lucky I love him so damn much.” She grinned. “Trust me. You want this one to keep looking.”
So, ignoring every instinct I had, I followed her instructions, enjoying the way the other bridesmaids cheered us on, even flirting with some of the other men on the dance floor while I moved around.
I wasn’t an exhibitionist. I could barely handle the toast at Megan’s engagement party last fall.
But right now, with a stranger’s eyes (plus plenty of others, according to Megan) on me and enough tequila running through my bloodstream to fuel a jet, Not Laney Fisher had no problem putting on a little show.
After what might have been minutes or hours—tequila had the additional effect of erasing the concept of time—I needed a break. And another drink. Preferably more tequila, although based on the racing in my chest, I probably needed to stick with water.
“Excuse me!” I called to the bartenders who were currently enamored with a trio of cage dancers on a break. “Paying customer here.”
That was when I felt him. Nothing actually touched me, but I knew he was there all the same.
I’d felt his eyes on me all night even though I still hadn’t looked for him.
Megan had assured me he was there, still hot, still watching.
And I believed her. Maybe it was just my imagination.
Maybe it was the tequila. But there was an energy emanating from across the room that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, and as the night progressed, it seemed to hum with need.
To my surprise, I was open to it. Delaney Fisher, would-be archaeologist, mild-mannered shopkeeper, and eternal sweater enthusiast, would never have entertained such a thing.
But Not Laney Fisher had just watched two of the three bridesmaids make out with strangers on the dance floor while Megan snuck away to send her fiancé a dirty text.
Not Laney Fisher was finally ready for a kiss of her own.
In fact, she was ready for a whole lot more.
And just as Megan promised, my admirer had figured that out.
A pair of hands found the edge of the bar, caging me to the steel surface. But despite being trapped, I didn’t feel unsafe. If anything, I was comforted by the mild scent of cognac, vanilla, and oak, oddly refreshing in the heaviness of the club’s atmosphere.
Comforted and… excited.
That was a new combination.
“You know, it’s poor manners to put on a show like that and walk away, little maenad.”
My breath caught. The voice was as deep and smooth as dark chocolate. Refined, but tinged with a roughness that betrayed a life in which not everything came easily.
“Maenad?” I had to wonder.
I could feel the stranger’s smile behind me rather than see it. “Dionysus’s handmaidens? From the Greek maínomai—it means ‘dancers.’ They revel, they rage, they drink.” One of the hands on the bar drew a finger up my arm, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. “They dance.”
I knew this, of course, as a former student of ancient Greek culture. Better than him, since I happened to know his translation was off. Maínomai actually translated to “the raving ones,” not dancers. They were insane. They were angry.
But he was right about one thing—they also partied like no one’s business.
There was something hypnotic about his voice, reverberating through me deeper than the bass vibrating through the floors.
“If you think I’m a maenad, then what does that make you?”
“You don’t know?”
“You’re the Greek scholar, not me.”
Another lie, of course. But I wasn’t a scholar. Not anymore.
I started to twist around to get a glimpse of my admirer, but the hand on my arm moved to my hip, stopping me. Gentle but firm. There was no question who was in charge here.
“Not yet. It’s more fun this way, I think.”
A zip of electricity traveled from that hand straight through my belly and up to my heart, which gave an uncharacteristically strong thump. He was right. It was more fun drawing it out. My heart was pounding, my skin tingled, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this alive. This wanted.
Not in the last two years. Maybe never.
One of the bartenders scurried—that was the only word for it once the guy spotted whoever was standing behind me—over to us. “Hello, Mr. Bl—”
“Water the for the lady,” the stranger cut him off. “And two more tequilas. The Asombroso, extra anejo.”
My water materialized, and then the bartender practically ran to get our drinks, probably because the stranger had just ordered the most expensive tequila in the bar.
“Important, are you?” I gulped down the water, then another half a pint when it was refilled. My heart had calmed down a bit, and thank God, since I wasn’t ready to stop having fun. Not by a long shot.
A low, deep laugh vibrated against my back. “Not even a little bit.”
I frowned. That was clearly a lie.
“So, little nymph, do you make a habit of driving men insane on dance floors, or is tonight special?”
“That depends on the man.”
My voice sounded foreign to my own ears. Huskier. Bolder. Sexier.
Like the person Der—nope, I wasn’t going to use his name—had always wanted me to be, but I never could.
Until now, apparently.
“It’s my friend’s bachelorette party,” I said. “Our last night in Vegas.”
“A visitor to my domain, then.” The stranger shifted to reach around and slide my water closer. His hand was long-fingered and elegant but roughened, with old scars marring his knuckles and a few places over his wrist.
He was tall, I decided as I sipped the water. I was five-two on a good day, and despite the help of five-inch heels, the back of my head seemed to be hitting the middle of what felt like a nicely muscled chest.
“Your domain? Is this place yours?”
“No, but I’m here often enough. Consider me a... regular citizen of the Vegas nightlife kingdom.”
Our tequila arrived, and when the bartender stepped away again, I was able to glean a few more details in the mirror behind the bar.
He was tall. Very tall—at least six-two or six-three—and broad, bound up in a suit that had to be custom by the way it hugged a pair of shoulders that could easily carry me up a flight of stairs or ten.
His face was hidden by bottles, but I could see the outline of hair that was shorn on the sides but on top burst into a mop of curls that refused to be tamed with gel.
Despite his sophistication, there was something slightly savage about the man, as if the tailored clothing and urbane speech were attempts to mask a messier, wilder creature within.
“Curious, are we?” His finger grazed my arm again, then traveled up to my bare shoulder.
I should have been embarrassed. Or maybe darted under those arms and made my escape. I did like what I saw, but there was also the fact that everything about the man screamed danger.
Instead, I leaned back into him. Just slightly. Just enough to catch sight of an impossibly sharp jawline and the shadow of a full mouth.
He purred.
“Depends.” I arched my neck to allow that finger to tickle the sensitive skin beneath my ear. “Are you as good as you think you are?”
One side of his mouth hooked into a smirk. “Better.”
“Arrogant.”
“Experienced.”
“That doesn’t necessarily equate to skill.”