Chapter 25
Kas
Mari is avoiding me and it’s pissing me off. What’s also pissing me off is that she looks fucking irresistible, and I have to scan the mass of dancing bodies just to try and steal a glance. I need her to stay still and stand in front of me for a few minutes so I can commit her to memory before she goes running off with Violet.
“Do you remember when we watched that nature documentary with those dancing birds?” Devon asks, finishing his glass of red.
“Yeah.”
Of course I remember it. The guy narrating sounded like Bill, if Bill pronounced his Hs.
“Now, do you remember why that male bird danced?” Devon doesn’t take his eyes off Violet as he speaks.
“To attract a mate?”
“I have a sudden urge to impress through the art of dance.”
I cringe at Devon’s words. He’s been itching to join Violet since she left with Mari to go and dance. I think he feels bad for me because I hate dancing, and he doesn’t want to leave me.
“Please, go and dance with your girl.”
Devon’s already nodding his head to the beat and moving toward the dance floor. The crowd parts for him and various men and women check him out as he passes.
I refocus on Mari. I’m going to let her be embarrassed, but we know that avoiding me isn’t an option. I’ve given her some time to sit on her emotions about the book, ensuring I didn’t talk to her during training.
Men stare at her as she dances, and I glare at them from my position at the bar; they’re too far to tell that I’m looking at them with contempt.
With her closed eyes and lips quirked into a small smile, Mari looks ethereal. She hits every beat and lip-syncs to the lyrics as if she’s in her own little world.
Mari’s eyes open briefly when Violet whispers something to her. They both look over at Devon, who is struggling to match the tempo. Mari quickly, and not so discreetly, flicks her eyes to where I’m sitting. She and Violet are distracted when the song changes, both of them look at each other pleasantly surprised.
Mari squeezes her eyes shut and creates an O shape with her mouth, continuing to dance and move with a grace that seems to come to her naturally. I love it when she swivels her hips because each twist and turn causes her body chain to undulate over her dark skin. She looks like one of those dancers that were in those raunchy, early 2000s music videos I’d sneakily watch as a kid when my mom wasn’t home.
Devon’s copying some of Mari’s dance moves, staring at his feet to ensure he maintains the rhythm. Violet joins them with little effort and mouths the lyrics with Mari, all three of them are completely synced up, stepping side to side and bouncing their heads together.
I’m almost tempted to join. Almost .
One guy comes up to Mari. I lean forward off the stool, settling back when she takes no notice of him. Several men attempt to make a move on her, but with her eyes closed, they quickly take the hint. I huff out a laugh when her braids whip away another dude, though it’s quickly tamped when another man taps Mari’s shoulder and takes her out of her peaceful trance.
I stand from the stool, bouncing eagerly on the balls of my feet before storming to where Mari is. Jealousy and possessiveness take root inside of me, blooming like an uncontrollable weed.
Never in my life has a woman had me so spun. Nothing makes me jealous, and now a man not only touching Mari but stopping her from dancing has me needing to take action. I don’t even know what type of action. Is it possible for me to shut down this entire club?
I insert myself against Mari, shoving the guy out of the way.
“Kas! Hi!” Violet waves.
Devon looks mortified at my presence on the dance floor.
I give them both a tight-lipped smile and look behind me to make sure the guy interrupting Mari has gone. Mari gives me the same dirty look she gave the guy, and I realize that I’ve not only gotten rid of him, but I have also halted her dancing.
“You dance?” Violet shouts over the bass.
I shake my head no. She shrugs and carries on moving with Devon, both soon swamped by clubgoers. I stand tall over pretty much all of them but Devon.
Mari continues dancing and discreetly moves farther away from me. I’m instantly on her tail.
“You’re running from me,” I call, brushing my hand against her tricep.
“I’m not running, I’m dancing, and you look awkward not dancing.”
She’s right. I’m standing idle in a sea of dancing bodies, sticking out like a sore thumb.
“I don’t dance.”
Mari pouts. “No dance, no talk.”
This is ridiculous.
She turns to give me a stunning view of her lower back and the two dimples peeking through the beaded ends of her braids. With a single determined step, the gap between us is closed when my thumbs find their place on those same dimples. A smattering of goose bumps form beneath my palm and I draw her closer to me so I can lean down toward her ear.
“I don’t care that you fantasize about me,” I say firmly so she can hear me over the music. She jerks away and looks at me with hard eyes. Despite my comment being out of the left field, she’s still dancing. “I would’ve mentioned it somewhere more private if you didn’t keep avoiding me.”
Mari ignores me and carries on bobbing her head and lip-syncing to lyrics I’ve never heard. There’s a stewing anger inside of me when she turns away again. The hot flush blanketing me isn’t just from the too-hot club.
My hands find her hips and I yank her into my front. Her body goes rigid for a second and then she dances as if I’m not against her.
With my front pressed against her back, she’s grinding against me. What’s even more insane is that I’m somehow managing to work with it without standing like a fucking statue. Mari pauses every few seconds when her ass rubs against me at an angle where she can feel how hard I am beneath my jeans.
After a couple of minutes, she whips around and places two ring-covered hands on my chest. She moistens her lips when she looks past me to motion getting a drink to Violet. Violet nods, looking between us with furrowed brows. Devon is completely oblivious to everything around him, his face tucked into Violet’s neck as if he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
“I don’t like that you know about the book!” Mari shouts and starts edging off the dance floor.
I follow her so I can maintain the conversation all the way to the bar. “I don’t give a fuck,” I say.
“Do you know what you’re doing right now?”
I tilt my head. “What?”
“You’re talking out of your arse.”
Yeah, she got that one from Bill. It’s hard not to smile at her words. She shakes her head as she leans across the bar to catch the bartender’s attention.
“Everyone has their fantasies,” I say, trying to soothe her anger.
“I know,” she says, facing me. “And I don’t fantasize about you .”
Mari presses a finger into my chest and I take it in my fist.
“Bullshit,” I snap.
“Can we just forget about it? I’m here to work. I’m going to log out and unlink your account, or whatever I have to do.”
“Fine.” I release her finger.
Not fine. I want her to spend my money on what she enjoys because it’s my gift to her.
She requests a rum and soft drink mixture, side-eyeing me throughout her order. When she’s about to pay, I throw some bills onto the bar.
Mari stomps her foot and feigns a smile at me. “Kas.”
I step to her. “Mari.”
She pretends to ignore me by leaning on the bar and turns to me after the bartender hands her the drink. “ I’m going to dance,” she says slowly, inching closer. “And you are going to let me.”
The condensation on her glass soaks my T-shirt and cools my rapidly heating skin. Mari fakes a smile as she sips through her straw and takes one hesitant step past me.
I lower my lips to her ear. There’s one question that enters my mind, and it comes to me so suddenly, I don’t have a chance to withhold it.
“Be honest about the book. Is it because of me?”
She looks at the toes of her heeled leather boots as if they are the most interesting things in the world. Our cheeks are adhered to each other, and I feel her exhale a heavy sigh against the side of my face.
“What will happen if I say yes?” she whispers.
I don’t respond. The word “everything” lingers on the tip of my tongue, daring me to answer her question. I know it’s not an answer she’d want to hear because she’d drive herself insane trying to decipher it and it’d send her into another bout of avoidance.
She pulls away from me and gives me the only purposeful look she’s given me in the past few days. “That’s my answer,” she says.
My breaths are fleeting, and each one is a struggle for control. In her true reactive self, Mari shakes off her whole body when she steps away. The kaleidoscopic club lights flicker hypnotically over her figure in rich magentas and cool teals as she walks back to Devon and Violet.
Her answer was all I needed to hear, and now that I’ve heard it, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to live peacefully knowing that the one woman I’ve had such a visceral and ungodly attraction to fantasizes about me too.
The worst thing about this little hiccup isn’t Mari’s reaction, or the reason why she bought the book. It’s how terrible the book is. It was inaccurate, unrealistic, and sits on my phone with a little “completed” sign under it.
Over the past day, I spent my training breaks reading the one-hundred-page book. Every sentence, every word, and every time the word rod was used to describe a cock—sixteen times.
If she’s read the book, I wanted to read it too so that we’re on the same page in every possible way.