Chapter 12 Verity
TWELVE
Verity
I don’t know why I’m at Top Dog, but after the disaster with Monk in the studio, I couldn’t just go home to wait while he worked.
There is no way I could sit on a couch with this electricity coursing through my body.
Wind at my back, beneath my wings. On top of the world.
All the clichés apply. When life is this great, alone is the last thing you want to be.
I just want some fun. I deserve some fun, and I certainly wasn’t getting it from Monk.
As soon as I walk through the door, heads swivel and eyes latch on to me. It makes me strut a little, swaying my hips and lengthening my stride.
“Hey, lady,” Shelby, the hostess, greets me. “Where’s your man tonight?”
“He’s working. Borrrrrring.” I grin. “It’s just me.”
Her eyes rake over my body, a look she has given me more than once, but which I’ve never encouraged.
“I doubt you’ll be alone for long,” she says, “looking like that, but if you’re still solo at the end of the night, come find me.”
I don’t confirm or protest, but I do return her smile when she tugs one of my wayward curls. Harmless flirting. Monk wouldn’t mind.
Shelby seats me at a table in the middle of the room, the center of the universe.
The air-conditioning pebbles my nipples beneath the thin silk of my dress.
The wood of the chair is cool under the hot skin baked onto my thighs.
My body is too tight for my heart, which is pounding to escape my chest. Under the table, my fingers twitch between my legs.
I want to get myself off right here. I squirm, so turned-on I hope I don’t leave a wet spot on this dress.
God, I can still taste Monk’s dick in my mouth.
I lick my lips and bite down. I needed that release so bad.
I still need it. He doesn’t understand how this feels.
A million fire ants are crawling under my skin.
A furnace is blazing all over me, setting my pores on fire.
I need to be fucked. He could make this feeling go away.
That man can make me come at fifty paces, and he couldn’t take a few minutes out of his busy schedule to fuck his girl?
“Work, my ass,” I mutter, looking over the menu.
“Buy you a drink?”
I look up to find a guy standing beside my table. He’s medium height. Medium brown. I would probably forget him within the hour. He’s not as tall or handsome as Monk. He doesn’t radiate the confidence and charisma that comes so naturally to Monk. He can’t hold a candle to my boyfriend.
But Monk’s not here.
“I don’t drink.” I gesture to one of the three empty seats at the table. “But you’re welcome to join me.”
Looking shocked by the invitation, he takes the chair beside me and scoots a little closer.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Derrick,” he replies eagerly.
Monk’s not here, but Derrick is.
“A shame you don’t drink,” he says in what I assume is his sexy voice. “Because you look so good, I was planning to buy you anything you want.”
“Oh,” I say, my painted lips in a moue. “In that case, just this once, maybe I will.”
Two baskets of fries and three pitchers of beer later, Derrick and I have been joined by Luke and Carl. Robert and Jonathan have pulled up chairs, and we’re having a good ol’ time. I’ve even moved on to margaritas.
“So are you like a dancer or something?” Carl… I think… asks. “With that body.”
“A dancer?” I scoff. “Me? You think I look like a dancer?”
“You got the legs for it, yeah,” Robert says, running a finger from my knee to the top of my thigh.
My emotions and thoughts are a swirly muddle, and I’m not sure if I cross my leg to get away from his touch or to entice him.
I never drink and have zero tolerance. The alcohol has made my head fuzzy, and yet my senses are sharpened to a fine point.
It’s loud and hot, and every smell in the room attacks my nostrils at once.
My tongue feels too big for my mouth, and yet words keep pouring out of me.
Every time one of the guys tries to speak, I talk right over him.
I want to stop talking, but you can’t screw a cap on a geyser.
“Most of the time,” I tell my table of admirers, “I can barely get up the nerve to dance in a crowd.”
“I would never have guessed that,” Jonathan says. “A woman like you?”
“And what kind of woman am I?” I quirk a brow and lick my lips, loving the way he can’t take his eyes off me. None of them can.
“The kind who can have anybody she wants, who can do whatever she wants,” Luke says, caressing the nape of my neck.
“Careful,” I purr, my voice lilting and husky. “This halter top isn’t very secure. We wouldn’t want it to fall down.”
Their laughter, eager and lusty, floats on the air around me. Their desire sinks through my skin, watering me. Refreshing me and heating me simultaneously. J. Holiday’s “Bed” plays in the background, and an invisible rope suspended from the ceiling wraps around my waist and coaxes me to my feet.
“Like I said, I don’t usually dance,” I say, spreading a flirtatious look around the table. “But it’s your lucky night.”
The air cools my wet pussy. My nipples are drawn so hard and tight it’s almost painful. None of the guys can drag their eyes higher than my neck.
“Tonight,” I say, using my empty seat as a step and climbing onto the table, “you’re in for a treat.”
“Wooo-hooo!” Carl shouts, clapping and looking up at me… looking up my dress.
They take the pitchers of alcohol off the table and pull plates and utensils into their laps, clearing room for my stilettos.
The sultry music drapes over me and my hips wind in time with the beat.
That same invisible rope encircles my wrists and pulls my arms up above my head.
My fingers caress the air, and I thrust my breasts so far forward, they almost spill out of the dress.
I don’t care. Let them see. Let everyone see what freedom looks like.
I wish they could all taste the elixir of this night.
I’d be drunk even if I’d refused the alcohol.
“What the hell!” someone shouts from below.
I glance down, searching the faces circling the table until a familiar one comes into my liquor-hazed view.
“Petra!” I stretch my hands toward her and grin. “Come dance with me.”
“Get down before you hurt yourself,” Petra snaps, glaring at the men still salivating and trying to look up my dress.
“I’m fine up here.” I send my arms back into the air and pop my hip.
“No,” Petra grits out, grabbing my ankle. “You are not. Get down.”
“Damn, Petra.” I shake my leg loose and carefully squat until I can drop my butt to the table and swing my legs over the edge. “You’re supposed to be the fun one.”
Taking my arm, she tugs until my feet hit the floor and then walks me away. Randi is seated nearby at their table, glowering.
“You may be the new pussy,” I tell Randi, “but I’m the best pussy she ever had.”
“Verity, stop,” Petra grits out.
“No, ’member you told me that night,” I remind her. “You had been eating me out forever and you said, ‘Verity, your pussy is so good that—’”
“How much have you had?” Petra reaches for a glass of water on the table. “Drink this.”
“Just a little.” I squeeze my index finger and thumb together to show her how not much. I push the glass away from my lips.
“Let her go,” Randi says, her frown impatient, irritated. “She wants a train run up on her ass by the end of the night, that’s her business.”
“Right. That’s my business. Now if you’ll excuse me.” I point back to the table where I was holding court. “My fans await.”
“I’m not letting you go back over to those guys dressed like that and this drunk,” Petra says, grabbing my arm again. “No way.”
“Let me go.” I reach for the pitcher of water on the table and dump it over her head.
Petra sputters, soaking wet, outrage and fury distorting her features.
“Shoulda let her dumb ass go,” Randi tsks. “That’s what you get.”
“Yeah, that’s what you get. Now leave me the hell alone.” I turn on my heel, wobbling a little, but steady enough to make it back to my table.
The guys are still there and look eager to resume our fun. I frown at the empty glasses and pitchers.
“We need reinforcements.” I raise a half-empty glass and chug the remains. “Drinks for everybody on me!”