Chapter 3
Emma
A ’90s dance party should be just that: butterflying to throwbacks that remind us our membership to the forty and over club is only a few years from hitting our mailbox. Justice Tootsie Rolled her heart out in a circle of women who matched her energy. They dipped and turned for hours among attendees reenacting House Party 2 in their pajamas. Jay’s stamina runs laps around mine on the dance floor for the simple fact that I don’t dance.
I had no shame leaving her but felt it charge up my throat like bile pushing through a crowd to get to her. It was too late to notice the group she was dancing with left, leaving my best friend to fend off the man towering over her. No one thought anything of him caging her to his chest. No one except Miles, who wasted no time knocking the guy unconscious.
How he got through the crowd and to Justice so fast defies physics. By the time security came, Miles had her behind his oiled frame, ready to strike again if the six-foot-plus creep with disheveled hair tried to resurrect himself from the ground.
I’m not a crier. But I couldn’t stop the tears once I reached Justice and threw my arms around her. I was too busy eye-fucking Miles like a full-time job with benefits to notice some asshole groping her on the dance floor.
Justice’s hand covers mine underneath the table at our booth with a squeeze. She waves the other at Miles, who joins us for a drink at her request. Jay is pretending she’s okay, but Miles and I know what happened still rattles her. She forces a smile, telegraphing a happiness that doesn’t lift her cheeks or brighten her brown eyes. She won’t bring up the incident anymore, and I won’t press her.
“So, what’s new?” she asks Miles, who’s at the other end of the booth absorbing every inch of space. Terrence wasn’t with him, and there’s no way he’d let anyone violate Justice’s personal space if he were.
Miles grazes my knee with the shift of his weight. The touch is innocent but ignites a rush of heat through my skin, which he notices when I move away. “You know me,” he says. “Work. Travel.” His eyes trace the outline of my breasts in my nightgown. They take their time to admire the silhouette of my nipples, moving up the column of my neck and licking my jawline. He holds my stare when he says, “Women.”
I look awful, but Miles takes in my puffy eyes and a red nose from crying like I won first place in a beauty pageant.
“What’s good, Em?” Thick lips spread into a grin.
“Not on your best day.” I avert my eyes from his bare chest, slicked in baby oil, daring me to lie again. The bar’s lighting creates a halo around the hard edges of Miles’s upper body. He put it on full display for the ’90s party. Every muscle threads to create the masterpiece before me in nothing but silk boxers and slides. It takes several reminders that the man threatening drool is still Miles. He is not an option to play Slip ‘N Slide with in bed.
“Ouch.” Miles’s hand grips his heart. “Why do you deny the inevitable?” His grin widens. “It’s only a matter of time, kitten.”
He can go straight to hell.
Justice’s eyes bounce between me and Miles. Curiosity lifts her brow at the nickname, but now is not the time for show-and-tell. Jay doesn’t know that Miles and I ran into each other earlier today. She also missed our silent game of I Spy on the dance floor.
I spent most of the night dodging Miles’s stink eye across the room, which turned into daggers when he saw West behind the bar. My smirk was ready for the Jumbotron. I have no interest in West, but I shook my ass next to other men as best I could without simulating the need for medical attention to raise Miles’s blood pressure. His gaze turned possessive, like he had a claim to me.
The strobe lights and slow jams felt like a bad ’90s romance. I kept my distance from the man with thick thighs in boxers and that damn baby oil glow. Those stupid pink cupids printed across the fabric did nothing but piss me off and turn me on.
It’s a crime for Miles to roam the Earth in next to nothing—least of all at a singles’ retreat. Don’t believe me? Try to keep it together if Trevante Rhodes strolls by wearing silk underwear.
I don’t think straight around him. Tonight proved that being half-naked in the same room is dangerous, like two years ago. Our slow dance from the sidelines of the dance floor was quiet, a series of lingering glances and glares. Then, maple eyes flashed black before Miles sprang into action to protect Justice. The two bicker like brother and sister, but he’ll always make sure she’s okay.
His focus is now on me. Locked, eager, and ready to cross the line.
My heart beats like a war drum, daring me to accept the challenge. Miles waits for what feels like an eternity for my response. His expression is impassive as he leans against the back of the booth, completely relaxed. I never back down from a challenge, but I heed the voice warning me to stay away.
Men are for a moment, and this one is too close.
“I don’t have time for your little antics,” I say over the rim of my French 75 and take a sip.
Something flares in Miles’s eyes, now hooded under thick lashes. His tone lowers for only me to hear. “Baby, there’s nothing little about me.” Miles changes the subject, and it takes a superhuman effort not to imagine how big “nothing little” is.
This damn man has me by the throat from across the booth with his words and knows it. Victory flickers in the corner of his mouth he curls while speaking to Justice. It’s subtle to anyone else but is a billboard that says “Got you” in living color. Jay catches pieces of the silent tango but brushes off the energy. I can’t. Miles Walker is a temptation I want to sample. I don’t shit where I eat and remind myself to put a force field around my pussy.
He ends our connection by chasing after a woman in red, leaving Justice to polish off two glasses of whiskey and me hot and bothered. “Get some for the both of us,” are her parting words before she goes upstairs for the night. I migrate to the bar across from our booth and fail miserably to ignore an emotion that is testing my willpower.
Why do you deny the inevitable?
It’s only a matter of time, kitten.
“Want to talk about it?” The bartender’s toffee gaze rakes over my face. He’s handsome, with classic features in Viking-height packaging. Fuckable, but not the one to whet my appetite.
“No thanks.” I take another French 75 with a half-smile. Miles will pay for the stunt he pulled at breakfast and for making me this undone. I need him out of my system.
A keycard slides across the onyx marble counter. “This might cheer you up,” the bartender says.
My fingers skim over shiny black plastic and gold letters spelling out “Ravenous.” “What’s this?”
He stands taller, his tawny-gold hair tapered behind his ear. “A test run. There’s a pop-up club traveling around our resort locations. To enjoy after dark. Take the elevator to the third floor. Once you show the key, an attendant will greet you in the ballroom. Don’t share it with anyone else, and don’t speak about Ravenous.”
The distraction I need.
I’m flustered, horny, and need Miles Walker out of my mind before I lose it. This will work.
“What happens at Ravenous stays at Ravenous.”
“Something like that.”
Black satin drapes from the ceiling, creating a pathway of partitions between crystal chandeliers. Dancers roll their bodies to music that funnels through hidden speakers. Some hang from aerial silks, while others command attention from gilded cages that match diamond-crusted masks and heels. They’re completely naked, a showcase of soft curves in nudes and mahogany.
Entrance to Ravenous means a signed NDA and a consent form. After that, you get a masquerade mask and black cloak. No cell phones. No alcohol. No intercourse. Here, femmes call the shots, granting access to look. One can only touch after expressed consent.
The makeshift hall opens to circular sofas scattered around a parquet dance floor. Cloaked guests hold whispered conversations as performers weave through voyeurs without missing a beat.
“Would you like to have a blind date?” Dark eyes under long lashes flutter over rose cheeks. Her almond skin with bronze undertones glows as her tongue dips between thick lips. “You watch me dance in a private room, next to a partner of my choosing.”
My heart beats in time to the music. I’ve enjoyed dances in countless clubs, but a dungeon is new. So is a private session with a stranger. But Justice did say to get some for the both of us.
She would never step foot in here. Me, on the other hand?
“What do I call you?” Behind a string of pearls that cascades to her belly button, rosebud peaks harden under my appraisal.
“Aeris,” she says, her voice low and full of lust.
“After you, Aeris.”
She leads us beyond the dance floor, past a small crowd watching an aerialist pleasure herself with a vibrator midair. We reach double doors covered in the same black fabric as the entrance to a carpeted hall with hotel rooms appears.
Two men wearing yellow “Monitor” armbands roam quietly outside the open doors. Aeris stops at a room on the left. A pole stands in the center of the space across from a sofa where a large figure sits. Aeris extends an arm and waits for me to enter. Her platform heels put us around the same height, tempting our chests to graze as I pass through the door.
I move to a corner wall and peek back at the sofa, doing a double take at the parted thighs and slides I missed coming in. The black cloak spreads to silk boxers with tiny cupids wrapped around muscular legs.
Miles .
Strobe lights shower the walls in colorful patterns at the chime of Jodeci’s “Freek’n You.” The intricately patterned black mask that covers part of my face dips to my cheeks. Can he tell it’s me behind the lace?
Aeris struts to the pole in relaxed steps and swivels her hips, whipping the strings of pearls with each body roll. Loose black waves tumble down her back as she bends to flip her legs around the erect metal, locking her heels in place. She inches down before opening her legs into a split with hypnotic fluidity.
She climbs the pole again and tips upside down, making her body into an “X” position. I’d drop twenties if the teddy I’m wearing had pockets. Aeris rights herself, unclasps the pearls from her body, and stands in nothing but a thong and heels.
“Come here.” She curls her finger, beckoning for me to join her, but this will end in a solo act if she expects me to defy gravity or pretend I’m an extra in The Player’s Club .
Petite breasts stare back at me as she circles her hand in wait. I chance a glance at Miles and find him watching me. His black mask conceals most of his face, but not the muscle tensing in his jaw or the sharp eyes assessing if I’ll obey.
Aeris pulls an upholstered dining room chair in front of the pole and pats the top. Her fingers glide over my satin-covered shoulders when I sit. Directly in front of Miles.
“Can I touch you?” She hovers over me at my yes, blocking my view of the last man I want to see. “You’re gorgeous, red.” She twirls a loose strand of my mahogany hair.
I appreciate the beauty of femme forms, like the diamond tips that are dangerously close to my mouth. But I’ve never been with a woman. Curious? Yes, but there is no urge to seek or taste. But as my eyes peer around Aeris’s shoulder at the man whose gaze is trained on my face, the prospect of fucking with Miles without touching him excites me more than it should.
Time for that payback.
“Let’s give you a show, hmm?” Aeris stands.
Miles’s focus shifts from me to Aeris, who’s now between his legs. She asks permission to touch him, straddles his lap at his verbal consent, and moves in slow circles. He doesn’t touch her, just shifts his weight to lie back on the button-tufted sofa. Miles is a king at ease, his wide arms stretching across the couch.
Aeris changes pace and lifts her hair. My nails dig into the chair on a hard swallow. I tell myself I want to be Miles, spread out to welcome Aeris’s heat with open arms, but it’s a lie. I want to be her , gripping his entire length until his eyes roll to the back of his head.
I recross my legs to stop my clit from pulsating and remind myself I’m free to have any single man except Miles Walker, who I tolerate because of my best friend and her future ex-husband. It’s rare for him to be this quiet, which should explain the confusion in my urge to taste him inch by inch.
Aeris stills in his lap and follows his focus toward me. “Interesting,” she says in a sultry tone. My brows furrow at her graceful dismount, and soon she’s behind me. “He doesn’t want me, love. But does he want you?” Her knuckles brush the side of my neck.
Miles straightens, desire pooling in his eyes behind the mask. I can’t look away as I give Aeris consent. Blood pounds in my ears as she parts the black cloak, revealing my red lingerie behind it. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen already. He was tracking me from across the dance floor like a bloodhound.
A beautiful woman stands behind me, damn near naked from head to toe, but Miles is committing the outline of my curves to memory.
“Tell me to stop if you get uncomfortable,” Aeris says in a hushed command. Little does she know, I’m neither shy nor worried.
I’d strut my ass out of here in only these red heels if I wouldn’t catch a case.
My body is a gift I don’t give freely to just anyone. But tonight, I want to poke the beast behind the dark brown eyes, simply because I can.
Cool air puckers my nipples when Aeris pushes the straps of my nightgown off my shoulders. A smirk builds at the erratic rise of Miles’s chest and the impressive tent forming between his legs. She cups my exposed flesh and massages the buds between her fingertips. Her breasts press into my back. “He looks ready to explode,” she says.
I spread my legs and drag a hand up my thigh. “Not yet.” Miles follows my finger inching closer to my sex until I dip two inside and rub my clit with my thumb. He’s frothing at the mouth when I come on a moan, rocking against my hand as the last waves spread through my body.
Aeris releases me, and I stand and make my way over to the man who’s panting in front of me. Our gazes lock, and a tremor heats my core at the turbulence of passion swirling between us. It’s always there, dormant, until a magnetic force unites us.
“Mind if I join you?” A grunt is all he gives in return.
Miles’s hands flex into fists, threatening to crack his skin, until I straddle him and push him against the sofa. My hand travels between us to massage my pussy and grazes steel. He jerks at the touch and leans his head back, unable to keep his focus on my face or my breasts less than an inch from his lips.
I rock into him, pulling a mutual groan, and grip his chin, with my hand glistening from my juices. “This is the closest you’ll ever get to tasting me,” I say, returning the words he arrogantly uttered years ago. Miles is cocky in every sense of the word, I’ll give him that. “Open.” I dip my thumb into his mouth, and he happily takes it. With his eyes locked on mine, he twirls his tongue around and sucks another finger, forcing me to suppress a shudder. I hop off, adjust my straps, and retrieve my cloak. “He’s all yours.”
Toying with Miles might be playing with fire, but damn it if I don’t enjoy the flame. I leave the room with a smile on my face—and the promise of another orgasm once I reach my suite.
That will teach him.