Eric grabbed Colby by the back of the shirt and pulled him away so they were standing about the same distance in front of her. “She was actually about to tell me that when you interrupted us.”
“Perfect! Hey, bartender guy! Can you get me a Jack Daniels? Thanks, man!” Colby turned his attention completely back to her, and his eyes gave her an overt appraisal. He had been on the football team with Eric and he’d had so many girlfriends in high school that it used to be a running joke that dating Colby was more a contest to see who could last the longest with him. The longest she’d heard had been two and a half weeks, and he’d spent a week of it on Christmas break with his family so that girl’s reign was probably still being disputed by his long list of conquests.
“Come on, Megster. Spill.” Eric smiled at her and she sighed and relayed the whole pathetic story as quickly as possible. Two years at Penn State studying biochemistry with the hope of being a veterinarian, but then she’d met David Broadway and fallen in love with him. He was two years older than her and graduating, and when he asked her to move with him to New Hampshire she’d agreed and left school even though her whole family had begged her not to. While David started working as a business analyst, Meg had bounced from small job to small job trying to figure out a niche in the business world like David had. It had all been like trying to fit into a pair of uncomfortable, too-small shoes. She’d felt confined, restrained, and although David had been Dominant at first, and the sex had been explosive, that aspect of their relationship quickly faded after they were married. Three affairs later and she divorced him, only to discover he was paying for his mistresses on credit cards, half of which were in her name. Just a little over a year ago she’d had to move home to Georgia to live with her parents and then her sister Cameron for a while just to make ends meet. Now she was finally in her own tiny apartment and working as a vet tech while she put herself through school to finish her veterinary degree.
She shrugged when she stopped telling them about her lame life and emptied the pink fizzy glass as the guys stared intently at her, then they looked at each other and something seemed to pass between them. For a moment she was about to politely excuse herself to avoid the embarrassment of the two hottest guys she could remember from high school ditching her for being a total loser, but then Eric spoke up.
“We should find this guy and introduce him to the circle of light. What do you think, Colby?”
“I think that would be a great idea.” Colby grinned and Meg sputtered, shaking her head. The circle of light had been a hazing thing for the football team where the newbies on the team had to get drunk on the football field and then answer questions, naked, while standing in the middle of a circle of cars with the headlights on full blast.
“No, no, no! You guys don’t need to even look for him, he’s way up north, and it’s over! It’s seriously over, and I just never want to see him again, okay?” She groaned when she noticed her drink was empty, and both guys shrugged.
“Well, then there’s only one other solution for what to do.” Colby smiled and looked at Eric who grinned back wickedly.
“Oh, definitely. There’s only one thing we can do now.”
“What? Guys… what are you thinking? Seriously, those looks -” Meg felt a nervous energy flood her underneath the buzz of the alcohol in her veins, but then Colby put her empty glass on the bar and they both grabbed her hands.
“We’re going to dance, Megster!” Eric hauled her onto the dance floor and Colby was happy to pull her along as well. As soon as they met up with the other alumni underneath the flashing lights, Eric moved close in front of her and started to move his hips in a rhythm that had her suddenly very, very wet. “Come on, please tell me you remember how to dance.”
“I know how to dance, jerk.” It was the verbal shove she needed to start moving her hips to the beat, but she didn’t need any encouragement to press herself closer to Eric’s hard chest. The alcohol had been flowing for over an hour and the other attendees were dancing and singing along to the greatest hits from their years in high school. It was like one giant flashback to her senior year, with Eric’s hands on her hips and Colby rocking it out in the open space to their left. He started singing along to All-American Rejects, grabbing the hand of a woman dancing with friends as he serenaded her, telling her he’d keep her his dirty little secret. She blushed and laughed loudly, and soon he was surrounded by the other women who all started dancing and cheering him on.
“He’s got no shame,” Eric laughed and spoke directly into her ear. His breath against her cheek sent a shiver over her skin.
“Did he ever have shame? I think he was born without that functional part of the brain.”
“Well, I was a brain surgeon for a while… I could check.” He was grinning when she leaned back from him and slapped his shoulder. In a flash his hand was around her wrist and he’d flipped her around so she was against his chest – but now he had her arm pulled slightly up behind her back. Somehow he managed to keep dancing, his other hand keeping her hips in beat with him as he restrained her with ease. A memory of him pinning her to the narrow bed she’d had in her parents’ house emerged and a frisson of heat pulsed down her spine to nestle itself between her thighs. “Now, that wasn’t very nice, Megan.”
Her mouth went dry as his voice purred out her full name and she was ninety-percent sure that the hard press against her back wasn’t something in his pocket. She felt seventeen again, excited and unsure about what to do next. She tried to swallow to regain her voice, but all she managed was a breathy, “Eric?”
“Do you want me to let go?” His grip tightened slightly and a barely audible moan slipped from her before she bit down on her lip. The blush in her cheeks spread, and she felt like the whole dance floor had to know what was going on. It had to be obvious they weren’t just dancing, and she’d always been terrible at keeping her face straight. All it would take was one person glancing over, just one person noticing the vice-like grip he had on her wrist, or the way he lifted her arm just a little higher so her body angled back against his in an effort to ease it. Her anxiety crashed into the arousal humming under her skin, because Eric had been the first guy she’d ever really wanted – the first guy she’d played even the tiniest bit rough with. He’d been the one to make her crave it, to crave more, but it was something she’d never been open about outside of a few relationships.
“I’ll keep YOU my dirty, little secret!” Colby appeared in front of her, singing at an obscene volume, and Eric instantly released her wrist as Colby continued dancing like some extra from Magic Mike. As he rolled his hips and leaned back pulling up his shirt to expose a carved set of abs, the women to their right exploded into cheers and hollers. “My turn, Megster! Dance with me!”
“You seem to be doing a good job all on your own, Col-” Megan was trying to get her hormones under control when he reached forward and pulled her towards him, effectively cutting her off. More hard muscle under her hands as she caught herself against him, and she couldn’t help but feel an inward cheer when the women next to her looked on in envy. He dropped down in front of her and then ran his hands up the backs of her calves, the outsides of her thighs, her hips, her waist, and then he was lifting her arms over her head as the music started to change. Colby stepped closer to her, his body barely an inch from hers as those blue eyes locked onto her own, with that manic grin still plastered across his face.
A downbeat, and then the music was slower, a dark, thumping beat that Colby didn’t fail to catch with each movement of his body. “Come on, Megster.” His hands caught her waist and he pulled her tight against him, his thigh finding a nesting place between her own, successfully nudging the hem of her dress a little higher. She was about to pull back when his fingers traced along her cheek. “I have to say… whoever your ex is, he was an idiot not to notice how gorgeous you are.”
Against all logic after the events of the evening so far, Megan’s heart rate increased even further. First, there had be
en Eric’s kiss, then he’d teased her with the dominance she had all but convinced herself she had imagined in high school, and now Colby Warren, the playboy of Whittaker High, was calling her gorgeous. She had stepped through the looking glass, been sucked into some Matrix-like alternate reality, or fallen on the way in and cracked her skull open and she was actually in a hospital somewhere, because this – this couldn’t be happening to her.
Not her.
Not Megan Harper, the college drop-out, the divorceé, the scrub-wearing vet tech by day who hadn’t touched make-up in over a year. Shaking her head she tried to push away the arousal tapping at her inner doors, begging her to wake up. “Is that the line you used on all the girls in school, Colby?”
“Why? Is it working?” He smiled at her like she was part of some inside joke, and she laughed.
“No, it’s definitely not working on me.” Megan dropped her arms around his neck and let herself sway to the beat. She stopping thinking and her hips picked up the rhythm without much effort, but Colby just licked his bottom lip and tilted his head at her.
“You sure about that, Megster?” With a shift of his hips his thigh rubbed against the core of her through the dress and she clenched her teeth against the urge to continue that pleasant sensation. Colby was a playboy in high school, and a decade out in the real world had clearly done nothing to suppress his instinct to play with every female in the vicinity. Just moments before he’d had the group of women next to them eating out of the palm of his hand while he had basically humped the air. He had looked damn good doing it, but that didn’t mean that this wasn’t just another one of his games.
“Stop fucking with me.” Megan grinned at him to let him know she wasn’t mad. “I’m not one of your fan club members, Colby. You don’t have to flatter me with bullshit to get me to dance with you.”
“I’m not fucking with you, Meg, and it’s not bullshit.” He side-stepped her, ending the inviting friction between her thighs, and then he suddenly bent her backwards in an elegant dip timed perfectly with the music. When he swept her back up her head spun, and he pulled her tight against him. His lips found her ear through the curls in her hair, and his voice dropped, “And you were never a member of my fan club, which I found both frustrating and extremely interesting – but Eric had you, and he was my friend, so I didn’t chase you even though I really, really wanted to.”
“Bullshit.” She was stunned by his confession for a moment, but then she caught herself; Colby had always been smooth. This was just an act, another one of his ploys to win over another girl to be a notch on his proverbial bedpost. Wasn’t it?
“Again, Meg, it’s not bullshit, but believe whatever you want.” When he pulled back from her this time, there was less sparkle in his blue eyes. She was about to apologize, but then he spun her away from him, tugging her back just as her arm fully extended. Then, the grin was back on his lips as she faced him again as if nothing had passed between them. His movements became more animated, and he kept swaying them to the music before randomly spinning her. When the song ended she was breathless, dizzy, and laughing.
Eric appeared next to them just as another dance song kicked off. “Had to steal the slow song, dick?”
“Hey! It was my turn, and it just happened to be a slow song, but what’s that old saying? You snooze, you lose.” Colby and Eric locked eyes for a minute and then Megan sighed, clapping her hands.
“Guys, are we dancing or not?” She turned away from them to move to the beat, and when she turned back they were moving again. The odd tension between them seemed to fade as memory lane took them on an extended tour. Every song was met with them laughing and talking about ‘that time when…’ before they ended up just belting out the lyrics along with half the dance floor. During one song the entire reunion was filled with their old classmates singing along. Sometimes they danced separately and chatted, other times the boys took turns stealing her for different moves, or to grind, which she definitely didn’t mind. The woman Colby had danced with earlier showed back up for a few songs and he hung out with her, being completely ridiculous as he sang at her, off-key, at top volume.
Through it all, they caught up. Colby had never left town, and he worked as a manager at a local data management company. It seemed like such a simple job for such a vibrant guy, but for once Colby was pretty quiet when she prodded him to tell them more. Eric filled the space by elaborating on his job in Los Angeles, repeating that he just felt burnt out on the city, but he also shared that he had a German Shepherd at home named Lola, which was the only thing he missed.
“I’d love for you to be her vet someday, you know, once you’re Dr. Megster.” He laughed, and Colby high-fived him.
“I’ve got a lot more years to go before I’m Dr. Anything, but even if I never get to be a full vet, at least I’m doing something I love.” Megan shrugged, swaying to the beat as she tried to ignore the aching of her feet in the heels.
“You’ll be a vet, Megster, I know you will. Nothing stops you once you put your mind to it.” Colby spun around and then pointed his fingers at her in a cheesy move that sent them all into a round of laughs again.
“I cannot tell you guys how glad I am you were here, and that you talked to me. I had told Cameron I didn’t want to come because I figured it would be miserable.” She spread her arms. “This is a hundred times more fun than I thought I’d have tonight!”
“Well, we’re the Whittaker Wolves, we’ve always known how to party!” Eric winked at her, and Colby threw back his head and howled.
When his howl ended he shouted into the air, “WHITTAKER WOLVES!” and the dance floor echoed it back before another cheer went up. There were so many faces that Megan recognized as she looked around, all of them just a little different, but the same in other ways. A few hundred people who had gone off after high school to live their lives, to grow up, and then they were all back in the old gymnasium screaming their team name at the top of their lungs like they had at pep rallies ten years before.
“I’m going to grab us more drinks,” Eric said and then he leaned forward to grab her hand and squeeze it before letting go. As he passed through the group Colby turned towards him.
“Oh, I’ll help. Stay here, Meg, we’ll be right back!” The guys wandered towards the bar and she let the music sweep her up. It had been a few hours since the event started, and the last hour had been an incredible example of how much better it was to party at twenty-eight versus eighteen. No dramatic crying girls in the bathroom, no fist fights in the parking lot, no teachers standing watch as monitors in the corners of the room. It was just a bunch of people remembering what it was like to be carefree, responsibility free, for a night – and it was glorious.
When she opened her eyes she saw the same group of women watching her as she turned and danced to the music. Megan didn’t recognize them, but one of them walked up with a drink in hand, obviously already drunk. “Oh my God, Colby is still so hot!”
She laughed. “Uh, yeah, he does look good.”
“Seriously, I can’t believe he somehow looks even better than he did in high school! Are you and Eric still together?” The girl’s eyes were wide, and she glanced over to where the two men stood talking together as they leaned on the bar.
“No! No, we’re not. We just saw each other tonight, actually.” Megan was surprised that this woman not only knew Eric’s name as well, but remembered that they had dated. It had started Junior year, but it had never been a big deal. They were both athletes, they ended up in a lot of the same classes to work around practices, it had just worked for them. It’s not like they’d been Prom king and queen, that had been one of the choir girls and her basketball boyfriend.
“Oh, okay. Well, do you know if Colby is single? I mean, he’s not married right? I didn’t see a ring or anyth-” the woman flustered to a halt as the guys approached again, and her cheeks got an even brighter red on top of the alcohol flush.
“Well, hel-lo, Dawn!” Colby grinned at her as if he
knew exactly what she had been saying. “What were you two talking about? Me, I presume?”
Megan couldn’t hold back the laugh when it burst from her lips, and Dawn took a hefty gulp of the drink in her hand before composing herself. “I was just asking Megan about her and Eric actually, but if you want to dance again just come wave at me.” She winked and swished her hips, her navy blue skirt flaring out. As she walked back to her friends they collapsed around her and a fit of giggles erupted as four sets of eyes turned towards them.
“Remind you of high school, Colby?” Eric was grinning as he slipped behind Megan, sliding an arm around her to offer her the second drink in his hands. She took it and Colby faced them with a shrug.
“It’s a terrible curse I bear, to be so attractive to women. I know you’d never understand it, but it’s something I deal with constantly.” Colby laid the back of his hand against his forehead in a melodramatic pose, and Eric huffed out a breath against her neck in response.
“I think she likes you, Colby, if you’re interested. You could definitely take her home.” Megan smiled at him as she swayed with Eric, and he glanced over his shoulder at the girls again. Another wave of giggling laughter exploded from the group and then he turned back to her.
“I’m just fine.”
“Seriously?” Megan was shocked.
“Well, look at that, you have grown up a little.” Eric was pressing his hips against her ass as they moved to the music, and Colby just shrugged before taking a sip of his Jack Daniels.
“I don’t see anything over there I need.” For a moment his eyes were locked onto Megan’s and she felt the heat rush up from her belly again.
Was that directed at her?
“Oh, I love this song!” Eric started to move behind her as Jay-Z took off over the speakers, and Colby began to dance and brush his shoulders off like the song suggested. Both guys seemed to remember every lyric as they called it out to each other over her head, and Megan just amused herself by moving back and forth in front of Eric to the beat.
Reunited (BDSM, Ménage Romance) Page 2
