Paper Dolls

by Hanna Peach

  The other patrons in the bar sensed this too. They left a respectful space around him and yet their heads tilted towards him, their bodies leaning in closer, their eyes stealing glances. All drawn towards him. But he didn’t seem to notice.

  I strode over to him, trying my damndest to strut with my hips as I’d seen Salem do before. I prayed that I wouldn’t fall over in these spindly heels, which seemed to have grown even more precarious in the last five seconds.

  I felt my phone buzz but I ignored it. He would see me soon.

  He looked up and our eyes locked. He straightened, his elbow slipping off the bar top and his mouth parted. My periphery faded into a blurry smudge of shadows as he became the only object in focus. I found myself moving towards him but I could barely feel my legs.

  I stopped right before him. “Hey, hot stuff,” I said in my sexiest voice, my hands on my hips. Flick was right. Dressing up like this made me feel powerful and sexy and I loved the way he was looking at me…like he could devour me.

  His eyebrows came down over his eyes as a look of anger stole away every lustful sign from his face. His hands gripped my upper arms and he pulled me to him, to hiss in my ear, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  What? I tugged against him but it felt like I was fighting against steel chains, his hands were clamped so tight. When I pulled back from his face, his dark eyes were hard as stone.

  “Get the hell out of here before−”

  “Clay? You’re hurting me.” I blinked back tears.

  Confusion began to creep into his features.

  “Please, Clay,” I tried again, my voice cracking. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Aria?” His face broke out into a mask of horror. His grip sprang open from my arms. Air drew sharply into my lungs and tears pricked at my eyes as I rubbed the band of red heat where his hand had been. “Oh my God,” he breathed. “I didn’t realise it was you.”

  I inhaled sharply. “You thought I was Salem?”

  He nodded, his top teeth cutting into his bottom lip as he stared at me.

  Salem. He’d thought I was Salem. “Why did you think I was her?”

  “You weren’t answering your cell. The way you’re dressed… This isn’t you.”

  Because only wild, crazy Salem would wear something as daring as this. Quiet, timid little Aria wouldn’t. Why couldn’t I wear this? Why couldn’t I be wild and sexy for once? “And you thought you had a right to speak to Salem that way?”

  His mouth pressed together. “I won’t apologise for speaking to her that way.”

  “How dare you.”

  “If you only knew…” he muttered.

  “Knew what?” I demanded. He shook his head. I grabbed his upper arm and tried again. “Don’t keep things from me. The secrets you keep will just grow and fester between us. They will be the things to end us, not Salem.”

  His eyes softened and he opened his mouth to speak.

  “There you guys are.” I recognised Flick’s voice. I turned to face her and saw the moment when she realised that we were in the middle of something. Her eyes flicked back and forth between Clay and me. “I, er…Jed’s found us a booth. But you can join us later if you want.”

  “No,” Clay said, his voice returning to its usual smooth, deep cadence, as if nothing was wrong. “Lead the way.”

  Flick hesitated for just a second, her eyes pinned me in a question, before she spun. “Follow me.”

  Clay placed his hand on my lower back. Our eyes locked for a second and a silent conversation happened through our looks.

  This isn’t over, Clay Jagger.

  I know. Not by a long shot.

  I gave him one more meaningful look before I followed Flick through the club.

  The booth was a clamshell of dark brown leather curled around a pearly coloured marble table. Ornamented bars twisting from the top of the seating up to the ceiling looked like black seaweed. I slipped in next to Flick and Clay slid in beside me.

  Introductions were made between Clay and Jed, and they stretched their hands to shake across the table.

  “What do you think, Clay?” said Jed as he leaned back into the couch and stretched out his arm across the back of the booth around Flick. “You and I have scored ourselves the two most beautiful women in here.”

  Clay stared at Jed for a moment, his eyes giving away nothing, before his gaze shifted to me. “Indeed.”

  “You guys want a drink?” Jed called over the music.

  “Just a soda.” Clay didn’t break eye contact with me, a low flame seeming to roll off him, heating me. His eyebrow lifted up. “Do you want something?”

  Me. Right. What was his problem anyway? I turned my head, my cheeks flaming, and smiled at Jed. “Just a tonic water with lime, please?”

  “Neither of you want anything to drink?”

  “No. Thanks.” We both said together. I could still feel Clay’s eyes on me.

  Jed shrugged. “Alright.”

  “Why don’t you drink?” Clay asked.

  I snapped my head around to look at him. “Why don’t you drink?”

  “I asked first.”

  I shook my head. “See, it sucks when people keep answers from you, doesn't it?”

  I matched his glare, the rest of the club disappearing into a grainy fuzz.

  “I, um,” I heard Flick’s voice through the muffle, “I think I’ll go and help Jed.”

  Neither Clay nor I moved an inch while she scooted out of the booth, her legs sliding against the leather and making it vibrate.

  “Aria, this is not the time or the place for the explanation you need.”

  “When is?”

  He sighed as if everything had just gotten too heavy to hold. “Soon. When we’re alone. When we don’t have the Gypsy Kings blaring over the loudspeakers and those damn lights shining in my face every two seconds. Now, why don’t you drink?”

  “Will you answer if I answer?”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t drink…” I swallowed, my throat suddenly closing up and surprising me. I didn’t think after all these years it would affect me like this. “My father started to drink. After my mother died. He wasn’t a nice person when he drank. I don’t like it. I don’t like the smell of it. I don’t like the taste of it. I don’t like what it does…to men.”

  Clay’s eyes widened a little, then his jaw softened. He took one of my hands in his large hands. “That’s understandable,” he said simply.

  I swallowed away a knot. “Why don’t you drink?”

  Something passed over his eyes but it was gone before I could figure out what it was. “I just don’t.”

  He was lying.

  “I told you why I don’t drink.”

  “I just don’t like the taste.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He flinched. Before I could say anything more, Jed and Flick returned with the first round of drinks.

  “Yay,” said Flick, as she sipped her pink cocktail. “Isn’t this fun?”

  Yeah. Fun. I gripped the cold glass, pushed forward a smile and bit at the straw with my teeth.

  Clay leaned back against the booth, fisting his glass. He had shifted away so he wasn’t touching me anymore and my body felt lost. He ignored me as he gulped down half of his soda in one go, staring out to the crowded dance floor.

  Flick caught my eye and gave me a look like, are you okay?

  I shrugged.

  Jed hooked his arm around Flick’s neck and began to whisper things in her ear that made her eyes widen and throaty giggles escape from her pouty lips. Jed wanted Flick. I could tell.

  Their hands were all over each other. He would probably make their excuses and head home soon. Why wasn’t Clay doing that to me? Wasn’t I sexy? Didn’t he want me?

  But Clay was tearing a cardboard coaster into pieces instead of tearing clothes off me. And I was sitting there staring with jealousy at the dance floor, at the gyrating, wriggling sweaty bodies that I wanted desperately to join. I wanted to pre
ss against Clay, his hips against mine, making me moan with every sway until we wished we were alone somewhere else.

  Screw this. I wasn’t going to sit around and pout all night. I looked hot, dammit, and we were supposed to be having fun. I leaned into Clay and gave him my best throaty voice. “You want to dance?”

  His fingers froze. His eyes slid up to the dance floor, then to me. “Not really.”

  I bit back annoyance. “Flick will dance with me. Won’t you, Flick?” I turned to her with pleading eyes. Please get me out of this booth. I couldn’t stand to be this close to Clay when he was refusing to touch me or tell me what was wrong.

  Flick glanced at Clay then at me. “Uh, sure.”

  Jed moved so that Flick and I could slide out, and I stormed onto the dance floor with Flick in tow. I pulled us to a spot on the opposite side of the dance floor so I couldn’t see the booth where I could feel Clay glaring darkly at me.

  “What is going on with you two?” Flick asked over the music as we began to sway.

  I made an exasperated sound. “I don’t friggin’ know. All I know is your plan backfired. Instead of getting turned on at the sight of me, it has just pissed him off.” I didn’t want to tell her that he’d mistaken me for Salem.

  Flick glanced in the direction of our table. “Oh, I think he’s turned on, alright.”

  I shook my head and spun so my back was to that side of the club. The bad side. “Let’s just dance and have a good time, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I closed my eyes and swayed, trying to lose myself in the music. I tried not to think about why Clay was acting so weird tonight. I tried not to think about what had happened between Clay and Salem on the day they met that would make them act so hatefully towards each other.

  I felt hands closing around me from behind. I flinched, my eyes snapping open. Flick was gone. I pushed at the arms until I recognised his deep voice, rumbling in my ear. “You are going to get into trouble moving like that.” The light-hearted tone to his voice brought a smile to my face even as I tried not to. Moody Clay was gone. The Real Clay was back.

  “Really? What kind of trouble?” I pressed back at him, rolling my ass against him. I felt him tense and heard him groan.

  I kept rolling my body against him. The fingers of one of his hands bit into my hips. “You’re playing with fire, angel.”

  “Don’t you know that’s how redheads came to exist?” I teased. “We were baptised in flames. Fire doesn’t burn us. We’re born in it.”

  He chuckled in my ear. “I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s true.”

  The music changed to a slow, sensual beat, guitar strings and a set of drums. He spun me to face him, his right hand grabbing my left and his left arm cradling around my back to pull me in flush. I couldn’t help the gasp that dropped from my lips as our bodies connected. My liquid against his rock.

  His eyes turned to dark orbs. “This is a lambada. You know they call this the forbidden dance.”

  I blinked rapidly. “You know how to dance?”

  He smiled as if he were sharing an inside joke with someone, but I didn’t understand it. “Someone I used to know made me take lessons. Have you ever danced a lambada?”

  I shook my head. He began to rock his hips side to side in a one-two-three-pause motion, his hand on my back shifting in time. “Feel how I’m moving? Starting with your left, you step one-two-three, one-two-three…” I made tiny steps as he instructed as we remained on the spot. “That’s it. Ready?”

  “No.”

  “I’m going to move us.”

  “Wait.”

  I felt him step out and his arm tugged at me. I hesitated and stepped forward all too late. He winced as my heel came down on his toe. “Crap. Sorry.”

  “Just let go, Aria. Let me lead.”

  “I don’t know how. Let’s just go sit down.”

  “Yes, you do. Just don’t think.” He pulled back to look at me. “Do you trust me?”

  I bit my lip. Life starts in the deep end, Aria. Jump in. I nodded.

  He held me and we swayed to the music again, remaining on the spot. Just small movements at first, then larger ones so that our knees were bending into the space between the other person’s legs. His thigh kept pressing right against the sensitive spot between my legs. My body felt light and my head felt dizzy. I shut my eyes against the flashes of light glancing off the mirrors and off the sequins on the other dancers’ dresses. Then suddenly we were moving across the floor, we were swaying like palm trees in a tropical wind, one-two-three, one-two-three. We were the music, ebbing and flowing, swaying and rocking, against each other, with each other.

  My body ignited as we moved. My feet felt as if they were stepping on clouds, my hips rolling like they belonged to someone else. Clay spun me out and I felt myself unfurl. He turned around me, my hand passing around his back and to his other hand, then he rolled me back in, his eyes only briefly leaving mine. Somehow I didn’t lose the rhythm. My legs and my hips kept that one-two-three just like a clock knew how to keep its own time.

  We moved and we swayed and we rocked until I was breathless and my body was on fire and his thigh against my core built this wanting into a throbbing ache. He let go of my hand and dipped me back, his arm around my back secure and I let go, my arms stretching out over my head almost to the floor, trusting him completely. My legs were notched over his thigh keeping me from moving, and it felt so good to be pressed up against him in his arms like this. Just as I thought it couldn’t get any hotter, he ran his right palm up my stomach, between my breasts and across my exposed neck like a fan. I imagined him naked against me like this, me secure around him and my body completely under his control. A jolt of heat shuddered through me.

  I heard clapping and some whistles. I wasn’t even sure if they were for us but I didn’t care. Trumpets blared from the speakers and faded as Clay pulled me back up to him. Our mouths were inches away, our hair tangled and sweaty in our faces, panting into each other’s open mouths. I was less than a minute away from embarrassing myself by losing my mind right here against his leg. And by the telltale stiffness against my thigh, so was he.

  “Clay.” I gripped his lapels. “Take me back to yours.”

  “Fuck.” He growled into my mouth. “Aria, no.”

  “Why?”

  “I have…things to do tomorrow morning.”

  “I’m not talking about tomorrow. I’m talking about tonight.”

  “I can’t.”

  He let go of me and stepped back, the cold air rushing in between us only fanning my anger. Frustration raged through me. “Why don’t you want to screw me?” I hissed.

  “I do.”

  “Then why are you so scared to take me back to your place?”

  “I just want to wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “Come on, Aria. Let’s not ruin a perfectly good moment. Flick and Jed are waiting.”

  “No.” I shoved him before he could pull me towards the booth. Rejection for all the times we had kissed and he had stopped it flowed through me. “Why won’t you fuck me?”

  He flinched at my words.

  “Yes, Clay. I learned how to say the word fuck. Why won’t you fuck me?”

  A few heads turned towards us but I ignored them. Right now, I was beyond giving a crap about what anyone thought of me.

  “I can’t believe this,” he growled low. “If I were the woman and you were the man, it would be too much pressure. Flick would tell you to dump my ass.”

  “I’m not pressuring you for sex.”

  “Really? Then what was that? ‘Take me back to your place, Clay. Fuck me. Fuck me, Clay.’ I’m not a piece of meat.”

  “I know you’re not. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  I made a roaring noise out of frustration. “What’s wrong? Why won’t you sleep with me?”

  “I will. Just not tonight.”

  “Not tonight. Not
tomorrow. Not ever,” I snapped.

  “Aria, we just haven’t slept together yet. There’s nothing wrong. Why is this such a big deal?”

  “Most men would be chomping at the bit to be used for sex. But not you. Don’t you want me?” Tears pricked at my eyes.

  “Of course I want you. Jesus Christ, sometimes all I have to do is look at you and I get hard.”

  “I just feel like you’re hiding something from me.”

  His left eye twitched. He was hiding something.

  I shoved him away. “Good night, Clay. Call me if you ever decide to tell me the truth.” I pushed my way through the other dancers.

  At the booth Flick and Jed were making out something fierce. I snatched my bag from the table, startling them both apart. “I’m going home,” my voice cracked, my vision blurry from the tears that had already started falling, “Thanks for tonight.”

  “Wait, Aria.” Flick began to scramble out of the booth.

  I wasn’t in the mood to explain things to her. Nor did I want to wait around for Clay to catch up to me, so I just bolted towards the first green exit sign I saw.

  I ran out into the balmy night, a tall, wide bouncer holding open the red rope for me. A line had begun to form along the dirty wall down the side of the club. I felt rather than saw eyes on me, appraising me. I didn’t care. I just needed to get out of there. A cab. Where was a cab?

  I spotted one up across the road with his lights on. He was free. Perfect. I stepped off the sidewalk just as I heard my name called from behind me.

  I ignored Clay, clenching my jaw together so I wouldn’t be tempted to yell back, and kept walking. I got to the cab and reached out for the door handle.

  Clay slammed his body against the door so I couldn’t open it. “Aria, wait.”

  “Leave me alone, Clay. I’m going home.”

  “I can take you home.”

  “I’m not getting in a car with you.”

  “I didn’t have a single drink.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Is this guy bothering you, ma’am?” The cabbie had gotten out of the car, a gruff-looking man in his fifties with salt-and-pepper stubble.