by Piper Lawson
When the dancer finishes, a woman dressed in a black T-shirt with the Velvet logo claims the mic.
“Shh, this is it,” Kat breathes.
“This is what?” I demand.
“Amateur night!”
“You’re not going up,” Jules says, aghast.
Kat grins. “The prize is five hundred bucks. That’s a helluva birthday present.”
She brushes off her hands and joins the throng of girls by the register, returning a few minutes later with a white “Hello my name is” sticker that says “Cherry” stuck to her low-cut black tank.
“Subtle,” I deadpan.
She hooks an arm around each of our necks, her long fingernails trailing across my bare shoulder.
I roll my eyes but end up doing a double take.
Down at the other end of the bar is a man who’s so beautiful I nearly swallow my straw. His navy dress shirt is rolled to the elbows and tugs over rounded shoulders as he reaches for his drink. Dark hair past his jaw. Strong nose. Firm mouth. Eyes that scan the room, stopping when they meet mine.
It’s electric, the connection. I swear he looks into me, through me. Fire grabs my core, making my breasts tighten and my thighs clench as I flush down to my toes.
“Liv. You okay?” Jules asks.
I blink, ripping my gaze from his to turn back to my friends. “Yeah.”
I shake off the unsettling attraction.
He’s the opposite of my boyfriend, Adam, who’s blond and athletic with an easy smile. He’s from the right family, has the right hair, and is the reserve point guard on the basketball team.
What I didn’t tell Kat or Jules to avoid spoiling the birthday vibes is that when I showed up at his house yesterday morning, a girl was slipping out of his room.
Something in my chest popped like the cork on bad champagne.
I told myself if I dated Adam, at least one part of my life would go as planned. After twelve years of wasted ballet, I couldn’t be a dancer like my mother, but I had him.
“No fucking way.”
Kat’s pointing at a booth in the back, where a couple of guys from the basketball team sit, plus one I don’t want to recognize.
Adam is sprawled across the bench with a half-naked woman bent over him, her boobs swinging dangerously close to his face.
My throat tightens as I wait for him to push her away.
Instead, he shifts back, grinning, and invites her closer.
“Unbelievable,” Kat bites out. “I’m going to fuck him up.”
Jules squeezes my shoulder, and I shake her off.
“Don’t, Kat. It’s probably some basketball team thing.”
I turn toward the front, ignoring the back of the room and the burning behind my eyes.
We’ve invested three years. We’ll figure this out. Maybe he screwed up, but he loves me.
I wonder if love feels the same for him as it does for me. If it’s that dull reassurance I dig my fingers into when I’m feeling lost or if it’s something else entirely.
The MC calls the contestants to the stage to explain the rules. “Each contestant has two minutes to dance, then the crowd will vote. First up is Brandy.”
The first girl stands up as they play “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”
She gyrates her hips, swinging around the pole, clearly drunk.
The next is a little better but not much.
At one point, a woman in the crowd yells, “Camera!” and security descends on a guy filming from inside his jacket with a phone to drag him out of the club.
It’s comforting to know they enforce the “no videotaping” rule. The idea of dancing here on a dare and a few shots of vodka coming back to haunt you in perpetuity thanks to the internet is horrifying.
“Cherry!” the MC calls after a few minutes.
“That’s you, Kat,” Jules says, jarring me out of my numbness.
She gets up from the bar but trips. “Whoa. I can’t, guys.”
“You didn’t pre-game that hard,” Jules points out.
But Kat holds up a flask inside her bag I haven’t seen before.
Shit.
Jules motions to the bartender for a water, but movement catches my eye. In the back, the woman dancing on Adam takes his hand, and he follows her with a shit-eating grin toward a doorway with a beaded curtain.
Bile rises up my throat.
My mom said not to give it up too fast or too slow. I slept with Adam three months into my senior year of high school, after his parents’ party for winter break.
He said he liked that I made him wait.
Apparently, he likes that this woman won’t.
I pull out my phone and type out a text.
Liv: I can’t do this anymore, Adam. I think we should break up.
A moment after I hit send, he glances at his phone, shakes his head as if he’s the one who can’t believe me, and follows the woman through the curtain.
My chest squeezes hard. The walls I reinforced after catching him with that blonde this weekend crack, then crumble.
I told myself I’d let him off the hook if he convinced me it was a one-time thing.
But it’s not. That callous dismissal of my text burns more than the jealousy. I’ve always tried to be the daughter my parents want, the girlfriend Adam needs, and none of it matters.
“‘I Love Rock and Roll,’” starts up, its catchy hook emanating from the speakers.
The MC shouts for Cherry one more time.
“Liv?” Kat’s peeling off the sticker and holding it out, her eyes imploring. “Do it for me?”
I’m not the girl who takes her clothes off when she’s angry.
My parents raised me to see that women get ahead in this world through strategic social maneuvers, not brute force. I’m the girl who makes the other person feel comfortable, especially if they’re the one who screwed up.
But the crowd’s sneering faces blur together until they could be the girl who took Adam through that doorway. They could be my mom, who listened unmoved when I told her what I saw when I showed up at Adam’s this weekend.
That cork in my chest is back in place, the contents of the bottle under more pressure than before.
I take the sticker and press it to my sleeveless white D&G tank top tucked into denim shorts.
When I start through the crowd, there’s a wave of cheers. Each step is more confident than the last.
On stage, the bright lights are familiar, even if the audience of drunk and leering townies isn’t.
The last time I danced for a crowd was years ago. Before…everything.
Nerves creep in until I catch the eye of the beautiful guy at the bar.
He’s not leering. He’s watching as if I’m the only person in this bar worth looking at.
The awareness is back, a tingling that cuts through my numbness. I’m borrowing from the conviction in his eyes, the expression that says he can’t wait to see what I’ll do next.
I stop in front of the pole, then reach back to wrap my hand around it. My back arches, my hair grazing my ass, and cheers go up.
I have what Kat calls “a great rack.”
I call it “destroyer of dreams,” “twin furies,” “the unstoppables.” When I turned sixteen, my boobs came in, and my ballet instructors sighed and crossed my name off their lists.
Tonight, no judgmental ballerinas are watching, and no beer bottles trip me up.
I lift my leg behind me in an arabesque. My fingers grab my stiletto, and I tug it toward the back of my head.
The more the crowd cheers, the deeper I go into the music. Into my own head.
The rhythm is low in my gut, and my feet move without instructions.
The tension feels raw and real and true.
I catch his eye again. His nostrils are flared, his jaw tight. For an instant, I pretend he sees me unlike everyone else in my life.
I pop my feet wide and sink into the splits.
It’s not until I start to roll out of the pose that the stic
ky floor registers.
I’m barely up to standing when the woman in the uniform is over to me, grabbing my hand and lifting it high.
“Our winner!” She passes me a check. “We have a tradition. You know what it is.”
I don’t notice the buckets at the side of the stage until two women dump them over me.
The shock of cold drowns me in a wave that steals my breath.
It’s not water. It’s vodka.
I’m soaked from my shoulders to my toes. My nipples are hard points through my shirt. The only thing still dry is the check in my fingers, its amount less than the price of my alcohol-drowned outfit.
The shock eats into my power trip from being on stage as I stumble down the steps.
“That was epic, Liv!” Kat bellows when I reach them.
Jules bites her lip. “Are you okay?”
“Totally.” My arms fold over my chest and the wet fabric sticking to my skin makes me cringe. “I’m going to the car for a sweater. Happy birthday. Cherry.”
I pass the check to Kat with a wink. She tries to give it back, but I refuse, pushing through the crowd to the exit.
My white Audi is conspicuous in this parking lot. Most of the rest of the cars are more like the Dodge pickup between my car and the club, though there’s a beautiful black Mercedes on my opposite side.
I glance back at the club as I fish the keys from my bag.
That’s when a group of guys emerges from the door. Adam’s one of them, and another guy pulls out a vape pen as they laugh.
“How was it?” one of the other guys asks.
Plink.
I sink to my knees to follow the keys I’ve dropped in the gravel, missing Adam’s response.
It’s dark, and I fumble around under the edge of the car. My eyes burn, a tear escaping down my cheek.
The crunch of gravel behind me makes me freeze. “This the after-party?”
I swipe at my face because crying in front of other people is a sign of weakness.
When I turn, my heart stops.
It’s the guy from the bar. The beautiful one who watched me.
Up close, I’d peg him at late twenties, maybe thirty. He’s tall and broad, dark hair grazing his jaw until he shoves it back impatiently.
“I’m not here to perv on you. I’m heading out.” He glances at the pickup truck. “Wanted to make sure you weren’t driving drunk.”
“I’m getting a change of clothes.”
His gaze drops to my chest. My nipples are still sticking through the shirt. “Good call.”
He starts toward the hood, probably to round to the driver’s side of his truck, but I grab his sleeve.
“Don’t leave. That’s my boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend,” I amend, the word I’ve never used before echoing in my ears. “If you move your truck, he’ll see my car.”
The gorgeous man looks between the Dodge and the Audi.
“Just...wait until they finish their vape?” I plead.
He doesn’t respond but doesn’t move either.
I unlock the car and lean into the back seat, rummaging for my sweatshirt. My fingers sink into the soft fabric of the hoodie.
“What are you doing here?” I ask over my shoulder.
“Came to town for some unfinished business.”
I sneak a look. He’s facing the other way to either give me privacy or stand watch.
I tug the sticky shirt over my head, wadding it into a ball and dropping it on the back seat with a grimace.
“I meant at a strip club. You don’t look like the type to ogle tits and drown your sorrows.”
The low rumble of laughter behind me makes my skin tingle. “You don’t look like the type to shake your tits to forget your problems.”
I pull on the sweatshirt and shift back out of the car, the hood still up around my head. “So what’s your excuse?”
I catch sight of my reflection—smudged makeup, tangled hair—in the passenger mirror. But the man turns back to me before I can even think of trying to fix it, his gaze finding mine unerringly in the dark. “I hate doing what people expect.”
A rush of adrenaline races through me. “So you didn’t ogle my tits?” It’s not like me to tease a stranger. Blame it on the vodka fumes.
“I’m a man who appreciates beautiful things.”
The heat in his eyes steals my breath. It’s sexual, but more than that, it’s like he’s talking about watching fireworks or a once-in-a-lifetime meteor shower.
He does a double take at the logo on my chest.
“Russell U. You’re an alum, too?”
Before I can respond, riotous laughter goes up from across the lot.
“Fucking A, Adam!”
“Ignore him,” he murmurs. I blink up at the man in front of me, who tugs the hood off my head. “Why’d you want me to watch you dance?”
My brows shoot up. “What makes you think I did?”
“You wanted everyone to, or you wouldn’t have been up there. A woman like you is desired. I think you’re tired of the reason people desire you.”
There’s no reason I should be smiling tonight, but the way this man looks at me, like my life isn’t over, has me gulping night air.
“I’m Sawyer.” He bends to pick up something from the ground. The sticker from my shirt. “Nice to meet you, Cherry.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here.” A voice carries on the breeze.
Adam and the other guys cut across the lot, and my heart rises up my throat as I scan the lot and notice the RU Basketball bumper sticker on the Jeep in the next row.
If they don’t notice my car, they’ll still notice me when they head this way.
I duck behind Sawyer. “Quick. Act like you’re my boyfriend.”
A brow lifts. “You want me to pick a fight with you?”
My eyes roll hard. “That’s what you think of? No, just—” I grab his jacket collar and drag him down to the ground with me.
I land hard enough the gravel scrapes my knee.
We’re crouched between the cars. He’s inches away, and my heart skips because of how he’s looking at me. Not me on stage. Me in my hoodie, makeup smudged.
His expression says he doesn’t give a fuck.
I never realized how badly I’ve been longing for someone to look at me this way.
“You didn’t want me to argue with you,” he murmurs, a mocking lilt to his voice. “You wanted me to kiss you.”
I’m not sure I was thinking at all when I said it. But heat strokes down my spine at the thought of his mouth on mine.
I swallow hard. “You make it sound so sexy.”
“It is sexy.” His throat flexes, and the way he says that word is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard. “A kiss is a promise. A declaration of intent.”
“Most guys think anything less than a blowjob doesn’t deserve their attention.”
Sawyer shifts closer, his gaze knowing. His fingers find my hair, tucking it behind my ear and leaving my skin tingling.
His lips are an inch from mine. I’ve never felt this kind of chemistry with anyone, and he’s practically a stranger.
“Do me a favor, Cherry. Don’t judge me by that tool.”
Before I can respond, he leans in and brushes his mouth over mine.
It’s gentle, with so much fucking finesse. His lips are firm, sweeping across the curve of mine.
When he changes the angle, taking me deeper, I can’t help but open under him.
The gravel is rough on my bare knees, but his kiss is exquisite. He’s exquisite.
A soft sound escapes, a moan, but it’s lost in his mouth. I should be embarrassed, but there’s no room for it.
His fingers find my chin, holding me in place. Where the hell would I go?
When he pulls back, it’s all I can do not to say wow.
His breathing is rough, too, those gorgeous eyes dilated in the dark.
“You taste like trouble,” he murmurs.
A thrill races through me because I’m su
re no one has ever described me like that before.
“I’m going to give you my number,” he goes on.
My chest tightens with shock. “You’re asking me out?”
The surprise on his face is chased by a grin. “Tonight, you’re going to let me know you got home safely.”
And what about tomorrow? I want to ask.
But as he takes my phone and types in his contact, I’m relieved. Adam cheated on me, and I’ll break up with him in person tomorrow...but this is moving fast.
I tuck my phone back into my purse and straighten to test whether my knees still work.
Barely.
I survey the parking lot. “They’re gone.”
He’s up the next second too, tall enough his jaw is eye level on me. He checks his watch. “You have to work early too?”
Of course he thinks I’m older. Students don’t come here.
I can’t tell him I’m a college junior, that tomorrow is the first day of classes in my third year, not when he’s clearly got life figured out. If adulting is an art, this man is Rembrandt.
“Let me guess. You’d rather take a bullet,” he says before I can respond. “I know the feeling.”
His gaze fixes on my legs, and he bends to brush his fingers across my knee, loosening the bits of gravel stuck to it.
What could a man like him dread? He’s gorgeous, confident, charismatic in a doesn’t-have-to-try way.
His thumb brushes my cheek, grazing the diamond stud in my ear. “I hope tomorrow’s better than you expect. Don’t let anyone drag you down, Cherry.”
As he rounds my hood, he heads for the Mercedes on the far side.
The truck isn’t his.
When he peels out of the lot, disappearing in a glimmer of red taillights and New York plates, I’m left to wonder why the hell a man like that helped a girl like me.
But the next breath I take is cold night air and engine fumes, and I swear nothing ever tasted so good.
ONE CLICK CRAVE NOW >
Books by Piper Lawson
ENEMIES SERIES
Beautiful Enemy
Beautiful Sins
Beautiful Ruin
RIVALS SERIES
Love Notes
