All the Pretty Poses (Pretty #2)(38)
Author: M. Leighton

When it’s finally time for her spot, I find that I’m both excited and testy as hell. I glance left and right to see who’s watching. Everyone is. Of course.

I muffle my growl of displeasure.

The lights go dark and I turn my attention back to the stage. When I hear the first notes of the music, I can’t help but smile. She said her choice for tonight would really please me. She’s already right.

When I was younger, my brothers and I used to watch some of my dad’s old movies when he wasn’t home, which was often. It was one of those mischievous little things that bond a bunch of young boys for life.

One of my favorites to watch was a tale about a hard-working girl who was a welder by day and a dancer by night. She always wanted to be a ballerina and she met a guy who made that happen for her. My father used to say she was white trash and that nothing like that would ever happen in real life, but I admired her determination, not to mention her hot body and the way she danced. I’m pretty sure that girl gave me at least a dozen of my earliest hard-ons.

I once told Kennedy about it, during that summer so long ago. She said she’d seen the movie and that she loved to watch the girl dance, too. It makes me wonder how much that show influenced both of our lives. I grew up to own dance clubs. Kennedy grew up to dance in one of them. And now, here we are as the girl who has practically nothing and the rich man who can make her dreams come true. Could it be life imitating art?

If we ever had a song, this might be it. And she’s playing it for me.

With the first few beats, Kennedy slips quietly out from behind the curtain. Dramatically, she drags her bare toes with each step she takes, her head cast down as she walks. Her slim legs are bare but for the material bunched around her calves. She’s wearing a short, skin-tight black skirt and a gray sweatshirt with the neck cut out. It hangs off one shoulder, revealing one narrow, black bra strap. If the music hadn’t told me what she was thinking, the sweatshirt would’ve.

She makes her way to the center of the stage where she dips and sways and twirls like a graceful ballerina. It’s easy to see that her talent runs much further than just sexy dancing, although every move she makes is sexy just because she’s Kennedy. I don’t think she can help it.

Mesmerized, I watch her dance. As the song plays, her moves become more titillating, her eyes swing my way more often. When she spreads her legs into a deep split, her lips part on what looks like a silent moan, like she’s remembering me between them. When she bends backward, perfectly displaying her round tits, she closes her eyes like she’s feeling me touch her. Everything she does makes my c**k that much harder.

It’s when she makes her way to the lone chair that I somehow overlooked that I realize what’s coming. The lights dim into one spotlight that’s focused on her in a single bright beam.

I watch her hand rise to loosen her hair, letting it tumble free in a thick, shiny wave as she arches her back away from the chair. She raises her hand again, this time reaching above her, toward a cord that I can just now see.

I stand to my feet, knowing what comes next. In slow motion, I see her tug. Water falls from out of nowhere, crashing down over her chest and stomach and splashing onto the floor.

She arches her back further and I can hear her gasp clearly, even over the music. Through the wet material of her gray sweatshirt, I can see her ni**les harden. As much as I want to taste them, at the moment, all I can think about is how much I hate that anyone else is seeing this, that anyone else is seeing her.

My anger rises fast and hot, boiling over before the song even finishes.

“Out!” I shout, loud enough to be heard over the music. There is a pause, during which I turn to scan the room before I repeat, more harshly, “Everybody out.”

The room clears within a few seconds, the music of some other song left playing in the background. Kennedy is sitting up in her chair, watching me, water dripping from the ends of her hair. When I make my way up onto the stage, she’s not moving, not breathing.

Neither am I.

CHAPTER THIRTY – Kennedy

I see him leap onto the stage with one graceful jump. I see his eyes roving my body like he’s deciding what part to attack first. And I see the patience that he’s shown me thus far as it dwindles to nothing. Nothing but hunger. Desire. Passion in its rawest, hottest form.

When he reaches me, I know the instant he sets his hands on me that this is going to be a rocket ride to the moon, fast and furious and mind-blowing. And I’m ready for it.

It’s time.

His hands go first to my hair, winding into the wet strands and holding my face still for him. His mouth plunders mine. Our tongues tangle, our lips devour.

I feel his hands skate urgently down my arms to curl in the hem of my shirt. He rips it up over my head and flings it to the side. With a growl, he pulls me to him again, bending his head to suck my lower lip into his mouth.

“Tell me you want this as much as I do,” he says, his voice dry and hoarse. “Tell me I can do anything I want to you. Right here. Right now.”

His words are a spark to dry grass and my insides go up in flames, like a desert wildfire. Heat licks down my spine and burns in the space between my legs.

“Yes. Yes to everything.”

That’s all he needed to hear. I unchained him, I freed the animal inside, but this time I’m ready for it.

With a savage rip, Reese tears open the back of my bra and pulls it roughly down my arms to bare my br**sts to him. When he bends me back over his arm and clamps his lips down over one nipple, I squeeze my thighs together to keep myself from coming apart on the spot.

I thread my fingers into his hair, fisting them in my own frenetic need. When he straightens me, I immediately reach for the front of his shirt, yanking open the buttons in one try.

Reese’s hard chest, with its dusting of dark hair, is gleaming with a fine sheen of sweat that makes my mouth water to taste it. So I do. I lean forward and drag my tongue up the dent between his pecs, detouring to take one flat, masculine nipple into my mouth.

He cups my head and hisses when I bite down. “Damn you,” he spits in what almost seems like anger. “I didn’t want it to be this way, but you’re driving me crazy.”

My eyes lock on his as I shake free of his grasp. In this moment, I realize that I want to drive him crazy. I want him to feel as desperate, as wanton as I feel.

Dropping to my knees in front of him. My fingers work nimbly at the button and zipper of his pants. I part them, pushing them half way down his thighs.