“That’s what Shannon said.” I try not to cringe when his large hand migrates to the swell of my butt.
“Shannon’s smart.”
A new song starts up. The voyeurs obviously haven’t made up their minds yet.
His other hand clamps around the back of my neck like he did when he pretended to kiss me. We’re sealed together chest to chest, our faces inches apart as he dips our bodies lower toward the floor.
“Relax. I’ll hold you up.”
“Why are you helping me?” Surely, this is another power play.
“You’re a drum major. Keep the beat with your body.”
“I can’t,” I hiss, my body doing the exact opposite of relaxing. “Just because I can keep time with my arms doesn’t mean I can dance.”
“I’ve seen you dance before,” he argues. He loves to argue. “At that band camp in high school. You turned me the fuck on that night, so I know you can dance.”
“I’m not that girl anymore.”
“And I’m not that guy.”
Oh, I know he’s not. He’s proven it time and time again.
He drives his hips against me, the erection in his jeans teasing my center.
His eyes scream at me.
Compete with me.
Answer the call.
Keep the beat.
Because I never back down from his challenges, I slide my hands up his chest to frame his neck. And squeeze a little.
He smirks. “Dancing like this is the same as hating someone. You put all your energy into it, all your passion. Doesn’t matter what brought you together with the other body, you give in to it. You let it consume you. And you don’t ever want it to end.”
His low, rumbled words mingle with the deep bass of the sexy music, hypnotizing me in a language I can understand. He’s not wrong, and Shannon was right, too. The hate I feel for him flows through me, and I release it fully. I will it to travel from my veins into his as we slide against each other, battling for dominance. It’s so easy to make him my sole focus in a room full of people. Like second nature to forget anyone’s watching at all and touch him until his erection pulses with the torture I’m doling out.
He slides his hand from the back of my neck to my jaw, swiping his thumb along my lower lip. I catch it and bite down then flick my tongue against the rough pad. He moans, his eyelids falling to half-mast.
Just when I think I’m on the verge of winning, he raises the stakes. He leans in, diverting at the last minute to the base of my neck where he licks a line to my ear and blows his hot breath against my sensitive skin.
“Let go,” he whispers. “You can fall. I’ll catch you this time, I promise.”
His words don’t matter, and my body doesn’t care. This hate is like a drug, and I’ve never been so addictively aroused. My breath gusts out in a rush as a tidal wave of pleasure rolls through me from my center to my limbs.
He really is the only thing holding me up now. He pulls his face from my neck and gazes down at me. “Sophie.”
“If she’s pregnant now, that baby had better be named after me!” Jared’s loud voice rips me from my cocoon of bliss. “Sophia won that round, too!”
“Yeah, she did!” Shannon raises her hand for a high five, pride in her voice.
I meet her, hoping no one will notice how badly I’m still shaking. But when I glance around the room, I realize the joke is on me. Everyone knows what just happened on that dance floor.
And Jimbo is standing beside me, grinning from ear to ear.
I’m mortified.
Every cell in my body vibrates with the urge to flee, to say the hell with saving face and brushing it off like what just happened is no big deal. Like I have orgasms in public all the time. Like I wasn’t just used for another game.
I’m not the winner. I’m the loser.
I broke first.
“Shots!” Jared calls, and the other drum majors head for the bar.
Jimbo has the nerve to pat my ass as he walks past me.
I don’t have time to even escape upstairs to change my soaked panties because Shannon latches on to my arm as the rest of the party surges forward to witness the next competition. At least buried in a sea of bodies clamoring for the best vantage point, we strangely have more privacy for my mental breakdown.
I tug back on Shannon’s grip. “Shan. Shan.”
“Holy shit,” she squeals. “That was awesome! I thought you said you couldn’t dance?”
“Shannon.”
She hears the change in my voice. The break that signals tears I can’t fight aren’t far behind. “What’s wrong? Oh my God, what happened?”
“You mean, you don’t know? You can’t tell?”
The guys all knew just by one look at Jake at camp that he’d gotten laid. As soon as I saw Shannon, I knew. And we hadn’t even seen it happen!
“Tell what?” She studies me, looking me up and down. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit!” She leans in closer to lower her voice. “That was real? You didn’t fake that? You had an actual orgasm? With Jimbo?”
I nod. Bile is swimming up my throat, and if I open my mouth, I’m going to puke all over my best friend.
“Okay. It’s okay,” she coos. “It doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can be a very good thing.”
I shake my head, pretty sure my eyes are frozen at their widest possible apex.
“It’s fine.” She rubs my arms from shoulders to wrists in a soothing motion. “This is fine. Everything is fine. You are fine, and I am fine. And Jimbo is something else. Do the shot. It’ll make you feel better. Get back to the competition.”
“I can’t,” I choke out.
“Yes, you can. You are the most badass drum major of them all. I promise, no one realized that wasn’t fake. Hell, Jimbo probably doesn’t even realize it was real. He probably just thinks your acting has gotten better since camp.”
“No, he knew!” I hiss. “He knew exactly what he did to me! Didn’t you see his face? Jared announced he’d lost to me, and he was smiling about it like it was a lifetime achievement award!”
“Okay, well, you know …” She chews on her lip and glances toward the bar where shouts summoning my presence are beginning to make the rest of the crowd look for me. “When a guy acts like giving a woman an orgasm is a gift to himself, then you should say thank you.”
“Oh, God. Jimbo said that. At camp. He said he was taught to say thank you when a friend lets him play with them. And now, I’m just another one of his toys. I already was once, and I swore it would never happen again.”
“Sophie!” Jimbo’s voice snaps me to attention.
“Get back in the ring,” Shannon advises. “Go up to that bar and show him just how welcome he is. That’s still your choice.”
“He’s not welcome at all!” I hiss.
She tips her head to the side like she doesn’t necessarily agree with me. In all fairness, she just heard me confess to having an orgasm from the dancing equivalent of dry-humping. “Then, show him that. But don’t give up. Don’t let him win unless you want him to win.”
“I never want him to win!” Especially not now.
Shannon’s right. That dirty play only stokes my desire more. The desire to make him suffer.