Out of Bounds (The Summer Games #2)(77)

Every time I moved, I caught Erik’s eyes. Like a pendulum, I’d swing away for a moment, but I always came back to him, finding him in the crowd and using him as an anchor. There were hundreds of people watching me, but I was dancing for him, teasing him with my fingers on the hem of my dress, tugging it an inch higher on my thigh. I could feel my nipples tighten against the silky material and I wanted it gone. I wanted to slip out of the straps and let the material slide down my body.

Erik tilted his head, taking me in with a heated gaze, that hint of a smirk still playing on his lips. I wanted to slide off the stage and steal those lips, push them down my stomach and feel them between my thighs.

I swore he could hear my thoughts spiraling through me because he stepped even closer, coming within a few feet of the stage. I inhaled a shaky breath as the hazy red light drew him in. In the light of day, he was so handsome it hurt, but the shadowed light of that stage turned his seductive features into something dangerous, scary. He wet his bottom lip and my stomach quivered.

I swallowed and turned away, trying to calm my heart, but it was no use. I knew his gaze was still on me, dragging across my back. I pictured his eyes hitting the spot where the hem of my dress stretched across the back of my thighs and a shiver ran down my spine. A light layer of sweat coated my skin as I realized how much he was getting to me.

I was the one on stage.

I was the one in charge.

I won’t let him win.

With a shaky inhale, I walked to the pole and circled around it, picking up a leg and wrapping it around the cold metal. My dress barely covered me as I spun, and I knew the sight of me up there would drive any man insane. I’d never stripped completely for Erik. I’d never given him full rein of my body, but up on that stage, I was showing him everything he could have if only he said the word. One f*cking word.

And if he didn’t want to, someone else would.

I smirked and glanced over my shoulder, circling around the pole slowly, taunting him, but when I caught sight of him the crowd, he was backing up, letting other people push forward and overtake his spot in front of me.

Our eyes locked for a brief moment and I could see the lust there, building inside him. He looked hungry with it, consumed by me, and yet he was walking away, backing up and leaving me like that, completely exposed.

I circled the pole again, using his disappearing silhouette as my point of focus.

Each spin took him another foot away and sank another dagger into my heart.

I wanted to reach out and call for him.

No.

Come back.

Please.

“Jesus, Brie,” Noah said, finally at a breaking point. He reached up to pull me off the stage as the song faded into silence, but his hands around my hips weren’t the right hands. His chastising tone wasn’t the right tone.

“What were you thinking?” he asked, his voice clouded in lust and anger. “That’s not like you.”

I frowned.

He was wrong. That person up on stage, the girl brushing her hands down her body and begging to be touched? That was only version of myself I didn’t have to second-guess.

I looked for Erik as Noah pulled me through the crowd, turning my head and scanning the room for blackness. I needed another glimpse of him, one more moment to convince myself he’d actually shown up. The bar was too crowded, too dark. I whipped my head from left to right, convinced I’d somehow missed him. Maybe he was waiting for me at the bar or in a dark corner of the room.

Noah kept tugging me forward until chilly night air washed over me. Lexi was waiting for us outside on the curb and as soon as she saw me, she broke out in a wide grin.

“YOU WERE AMAZING!” she cheered, ripping me out of Noah’s grasp and spinning me in a circle around her.

Noah scoffed, but I let Lexi’s praise wash over me.

“You’ve got moves, my friend,” she said, gripping my hips and pushing them into a wide circle.

I smiled and glanced over her shoulder, catching a flash of black hair a few yards ahead of us.

My stomach clenched as I caught sight of Erik just before he disappeared into the back seat of a cab.

“Brie?”

My smile slowly faded as he reached out and yanked the door closed behind him. He really was there.

So then why is he leaving without me?

“Brie, the cab is waiting for us.” I was vaguely aware of Lexi talking to me as I watched his cab pull away from the curb. “We should really get back to the village since we have practice early.”

She pushed me toward our own cab and talked my ear off about my dancing, about how everyone had “FREAKED OUT” when I’d climbed on stage. I wasn’t paying attention to her. I was too busy staring out at the dark night and wishing it had ended differently.

“That club was insane,” she said, jostling my arm to get my attention. “It really felt like we were in hell, didn’t it?”

I nodded. More than I care to admit. I’d been intoxicated in the moment, dancing for the devil himself, and now that it was over, I felt nothing but burned.





Chapter Thirty


Brie





It was easy to blame Erik for the darkness I felt when I was near him, but my fantasies were all my own. He wasn’t poisoning the well; he was drawing from it. At times, I wondered if he knew me better than I knew myself. It felt like he’d split open my chest and pulled out my heart, watching it beat for him—only him. We didn’t know the little things about one another. He couldn’t say how I took my coffee or which cereal I preferred in the morning, but he spoke my body’s language as if he’d spent years studying it. I’d only been around him for a little over a month, and yet I couldn’t fathom the idea of living without him.