RICH BOY BRIT (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)(2)

My hand quivered when I reached out to take his hand, but if the lion noticed, he didn’t say anything. I placed my hand in his, and he tightened his arm on mine, closing it with the dagger.

“I don’t mind if I do,” I whispered, as he led me to the dance floor.





Jessica



Though the little vicious animal in first grade had dissuaded me from joining dance club, I still knew my way around a dance floor. When Dad’s firm had become more popular, he had been able to pay for private lessons, where no little vicious first-graders could do anything about it. The lion, too, knew what he was doing. They played some fast jazz, and the lion and I both knew the Lindy Hop, where you move like there’s something wicked in your body trying to jump out, and you basically swivel until you can’t swivel any more. The music rose around us, and before I really knew what was going on (the wine still swirling in my mind) a small crowd had gathered around us.

My limbs were aching, and my ribcage was thumping. I leaned into the lion. “What’s going on?” I asked him.

“How drunk are you?” he laughed.

“Pretty drunk!”

“We’re Lindy Hopping and half the hall is watching.”

“Oh.”

It was happening. I could feel my body going through the moves. I could feel the wide grin on my face. But it was so unlike me that I still struggled to believe it. I was not the kind of girl who danced with a crowd around her. I was not the type of girl who was dragged onto the dance floor by a lion and started Lindy Hopping for everybody to see. Again I had that disorienting feeling, like I was watching instead of doing. I saw a muscular lion-masked man in a tuxedo who was very graceful for his height and size, and a slight, wolf-masked woman with shoulder-length sun-colored hair and thin white legs jiving around the dance floor. That’s me, I thought. That woman is me.

Ha! Yeah right! Jessica Wright doing the Lindy Hop in the middle of a ballroom!

The lion led me to the edge of the dance floor. His chest rose and fell quickly. Mine rose and fell in unison. I leaned forward and put my hands on my knees, breathing heavily, and then looked up when I’d caught my breath. My heart still beat fast, but it was from dancing as well as nerves now. The lion tilted his head at me. I looked up at him, waiting. I don’t know what I was waiting for. I sensed that something was going to happen. There was an atmosphere, like something almost physical. My bare arms goose-bumped as I looked up and down his muscular body, and to his hand. That tattoo got me. I don’t know what it was exactly that attracted me so much about it. Maybe it was because it made him look dangerous. Or because it was so unusual.

“Come for a walk with me,” the lion said. He stepped forward and touched my arm with his fingertips, brushing his hand up and down my skin. The goose bumps grew larger, and a tingling sensation moved over my body. I shivered. The tingling sensation reached down my belly to my pussy, to my clit. He touched my arm, and yet my clit ached. What was this guy, some kind of wizard? He trailed his finger along my skin some more. “Come on,” he said, calmly. “Come with me.”

I would never, ever do that. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t Jessica Wright, no, ma’am. Jessica Wright was a good ol’ Texan girl with a heart of gold and a strong sense of right and wrong. She would never wander off into the night with some random lion.

And yet, I did exactly that. The goose bumps grew and grew until their tingly kisses covered my entire body. With shakings hands, I clasped the lion’s dagger-tattooed hand. “Lead the way, then,” I said, a nervous tremor in my voice. I was nervous, sure. This wasn’t like me at all. I didn’t know this man. Anything could happen. My inhibitions were screaming at me to stop. But I was excited, too, precisely for the same reasons. This wasn’t like me, and anything could happen.

It was time, I thought, for good ol’ Texan Jessica to live a little.





Jessica



We didn’t talk, but we both knew where this was leading. Sometimes there is a wordless connection between two people, even strangers. It is something in the hormones, the unseen chemicals that pass between man and woman when they’re horny, and they’re going to fuck. I knew that in my bones. This lion was going to fuck me tonight, and I was going to let him, more than let him. I was going to ride him like he’d never been ridden.

The masks spurred us on. We weren’t people. We were a wolf and a lion. Even when we reached the lobby of the hotel, we didn’t take the masks off. I think we both understood the necessity of them. If we removed them, the magic would disappear. I knew something in this night had changed me—if only temporarily—because when a dozen sets of eyes in the lobby turned to stare at me and the lion, I didn’t blush, I didn’t flinch, I didn’t look down. I just followed him.

He led me to the elevator, pressed the button, and waited. He turned to me as the elevator descended. “I have a room,” he explained.

“Good,” I answered.

He nodded, and I nodded back. We hadn’t kissed. We had only danced. We hadn’t discussed going back up to his room to fuck madly. We hadn’t even hinted at it. And yet we both knew exactly what was about to happen. We knew it like we knew our own names; we knew it like we didn’t know each other’s. I was growing calmer, more unlike myself with each passing second. My heartbeat slowed to a steady rhythm. My hands and legs stopped trembling so much. My mouth was dry, but that was only the wine. I didn’t feel as drunk as before. I felt remarkably clear-headed.