Choosing Us (Pierced Hearts Duet #1)(18)

For them.

It didn’t take long for me to get to the club, walking in at the exact moment the beat was going off. The D.J. was dropping loud and fast, causing heads and bodies to shake every which way all around me. Making my hips sway to the Reggaetón music as I shuffled through the mass of people who were there to have a damn good time.

Knowing Danté would provide exactly that.

“Camila!” he shouted, lifting the hinged section of the counter up so I could walk behind the bar. “Ah, shit! I see you, mamita! Take it down! Hands on your knees! Show me what’cha workin’ wit’!”

And I did.

Dropping it low to the ground in front of him, only to slowly roll my hips back up to grind right against him.

“There’s my girl,” he whispered into my ear, rocking his hips to the same rhythm as mine.

It was harmless fun. Danté was my oldest and dearest friend, and he also went to bat for the same team, not that it mattered to me. Men flocked to him like bees to honey. He was thin but built, had flawless cocoa skin, and a pretty boy face with his big honey-colored eyes that had lashes for days.

Always wearing the new fashion in clothes, shoes, accessories. He reminded me a lot of Lafayette in True Blood, looked a lot like him as well.

I was proud as hell of him for the success of his club. It may have been in the shitty part of town, but this was always the place to be on any given night.

“I knew you couldn’t stay away,” he teased, turning me toward the bar to get to work.

And once again, I did.

Loving every second of the tunes blaring from the speakers, and the energy of the crowd losing their minds.

“I’ll take a Corona!”

“A rum and Coke!”

“I’m getting married this weekend! Woooohoooo! I’ll take a round of shots for my girls and me!”

“Patron on ice!”

I listened to every order coming in from my section of the bar, nodding and making eye contact so they’d know I heard them, and they wouldn’t try to order from someone else.

Round after round, I laid out drink orders in front of my customers. Never stopping to rest for even a second during my shift, taking orders as swiftly as my body moved to the sound of the music. Finding my steady pace.

I was Danté’s girl for a reason, being the best bartender this place had ever seen won me that title.

Minutes turned into hours, and right when I thought I’d made it through a night at the club without seeing the man who claimed I was his queen, I felt him before I saw him.

Gazing straight up through the crowd of people, our eyes locked as if he could feel me too. There Sean was, all six-feet-four inches of him, wearing baggy jeans that hung off his waist with a black button-down shirt that I just knew was concealing his Glock. The one of many he didn’t have a license for. Sean was always packing, and I wasn’t just referring to the gun tucked in the back of his jeans.

But it wasn’t until the smell of his tight leather jacket that hugged his bulky, muscular build, along with the spicy scent of his cologne I’d been buying him since we were kids assaulted my senses, did my heart skip a beat.

Our sexual attraction to each other had never been our problem. It was the fact that he couldn’t keep his eyes, hands, or dick solely for me.

Except, you wouldn’t think that by the way he was undressing me with his eyes, making his way over. Looking like trouble with a capital T with that certain swagger only Sean could exude. He caught the attention of every woman in the bar, and he knew it too.

It was his mutt genes that made him stand out the most. He was a mix of white, black, and Hispanic. Giving him light brown skin and entrancing green eyes that I swear could see into my soul. And because of that, I was the first to break our connection, pretending as if this didn’t just happen.

I continued to take orders and went back to bartending. Acting as if he didn’t exist, and he wasn’t just there…

For me.

“Hey, baby,” he greeted at the side of my face, getting as close to me as possible. “Where ya been, suga’?”

“That will be forty bucks,” I addressed the man ordering drinks in front of me, focusing on him.

Disregarding my rapidly beating heart.

Stupid heart.

Sean questioned, “This how you gonna play it, baby?” Leaning closer to my neck, he faintly skimmed his soft lips against my pulse. “Don’t try me, Camila, ‘cuz I’ll show you how many fucks I give. I won’t be ignored.”

Snatching the money out of my customer’s hand, I abruptly turned toward the cash register. Only to be brought closer to the son of a bitch baiting me.

“Last warnin’, baby.”

I snapped my eyes to his, spewing, “I didn’t hear the first one.”

He grinned, narrowing his eyes at me with a predatory regard that made my thighs clench. “Even when you hate me, Camila, you know you still love me. So why don’t ya bring those dick-suckin’ lips over to me, and I’ll remind you what to do with that mouth.”

“You wanna piece of me, Sean?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. “That what you want?”

“Always. I’ll fuck the bitch right outta you. You know you’re my queen. I know you miss me, baby. Now let me take care of you, ya don’t need to be workin’ for some fuckin’ doctor. I’ll give you babies if that’s what ya want. You don’t need to be raisin’ someone else’s when you could be raisin’ ours.”