Page 11 of Mating Season
“Seriously, Rosalie, I can’t be late. I know it’s just club hopping, but I could get an actual character name this time,” she says.
“Okay, I’m just not sure about this dress.” I gesture at the red dress with thin spaghetti straps lying across the bed. It makes me feel like the flag you wave in front of a bull.
“What’s not to be sure about? You’ll look great!”
My sister and I are the same size—same size shoes, too. She helpfully picked out some black ankle boots to go with the dress. I didn’t exactly pack club scene wear when I was tossing all my clothes into a suitcase like a mad woman.
By the time we get to the club, I feel more comfortable, a little more like my old self. Pre-Forest Adventure Rosalie. Party Clubbing Dress sold separately.
Katelin waves across the loud club, and some people wave back. She leans close to my ear and shouts, “Are you going to be okay if I go over there?”
“Yeah,” I shout back. I mean not really, but I get how important these networking opportunities are for her to advance her career, and I did just drop in on her. And as far as she knows, nothing is wrong in my life. I just decided to spontaneously show up. She shouldn’t have to rearrange everything for me when I can’t even bring myself to tell her the real reason I’m here.
I successfully begged off going anywhere while my ankle healed, and I had a good excuse. But she didn’t want to leave me alone tonight, and she already had these plans. So I’m going to suck it up and deal.
She weaves through the crowd to get to the group of men and women on the far end of the bar. I’m not sure how they can network in a place this loud, but sometimes it’s just people liking and having familiarity with you that can create opportunities. It’s how I got my first big show at a hot new gallery opening. Dumb luck and socializing. Life’s little opportunities rarely show up when you’re huddled up inside your house.
I’m thankful the heels on the boots I’m wearing aren’t high. My ankle feels fully healed, but I worry I could re-injure it if I step the wrong way. I start to move off the dance floor when someone comes up behind me. A male someone. My first instinct is to have an embarrassing freak out… but he smells…wowhe really smells good. Whatisthat?
It’s strong yet subtle at the same time. Warm, musky. But also mossy. But somehow in a good way. I’m not sure I’m describing it right. I’m not sure mere words could convey it.
And the solid warmth of him pressed up against my back feels… comforting somehow. His hands skim my sides to land on my hips as he urges me to move with him. His erection grindsshamelessly against my backside as his arm wraps around my waist, urging me to press harder against his length.
It’s a heady cocktail of that powerful scent, pure masculine strength, sensuous movements, and stark primal possession.
He hasn’t spoken a word to me, and given recent traumatic events, I should be panicked, but all I feel is calm—and other things I’m going to ignore. Dark animal things.
I’m hit with a bolt of such overwhelming lust that suddenly I want this man more than anything I’ve ever wanted. I want him to hike up my skirt and fuck me right here in the middle of the dance floor. I want him to put me on my hands and knees and drive into me from behind in front of all these people—sweaty, writhing hot bodies that could never compete with the inferno building between us. I feel hot and cold all at once and the arousal between my legs thumps heavy with the beat of the music. The pornographic images flitting through my mind only grow stronger the longer we dance.
If you could call this dancing.
One of his hands has moved up to grip the front of my throat, holding me in place against him as he brings us impossibly closer. His other hand starts to slide up my thigh, under my dress, between my legs, his fingers barely brushing against the heat and wetness of my panties.
And then my fear starts to edge out my lust. No! I can’t let this happen.
Forgive me if I don’t want to just jump back out there and let a man touch me after… the woods. It’s normal to feel a bit of disgust toward all men when one tries to hurt you like that. It almost feels shameful to let any man touch you ever again.
So why the fuck am I letting this stranger so close? Why am I rewarding any man for the bad behavior of his kind? Bad behavior I have personally suffered. I don’t know him. He could be a fucking serial killer.
I come back to my senses and pull away. He grabs me and pulls me back to him, and instead of more fear, I feel a kind of rage I’ve never felt before. I stomp down HARD on his foot with my heel. He lets out a yelp, and releases me.
“Rosalie, wait!”
I shouldn’t be able to hear him over the noise of the club, but I do. I turn around, and there’s Cooper. I shouldn’t be surprised. Didn’t some small part of me subconsciously just know? It’s why I didn’t look back at him—just let him be a stranger, because the stakes are far too high with him as he really is.
He’s wearing jeans and a black T-shirt that pulls tight over his muscles. His tattoos wind down his arms, ending just above his hands. Those warm brown eyes… that closely shaven beard… No. Absolutely not. His agenda might not look as bad on the surface as the guy from the woods, but it still involves his fucking boner… and controlling me. No. I’mnothis mate. I’m not dealing with this alpha broYou belong to me, bullshit. I’m not going to just swoon into his arms because he’s pretty and saved me, as though a man doing the decent thing somehow now obligates me to give all my freedom away to him.
Men really are just living on an entirely different planet.
And he doesn’t get to justdecideany of this.
I fight to get through the crowd on the dance floor, but his hand is around my wrist before I can get away.
“Let GO of me!”
A few people start to notice the conflict and back away, and I see a bouncer eyeing us. I’m pretty sure even as large as the bouncer is, that Cooper could take him.
He holds his hands up in surrender and takes a step back. “Just talk to me. I just need to talk to you.” He gestures toward a free-standing circular booth in the restaurant portion of the club.
