Back in the Saddle : (Jessica Brodie #1)

Chapter 13

I got to the top of the stairs as Adam, Candace and Ty started down. I hesitated. It was still just as steep.

"Here." William stepped up and gave me his arm.

"Oh thank God. I didn't want to try my luck."

"Why wear such high shoes if you can't navigate stairs?"

"Fashion takes no prisoners," I said, wobbling slightly when my heel caught a step.

"What would you do if you had to do this alone?" William asked, clutching onto my arm as I pitched forward.

"Bouncer."

I was only capable of one-word answers. Walking on flat ground in bare feet would have been too much for me with William this close.

"Ah, yes, that's right. You can charm even the meanest of us."

"Us?" I asked, relieved to see the bottom so close.

"Men."

"That's easy. Any vagina can do that."

"Ri-ight," William said, drawing out the word as we hit the ground floor.

I turned to face him with a laugh on my lips. "That word make you nervous? Vagina? Does the word vagina make you nervous?"

William was looking at my mouth. He shook his head slowly. When his eyes met mine the world ceased to exist. All I could see where those deep, clear blue eyes, pulling me in and eating me alive.

"Y'all gonna do this or what?"

William blinked then started. He looked around us then back at me, his brow scrunching at our proximity. Before I could get embarrassed, a sexy smile lit up his face. "She was breaking rule six."

"Ha!" I yelled with a grin, flushed and horny and crazy and probably needing to pull the emergency brake. Instead, I flicked my hair, handed Candace my beer, and walked toward the dance floor. "I'll go first."

I hadn't even moved a hip before some douchebag was trying to grind up on me. Without the patience I had earlier, I gave him a mighty shove. The guy nearly got air as he fell away. I waited two seconds for the tail-end of the current song to finish and a new song to begin. It was Britney Spears.

Cake walk.

I started moving to the music. Slow at first, then getting more into it. My hips popped one way, my shoulders rolling another. I turned, I twisted, I gyrated, I rocked. I even threw in a Thriller move from Michael Jackson as a crowd pleaser.

As I loosened up, I threw out some hip hop moves, saving the more serious pole dancing moves for the next dance. You had to leave some surprises.

The only problem was the "open for business" sign that all the single boys saw. No sooner did I push one away then another jogged up. And I say "jogged" because I had yet to find one guy who could dance. It was damned irritating. Tools, too, the lot of them.

When the song finished I pushed off the latest yahoo and wound my way back to the others. I wiped a fresh sheen of sweat from my forehead and gave a low bow. Next I walked right in front of William, a challenge in my eyes. I must have made an impression. Must have.

"Think you can do better?" I asked with a satisfied smirk.

He saw my smirk and raised me an eye twinkle. He leaned toward me and whispered, "Piece of cake."

Too cool for school, eh? Puh-lease.

The next song started. It was one I didn't recognize. We were supposed to wait for Adam to pick the songs, but no one cared that much.