Before I can tell him I’ve changed my mind and want to pick another song, something that doesn’t have words to it that feel like they’ve been etched onto my fucking heart with a rusty knife, the opening guitar riff starts playing through the bar’s sound system. I rush over to the microphone and wrap both my hands around it, closing my eyes and inhaling deeply through my nose, letting it back out slowly through my lips as the sound of the guitar changes and I know it’s time to start singing.
With my eyes still closed, I open my mouth and let it out. I played this song on repeat every day for the first two weeks after Sebastian left me. I don’t need to look at the screen in front of me; I know the words. And even though the song is by a man, it’s all about a woman wanting more and wanting to find a better man, but she can’t. For the longest time, this song was my theme song. I dreamed of better things, I dreamed in color and I wanted more, but I couldn’t have it. I couldn’t find a better man because Sebastian convinced me I’d never find anyone better than him. That I didn’t deserve anything better than what he gave me.
But now, instead of getting sad, I’m just getting pissed as I continue singing, really wishing I’d picked something else. This isn’t my theme song anymore. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully heal after what Sebastian did to me, but I do know I don’t want to feel like this anymore. Before I can yank the microphone out of the stand, drop it onto the stage, and storm off like an idiot, the bar goes silent as the song is cut off in the middle of the first chorus.
I open my eyes and turn my head to find a pissed off-looking Eric up on stage, his hand on the karaoke guy’s laptop. With a quick apology to the confused audience, I walk over to him.
“What the hell are you doing?” I whisper loudly.
“You’re done singing that song,” he growls, reaching around the poor bewildered karaoke guy to snatch up the binder and start thumbing through it.
“You can’t tell me what to do!” I argue, stomping my foot like a two-year-old.
I know, I was just getting ready to stop singing the song anyway, but it’s the fucking principal of the thing.
“Your voice? Fucking amazing,” he mutters, flipping angrily through the pages. “But you singing that song, sounding like you felt those goddamn words straight down to your soul and actually believe them. Fuck. That. Shit.”
Well, when he puts it that way . . .
My anger at him melts away when he slams the book back down and whispers something to the karaoke guy before closing the distance between us and placing both of his hands on my cheeks, tilting my face up to look at him.
“Remember what I said to you that day in your house when we moved you?” he asks quietly.
“About how my tits looked amazing in my tank top?” I ask cheekily.
The corner of his mouth tips up into a smile as he rubs his thumbs back and forth against my cheeks.
“Do you need me to remind you how amazing your tits are? Because I gotta say, that could take me a while. And I think the people want more singing from you.”
I didn’t even realize my friends had started the entire bar chanting my name in the last few seconds. I was too busy liking Eric’s anger entirely too much.
“Nope. I think I’m good. We can shelve the tit gratitude until later,” I shrug.
“Excellent.” He smiles, His smile is quickly replaced with a serious look as he stares into my eyes. “Here’s a quick recap before they start throwing bottles at us: Seeing you broken and hurting and sad is like having someone stick a fucking knife in my chest. I don’t like it. So I’m pissing you off instead, because it brings me great joy to see you fired up. It’s my turn to pick the song. One that better suits you. So get your sexy ass out there and give ‘em hell.”
With that, he kisses the tip of my nose, drops his hands from my face, and grabs my shoulders, turning me around and pushing me towards the mic.
I can’t help but laugh as I get back behind the mic and my heart is all aflutter like some goddamn romance novel heroine because of a nose kiss. A fucking nose kiss.
I have turned into a pussy. A pussy who goes all gaga over a damn kiss on the nose.
I will never get my street cred back after this shit.
All of a sudden, the title of the song Eric chose pops up on the screen in front of me and all that happy-go-lucky romantic bullshit flies out of my mind. I can’t sing this song. Is he kidding me with this shit? Does he really think this song suits me? Sure, I finally realized “Better Man” isn’t my song, and I don’t want to feel like I’m not good enough anymore—but this song is, like, the national anthem of strong women.
I start shaking my head back and forth and backing away from the mic when Eric is suddenly behind me, not letting me move. I feel his hands on my shoulders and he gives them a gentle squeeze before leaning in close to my ear.
“This is your song, princess. It’s all you. Every word of it is what I think of when I look at you. Sing the shit out of this song. Listen to the words and fucking feel them. Believe them.”
I swallow thickly and glance over at the karaoke guy, giving him a nod.
Eric’s hands are still resting on my shoulders when the music starts, and I open my mouth right along with it. I don’t even think about it; I just do what he says. I start singing the words to “F**kin’ Perfect” by Pink.
I was blessed with a raspy voice like Pink, and her songs have always been favorites of mine to sing. By the time I get to the first chorus, I feel those words. I feel them from the top of my head down to my toes. I’ve felt less than perfect for years. I’ve been mistreated, misplaced, and misunderstood for most of my adult life, but I’m still around. It’s time for me to do what the song says—change the voices in my head and realize I’m fucking perfect.
I’m belting out the song better than I’ve ever sung anything in my life, and this time, I’m not keeping my eyes closed. I’m gripping the microphone with one hand, and throwing my other fist up in the air, looking out at my friends in the front row. They’re clapping and screaming and jumping up and down. I sing that song to them. I sing it to every woman in the bar who has ever felt less than perfect. Who changed to make someone else happy.
Not until I’m halfway through the song do I realize that Eric is no longer holding onto me, giving me strength. He knew at some point that I no longer needed it, but I glance over to the side of the stage and see him standing there with his hands in his pockets, smiling at me.
When I sing the words asking if you ever feel like nothing, and saying that you’re fucking perfect to me, Eric mouths the words right along with me.
I finish the song, my eyes never leaving his, hoping he knows I think he’s kind of fucking perfect too. Everyone in the bar immediately jumps out of their chairs, joining my friends in their screaming and clapping and jumping up and down.
The smile on my face is so big that I smack my hand over my mouth to try and contain it, but it’s no use. I’m smiling and I’m laughing and if Sebastian were here right now, I would tell him to suck my dick, because I’m fucking perfect.
Eric races across the stage and scoops me up in his arms, spinning me around as I hold on to his shoulders, and I still can’t wipe the smile off my face.
He finally sets me back down on my feet, his arms still wrapped tightly around me.
“I think this means I owe you a kiss.”
“Damn. And here I thought it was time to talk about my amazing tits,” I counter.
“You’re crazy,” he laughs, shaking his head.
“I know,” I tell him with a shrug. “You’re lucky I’m just your typical kind of crazy and not the scary, murdering kind. Allegedly. Because—”
He cuts me off, dipping his head and pressing his lips to mine. I immediately open for him, pushing my tongue into his mouth and deepening the kiss.
Thank God it wasn’t just my imagination. This kiss? It definitely tops the first one.
Chapter 13: Laffy Taffy
I think I’m going to
puke.
Staring at the fancy dining room table in front of me, which is littered with every junk food item from the pantry, I tear off a piece of the cinnamon raisin bagel slathered in a thick layer of cream cheese and shovel it in my mouth even though I feel a little sick to my stomach.
I’m eating my feelings, okay? Whatever. It’s fine. Since karaoke the other night, I’m happy to say Eric and I have shared a lot more kisses. Every time he gets home from his office or running up to Charming’s to check on things, he comes over to my boat and the first thing he does is grab me and kiss me. Amazing, toe-curling kisses that light my body on fire and have me clawing at his back, wanting more.
That’s pretty much why I’ve turned into a human garbage disposal tonight. All we’ve done is kiss. And while each kiss has been better than the last, he hasn’t pushed for more. He hasn’t even tried to cop a feel of my amazing tits, damn it. I refuse to start second-guessing all the good feelings I’ve started to have about myself again and even consider that maybe he doesn’t want me. Because I’ve felt how much he wants me. I’ve felt it pressed up against me when he pulls me close and kisses the hell out of me, and let me tell you, it’s impressive. It’s so impressive that I’ve become a sexually frustrated woman who is currently eating her weight in potato chips.
I toss the canister of cheddar Pringles to the side and it tips over, spilling orange goodness out of the top and all over the table, and I roll my eyes at myself.
Fine. So I’m still fairly confident Eric wants me, but maybe I’m feeling a little bit of nerves about us actually getting right down to it. I’m not exactly all that experienced when it comes to sex. Two partners my entire life does not scream freak in the sheets, even though I talk a good game. And really, I’m only counting one of those, since the second one was Cindy’s ex-husband during an extreme moment of weakness that I will never stop regretting. I watch a lot of porn, okay? Porn has taught me everything I need to know about sex. I know I want him. I know his kisses make every inch of my body feel like it’s on fire, and I can only imagine what else that man could do to me. I know he likes the sassy side of me, but what if he expects that during sex? Do I even know how to be sassy during sex? Should I be watching dominatrix porn? Is he going to want me to curse at him and smack his face when he’s climaxing?
Son of a bitch, why is this so confusing?
“Honey, I’m home!” Eric announces as he comes down the steps of my boat with Derrick Alfredo in his arms.
A normal woman would probably jump up from the table guiltily and make up some ridiculous story about how robbers came in and flung junk food all over the table like a bunch of animals, but I’m not a normal woman. I’ve also got orange cheese dust on my blue tank top, right over my tits, where I wiped my hands, so the jig is up.
Instead, I grab a huge stack of spilled Pringles, tear off another giant chunk of bagel, and shovel everything into my mouth at once.
Eric looks at me with concern, setting Derrick onto the couch before walking over to stand next to my chair, resting his hand on the back of it.
“Alight carps,” I say around a mouthful of food, looking up at him as I chew, smacking my hand around blindly on the table until I find a random powdered sugar donut hole and jam that thing into my mouth as well.
“Noted,” Eric says with a twitch at the corner of his mouth as I reach for something else on the table. “As long as you said I like carbs and you aren’t talking about setting fish on fire.”
“I’m not giving up carbs for any man, ever again,” I inform him, powdered sugar puffing out of my mouth as I speak, stressing my point by waving a stick of butter at him.
Okay, I might have taken this a little too far.
“Well, that’s good,” Eric states, taking the stick of butter out of my hand and placing it on the table then grabbing a donut hole for himself and popping it into his mouth. “Carbs are delicious. But can we maybe stick to one carb at a time so I don’t have to perform the Heimlich maneuver on you?”
I finish chewing the bagel-Pringle-donut mixture and finally swallow, giving him a nod.
“I can live with that.”
He finally bends down and presses his lips to mine, pulling back to give me a smile.
“You okay?”
“I’m super!” I say a little too loudly.
All the sugar and carbs have suddenly made me a little hyper.
“Good, because I have a favor to ask.”
He stands back up and removes his dark-blue suit coat, tossing it over the back of the chair next to me. Next, he pulls the knot out of his tie and tugs it from around his neck, laying that on top of the coat before unbuttoning the top two buttons on his white dress shirt.
Holy shit, is this it? Are we going to have sex now?
“PJ has been tossing around the idea of doing an all-male revue at Charming’s once a month, for the ladies,” he explains, holding on to the back of my chair with one hand as he brings his foot up and removes his shoe with the other.
What in the hell does this have to do with us having sex?
He shifts to lift his other foot and remove that shoe as well, and I start to panic, wondering if I remembered to put on good underwear this morning.
“Anyway, he’s thinking about having auditions at the club in a few weeks for male dancers.”
Does he want to bring a male dancer home for me? Is that the kind of kink he’s into?
“That’s . . . nice,” I tell him, having no fucking clue what else I’m supposed to say to that.
“You’re going to dance for the Naughty Princess Club, right?” he asks, grabbing both of my hands and pulling me up from my chair.
“Yes. That’s the end goal. I’m . . . working on it,” I tell him.
Okay, so letting Eric distract me lately isn’t exactly working on it, but I think I might be ready to finally bite the bullet. Maybe if I just have PJ put me on the schedule, it will be a done deal and I won’t be able to back out of it.
“Perfect. Then you can teach me how to strip, so I can see if I’ve got what it takes to shake my ass for this all-male revue,” he says with a smile.
“The fuck you say?!”
* * *
“Okay, let’s assume for a minute you’re serious about this.”
“I am serious about this. I am soooooooo serious,” Eric informs me, placing his hands on his hips, the motion causing his dress shirt, which he unbuttoned a few minutes ago, to gape wide open, so I can see every glorious inch of his muscled chest.
As soon as he announced this ridiculous plan, I turned and walked away and disappeared into the bathroom without saying another word. I took a long hot shower to kill some time, hoping that when I came back out, he’d be lounging on the couch petting Derrick Alfredo, telling me he was just kidding. And, you know, to remove the Pringles cheese and powdered sugar from my body. When I come out of the bathroom twenty minutes later in a pair of fitted black cotton shorts, a T-shirt that says Life is not a fairytale. If you lose a shoe at midnight, you’re probably drunk, and my thick, wet hair piled on top of my head in a messy bun, Eric is standing in the middle of the living room, waiting for me. He hits a button on the remote for the boat sound system as soon as I enter the room, tosses the remote onto the couch next to Derrick, and slowly starts gyrating his hips.
Derrick and I both look at him like he was insane.
“Fine. You cannot possibly think it’s a good idea to strip to this song,” I mutter with a shake of my head as D4L fill the room.
“What’s wrong with stripping to ‘Laffy Taffy’?” he complains, throwing his hands up in the air as that damn song blasts through the speakers he connected to his Bluetooth while I was in the shower. “Listen to that catchy beat. It’s hot.”
He jerks his hips erratically to the music and it is anything but hot, regardless of his gorgeous chest on full display. Probably because of the duck face he’s currently making as his hips do some sort of weird spasm from side to side.
“
You don’t look like you’re enjoying this,” he shouts over the music as he runs his hands up his chest.
I immediately stalk over to his phone, which is resting on one of the side tables, and cut off the song that’s probably going to haunt me in my dreams forever.
“I’ve been to an all-male revue before. Once, years ago, for a bachelorette party. There is nothing enjoyable about that shit,” I complain. “The men are strangely oily. They thrust their pelvises in your face while they put their foot up on your chair. Things are flopping around right in front of your eyes that you can never unsee. It’s not hot. It’s horrifying.”
Eric lets out a huff and crosses his arms over his chest.
“That’s where you come in. Teach me how to make it less horrifying.”
“Unless you want to become a eunuch so your bits aren’t flopping around like a helicopter, it will never be less horrifying,” I inform him.
“I don’t have bits. That’s just insulting. I have a huge cock, thank you very much. And there is certainly nothing floppy about it.”
He stresses that point by reaching down and cupping himself. And let’s just say his hand is open pretty wide to hold on to whatever he’s packing inside those pants. I stand stupidly staring right at that hand.
“Eyes up here, princess,” he laughs. “Wait, never mind. The whole point of this is for your eyes to be down there, so keep right on staring.”
I let out a groan and force my eyes back up to his face.
It’s pretty clear that he’s serious about this, and I know he won’t shut up about it until I do something.
“The first thing you need to do is pick a better fucking song. Haven’t you ever seen Magic Mike?” I ask, turning around and grabbing his phone from the table, clicking on his Spotify app and doing a quick search.
“Do I look like I sit around on a Saturday night watching movies with naked dudes in them?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?” I laugh, finding the song I’m looking for and hitting play.
Setting the phone back down, I walk over to the dining room table, grab the back of a chair, and drag it over to the middle of the room. Sitting down on it, I cross my arms in front of me as “Pony” by Ginuwine starts playing.