There’s an unnatural beat in my chest. A slow, deep, thud…thud…thud that reverberates behind my breastbone and makes my ribs shake. I feel heavy. My hips move in a languid figure eight making my short skirt fan the tops of my thighs with cool air. Sweat still trickles from the backs of my knees to my ankles, though. It makes my dress cling to the small of my back. The heat that had been belting down on me all day is now rising from the stone beneath my feet. Raising my temperature. Making me sticky and wet.
Bulbs suspended from strings above me flash orange, red, and green. Earthy and bright. Hot colours that make me want to lift my dress over my head, to feel what little air there is pressing against my skin. My arms are raised as though I’m reaching for the pretty lights. They blink in the gaps between my fingers and I remember the way my mother had looked when she told me to reach for the stars before leaving me at the airport. A friend nudges me, raises an eyebrow, wondering what I’m smiling at. I don’t tell her because I don’t want voices to encroach on this most magical of moments.
Dazed, I look around at all the bodies packed so closely to my own. Some of them are touching. A hand accidentally skims the side of a neck. A different hand curves around the swell of a breast with intent and I imagine I can hear the sharp intake of breath that the firm squeeze causes.
I’m stickier now, and wetter. I suddenly need something. Someone.
And that’s when I see him.
Four gyrating bodies separate us, but he’s standing on a stone block, so I have no trouble seeing him. His eyes are closed and even in the dim, inconsistent light I can see thick eyelashes resting on his flushed cheeks. My hips are swaying slower now. My eyes follow the line of his stubble darkened jaw, the curve of his neck and shoulder, down a tanned, tattooed arm. His hand is balled into a fist around a bottle by his hip and I watch, mesmerised, as his groin dips and rises softly in time with the pounding beat.
Does he feel the music in his chest? Has it altered his very pulse the same way it’s altered mine?
Blazing heat floods my cheeks when I realise that, while wondering if he’d noticed me at all, I’ve been touching myself. Scratching my nails lightly around the lace edge of my summer dress, my thumb brushing over a nipple. I glance down at it, so obvious through wispy fabric.
The girl dancing beside me bumps her hip off mine and I feel like she electrocuted me on contact. She smiles, licks her lips and sways past, reaching out to not quite run a finger over that same nipple I’ve inadvertently brought to life. With a wink, she’s gone, and my eyes are back on him.
The music changes. Slower but at the same time harder, each beat lingering until the next one begins. It feels like I’m wrapped in a warm cocoon of sound and I instinctively know that this beat is what he’s been waiting for.
The corners of his lips lift into a sensual smile. His hips dip lower, rolling back up and around before his chest expands and he dips again. If this is how he dances in public I can only imagine how he does it in private. I want to know. I need to know how he does it. How does this sexy bastard fuck?
As he throws himself into his dance mine comes to a halt. I’m lost in him. Fascinated by the way he moves. Arms out to the sides, fingers clicking, knees bent, a bulge between his thighs that wasn’t there before.
Then he opens his eyes and his gaze claims mine.
This isn’t the first time he’s looked at me. I can tell by his easy smile. By the way he holds my stare as he bounces down from his perch and moves toward me. Even though he times his steps with the beat I can see determination in his stride. I want to meet him halfway, but I don’t. Hands balling my skirt, I wait.
And he walks straight past me. The breath I’ve been holding rattles from my chest and I huff out a humiliated laugh. He wasn’t even looking at me. I don’t dare turn around to find out who he’d been heading for. I don’t want to know.
Embarassment makes me consider leaving but a brush on my shoulder stops me. Nails skimming my arm make me suck in another shaky breath. A hand flat on my stomach, fingers splayed, pulls me against a hard chest and I feel something even harder pressing into the curve of my ass.
A soft tap on the back of my knees makes my legs bow and I’m brought low, shuddering at the hot breath on my cheek, at the zing I get from hand that snags the hem of my dress, lifting one side to the very top of my thigh as I’m drawn back up again.
The music changes from one song to another, but the slow beat remains the same. Bodies press closer. He cups my breast with one hand, my throat with the other. Bends his knees behind me, lifting his groin, his knuckles turning white around my dress as I grind the fleshiest part of my ass against the rock-hard cock in his jeans. He grinds back, and I know how he’ll dance in private. I know how he’ll fuck, and I want it. I want him to fuck me. And he knows. He wants it, too.
I let him turn me, spin me, and lead me to the edge of the crowd. Nobody watches us, but I don’t think either of us would care if they did. Nobody sees him press me into the leafy vine that spills down the warm stone wall at the side of the bar. They don’t see him release his cock and roll on a condom, wrap his long fingers around my thigh and yank my leg to his waist.
Wobbling on one high heel, I hold onto his shoulders for balance and bite my lip. Eyes on his, on the teeming mass of bodies, on the flashing lights. Each beat of the music is a thud of his cock at the deepest part of me. Each cry of the woman singing is a moan slipping past my lips.
I come during a lull in the music and he laughs, deeply but quietly, holding a hand over my mouth to stop my cries alerting the crowd to the strangers fucking just a few feet away from where they’re dancing. The bass throbs out again and he keeps pumping his hips, nipping my flesh with his fingers, pressing closer so he can bite my earlobes and suck my throat.
He asks me one question. “What’s your name?”
I whisper it into his mouth as he kisses me. I know he’ll come soon and that when he does he’s going to growl my name into my ear. The very thought makes my cunt clamp around him again. I’m suddenly afraid of what happens after he’s done with me. When this dance ends. I don’t ever want it to, but it will. And I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, I push my fears aside, content to beat my heart out in time with the dirty rhythm of this beautiful stranger.
