“You smell really good,” she says, batting her eyelashes with her head tipped back against my chest.

“I smell like cigarettes and Bacardi,” I call out because she’s so full of it. The whole room smells like sweat and beer.

“Well, maybe I like that smell.” She bats her eyelashes at me again as she slips her hand behind her and starts to rub my cock.

It’s starting to feel really good when she starts doing this weird thing with her hips, then she spins around and strikes some kind of cat-clawing pose with her hands out in front of her. “I used to be a stripper,” she tells me, shimmying her hips.

“In Fairtown?” I don’t even try to hide my disgust. The town is pretty much a trailer park out in the middle of nowhere and I’m wondering if my drunk vision is making her seem a lot more attractive than she really is.

She nods her head, doing a little twirl and her hair whips me in the face. “Yeah, for like a year.” She starts to back up and then comes at me again, shaking her tits, which are big enough that they bounce up and down. Then she starts whipping her head around as she swings her arms out to the side.

Any possibility of me getting hard dwindles and I’m about to tell her I’m going to get a shot, so I can get away from the whole nasty stripper dance she’s got going on, when I hear laughter from behind me.

I glance over my shoulder and my heartbeat speeds up just a little. Violet is standing behind me, trying to restrain her laughter, her lips smashed together so tightly they’re turning blue. I haven’t talked to her since our McDonald’s trip, where we sat down and had lunch like we were a fucking couple or something, which we’re not because I don’t do relationships—get involved. But I’ve seen her around on campus. I’ve been trying to avoid her as much as possible, trying not to look her way, otherwise I’ll get drawn into whatever the hell is pulling me toward her. It’s been a struggle, though, and a couple of times I’ve even found myself drifting in her direction.

Now she’s the one who’s drifted toward me, and I like it that she’s here. I hate that she has that much power over me, that I’m feeling things for her… feelings I’m still trying to figure out.

I frown as she opens her mouth to say something. I’m sure she has some sort of snarky remark on the tip of her tongue.

But she moves around to the front of me and says to the brunette, “Mind if I cut in?”

“Are you being serious?” the brunette asks then glances at me, waiting for me to respond.

“I’ll catch up with you later maybe,” I say to the stripper, being evasive to avoid any confusion later.

She shoots me a glare, putting her hands up in front of her. “Don’t bother. I’ve got plenty of other guys waiting in line to get with this.” She rolls her body and shakes her tits again and Violet covers her hand with her mouth, choking on her laughter as the brunette stomps off.

Once she disappears in the crowd, I quickly take Violet in. Her red and black hair is swept to the side and has this sexy wave thing going on. Her green eyes are outlined with black and her lips shine even in the inadequate light. She’s wearing this long black dress that flows all the way to her feet. It’s different from what most of the other girls here are wearing, in the sense that it covers up a lot more. But she’s not wearing a bra and even though her breasts aren’t as big as the brunette’s they’re more attractive, her nipples perking through the thin fabric and making my cock rethink its deflation.

“So are you going to stare at me all day?” she asks, biting on her thumbnail, scanning the crowd instead of me. “Or actually dance with me?”

I rip my gaze from her tits and focus on her eyes. “I thought you were joking about that.” I scroll over her body, taking my leisurely time, enjoying her slender frame. “You don’t really seem like the dancing type and plus you shouldn’t really be dancing on that ankle.”

“I can dance, swollen ankle or not,” she says neutrally, finally looking at me and again I’m taken back by how detached she looks. “But you don’t have to. I was just giving you an easy out from Bust-a-Move over there as a thank-you for helping my crippled ass around.”

“Who said I needed an out?” I question, concerned over the fact that I’ve actually missed bantering with her. “Maybe I was into Bust-a-Move.”

She holds up her hands and starts to back away from me. “Fine. I’ll let you be. I was just trying to do something nice, which I don’t do a lot.”

I let her take two more steps back before I reach out and wrap my fingers around her arm. She may be trying to pretend like she doesn’t give a shit, but I think she might. “I got nowhere else to be,” I say, pulling her toward me, figuring dancing with her might keep me distracted for a minute or two.

“Oh, lucky me. Luke Price wants to dance with me. Swoon.” She feigns a dreamy look, then tops it off with a roll of her eyes.

“Hey, you’re the one that asked me to dance,” I remind her as she reaches me. I slide my hand from her arm to her side and then around to her back. Then I guide her even closer, until heat builds between our bodies. Good, fucking God. I nearly moan when I realize that her dress doesn’t have a back, at least from halfway up.

I casually slide my palm down her back, checking to see where the fabric starts. I seriously fucking lose it as I feel the softness of her flesh all the way to her waistline, where I finally touch fabric. I detect a slight shiver on her part, but her expression remains emotionless, her gaze locked on me as she places her hands on my shoulders.

We begin to move to the song together and I realize that she wasn’t lying about being able to dance. Her hips sway softly against the grip of my hands, the front of her body grazing against mine. Each time our chests brush together a small breathy noise escapes her lips and it’s sexy as hell and turning me on, my cock getting rock hard. Jesus, I’m going to lose it if I don’t calm down.

After half of the song plays, she leans in toward my ear and whispers, “So why are you here, Luke Price?”

“Luke Price?” I grip her hips tighter as I turn my head toward her. “What happened to Mr. Stoically Aloof?”

She shrugs, wetting her lips with her tongue as she traces her finger up and down the back of my neck. I wonder if she’s even aware that she’s doing it, but I’m definitely aware—too aware. “I thought I’d give the nickname a break tonight,” she says.

Our faces our inches apart and the heat of our breaths mix and make the already damp air even damper.

“Why are you here, Violet with no last name?” I maintain her gaze as I lean away just a little so I can get a better look at her.

The intensity in her expression mirrors my own and I wonder just how much I’m getting into just from dancing with her. She’s a challenge, secretive like myself, and that only makes me more curious. About her. About her secrets. About getting to know her. It gives her so much power over me, because I want to know her and she won’t let me. And I usually don’t want to know things about most people.

“For the awesome company, obviously,” she jokes and her lips quirk a little like she’s going to smile.

“Well, obviously.” I’m getting uncomfortable with the way my heart keeps speeding up every time she starts to smile and I’m debating on whether to leave or not. Yet at the same time I’m so turned on by the feel of her hips in my hands all I want to do is stay and keep touching her. My attraction to her ends up controlling me as my hand travels from her hips to her back and I press on the small of it, luring her even closer to me until her chest is pressing against mine. “How’s your foot?”

Biting her bottom lip, she glances down at her feet and I realize she’s not wearing shoes. “It’s doing okay, I guess.”

“Okay, so where are your shoes?”

She shrugs, returning her attention to me. “I had flip-flops on, but they were annoying me so I kicked them off somewhere.”

Through my irrational alcohol-filled mind I somehow rationalize thinking it’s okay to ask, “About the other night when you… you know, jumped out the window. What was that about?”

Her body goes rigid, but her expression is calm. “What was what about?”

I turn my head away from her gaze and stare out into the crowd. “Why’d you jump?”

“It’s a long story,” she says evenly and I feel her eyes on me. “Why are you asking?”

I meet her gaze again as the music switches to a more bumping song. I want to tell her the truth—that I’m worried about her. That I know the darker reasons of why someone would jump out a window. That even though I barely know her, I can’t stop thinking about her. That she’s controlling my thoughts way more than I’d like. But instead I say, “Just curious. It’s not every day a beautiful girl falls out the window and kicks me in the face.”

She doesn’t react, like she doesn’t even notice that I just complimented the crap out of her, at least in my book. “I got into a little bit of a mess. The only way to get out of it was to jump out the window,” she says indifferently.

A thousand questions tumble through my mind. “What kind of a mess?”

She chews on her bottom lip nervously and then sighs, annoyed. “Why do you care so much about this?”

I shake my head and shrug. “Because… I’m worried that… that you might have done it… on purpose.” I almost mumble the last part and I’m not sure if she heard me or not.

“Worried about me? Really?” She seems skeptical at the possibility.

“People worry about people all the time,” I say.

“No they don’t,” she insists and her eyes briefly flicker with anger. “And besides, you don’t even know me.”