his nose flares with the sharp breath he takes.
Sienna and I cheers. As I drink, I stare at Jesse and let him know I see him and don’t care about his pissed off face.
The room turns red from the intense lighting that changes colors with the song pace. As it electrifies blue, I put my back against the bar and look at the dance floor, which is now a rainbow of colors.
Three men are a few feet away. One of them is eyeing Sienna up and down, practically undressing her with his eyes. She doesn’t notice until a guy with a red shirt and sweat beading on his upper lip, comes over to talk.
“You wanna dance?” he asks her.
“No, thank you,” she answers immediately.
He doesn’t seem to take the hint. “We’re nice guys. Is it wrong to want to dance with a beautiful woman?”
“We’re waiting for our boyfriends,” I chime in.
One of them scowls. “That’s what girls say when they’re blowing a guy off.” He creeps up close to Sienna. “You got a problem with my boy?”
“No means no.” She stares him down. “Just because you ask me to dance doesn’t mean I have to.”
The tallest one sidles up to my side and leans in. “Your friend is awfully defensive.”
I look at him and raise a shoulder. “Yours doesn’t seem too keen to being told no.”
He laughs and takes that as an invitation to invade my personal space. “What about you, pretty thing? You want to dance?”
I step away from him. “I don’t dance.”
“And like my friend said, our boyfriends are coming,” Sienna adds.
They don’t appear to believe us as one of them spits on the floor and hisses, “I don’t like your type.”
“And what type is that?” Sienna gets in his face, not afraid of his attitude.
I, on the other hand, can feel my heart pulsing at the altercation.
She weaves an arm around Jesse’s waist and pulls him into her. “What’s going on over here?” Jesse appears behind the guys.
Sienna grins. “Told you my boyfriend was coming.”
As Jesse parts through the guys to get to us, he doesn’t hesitate to knock them with his shoulders as he glares down at them.
“These guys giving you a problem?” he asks me with a glare in his eye, making the guys step back.
“No problem here,” the tall one says, tapping his friends on the shoulders. “We were just asking the girls to dance.” Luckily, he gets his friends to walk away without another word.
Sienna laughs as she hugs Jesse. “Check out who’s our knight in shining armor! Those guys were total creepers and not our type. Some people just can’t take no for an answer. Can we buy you a drink?”
He shakes his head. “I’m good. You okay?” His question is pointed toward me.
I give a small smile. “No harm, no foul.”
His eyes hold mine as Sienna gulps down her drink and sets the empty glass on the bar. “Now that the trash has been taken out, I need to dance. Come on, girl.”
As she grabs my hand, Jesse looks at her incredulously. “You’re just inviting unwanted attention by going out there.”
“That’s the point.” She takes my glass from my hand and puts it on the bar.
“We just told those guys we don’t dance,” I explain to her as we hit the edge of the dance floor.
“With them, no. With each other, yes. And maybe, if we’re lucky...” Her words trail off at the end because her back is turned to me as she pulls me onto the crowded dance floor.
At the center of the floor, she releases my hand and throws hers up in the air. Her ass sways to the side while she rotates her torso and juts out her breasts, dancing like a genie in a bottle, luring you to rub her lamp. My dance moves are all shoulders and sidesteps.
She’s laughing as she drifts and moves to the rhythm. When I spin toward the bar, I notice Jesse is gone. I’m wise enough by now to know he hasn’t gone far.
The DJ plays a mechanical beat, rapid enough to speed up your heart as it builds and builds and then drops, and the room goes silent seconds before this fast-paced rhythm is blasted.
A guy walks up behind Sienna, and she widens her eyes as she mouths to me, Is he cute?
I know her type, and the guy behind her is definitely it—tall with the dark Mediterranean skin tone and a head full of hair. I give her a