PRIVATE DANCE
Meeting Landon’s friends so soon was a huge deal. I didn’t have a lot of time with him, and I wanted to experience what his life here in California was like. He tried to assure me that we didn’t have to go out, but I convinced him otherwise, because I was really curious.
When we showed up to the Sunset Rooftop Bar, I recognized Ace immediately. He was seated next to a man and a woman, who were sitting close enough for me to assume that they were a couple.
The décor was really cool with several lanterns lighting up the night. A bar that seemed to be illuminated in purple was situated in the middle of the action. We were surrounded by abnormally beautiful people; that was definitely not something I was used to back home. Most of the time, I was the center of attention in a crowded room. Here, I just blended in.
Landon put his hand on the small of my back as he introduced me to his friends, who were seated on cushioned benches in the corner.
“Rana, you know Ace. And this is Dave and his girlfriend, Mia.”
Dave, a tall, blond dude stood up and shook my hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Mia did the same. “Hey, Rana.” She was pretty, exotic looking, maybe half-Asian. She flashed a natural smile.
Ace chugged his beer, spilling some onto his beard and let out a slight burp. “Rana’s a belly dancer.”
Mia’s eyes widened. “That is so cool—much more fun than being an occupational therapist like me. I wish I could dance for a living.”
Landon squeezed my waist as he said, “It’s not easy doing it day in and day out, people groping you and shit. Rana tells me a lot of stories.”
I smiled at him. “It can be fun sometimes, I suppose, depending on the night.”
“Tell them about the snake,” Landon said.
“Oh.” I chuckled. “Yeah, my boss sometimes makes me dance carrying a snake around my shoulders.”
Mia gasped. “Are you joking? That would totally freak me out!”
Nodding, I said, “It was weird at first, but I got used to it. It’s amazing how many more tips it gets me, so I’ve learned to live with it.”
Landon and I took a seat across from them. He smacked my knee playfully. “Rana’s a trooper. Always up for anything. Ever since we were young.”
Dave seemed surprised that Landon and I had a history. “You guys have known each other for a while, then?”
I looked at Landon before offering my own spin on our story. “We were friends in junior high for about a year before I moved. I hadn’t seen Landon since I was thirteen, until we recently got back in touch.”
“That’s so sweet,” Mia gushed. “How did this reunion come about?”
Landon apparently decided the truth needed to be sugarcoated. “Rana was thinking of me one night out of the blue and decided to look me up.”
Mia looked at Dave. “So romantic.”
Not.
“It would’ve been romantic if I wasn’t drunk as a skunk when I dialed him.”
Ace spit out a bit of his drink. “Now that…is fucking awesome.”
“Landon here is trying to make me out to sound classier than I am.”
“Yeah, she drunk dialed me.” He laughed and seemed truly relieved that I was comfortable around his friends.
Over the next hour, we told stories about our childhood and our reconnection. With each sip of my drink, the night was seeming more and more chill.
At one point, Ace turned to me. “Hey, show us some of your dance moves.”
Landon scolded him, “Ace…”
“No, it’s fine. I dance for strangers all the time. I’m happy to dance for your friends.” I stood up and faced them. “Okay, so one of the moves is called a Figure Eight. This is a standard movement where one hip moves opposite from the other on a vertical plane. One hip moves down, away from the body, up, and then back to the center. The other hip moves up, into the center, down, and then away from the body.”
I demonstrated the dance repeatedly as their eyes stayed glued to my hips.
“Basically like drawing the number eight with your ass,” Ace said.
“Sort of, yeah. And then, of course, my hands can be doing a number of things, either clicking the finger cymbals, waving around rhythmically, or sometimes carrying a gigantic reptile.”
My skin was jiggling as I began to wiggle my hips at a higher rate of speed, demonstrating one of the faster moves.
This guy who happened to be passing by saw me dancing. He briefly placed his hand on my waist and said, “Keep shaking it, gorgeous.”
Landon’s face turned red, and his eyes were piercing. It looked like he wanted to kill someone. Luckily, the dude didn’t stick around and was gone before a blow-up could occur. Landon’s eyes followed the guy around for a bit, though.
Shaking it out until I finally came to a stop, I said, “Anyway, that’s a little sample for you.”
The four of them clapped for me as I sat back down.
Landon’s moment of jealousy passed as he looked at me proudly, once again seeming truly relieved that I was so at ease around his friends.
He leaned into my ear. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
“Your peeps are great.”
“I was worried you wouldn’t be comfortable.”
“You don’t have to be so protective of me. I’m fine.”
“As long as I’m around you, I’ll be protective, Rana. I don’t know how not to be.”
Before we left for the night, Landon left me alone with his crew while he went to the bathroom.
Ace, who’d definitely had a bit too much to drink, moved into the empty spot next to me. His eyes were glassy as he just stared at me for a bit.
I could smell the beer on his breath as he said, “I’m so happy you guys found each other again. I love that dude. Love him to death. He deserves happiness with someone who’s not fucking using him.”
The last part of his comment gave me pause. I wasn’t going to pry about any of Landon’s exes, despite my curiosity and urge to ask Ace to explain exactly who might have been using Landon. Any information on Landon’s past should have come from Landon, not his intoxicated friend.
I simply said, “I couldn’t agree more.”
Landon looked concerned when he arrived back and saw me talking to a drunk Ace. “Everything good?”
Trying to seem unaffected, I smiled. “Great.”
He looked back and forth between Ace and me. “Want to get out of here, Rana?”
“Sure.”
I was actually pretty tired and couldn’t wait to get back to Landon’s place. The whole night while staring at him in his sexy, fitted sweater, I wanted to just curl into his chest like a kitten. More than ready to be alone with him again, I hoped if he didn’t want to have sex with me tonight, that we could at least cuddle.
Landon side hugged Ace. “We’re out. Goodnight, man. Be safe. You letting Dave drive you?”
“Yeah.” Ace then kissed me on the cheek. “Night, Rana.”
“Night, Ace.”
After we said our goodbyes to Dave and Mia, Landon put his arm around me as we exited the bar.
“Was Ace behaving while I was in the bathroom?”
“Yes. He was just slurring his words a little and said how happy he was that you and I reconnected.”
“He gets mouthy when he’s drunk. I just wanted to make sure he didn’t say anything to upset you.”
“No, not at all.”
“You feel like staying out, or you want to go home?”
Home.
“Back to your place, you mean?”
“I certainly didn’t mean Michigan.” He squeezed my arm. “Yes, my home…which is your home here.”
“That sounds good. It’s been a long day.”
After arriving back at Landon’s apartment, we stood facing each other in the middle of his living room.
Buzzed and horny, my nipples hardened from merely the lustful way he was looking at me. We were definitely both feeling the effects of the alcohol, and you could smell the want in the air.
Landon inched closer. The feel of his breath on me was making me even weaker.
“You know when you were dancing tonight, I might have been going a little more insane with each movement of your hips. Like you, I, too, have a jealous side. When that guy put his hand on you, it made me momentarily lose my mind, which is kind of crazy because that kind of thing must happen to you all of the time. I’m just not there to see it.”
It felt good to be the recipient of his jealousy. Normally, it was the other way around.
“Yeah, it does happen quite a bit.” Any other answer would’ve been a lie. Men were always hitting on me at work.
“I envy all of those people who get to watch you dance every night.”
That gave me an idea. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
I didn’t answer him, just simply ventured to his room. I knew he had the emerald green belly dancer outfit I’d mailed him hanging in his closet. I took it off the hanger and changed into it.
He was still standing in the same spot waiting for me when I returned.
“What’s happening?” He smiled.
“What’s happening is…I’m giving you a private dance…if you want one.”
“Fuck, yes, I want one.”
There was a certain slow and sensual song I’d been practicing to on my phone. I scrolled to find it and turned the volume up.
Gyrating my hips ever so delicately to the resonant drumbeat of the song, I kept my gaze glued to his. The desire pooling in his eyes was growing with each second. I danced slowly around him as he kept his body still while his head turned to follow my movements. Teasing him with the silk veil, I brushed the material along his body seductively.
At one point, he grabbed the veil and somehow managed to wrap it around my waist before reeling me in and locking me into his body with it. In that moment, he kissed me harder than ever before. I felt his erection. It was rock-solid against my bare stomach through the material of his pants. Our tongues collided in a race to taste each other. Restraint was simply a war we were not going to be able to win for much longer.
The heat of his body pressing against me was making me incredibly wet.
“You are the most beautiful woman in the world,” he whispered gruffly into my mouth, his hands buried in my hair. “Thank you for my private dance.”
“You know, ever since you texted me that first picture of yourself, I haven’t been able to dance at work without seeing you in my mind. Even though this was the first time I’ve ever done it in front of you, I’ve been dancing for you and only you for a while now.”
“Well, I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but I’ll take that any day.”
His eyes wandered down to my breasts.
Cocking my brow, I asked, “You see something you like?”
“Do your tits always hang out like that when you dance for people?”
“This particular bra is smaller than the others. It’s really the most revealing one.”
“Is it too much to ask you not to wear it anymore…except around me?”
“Possessive much?” I teased.
“You don’t like that?”
“I do, actually.”
“Good. Because I am a possessive motherfucker when it comes to you.”
“Technically, this outfit’s yours to keep anyway. It won’t see the light of day anymore.”
“It’s mine, huh?” He said it in the way that made me wonder if he was talking about the clothing or me. Regardless of what the question was, the answer was the same.
“Yes, it’s yours.”
“Good, because I don’t want to share with anyone.” He stared down at my cleavage. “They’re beautiful, Rana. Maybe you don’t want me admiring you like this, but holy hell...your body is sick.”
Landon had a way of making me want to bare everything to him. It was because I knew that even though he was worshipping me with his eyes right now, he truly wanted all of me. He saw more than just the physical and because of that, for the first time in my life, I felt safe and comfortable enough in my own skin to assert myself in a sexual way. Because I knew he didn’t want to hurt me.
As he continued to marvel at my breasts, I asked, “You want to see them?” My own brazenness surprised me.
He lifted his head to meet my eyes. “Are you gonna show them to me?”
“If you want to see them.”
He jokingly checked his pulse. “Last check, I’m still alive. So, fuck yes, I do.”
My heartbeat accelerated as I pushed the bra slowly down, exposing my breasts. Arousal had made my nipples hard as steel.
Landon’s gaze stayed fixed on them until he said, “They’re perfect.”
Feeling a bit vulnerable with my tits hanging out, I tried to make light of the situation. “Yeah, well, they cost enough.”
“I would’ve loved them before, too.”
“I don’t even know why I did it. They weren’t even that small.”
He finally looked me in the eyes again. “I remember. You had them when I knew you. It was like the one girly thing about Rana Banana.”
“You used to check out my boobs back then?”
“I was thirteen. And you were just developing and pretty much the only girl I hung out with at the time. So, yeah, I did.”
That made me smile. “I never knew you noticed me that way.”
“Well, it wasn’t the same as it is now, but I did.”
When his gaze returned to my breasts, I said what I was thinking. “Do you want to touch them?”
Landon bit his bottom lip in frustration. “I said I wasn’t gonna touch you.”
I felt stupid for being the aggressor. “Okay,” I said, lifting the bra back up over myself.
He stopped me, gritting his teeth then laughed a little. “Wait. I need to touch them.”
“Okay.” I lowered it back down again.
Landon placed both of his large hands over my boobs and began to massage them gently. Growing wetter by the second, I closed my eyes and let myself fully experience the amazing feel of his hands on my skin. A gasp of desperation escaped me.
I opened my eyes suddenly when I felt his hot mouth replace the hand on my left breast. He was losing control as he began to devour my nipples, giving into his need. He alternated between gentle bites and hard sucks. The sensation of the metal ball on his tongue flicking against my tender skin was almost too much to handle. Glancing down, I could see his erection bursting through his jeans and had to refrain from rubbing it with my palm.
The sucking intensified. If it was possible to make love with only your mouth, that was what this felt like. Soaking wet between my legs, I was desperate to feel that mouth on other parts of me, the feel of his tongue ring gliding over every inch of my body. And as much as it terrified me, I was desperate to feel him inside of me.
How could I tell him that I wanted more without sounding like a whore? It had been so many years for me that I couldn’t even remember what it was like. I was ready—so long as he was the one to break me in again.
But he’d mentioned that we needed to wait, and I knew that was truly best.
Landon began to slow the pace of his tongue swirling around my nipple. His eyes were closed as he continued to devour me.
“You taste so fucking good.” He muttered over my skin, “I’ve never been turned on like this…losing my willpower fast.”
His need to hold back caused me to really ponder whether there was also a personal reason he was taking things so slowly with me.
When he finally stopped, the loss of contact was almost painful. My nipples were wet and tingling. His beautiful red lips were swollen from having sucked on my breasts for so long.
I covered myself. He closed his eyes, looking frustrated.
It was interesting that Landon had been so upfront about wanting to have sex with me when we were separated by distance. I thought back to that one time on the phone when I’d nearly come from listening to him talk about how he wanted to go down on me.
What happened to that, by the way?
Now that he had me right in front of him, something was stopping him. He was sexually active before we connected; I knew that from the moment I first drunk dialed him, when he’d had Valeria there. And last night, I’d peeked into his end table drawer to find a half-empty box of condoms. It wasn’t like he didn’t have sex before me. So, why not with me? It was almost like now that he could actually have it, he had to think twice.
Ace’s comment from earlier stuck with me. He’d implied that Landon might have had his heart broken by someone. Maybe Landon saw me as someone else who might hurt him. Maybe that was why he was treading so carefully.
“Did someone hurt you…a woman?”
He seemed surprised by my question. “Why are you asking that?”
“Ace mentioned something to me at the bar…it was vague…but he said you deserve to be happy with someone who’s not using you. Did someone break your heart, or am I just reading into things?”
Landon looked really taken aback. “I told you, he’s mouthy when he’s drunk, doesn’t always know what he’s saying.”
I nodded, even though he hadn’t exactly answered my question. “Okay.”
I didn’t want to push the issue, because truly opening up to each other was going to have to be a two-way street, one I wasn’t ready to visit.
Landon didn’t delve any further into my inquisition.
“When did you tell them you’d be going back again?” he asked.
“I left it vague, but my boss only agreed to the one week off without pay. I assume he’d have to find a replacement for anything longer than that.”
“We need more time. I don’t know how I’m supposed to let you go.”
“I don’t want to leave. But I’m pretty much stuck in Michigan right now. And you’re in Cali to stay, right? I mean, why would you ever want to leave this place?”
He gave me a look like the answer was obvious. “I can think of one big reason.”
My heart filled with a mixture of hope and fear. “You’d move to Michigan?”
“I wouldn’t want to go back there. But I don’t know if I could be apart from you if this…if things work out between us. You said you won’t leave your dad, so…” He must have noticed the slightly freaked out look on my face when he suddenly changed his tune. “Okay, enough about the serious stuff. I slipped. I wasn’t supposed to be talking about the future. Let’s not worry about all that right now. We made a deal to just have fun and get to know each other while you’re here. I think we need to stick to that.”
Relieved, I sighed. “You’re right.”
That night, I slept alone in Landon’s bed again, wishing he were lying next to me. Despite how close we’d come, it seemed he’d made a conscious decision not to have sex with me during this trip. As much as I didn’t fully understand why, I needed to respect his decision and trust that it was in my best interest.
My breasts were still tingling from arousal, longing to be sucked again. I practically could still feel the wetness of his mouth on them. The physical need mixed with my apprehension about leaving California was slowly killing me.
Needing release, I slid my hand between my legs and began to massage my clit with my index and middle finger. Gripping Landon’s sheets with the opposite hand, I bucked my hips to keep up with the movement of my fingers.
An intense orgasm rolled through me within a few minutes.
Down the hall, I could hear the shower turn on and laughed to myself, wondering if he was about to partake in the same thing I just did.