Drawn (16 page)

Leaning against the cool tiles, I let the water rush down my back as my hand works, back and forth, urging my orgasm to burst out of me.

Holding on to the image of his face as he leans down to me, I concentrate on my nub, imagining it’s him
touching me. A slight whimper erupts from my throat as I explode around my fingers, my knees go weak and my body shudders as I slow my movement, holding pressure on my sensitive clit as the ripples of pleasure subside.

Slowly, I remove my hand, standing up straight and continuing my shower, being sure to soap myself up to remove any scent of myself on my hands.

When I turn the shower off, I wrap a towel around myself, and sit on the edge of the bath, feeling disappointed. I was so caught up in my need for release, that I didn’t consider how imagining him doing that to me would make me feel when I opened my eyes and it was all a fantasy. Now I just feel lonely, and a little wanton.

Sighing, I stand up and move over to the mirror. Using my hand to remove the fog, I look at my reflection. This is one of those times when I actually see myself as beautiful. Something about having an orgasm causes my skin to glow and my lips to turn a deep red colour. I wish I could find a lipstick that made my lips like this, but I haven’t been successful yet.

With my towel wrapped around me, I exit the bathroom to head back to my room and get dressed for this party. Not that I feel like going anymore. I kind of just want to sit in my room and wait for him to call – how sad is that?

“So where did Conan go?” Kensi calls
, as I pass her room.

“
Damien
is going to the city tonight. He’s got something going on in Darling Harbour.”

“Oh, I love Darling Harbour. We should go there instead,” Jessica calls out from her room.

“I’m in, it beats hanging out around here,” Kensi agrees. “You in?”

A grin creeps over my face as it dawns on me that I don’t need to do what I’m told anymore. I just moved out of home. I don’t need anyone setting boundaries for me – especially not some guy I just met.
Damien isn’t my dad. He has no say in my life.

“Yeah, I’m in,” I smile
, feeling powerful and in control for the first time in ages.

“Yes!” Kensi hisses, pumping her first in the air. “Wardrobe change!”

She spins around and starts rifling through her wardrobe, and I leave her to it, considering I’m still in my towel and need to get dressed myself.

I decide to wear the emerald green singlet style dress. I’ve never worn it before and have always really wanted to. Based on all of the pictures I’ve seen of women with my colouring, green looks fantastic. And I really want to look fantastic tonight.

Kensi appears in my doorway, just as I’m finishing up with my hair. I’ve left it out, and run a straightening iron through it, so it falls softly over my shoulders and skims across the exposed skin on my back where the neckline scoops.

“Lookin’ hot mama,” she comments, waving her hand around like she’s touched something hot.

“Thank you. You’re looking amazing yourself.” She’s got this tiny little black dress on that has a ruffle of blue tulle around the base of it. She’s teamed it with a few accessories, and killer electric blue heels that are a good five inches high.

“I know,” she teases, giving me a wink as she moves to sit on my bed.

“Did you tell Aaron we aren’t going to be at this party anymore?” she asks me.

“Oh
. No. I’ll text him from the train,” I say, as I apply some plum lipstick then blot it with a tissue.

“Are you two ready?” Jessica calls from the hall before coming into view. She’s wearing a really short
sky blue dress that has a cowl neckline and is made out of reflective material – it kind of has a snake skin look to it when the light hits. “Oh good. Let’s go. There’s a train leaving the station in, like, twenty minutes.”

We all file out of the townhouse and lock the front door, tucking our keys, ID’s
, phones and money into our bras for safe keeping.

Walking down the pathway, we head toward the station. I’m wearing the same strappy heels I wore to the Scarlett Party. With all three of us in heels, we’re making quite the racket with our footwear as it hits across the pavement.

“We should have drunk the rest of the schnapps,” Kensi says as we pay for our tickets and wait on the station. “The train ride is going to be so boring sober.”

“Kens, you think everything is boring sober,” Jessica laughs.

It takes us a good hour on the train before we’re walking along Cockle Bay Wharf, trying to decide which club we want to go to. Eventually, we just choose the one that has the loudest music, and the most people.

“Looks like fun,” Kensi notes, dancing to the beat as we pus
h our way through the crowd toward the bar. “OK, now we each need to get four drinks each or we’ll spend all bloody night at the bar,” she yells over the music.

“How the hell am I going to carry four drinks?” I yell back.

“Watch and learn.”

Leaning across the bar to yell her order at the average looking barman, she takes a straw from the dispenser and holds it between her teeth.

“Thank you,” she yells, picking up one glass in each hand with her forefingers and thumb then lifting them up and grabbing the other two cups with her remaining fingers and palms.

“And how do you drink them?” I ask. This is when she gives me a look that tells me I shouldn’t ever underestimate her. With the straw in her mouth, she rapidly downs the contents of one and flicks it on the floor, scattering ice all over the place. She keeps the straw in her mouth and just moves it across to the next drink.

“Kensi!” I admonish, looking down at the floor. “Someone will break their neck on all that ice!” I kneel down and pick up what I thought was a glass, but turns out to be a plastic cup and place it on the bar, ordering only two drinks because I don’t feel like doing the juggling act Kensi is doing.

“Chicken,” she laughs
, as I turn around with my drinks.

Childishly, I poke my tongue out at her and stand to the side while Jessica orders hers. She turns around with three bottles of those vodka mixes we all love so much.

“It works out to four,” she immediately says to Kensi. “Besides, I am not having a drinking competition with you tonight. Otherwise poor Etta will have to carry both of our drunken arses home!”

“Party poopers – the both of you!” she calls out, returning to the bar and ordering four more. I can’t believe she’s finished them already. I’ve barely made it half way through one.

This time she returns with shots. “No, no, no,” I say as she attempts to thrust one in my hands.

“Yes, yes, yes. Drink two, then we’ll go dance
, and I won’t make you drink anymore. I promise.”

“Fine,” I say, finishing off one drink and returning my cup to the bar before I accept the shot glasses from her. “How am I going to do this?” I ask, holding one cup in one hand and two stacked shot glasses in the other.

“Seriously, you are such a night club virgin,” she scolds me. “Here. I’ll hold this one.” She takes my cup of bourbon and coke from my hand so I’m free to do the shots.

Wincing at them, I take a deep breath before tipping my head back and quickly downing the both of them.

“Holy shit,” I exclaim, shaking my head quickly and coughing a little, as the burn constricts my throat. “What the hell was that?”

“Absinthe.”

“That was mean,” Jessica giggles, taking a leisurely drink of her Cruiser.

Kensi hands me back my other drink
, and I take a gulp of it, just to wash the taste of the absinthe away.

“Let’s go dance,” she calls over the music.

Taking me by the hand, she pulls me after her as she forces our way to the dance floor, securing a position she feels is adequate, before she raises her hands above her head as begins to dance.

The music seems as though it has a pulse, as
the coloured lights dart around the dimly lit dance floor. Bodies are pressed against bodies, as they gyrate to the beat as it vibrates our very cells.

Mimicking their moves, I lift my arms, swaying my hips to the music, letting the
throb dictate my moves. The air is thick with human warmth, but filled with energy as we sway. It doesn’t take long before we start to attract the attention of some would-be suitors. They seem to slip in amongst us seamlessly.

The guy next to me, slightly shorter than I, with fashionably messy short brown hair, leans into my ear to speak.

“I love redheads,” he says, yelling over the music.

“Good for you,” I yell back, holding my thumbs up to congratulate him. He doesn’t take my disinterest as a hint though, and continues his attempt to dance with me.

I look in the opposite direction, attempting to give him the cold shoulder. When I turn back, he’s gone, and so are the other two guys that were after Kensi and Jessica.

“Over there,” Kensi says in my ear, looking over my shoulder.

Following her line of sight, I notice Damien, and a couple of other guys, leaning up against a pylon, watching us dance. Pausing, I place my hands on my hips and stop moving.

Extending his index finger, he beckons m
e forward, a slightly unimpressed look on his beautiful face. Walking toward him, I try to look as unfazed as possible, pretending that I am an incredibly confident woman who won’t be told what she can and can’t do.

As I get closer, he glances toward the two other guys, tilts his head, and effectively dismisses them.

“What are you doing?” he asks. 

“Dancing,” I state, my hands placed firmly on my hips. I’ve heard that this is a confident stance
, and since I’m starting to feel a little lightheaded after those drinks, I’m also feeling a little bold as well.

“You’re supposed to be
at a party.”

“Change of plans.”

His eyes skim up and down my body as he slowly nods his head.

“Besides, I thought you were here for a reason. Why the hell are you standing here watching women dance?” I accuse, taking a step closer to him as I poke him in the chest.

“There’s only one woman I want to watch dance Etta, and that’s you,” he says in my ear. The fact that I’m in his direct proximity has made me even more light-headed. I need to learn to keep my distance when I’m angry with him, or I’m never going to get my way.

“Here,” he says, reaching into his jeans. Out of his pocket, he pulls a small Bluetooth ear piece, and attaches to my ear, moving my hair so it covers it. “Give me your phone.”

Reaching into my bra, I slide my phone out from the side of the cup and hold it out to him. His eyebrows are raised as he accepts it from my hands. Using it, he calls himself, activating the ear piece. Reaching up, he presses it to answer the call, brushing his thumb lightly against my cheek. “Dance for me,” he says into the handset.

“Here?” I ask.

“No. Out there. I want to watch you.”

Walking backwards slowly, I keep eye contact with him, loving the way he watches me as I dissolve back into the crowd.

“Stop there,” he commands, as I reach the edge of the dance floor. I do as he says, watching him and waiting for what comes next.

“Now close your eyes. Listen to my voice, and feel the music. Move your hips. Imagine you’re moving only for me.”

His voice caresses me as it enters my ear, the only clear thing in a throbbing sea of pulsating bodies. I follow his instructions, feeling the music vibrate through me, imagining that only he and I are in the room as I sensuously roll my hips from side to side, letting my hands slide up my body, from my thighs until I reach my hair, lifting it, letting it cascade slowly over my fingers.

A body brushes up against mine, and I flinch, thinking it might be another unwanted suitor, but no sooner do I open my eyes than the offending toucher is mysteriously absent.

“Just focus on my voice,” he says. “Dance for me. You look so goddamned sexy in that dress. If you were ready, I could take you right now,” he tells me, causing my insides to clench. “Jesus, I’m getting hard just looking at you. Everybody here wants you. Every man in here is looking at you, hungry, thinking that he needs you.
Fuck.
Henrietta, get the hell back over here. I need you. I need you by my side.”

Opening my eyes, my focus goes immediately to where he’s standing, the look in his face is so full of hunger that I can’t even think straight. All I want is him.

As I step toward him, I’m stopped by some random guy, stepping in front of me, grabbing at my waist and telling me how gorgeous he thinks I am.

Panicked
, I look to where I last saw Damien, only to find he isn’t there. I push the guy away from me, telling him no.

“Come on darlin’
, just one dance. That’s all I want,” he says, pulling me closer.

“Get the fuck off her,”
Damien growls, towering over the other guy who is too drunk to realise when he’s met his match.

“Find your own woman,” the idiot yells back, keeping his hand on my waist.