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Of me.

My fists ball so tight my knuckles burn. The girls skitter away, giving Lula shitty looks as Leroy settles the crowd and calls for a time out, which as the girls and regulars here know, means no girls on stage but instead, patrons can take the dance floor and pay for the girls to dance with them.

He puts on some fucking song I’ve heard in here a thousand times as I watch Tiny tell a couple of the dancers to take the guy I almost knocked out over to the bar.

Smart. Because if Lula wasn’t looking at me like a scared bunny, I’d finish what I started.

Still, the confidence she had on stage when she sang is all but gone. Her arms are wrapped around her middle as her mother slips over to give my father his own private lap dance, leaving her daughter standing alone like a fucking kitten in the middle of the freeway.

People are looking at her. Patrons and dancers. They’re whispering and laughing and I’ve fucking had it.

They want to look?

I’ll give them something to look at. My dick agrees and there’s no help for him now.

I’m as hard as a titanium rod as I walk over and take my stepsister’s hand and lead her onto the dance floor.

This is going to end badly but I don’t give a shit.

“Come on, Lula, I’m Scotch, your new brother. Fuck all of them. Let’s dance.”

Four

Lula

The room is spinning and my face is a thousand degrees as Scotch’s fingers slide between mine, tugging me onto the small dance floor in front of the stage where girls in pasties and barely-there thongs teeter and twirl on acrylic heels that have to be an insurance company’s nightmare.

“Wait. What—” I drag my feet, stalling trying to figure out if I’ve been dropped into an episode of the Twilight Zone or if this is really happening.

“No waiting.” His rough hand swoops up my back, claiming my cheek then my neck before it settles in that perfect spot in my lower back sending a cascade of heat and fever over my skin. His other hand grips mine, holding it out to the side as we start to sway and grind…

Holy shit, he’s grinding on my hip and hisgrinderishard.

He smells like a man should. It’s a scent without definition. Maybe a hint of leather, spun with fresh clean man soap toppedoff with a hint of seductive spice. It’s undefinable but perfect and seems to have a direct line to the clenching between my legs.

I thought I was going to faint on stage. It took every ounce of will and focus I had not topple over into an embarrassing lump of Lula Laurence losing it. But, as soon as I raised the microphone, closed my eyes and let the notes of the music flow through me, I disappeared.

I became Lula the star. Lula the triumphant. Lula Fierce.

Then, when the song ended and I opened my eyes, the thick of where I was darkened the momentary splendor.

But, a new darkness is lighting me up right now. I’m dancing with my hot as hell stepbrother while everyone is watching, except my mother, thank God.

This is a minefield. He’s my stepbrother and if I get into something here I can’t handle, I risk screwing up this new life my mother seems to believe is her ticket to happy-land.

The bass thumps as Scotch spins me around, his hand on my back pulling me tighter and I feel his heart beating against mine. My feet are in the way, not light and feminine like the acrylic stilettos the other girls are wearing and once again, I feel like a fish on roller skates.

“Shhhh.” Scotch hisses in my ear as though he can hear my thoughts. “Don’t think. Just feel it. Pretend our bodies are one body, just let go and let me take you.”

Is he talking about the dance or…?

The drenched cotton between my legs is proof of my new depravity. Scotch is hot as hell, the scruff along his jawline rasping against my temple as he releases his hand from my back for a moment to grab mine and lead it around the back of his neck.

“Just hold on. No one is going to laugh at my sister. Not while I’m around.” His voice is thick and hypnotic like the afternoon drive time DJ on WRIF the local rock station.

Visions of holding on to him in a very different way swirl inmy mind. I imagine rocking against him as he holds me on his lap, whispering for me to just let go as I moan and he drives what I feel against my hip inside me, owning me, taking me…

“That’s it.” His voice rumbles in my ear as the thumping music and his arms cloak me in a dangerous wonder. “I feel it. You’re giving in.”