“Hi guys! Sorry I was gone for so long. Poor Marco is stuck over there and...”
“It’s fine Elizabeth, it gave me an opportunity to talk with Elsie. But I’ve got to get back to work. Have fun, and I’ll be watching you two.”
Elizabeth returned from giving Marco a reprieve from his night of torture just in time to save Elsie from having to answer John.
Elsie had been so close to confessing how much she wanted John, but then he would have made her tell him why he couldn’t have her. If she’d have been alone with him any longer, all her control, and ability to resist him, would have been gone. She couldn’t allow herself to be so vulnerable, she would only end up getting hurt and humiliated. And she would never, ever let herself go through that again.
“Go on and go, John, you don’t scare us,” Elizabeth teases him.
He sends Elsie one more promising look before turning and walking away. She stands with her mouth open watching him leave, taking the promise of erotic delights with him. She wants to shout the words screaming in her mind at his retreating figure, Yes, yes, throw me over your shoulder like the sexual beast you are and ravage me!
“Um, did I interrupt something Elsie?” Elizabeth asks tentatively, looking back and forth between her friend and John’s back.
Elsie tears her eyes off the bear of a man walking away as the partygoers attempt to swallow him up. But that’s impossible, there’s no way John could be as obscure as anyone else. Not only because of the sheer size of him but because of his sense of strength and power, his formidability would make him stand out in any crowd.
“No…..yes…….oh God, Elizabeth, I’m not really sure!” Elsie looks at Elizabeth, confusion on her pretty face.
“What do you mean you’re not sure?”
“I think that sexy barbarian propositioned me,” Elsie answers, as a smile begins to play on her lips. The giddiness that comes from saying it aloud begins to bubble up within her.
“You think?! How can you not be sure? Either he did or he didn’t, Elsie! And you’d better tell me everything that happened while I was gone!” Elizabeth can’t hide her excitement. Elsie and John together, they would be perfect for each other.
“He told me that he made me his mission,” Elsie tells her friend coyly.
She decides it would be better to leave out the Brian aspect of this whole situation, some things are better kept to one’s self.
“He said that?”
“Yeah, and that everything I do is his business now.”
Elizabeth looks at her wide-eyed.
“Elsie, you know what that means, right?” Elizabeth asks her a little unsure.
“I think so…,” she answers hesitantly.
“Elsie! Maybe I’m wrong, and I don’t think I am, but I think it means he just said that you’re his…”
“That’s what I thought…,” Elsie replies. As much as she wants to drag him out of there and have her wicked way with him, she’s filled with reservations.
“And you don’t want that? You don’t want to be with him?”
“I do, Elizabeth, but it’s not that easy. I’m not like you, I’m…damaged.”
Elizabeth knows her friend, she can tell there’s much more going on here than what’s on the surface. She glances over to where John is standing at the other end of the room, proud, still, stone-faced. Then she looks at Elsie. She’s nervous, maybe even a little scared. And then something tells Elizabeth to look over at Brian. He’s watching them, and she had never seen the look on his face before. He looks like a hunter right now.
Elizabeth’s eyes turn back to her friend, and she sees a vulnerable girl staring back at her through Elsie’s eyes. She wraps her arms around her, comforting her.
“Come on, El, we came here to have fun. And that’s what we’re going to do. If anything is meant to be, it doesn’t matter what you or anyone else does, it’s gonna happen. We might as well enjoy ourselves until it does.”
Elizabeth could feel Elsie’s body relaxing in her arms, and it made her smile. The poor thing feels like she’s battling the whole world all alone.
“You’re right, Liz, let’s dance, I’m not wasting two shots of Jägermeister! I can at least pretend I’m getting my freak on!”
Elsie takes Elizabeth by the hand and pulls her to the dance floor. The howls of Animals by Maroon 5 fill the air as the lights dim and the beat drops. The flickering lights reveal brief flashes of bodies moving and grinding. And Elsie sees him in the seconds of light over the heads of the people in the crowd, John, watching her. The pull between them is so strong, no one else exists. He is calling to her with only his eyes and she’s answering him with her body, she can’t control it. It tells him how much she wants him, how hungry she is for him and she can almost hear him growl, answering her need with his. The sexual tension between John and Elsie is almost palpable, even from across the room.
“Come on, Liz, let’s get a drink!”
Elsie feels like she needs something to cool her down, although she might have to pour it over her head to put out the fire burning inside her.
At the bar, Elsie and Elizabeth relish the show being put on by the divas who have had a little too much to drink, and the spectacles they are making out of themselves.
“It seems we’ve missed an inside joke, Brian, what do you think they’re laughing at?” comes John’s deep rumbling voice from behind Elizabeth and Elsie. They jump and grab onto each other, looking like they’d been up to no good.
“Jesus, guys, you scared us half to death. You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,” Elizabeth chastises the two snickering testosterone brothers, Brian and John.
“You
