Obsessed With My Father’s Boss

Waited To Be Noticed 2

Rhea’s POV

The men started dancing in front of us, moving sensually. I kept pushing the one gravitating toward me away, laughing nervously, until my eyes drifted back to Rowan’s table.

A girl was kissing his neck.

Something sharp moved through me. I watched her hand curl against his chest.

The hope I had carried in here, dressed up and perfumed and pretending it was just a night out, shriveled in my chest like paper held to a flame.

If he could have his fun then so could I.

I took a few more shots, stood up, and let myself move. The dancer closed the distance between us, his breath warm against my shoulder, his hands settling firm around my waist as my hips found the rhythm. He whispered something into my ear, low and meaningless, and for a few minutes I stopped looking over.

“Yes bestie, go!” Lyra cheered from behind me.

I got lost in it. The music, the heat, the anonymity of just being a body moving in a dark room where nobody knew what I was trying to forget. The drinks had softened my edges just enough. I was not thinking about corridors I had been too afraid to walk down or nighties I had wasted on an empty hallway. I was just here, just warm, just moving, and for a little while that was almost enough.

When the pressure in my bladder finally demanded attention I tapped Lyra but she was too deep in her own world to register me. So the dancer walked with me, weaving through couples tangled against walls and corners, bodies I envied for their ease with each other, for the way they leaned into each other without calculation, without the weight of wanting too much for too long.

The club felt different from the inside of it now. Looser. Less like a place I had been dragged into and more like somewhere I had simply ended up, the way you end up somewhere when you stop fighting the current.

The bass moved through the floor and into my feet and I thought, briefly, that Lyra had not been entirely wrong to bring me here.

I slipped into the bathroom, handled my business, and when I stepped back out into the dim corridor light I noticed for the first time how the light caught his face. The dancer was actually cute. He was looking at me the way men look when they have already decided something, and before I had fully processed it his hands were finding my waist again.

I did not push them away this time.

Maybe it was the shots. Maybe I was just tired of being the one who always pulled back. I let my eyes close, waiting, feeling the warmth of him leaning in.

Then a sharp sound cracked through the noise. A punch landing and a groan following it.

My eyes flew open.

The dancer was crouched on the floor cradling his face. And standing over him, breathing like the air itself owed him something, was Rowan.

The dancer scrambled away without looking back.

I stood there, heart hammering, and watched Rowan straighten up until he was facing me. The light was dim but it was unmistakably him. It was always unmistakably him.

He stepped closer, and the anger in his eyes burned hotter with every inch he closed between us. His gaze dragged over my outfit, before snapping back to my face.

Then his hand found my waist, pulling me forward while his other hand came up to my throat, not tight, but enough. His eyes darkened.

“What the hell are you wearing?” he asked sternly.

I bit my lip, just slightly. “You like?” I teased.

That was a mistake.

His eyes deepened to a dangerous red, his glare sharp enough to cut. His fingers pressed a little more against my neck, not enough to hurt, but enough to make my breath hitch.

“You dare dress like a w***e and…”

That was all he got out.

I closed the distance and crashed my lips against his, cutting him off mid-sentence, kissing him hard and hungry, like I needed to steal the air right out of his lungs.