Lex laughed and reached around Noelle to brace her hands on the table, the movement rocking their hips together. “You’ve got to be drunk. It’d be wrong to put my hand in your pants now, wouldn’t it?”
Noelle didn’t care if Lex stripped her out of her pants entirely, as long as someone kept rocking against her. She stroked Lex’s cheek, contrasting the silky softness of the other woman’s skin to the alluring scratch of Jasper’s beard. “I hear music. Is there going to be dancing?”
“Do you want there to be?”
Noelle almost missed the question when Jasper shifted his hands from her waist to her breasts, his palms crushing the gauzy fabric of her shirt against her tightened nipples. Moaning, she tipped her head back. “Dance. I want to dance. Not like they do in the city, though.”
Lex hummed and tugged her off the table, out onto the floor. “I think I know what you want.”
Between one thumping bass beat and the next, Noelle found herself pressed against Lex, with Jasper close at her back. He dropped his hands to her hips, holding her steady as he ground against her.
Free. Sinful. Noelle swayed with the music, wrapping one arm around Lex and lifting the other to curl her hand around the back of Jasper’s neck. “I’m tingly.”
“Wasted’s what you are.” He laughed, his shirt brushing the skin left bare by the scant back of her blouse.
She had to be. Everything was far away, at a dreamlike distance, as if time bent around her. But touch—oh, touch was good. Jasper, hard at her back, and Lex, so soft, rubbing against her chest. Words didn’t need to stop at Noelle’s brain before tumbling past her lips. “This would be better if we were all naked.”
Dallas’s laugh rumbled over her as he loomed out of the darkness behind Lex. “I’ll say. Sorry I missed your big debut, kitten, but it looks like you’re well in hand.”
Lex sucked in a soft breath, one Noelle wouldn’t have noticed if they hadn’t been dancing so close. “The girl wants to move a little,” she whispered, tipping her head back on Dallas’s shoulder. “Surely Jas and I can handle that.”
Dallas dropped an absent kiss to the top of Lex’s head and gripped her hips, mirroring the hold Jasper had on Noelle. The moment twisted easily to encompass their leader, and Noelle’s imagination conjured the four of them naked and moving together. Not so different from that first party, when she’d had her mouth around Dallas’s cock.
Cock. She was even thinking like an O’Kane now, foul in the silence of her own mind. She watched, still lost in that dreamy haze, as one of her hands drifted up all on its own. Over Lex’s neck and down, trailing across her breast. “You’re beautiful.”
“Look at you. So bold.” Lex shivered and circled her hips, grinding higher on Noelle’s thigh. “You want to climb on top of me sometime, you be my guest.”
Jasper groaned. “But not tonight.”
Noelle wiggled her ass against his hard erection. “You can’t stop me.”
“Don’t have to.” His thumb slipped under the top of her pants to brush her hipbone. “Tell her, Lex.”
“Hmm?” Lex arched into Noelle’s touch instead.
She couldn’t help but laugh. Lex wouldn’t pay attention to anything or anyone with Dallas grinding up against her, and the man knew it. He grinned at Noelle over Lex’s head, his dangerous eyes dark with amusement. “If you weren’t liable to pass out soon, kitten, I’d invite both of you back to my rooms for all of those wicked games you’re imagining. Some other time, hmm?”
Her good sense was still disconnected from her mouth. “I played a wicked game this morning,” she retorted, and the memory of Ace’s odd little nipple rings clamping tight gave her inspiration. The next time Lex arched into her touch, Noelle caught her nipple and pinched it.
The response was instantaneous. Lex gasped, her nipple hardening to a stiff point, but she twisted away from Noelle. “Better sleep it off, baby girl. Soon, you’ll get that wish I see dancing behind those big blue eyes.”
Dallas filled the empty space in front of Noelle and caught her chin. For a moment, she was frozen in place, trapped between Jasper’s unyielding bulk and Dallas’s dangerous strength.
The gang leader rubbed his thumb over her lower lip with a smile that seemed more warning than anything else. “Don’t be a brat, kitten. Jasper’s not going to let you do anything you might regret, no matter how hard you push him. But pushing him won’t get you what you want either. You get me?”
Lying was beyond her. “Not really.”
He snorted and leaned in to kiss her soundly. “You will. Welcome to the family, sweetheart.”
Jasper spoke, his voice low in her ear. “Time to say good night, Noelle.”
She watched Dallas melt into the darkness before looking around. Plenty of people were dancing and drinking, and some were doing far dirtier things than that. “The night’s barely started,” she protested, turning to face Jasper. “I don’t want to be the soft city girl who couldn’t drink her shots and couldn’t stay at her own party.”
“Is that really what you’re worried about?”
Of course he couldn’t understand. He was a rock. Unmoving, unmovable…strong and secure in his place. Noelle slid her hands up his chest with a sigh. “Maybe I just want to have fun. Why does everyone care if I’m wasted? I let you do worse stuff to me when I’m not.”
He stiffened, his brows snapping together in a frown. “Worse? That’s still what you think, isn’t it?”
“No, I don’t mean it like that.” Fear swept up out of nowhere, spurred on by the hard set of his jaw and the darkness in his eyes. “I know it’s not bad, because I trust you. And I don’t care. I like it. I want it.”
He looked around and exhaled roughly. “You know, you’re right. It’s your party. You should hang out for a while.”
She hadn’t fixed it. The words she’d blurted without thinking had damaged something, and she didn’t know how to get him back, the fond Jasper with the possessive glint in his eyes. She hovered, torn between storming away in a fit of newly claimed independence and buckling under in pleading submission.
Neither appealed to her.
The stern set of Jasper’s jaw softened, but he shook his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He took a step back, another, then turned and made his way through the crowd.
He left her alone, swaying for reasons that had nothing to do with music. The room swirled around her, heat and music and warm bodies, but Lex had vanished and Rachel was just as absent, and no amount of alcohol made seeking sanctuary in Ace’s arms seem like a safe option. She was stranded in a crowd of strangers who were supposed to be her family.
And Jasper had left her alone. To her horror, tears stung her eyes. She whirled to follow him, ready to beg for forgiveness if she had to, and slammed into a solid chest instead.
Brendan caught her before she pitched over. “Chin up,” he murmured, “and dance with me. Jas is mad at himself, not you.”
Hearing so many words from the usually quiet man shocked her into compliance, and she had both hands around his neck before she knew it. She didn’t think he’d said two words to her before tonight, but he and Jasper seemed friendly. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“I didn’t help much.” She dropped her forehead to Brendan’s shoulder with a groan. “I am too drunk. I keep saying things that aren’t a good idea.”
He patted her back. “All the more reason to take the night slow.”
Brendan was solid like Jasper. She supposed he was attractive, too—not handsome like Ace, but appealing in a raw, starkly masculine sort of way. Her body appreciated being pressed up against his every bit as much as it had approved of Lex, even though his touch was friendly, not seductive. Noelle sighed shakily. “He’s the one who started all the fondling. It seems unfair now.”