I turned in his arms and stood on tiptoes to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Thanks for cheering me up, Thatcher.” It felt completely natural to admit how much he meant to me. “You’re starting to become one of my favorite people.”
He smirked. “Likewise, honey.”
“Vegas! Let me hear you!” Britney’s voice filled the venue, and I turned back toward the stage and hooted and hollered with the rest of the crowd. “I need a volunteer. Who’s willing to help me get a little freaky?” She smiled at the audience and started to search through the numerous hands waving frantically.
Thatch watched on with amusement until I abruptly grabbed his hand and threw it roughly into the air. “This guy!” I called toward the pop goddess at an ear-splitting decibel. “He loves to get freaky!”
He chuckled in response, but then his eyes went wide as Britney pointed directly at him and started to walk across the stage until she was standing in front of us.
“Oh, fuck,” he muttered.
“Don’t be shy.” She giggled into the mic. “Come up here, big guy. I need your help,” Britney instructed him.
Thatch started to shake his head, but it was too late; two security guys were already beside him. “You owe me, Crazy,” he growled into my ear before he let them lead him stage right and up the steps.
And there he was, standing tall and proud in his It’s Britney, bitch T-shirt, in front of an entire audience of Britney Army. Women catcalled and screamed for him to look in their direction. I couldn’t blame them. Hell, I even joined in, wolf-whistling and shouting, “Take off your pants!” as loud as my voice could manage.
“Whoa, you’re big,” Britney said once he was standing beside her and her entourage of talented dancers. “What’s your name?”
“Thatch, and I hear that a lot,” he responded without missing a beat.
She laughed. “Well, Thatch, who are you here with tonight, baby?”
“That crazy woman right there.” He pointed directly at me and smirked like the devil as he added, “My girlfriend, Cassie.”
Girlfriend? If I hadn’t been so fucking mesmerized that Britney Spears was within touching distance, I probably would have had the foresight to flip him off.
Sure, that’s exactly why your not contesting that sentiment. Keep telling yourself that.
But seriously, was that him trying to one-up me?
Or was it him trying to tell me something?
I didn’t know what I was to him. Fuck, I didn’t even know what he was to me. But I was certain of two things: the lines of our relationship were starting to become more blurred and confusing by the second, and I didn’t want anything to change. I wanted him all up in my space.
I wanted his jokes and surprises and uncanny ability to raise the stakes.
Britney’s gaze met mine and she grinned. “Damn, girl, you’re gorgeous too! What’s with all of the beautiful people in Vegas tonight?”
The crowd shouted their approval.
“So, Thatch,” she said as her dancers moved around him and started sliding something over his neck. “Would Cassie say you’re a naughty boy?”
Where most guys would have been dying from embarrassment, standing up on stage while wearing a shirt with Britney’s face, Thatch did the complete opposite. He just chuckled and answered, “She sure as hell wouldn’t say I’m nice.”
I bit my lip as the crowd lost their fucking minds, shouting proposals and innuendos so loud I had to cover my ears to dull the roar.
Britney laughed as Thatch met my eyes and shrugged at the attention.
“Let’s get freaky, Vegas!” Britney shouted as the beat of “Freakshow” pounded from the speakers.
My gaze followed the dancers as they crowded around the sexy ogre in the center of the stage. They rocked it out, dancing in sync with one another with gyrations and short flicks of their arms and hair to the sexy beat.
I slid my phone out of my back pocket and started to record every second of this perfect, blackmail-worthy moment.
A giant grin consumed my face as Thatcher Kelly became a prop at a Britney Spears concert. I wolf-whistled as the dancers led him by a harness-leash across the stage and he followed on his motherfucking hands and knees, crawling across the stage until his leash was handed off to the pop diva herself. Britney led him down the center platform, and he followed without an ounce of shame or embarrassment on his face.
He was urged to his feet by the dancers and moved toward the center of their freestyle circle.
And that’s when Thatch got freaky as fuck. My cheeks threatened to cover my eyes as I watched him grind and move with seriously impressive moves.
Goddamn. Channing who?
For a guy his size, he could get down, and I decided I’d need to test his reaction to “Pony” at some point in the future. His body moved in sync with the seductive beat, and every woman in attendance was screaming her excitement. He even obliged the woman stage left who screamed for him to “Take it off, hot stuff!”
With a cocky grin, Thatch slid off his T-shirt and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. His muscular chest and ripped arms shone beneath the spotlight, and the venue was filled with high-pitched screams. He danced. Britney sang. And by the end of the song, I was pretty sure the charming, sexy idiot had won over every female in attendance, including the pop princess.
“Rule number fifty. Never volunteer me to go on stage unless you want some serious paybacks,” was the first thing he said to me when he made it back to our seats.
I laughed. “Oh, get over yourself. You took your fucking shirt off. We both know you were enjoying every minute of that.”
He winked. “Don’t be jealous, honey. I’ll take my shirt and pants off for you tonight.”
“Cool the fucking ego,” I teased and playfully smacked his arm.
He grinned and wrapped his arms around my shoulders, tugging my back to his chest. “If you’re a good girl, Cass,” he whispered in my ear, “I’ll lick your cunt just the way you like.”
Crude? Yes.
But did it turn me on? Of course.
I looked up at him underneath my lashes and smiled. “Deal.”
We stayed in that position until Britney finished the show. As the venue started to clear out, Thatch grabbed my hand to lead me out of our aisle, but I couldn’t find the will to move my feet. I just stood there, looking around the half-filled room, while I tried like hell to wrap my mind around the night’s events.
I was overwhelmed, and it had nothing to do with Britney Spears or front-row seats or getting a video of Thatch crawling across a stage on a leash.
It was him. He was overwhelming me.
But not in a bad way.
It was in an all-consuming kind of way.
I just couldn’t believe he had done this. He’d changed his plans in L.A. to drive five hours to Vegas to cheer me up. And he hadn’t just shown up and taken me to dinner. No. He’d pulled some serious strings for tickets to a concert I had been dying to go to. A concert I had maybe mentioned to him once that I had been wanting to see.
But he’d remembered.
And he hadn’t hesitated to drop everything for me.
He tugged on my hand again, but he stopped and glanced back when he realized I wasn’t moving.
“You okay, honey?” he asked.
I shook my head.
He stepped toward me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong,” I answered truthfully. “I’m just overwhelmed by how right everything feels.”
Placing his fingers under my chin, he lifted my eyes to his. His eyes turned soft as his gaze locked with mine.
“Thank you for tonight. This was the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
He caressed the skin of my cheek with the stroke of his thumb. “When it comes to you, I have an endless supply of sweet, Cassie.”
“You’re sweet for me and only me?” I asked, without saying the words I really wanted to say.
Be mine. Only mine. No other women. Just me and you.
“Yes,” he answered without a second thought before tossing back, “You’re good for me and only me?”
I smiled and nodded, adding, “And your cock too.”
“When it comes to my cock, you can feel free to be bad.”
And then, right there, in the still-crowded venue at Planet Hollywood, Thatch lifted me into his arms and brushed his mouth against mine, taking my lips in a kiss that made me feel like we were the only two people in the room.
Clothes littered the space between the door and the bed as I pushed Cassie backward at a near run. Her hair, her smile, the smell of her skin—I hadn’t been able to get enough of any of it tonight.
Steps stuttered and stumbled as she tried to keep up with the unfair advantage of my long legs. A moan filled the air as I palmed the cheeks of her ass and lifted her feet right off the ground.
“Thatch,” she whispered, her voice nothing more than an aroused hum.
“Right here, honeys,” I answered, dropping her to the bed, whipping off her shirt, and speaking directly to her tits.
Cassie smiled and swatted at my face, and I did my best to dodge it as I laughed.
“Jesus Christ, can’t you be serious? Ever?” she huffed. I nuzzled at the sweet skin of her neck.
“You want me to be?” I whispered.
Her pause was brief and not at all nerve-racking because the more I was around her, the more I found I didn’t care what the answer was. Contentment for me was becoming synonymous with contentment for her. I didn’t understand it, but right then, with her tits in my face, I didn’t even try.