“Enrico, stop,” Jules says. “You’re upsetting her.”
“Then come sit in my lap and distract me.”
Jules gets up and does exactly that, wrapping her entire body around him. They immediately begin making out, sloppy and wet. I grimace.
“Don’t let these bozos get you down,” Carlo says while Raven nuzzles his neck. All these displays of affection are making me uncomfortable. I’ve never seen so much of it in such a short amount of time.
I offer Carlo a tight smile. “Thanks.” I look around the room, searching for the landline. My eyes land on a phone near the bar. I could get up and call Dario to take me home. I seriously doubt he’d appreciate my being here.
I stand up and take one step in that direction when Enrico pulls away from Jules and shouts, “Hey, we heard you’re a dancer!”
I stop short, keeping my back to him.
“Dance for us,” he urges. “Come on.”
“How do you know I’m a dancer?” I ask.
“Matteo told us.”
Of course, he did.
I spin around to face the group. “I’m not going to dance for any of you.”
Enrico waggles his eyebrows. “Only dance for Matteo, then? Lucky guy.”
“I don’t dance for Matteo either. I only dance for myself. I resent the notion that I’m some sort of dancing monkey.”
One of the guys makes a monkey howl. The other men join in, except Carlo, and they all begin chanting for me to dance for them.
“No,” I growl, then turn toward the bar.
A hand grabs my arm and spins me around. Enrico. “Dance for us.” I try to tug my arm away, but he’s holding on too tight. “Come on, baby. Dance for us.”
“Come on, let her go,” Jules says.
“Dance for us,” Enrico repeats.
“I will if you let me go,” I snap at him.
He holds up his hands, stepping back. “Ok, then. Dance.”
“You need to back up. I need space.”
Enrico, fortunately, sits back down next to Jules and pulls her into his lap. I look away when he cups one of her breasts in his hand.
My heart beats so fast it hurts. How am I supposed to do this? Why did Matteo bring me here? Just to teach me a lesson? Did he really think this would win him any favors with me?
I sway from side to side.
Enrico and a few of the other men boo. “Come on. You can do better than that.”
“Yeah!” shouts another man.
“Give is a strip tease,” someone else shouts. “Take that wedding dress off.”
“We want to see what Matteo gets to see,” Enrico says, sitting back and spreading his legs open wide.
I feel like I might faint. Maybe I can make a run for the front door. There’s no way they’d actually try and stop me. Right?