Devotion: The Beauty in Between (Beautiful Series book 4.5) by Lilliana Anderson Page B
Authors: Lilliana Anderson
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gangway to check off all the names on our booking.
“ I told her you didn’t want strippers,” Lisa tells me quietly.
“It’s ok . I had a feeling she’d go and do this. She went on it once before and said it was great fun. I don’t know…” I say, feeling slightly disappointed in my friend. I know she’s just trying to get me to experience something that she considers fun, but I’d hoped we could have gone clubbing and dancing for the night instead of watching a bunch of guys run around with their shirts off.
“She insisted that this is a rite of passage,” Paige adds , linking arms with me as we follow the group of nearly fifty women onto the boat.
“I’m pretty sure the guys will have gotten strippers for Theo too,” Lisa adds, like it’s supposed to even things out. But it doesn’t. I t just gives me a jealous pang in my chest as I remember what he said to me as we were leaving. I’m going to be hard all night thinking about you. Great. I’ve just sent him to a strip show with a hard-on.
Noticing the look on my face, Paige n udges me lightly. “Hey, relax. He loves you. He won’t even be looking at the strippers. Elliot doesn’t like strippers either. It’s just something you sit through with these things – you know, like a tradition.”
“Well , did you both have strippers at your bucks and hens night?” I ask.
She grins with half her mouth and shakes her head. “We didn’t even have the bucks and hens night. There wasn’t anything too traditiona l about our wedding.”
“You know what. It’s fine. The strippers. Everything. It’s all fine. I t’s about hanging out with friends and having a good time, and a lot of the girls look really excited. This is going to be fun,” I state, although as we climb the gangway and I’m adorned with a bright pink veil with flashing fairy lights all over it, I’m not even sure I believe myself.
***
“Oh no. Hell no!” I laugh, pulling back on the arms that are reaching out and dragging me to the middle of the stage. I catch the eye of Katrina who’s just as drunk as the rest of us and laughing her head off. I squat down and refuse to walk, as Amy and Erica gang up on me and try to get me to the chair that is waiting for me centre stage for my ‘private show’. “Help me, damn you! Use those muscles of yours for good instead of evil!”
Katrina sha kes her head. “It’s all for fun, Nomes. Here, give him some cash from me.”
She reaches forward and stuffs a roll of five-dollar notes into the strap of my dress. “You brought stripper bills?!” I laugh, feeling fairly drunk after way too much champagne.
Bouncing her shoulders twice to the music, she lets out a deep laugh that only serves to give me a fit of the giggles. I don’t even know why I’m laughing. I just know that I’m about to be sitting in the middle of a room full of yelling women, while some guy called ‘Ash’, is supposed to come out and dance for me.
Once Erica and Amy have me in the chair, they drunkenly giggle as well and tell me to ‘stay’ while they make their way back to their seats. All of a sudden, that Nelly song, ‘Hot in Herre’ begins playing over the sound system and a very tall, very broad man enters the stage wearing a fireman’s uniform.
He dances toward me as women holler out the lyrics to the song, yelling at him to take his clothes off.
I start laughing. I can’t see m to stop and as he gets closer. I cover my face, watching only through the thin slits between my fingers. I can’t believe Stephanie did this to me. Even though this is insanely embarrassing, I have to begrudgingly admit that I’ve had a good time watching all of the women on the ship go crazy over topless men. It’s like they’re taking a moment to behave like they’re all men on building sites, even though they’re all very ‘normal’ women in their every day life.
Ash , the firefighting stripper moves closer to me and takes my hands in his as he straddles
“ I told her you didn’t want strippers,” Lisa tells me quietly.
“It’s ok . I had a feeling she’d go and do this. She went on it once before and said it was great fun. I don’t know…” I say, feeling slightly disappointed in my friend. I know she’s just trying to get me to experience something that she considers fun, but I’d hoped we could have gone clubbing and dancing for the night instead of watching a bunch of guys run around with their shirts off.
“She insisted that this is a rite of passage,” Paige adds , linking arms with me as we follow the group of nearly fifty women onto the boat.
“I’m pretty sure the guys will have gotten strippers for Theo too,” Lisa adds, like it’s supposed to even things out. But it doesn’t. I t just gives me a jealous pang in my chest as I remember what he said to me as we were leaving. I’m going to be hard all night thinking about you. Great. I’ve just sent him to a strip show with a hard-on.
Noticing the look on my face, Paige n udges me lightly. “Hey, relax. He loves you. He won’t even be looking at the strippers. Elliot doesn’t like strippers either. It’s just something you sit through with these things – you know, like a tradition.”
“Well , did you both have strippers at your bucks and hens night?” I ask.
She grins with half her mouth and shakes her head. “We didn’t even have the bucks and hens night. There wasn’t anything too traditiona l about our wedding.”
“You know what. It’s fine. The strippers. Everything. It’s all fine. I t’s about hanging out with friends and having a good time, and a lot of the girls look really excited. This is going to be fun,” I state, although as we climb the gangway and I’m adorned with a bright pink veil with flashing fairy lights all over it, I’m not even sure I believe myself.
***
“Oh no. Hell no!” I laugh, pulling back on the arms that are reaching out and dragging me to the middle of the stage. I catch the eye of Katrina who’s just as drunk as the rest of us and laughing her head off. I squat down and refuse to walk, as Amy and Erica gang up on me and try to get me to the chair that is waiting for me centre stage for my ‘private show’. “Help me, damn you! Use those muscles of yours for good instead of evil!”
Katrina sha kes her head. “It’s all for fun, Nomes. Here, give him some cash from me.”
She reaches forward and stuffs a roll of five-dollar notes into the strap of my dress. “You brought stripper bills?!” I laugh, feeling fairly drunk after way too much champagne.
Bouncing her shoulders twice to the music, she lets out a deep laugh that only serves to give me a fit of the giggles. I don’t even know why I’m laughing. I just know that I’m about to be sitting in the middle of a room full of yelling women, while some guy called ‘Ash’, is supposed to come out and dance for me.
Once Erica and Amy have me in the chair, they drunkenly giggle as well and tell me to ‘stay’ while they make their way back to their seats. All of a sudden, that Nelly song, ‘Hot in Herre’ begins playing over the sound system and a very tall, very broad man enters the stage wearing a fireman’s uniform.
He dances toward me as women holler out the lyrics to the song, yelling at him to take his clothes off.
I start laughing. I can’t see m to stop and as he gets closer. I cover my face, watching only through the thin slits between my fingers. I can’t believe Stephanie did this to me. Even though this is insanely embarrassing, I have to begrudgingly admit that I’ve had a good time watching all of the women on the ship go crazy over topless men. It’s like they’re taking a moment to behave like they’re all men on building sites, even though they’re all very ‘normal’ women in their every day life.
Ash , the firefighting stripper moves closer to me and takes my hands in his as he straddles
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