Date Me

Dawson shrugs his shoulder. “The party won't start until we get there. That's how it's always been."

Whitney beams at him.

As we walk to our room, I say to Dawson, “You gave Whitney a nice compliment.”

“Yeah, Jake hasn't quite learned how to deal with her yet.”

“But you know,” I say, not quite able to conceal the hurt in my voice.

He rolls his eyes at me. "We dated for a long time. She needs her ego stroked. Always has. That's why she and Jake won't work long term. He's too stubborn."

My stomach drops. Does he want her back? Does he want to stroke her ego?

He continues. “I’m so glad you're not like that. And, besides, it was worth it. I’m going to need every bit of that hour with you.”

“Oh really, why?”

He opens the door to our room and says, “This is why.”

He barely gets the door shut before he's got me pi

The front of the dress falls down to reveal my nude-colored strapless bra.

“This needs to go,” he says, unhooking it and flinging it on the floor. I push his suit jacket off his shoulders as he bends down to kiss my chest. He tries to push the rest of the dress down off my hips, but it’s very fitted and has a zipper.

“There's a zipper,” I moan as he sucks his way across my chest.

He fumbles with the zipper, gets it undone, and pushes it and my panties to the floor.

He picks me up and carries me to the couch, quickly undoing his own zipper.

"God, that dress has been driving me crazy.”

Then he’s moving like we have two minutes instead of an hour.

I throw on a hotel robe, carefully darken my eye makeup, and add more blush. Then I hide in the bathroom and get dressed for the after-party. I want to surprise him with the full look.

I walk out into the living room. Dawson has changed into a pair of dark jeans, leather loafers, and a black shirt with silver stripes. He looks so incredibly hot.

“Whoa,” he says, grabbing my hands and taking in my metallic crepe strapless dress. “Now that’s a dress. What there is of it.”

He smacks my ass and tells me we better get downstairs.

Whitney and Jake are waiting in the lobby. Whitney looks perfect, not a strand of hair out of place. Completely different from the messy pony I'm wearing. But when you dance, you sweat, and there's nothing attractive about wet hair.

Whitney's club clothes, well, they aren't really club clothes. She's wearing a simple red silk dress with a black cardigan over it. She looks like she should be going to brunch at the country club.

I grab her hand, drag her back to the elevator, and tell them we’ll be back in five minutes.

“Let go of me,” she says.

I smile. “Nope, it's time for you to embrace your i

“I don't want to look like a slut.”

“You're going to a crazy club, not the country club. You definitely want to look a little slutty.”

I pull her into our hotel suite. Of course, she takes in the articles of clothing strewn about.

“You ever think about cleaning up after yourself?”

I ignore her comment and lead her to a barstool. I pour her a glass of champagne from the bottle we didn't finish. “Drink. Don’t move.”

“You know, you’re kind of bossy.”

I grab my makeup bag and plop it into the counter.

“You have gorgeous eyes. We’re going to play them up a little.” I do up her eyes, starting with a white sparkly color in the corners, going to a deep rose in the middle and ending in an intense charcoal. I smudge a little of the charcoal under the bottom outer edges then add a thick swoop of a charcoal liquid liner with flecks of silver glitter. Then I find my reddest lip stain, carefully brush it onto her lips, and add some High Beam gloss.

“Okay, take off the cardigan.”

She takes off the cardigan to reveal the simple red dress and a pair of sparkly silver pumps. I grab my bag, which still has the black leather skirt I wore the other night in it. After our time at the lake, I just had thrown the little PJ shorts back on.

I’m trying to figure out what she’s going to wear for a top, when I spy a pair of scissors.

“Here, try this on,” I say, handing her the leather skirt.

She looks at the skirt like it’s a piece of trash. “Just because we want to look slutty doesn't mean we have to be cheap.”

I flash the Saint Laurent label at her.

She tilts her head, studying me and the skirt. Like she’s trying to decide if she should go for it or not. Finally, she takes it and slips it on under her dress. She holds the dress up and looks in the mirror. Then she spins around, scrutinizing the back. “My ass looks amazing in this skirt.”

“It does. And watch this.” I bend down and unzip the zipper that runs up the front middle of the skirt, giving her a nice slit leading straight to her crotch.

She studies her eyes in the mirror. “I can't believe I'm saying this, but I love what you did to my eyes.”

“Good, cuz you may freak about what I’m about to do next.” I hold up the scissors. “May I?”

She looks down at her dress, which I want to turn into a top.

She grabs the bottle of champagne, takes a big swig, and says, “What the hell.”

I carefully cut from the hem of the dress straight up to her bellybutton. Then I cut around the waistband of the skirt so that the new top will just graze it. When she puts her arms up to dance, her flat stomach will be nicely exposed.

She hands me the bottle and says, “Take a drink.”

I take a sip while she looks at herself in the mirror.

“Let’s go shorter.”

I cut up an inch higher all the way around. “You look hot,” I tell her.

“And you . . . I still hate you, but maybe not as much as I used to.”

I smile, knowing that’s a compliment.

“Come on, let’s go knock Jake’s socks off.”

Jake’s response is more than expected and he’s all over her in the limo.

When we get to the club, I’m shocked to see that the dance floor isn’t packed yet.

I grab Whitney, round up Peyton and Maggie, and lead them up to the center stage.

“Girls, it's time to get this party started.”

Whitney gets a panicked look in her eye. I know she's not a great dancer.

“Don't worry,” I tell her. “Just move a little and let your hands glide across the other girls’ bodies. Drives the guys crazy.”

The DJ sees us coming up to dance and cranks up one of my favorite songs.

I grab Maggie and grind up against her. Peyton does the same to Whitney and pretty soon we're in a line, butt to butt, and lost in the music.

I lose track of how many songs we dance to but when I look out, I’m excited to see that the dance floor is now packed.

I see Katie, yell at her, hold my hand out, and pull her up onto the platform. Dallas takes my hand as I climb down. He’s already hypnotized by Katie’s boobs bouncing up and down in her teeny top.

I find Dawson and Jake and pull them both onto the dance floor.

“Jake, go get Whitney.”

He laughs and says, “I’m just enjoying the show.”

Dawson pulls me close and runs his hands all over me. We dance for at least an hour before Dawson says he needs some water. “That champagne gave me a headache. They serving food?”

“Yeah, there's snacks upstairs. Want to get something?”

“Definitely.”

We go upstairs and find Aiden, Nick, and Logan chowing down. It's a little quieter up here. There's a balcony that's probably packed on a regular night, but our school isn't big enough for that. So this is a great spot to sit and watch everyone dance below.

“You go get food. I’ll get water,” Dawson says.

I’m waiting in the short food line when Aiden gets in line behind me.

“Hey,” I say to him. “Are you guys having fun?”

“We were having fun watching you dance on the stage. Although some of the things they were saying about my sister were a bit inappropriate.”