Stolen Moments Read Free

hour.
    Rianna, my friend and one of the club’s owners, met me at the top of the steps. Placing a cold Budweiser in my hand, she said, “It’s about time you took a breather, Nicky. If everyone in here danced as much as you did without buying beer, we’d go out of business.”
    I knew she was kidding. She and her partner, Claire, were making money hand over fist. Lesbians were lined up outside waiting for a chance to get in. After pushing aside a slew of empty beer bottles and cocktail glasses, I rested my arm on the railing overlooking the dance floor. “Rianna, my friend, I think you’re going to do just fine, even if I never pay for another drink. This club was a great idea.”
    “Maybe too great!” Rianna laughed as she leaned against my side so I could hear her over the music. “We had no idea how popular it would be. We’ve already gotten two citations for overcrowding, and Claire is talking about expanding. She wants to buy out the bookstore next door and tear down the walls.”
    We stood in companionable silence as we watched the women in the club. The final notes of the sultry ballad ended and the slow-dancing couples broke apart, many of them leaving the dance floor as the rapid bass beats of a new song began. My body began to move again of its own accord.
    As a professional photographer, I prefer to spend most of my time in the wilderness. I love capturing images of the pure, untainted beauty of nature that has not yet been destroyed by the hands of man. I’m lucky enough to make a living from it. I was in Atlanta, far from the small, Tennessee cabin that I call home, only because Rianna had begged me to accept a temporary job for the city’s new tourism campaign.
    The money was good, and I wanted to see my friends, but the true draw was the music. I could live the rest of my life without a fast food restaurant, a shopping mall, or even a blacktopped road, but I need the music. The console of my truck is crammed with CDs and my stereo at home is always on, but a radio can’t duplicate the feel and smell of a dance floor crowded with sexy women.
    Rianna nudged my shoulder. “There’s someone else who prefers to dance alone.”
    I searched the crowd, only seeing divisions of two, until she poked me again, pointing to a woman near the back corner. From my vantage point above the dance floor, I could clearly see the lone dancer, and I felt an immediate appreciation. She was beautiful, with long, silky blond hair that cascaded like one of nature’s most perfect waterfalls. Her eyes were closed as she allowed the music to fill her, to move her with sounds and tones that were obviously stirring deeply inside her.
    I felt a rising, a swelling in my body, as I studied her sleek, trim physique. Black stiletto heels cradled her ankles, and the strongly defined muscles of her calves were flawlessly clear as she moved her long, sexy legs to the rhythm. I followed her thighs upward until they disappeared under the hem of a tiny black leather miniskirt that clung to the curves of her perfect ass.
    My eyes were glued to that skirt, mesmerized by the way light reflected from the fabric. Her midriff, bare above the skirt and below a tiny little top that lifted her breasts high, called to me. I wanted my hand on that skin, but I drew back abruptly as another hand, the hand of a stranger, trailed across her flesh.
    My girl—that’s what I called her because I already thought of her as mine—drew back as well, which pleased me. With the flick of her wrist, she dislodged the unwelcome hand from her body and resumed dancing. I clutched my beer bottle by its neck and watched. Women of all shapes and sizes were moving in on her. There were butches, femmes, and those in between. She was drawing them like flies to honey, but one by one, she shot them down. She continued to dance alone.
    I had tuned Rianna out. I might as well have been isolated on top of one of the world’s most remote mountains, because all that mattered