Forgotten Night (Forgotten Book 1)

Chapter 2

     Tiffany waited expectantly with a smirk, watching his face as he worked through how he knew her. She watched those expressive dark chocolate eyes as they took on a look of surprise and then confusion again. She hated that her traitorous body was reacting to that strong jawline and spectacularly fit body. 

     His faded jeans fit snug across his muscular thighs. She knew they would do amazing things for his perfectly toned ass if he were to turn around. She watched as he ran his hand through his hair, mussing it up. What she wouldn't give to do the same. She had to reign in the lust that he invoked. That's what got her into this mess.

     Leave it to her stupid luck to wind up in this situation. She worked her ass off just trying to survive her life. If you could call it a life. She'd been on her own since she was 17. She had pretty much been taking care of herself since long before then. She had never known who her father was. Her mom was quite a piece of work. Alice Austin Thomas had been an exotic dancer at the Pussycat Club far longer than she should have been allowed. Lucky for her she had good genes.

      Her mother perpetuated men's Alice in Wonderland fantasies for more than twenty years with platinum blonde hair, a headband, and a sultry smile. When she retired, she shacked up with a sugar daddy customer, Franklin Thomas, and lived the life of luxury. She had already had four failed marriages with creeps she had met at the club. For her mother's sake, she hoped this one stuck. Lord knows she has no skills outside of sex and dancing.

     Tiffany refused to live that life. No matter what happened. She would wait tables at the club, and would eventually have enough saved up to open her own dance studio. A classical dance studio. She loved to dance, but she preferred to keep her clothes on. She had nothing against the girls she worked with at the club. She considered some of them her family, but it just wasn't for her. 

     Her mom had high hopes of her becoming a ballerina. The only good thing she had ever done was put Tiffany in dance classes at the age of two. It was the only thing that kept her from running away all throughout high school.

     She had hoped to go on to a performing arts school and dance with a real ballet company. Her mother's retirement didn't include her, so when she shacked up with the sugar daddy, Franklin, her senior year, Tiffany was left to fend for herself. Despite not being old enough at 17, Jerry gave her a job waiting tables out of nostalgia for her mother's days working in the club. He had hoped she would dance when she turned 18. She quickly extinguished any thoughts of that from his mind. He rarely tried to convince her anymore.

     Finally, the cowboy spoke, snapping her out of her miserable thoughts. "You were the cat. I remember you from the club, bringing drinks all night. I apologize for anything I might have done or said. I don't usually drink that much. I definitely don't usually frequent gentlemen's clubs, but my business associate insisted it was where the best steaks could be found. Not that there's anything wrong with the profession. Now, what did I do that brought you all this way?"

     What? Was he kidding? He was drunk that night, but surely he wasn't drunk enough to forget everything they had done! She sure couldn't forget. It had been the best night of her miserable existence. Just the thought of what they had done together had a flush spreading across her chest. "Can you think of nothing that would bring a woman hundreds of miles to your doorstep?"

     She saw in his expression when it registered. He looked like he had been bucked off one of his bulls and trampled in the dirt. "Surely we didn't...well, you know?" His cheeks flushed as he looked down at the scuffed toe of his worn boots.

     "Have sex? Surely we did, and surely there were consequences."

     "You're not..."

     "Yes. Exactly eight weeks and two days."