Liberty Begins (The Liberty Series) Read Online Free

mentioned her to anyone since I came to town. I’m not used to other people asking me things here; the other girls had mostly given up on trying to get me to chat and now ignored me, and I just tried to keep it real short with everyone else.
     
    But I don’t want to lose John’s interest. He shifts a little and I notice that he’s not wearing a wedding ring. Not that it means anything in Vegas, but I can at least feel a little better about myself, that I’m not drooling over an openly married man. Standing next to him was still giving me that unusual feeling of heat, like I had dropped down into a hot bath. It felt wonderful. Everywhere. I could feel my heart beating, my breath coming in fast. I realized I was standing in my stripper pose — chest out, stomach in, legs slightly spread. It was totally on accident, like the wild girl felt the heat and was scratching at the surface, wanting to come out and play in my real life.
     
    I pulled my legs together, a little embarrassed. “What about you?” I ask. I don’t know how to do this, to chitchat, but I’m desperate to know something more about him. Who is he? Why did he want to meet me, out of all the other girls? I seriously hoped he didn’t have a thing for schoolgirls. That would ruin it for me.
     
    “I’m from New England,” he says. “I’m in business with my father. Our company focuses on acquisitions. Repurposing. That sort of thing.”
     
    I nod, trying to look like I knew all about New England and whatever acquisitions and repurposing meant. Las Vegas was the furthest east I’d ever been, but he looked like he was from New England, healthy and rugged and tanned from being outside working. An image of him without his shirt on, out chopping wood flashed through my mind ... I felt a flash of heat again and I felt my legs try to spread apart a little ... but I mentally kicked myself and managed to keep it together. I didn’t want him to stop talking to me. But even though he was amazingly hot, and I never thought that about anyone I met, I still didn’t want him to ask me for a private dance. The wrinkles around his eyes, the kindness - I wanted to be able to memorize his face that way. I wanted it to be the last good memory I had of him. I wanted to be able to remember it later, when I was alone. When I could think straight.
     
    “But I’m boring,” he says, and I want to laugh out loud. Even if he never opened his mouth to speak, the man could not be boring. His shoulders were massive. I mentally kicked myself before I could start thinking about him with that chainsaw again.
     
    “Let’s talk about you. So you’re here at the Treasure Chest, dancing the night away...” He looks at me appraisingly. “Alex tells me you don’t give private dances.”
     
    Here we go , I think. I can feel the wind leaving my sails. “That’s right,” I say, and clear my throat. All of a sudden it’s tightening up again. “I haven’t been brave enough to yet.” To add to my tightening throat and itchy blotches, now I feel like I’m going to cry. I don’t know what I expected, given the circumstances. Damn stripping. Everybody thought you were for sale.
     
    Still, he was the first guy I’d met here that I didn’t want to run away from, screaming. Don’t make me say no to you, John. Not tonight. Not yet.
     
    “Well, you’ll do it when you’re ready,” he says. “Or not. Maybe you’ll get lucky and move on to bigger and better things.”
     
    Bigger and better things? Huh? This is not what I expected, and I’m grateful, but I’m also wary. I’m not sure if he’s being sarcastic. Does he mean that I’ll be lucky and land a waitressing job instead? Or start being an escort — maybe his? That thought makes me woozy, for a number of reasons, and I push it away.
     
    I’m not sure how to take what he says, but I know one thing: if he’s factoring in luck, he obviously doesn’t know anything about my life. Not at all. I look up at him and