Objectify Me: A Fireworks Novella (The Fireworks Novellas) by Bibi Rizer Read Free Book Online Page A

the trip. There’s a balcony over Bourbon Street. It’s pretty cool.”
    She nods some more, her mouth slowly breaking into a grin.
    “Oh, God,” I say. “I really suck at this. You’re looking for an invitation, right?”
    “Unless you feel strongly about another cocktail.”
    “Hell, no.” I grab her hand and we practically run the block and a half back to the LaFleur. By the time we get there, we’re out of breath and laughing. And I can’t quite believe what’s happening. I’m glad I didn’t have another cocktail. This is the kind of situation that can go south in about a thousand different ways when too much alcohol is involved.
    I sneak a little kiss as I dig the key out of my pocket.
    The doorman looks up as we walk in. I wink at him and lead Charlotte to the staircase.
    “Boy, you been gone five minutes!” he calls after us.
    Charlotte trails her hand along the wooden bannister as we climb up to the second floor. “I’ve walked past this place about a thousand times, and I’ve always wanted to see inside.”
    “Is it what you expected?”
    “It’s clean,” she says pausing at the top of the stairs to look at a painting of a pirate. “I dunno. I think I expected these places to be like haunted houses or something. All old and dusty.”
    I tug her across the landing to the door of our suite. “Not haunted at all. We even have WiFi.” I pause as I unlock and open the door, taking her hand. This whole situation is so crazy and surreal, I need to make sure I don’t epically screw it up. “I want you to know something,” I say. “I’m not one of those guys who thinks that just because a girl comes to your hotel room, it means she agrees to sex.”
    Charlotte grins and touches the tip of her nose onto mine. “But I do agree to sex.” She grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me through the door, slamming it behind us.

Chapter Six – Charlotte
     
    As tempted as I am to push Levi up against the wall and start undressing him, I rein it back a little. I’ve never met a guy who was scared off by that approach, but there is always a first time. I let go of his shirt and look around the suite.
    “Nice.” The furniture is all real wood with carved brass handles and gilded mirrors. When I follow him into the big bedroom, I see there’s a four-poster bed with a vintage quilt and a ton of fluffy pillows. More antiques line the walls: a dresser, a bookshelf with paintings hanging over it. An ornate crystal chandelier twinkles above us. Basically this is my dream room. An improvement on the mattress on the floor with the milk-crate nightstand arrangement I have at my house. If I wasn’t a high-class lap dancer, I would feel very out of place. “Can we go out onto the balcony?”
    He holds the balcony door open.
    Something about New Orleans at night makes me happy. Maybe it’s the air being cool and fresh, unlike the warm and humid days. Maybe it’s that there always seems to be music playing somewhere. Maybe it’s just that the people here are happy, and it’s hard to resist. And when you’re above the street like this it feels like floating.
    “Hey, throw me something, beautiful!” some shirtless guy yells at me from the street. Levi pulls one of the strings of beads from his neck and throws it down. Shirtless catches it expertly. “You’re beautiful too, brother!”
    Levi waves as the dude and his friends stagger off. I finger the beads remaining around Levi’s neck. “What did you do to get these?”
    “I don’t know. Looked pretty, I guess. Why don’t you have any?”
    “I turned them down. Got about a hundred strings of beads at home.”
    He leans forward, lifting one of his sets of beads over my head, so we’re both wearing it. “Now you can’t escape. Unless you want to.”
    I just shake my head at him. I don’t know what they’re feeding these west coast boys, but it does not have enough hot sauce in it. A Louisiana boy would be smoking a cigarette by now, and looking