Free Revelry (Taint #1) by Carmen Jenner Page A

let their ribbing affect me. “Oh shut up, I meant his dancing. Pass me the fucking joint.” I flop down on the long couch beside Cooper. Levi sits on my opposite side and hands me the joint. I haven’t smoked weed since uni—which I guess wasn’t really all that long ago, but I never had premium shit like this.
    When I pull back on the joint, smoke burns my lungs, and my head spins until I exhale. I cough and splutter for a bit and then I hand it to Cooper. I try to ignore the buzz of electricity that shoots straight to my vagina when his fingers touch mine and his eyes meet my gaze. And here’s the dumb thing—I watch his mouth as he puts the joint to his lips. I watch those lips and I imagine what they would feel like on my body, and my stupid traitorous snatch pretty much floods my panties as if it’s trying to purge the earth of all things unholy. When I lift my gaze I discover Cooper is staring just as intently at me.
    “Jesus Christ, would you two just fuck it out already?” Ash murmurs, snatching the smoke from Cooper. I glance at him, wondering why he seems so mad about Coop and I sharing a … okay I don’t really even know what the hell we were just sharing. A moment? No. That’s impossible, because we hate one another.
    Zed Jumps up from the floor, where he was apparently doing push-ups. Something I might have enjoyed watching if my whorish Hoo-Hah hadn’t been plotting and scheming ways to get Cooper Ryan’s penis alone. Zed takes off his shirt and tosses it at me before unbuttoning his jeans and sliding them down his hips.
    It’s not wrong that my mouth is hanging open, right ?
    “Are you getting naked?” I slur. “Not that I mind, but like, is it necessary to take your clothes—”
    Zed grins, stepping out of his jeans, and suddenly I don’t care that we’re in his lounge room and he’s preparing to wrap his big-arsed body around a pole for me because Zed’s standing on the podium in boxer briefs and his tattoos and nipple rings are on display and—
    “Oh, wow, that’s … hmm.” I trail off, crossing my legs and squeezing my thighs together. “That’s hot.”
    “Close your mouth, Red,” Levi says, “You’ll only encourage him.”
    “Surprisingly, I’m really okay with that.”
    Zed hits a button on the remote in his hands and the stereo explodes to life. I expect some kind of death metal music, but a song from what sounds like a Russian caravan filters out of the speakers, drowning the room with accordions, percussion, guitars and some gravel voiced singer who sounds like he chews cigarettes for breakfast. Zed tosses the remote onto the couch beside Ash and grabs the pole, starting out slow with a simple turn and then moving into a series of complicated positions that look as though they require a crap tonne of patience, practice and overall body strength.
    “Holy fuck,” I say when the song comes to a close. “You have to teach me that.”
    “Okay,” he says with a shrug.
    “No, like right now.”
    “Um …” He glances sheepishly at me and then at Cooper.
    “For the love of god, Zed, teach the woman to pole dance,” Levi says, “while we sit here and watch.
    “You gotta take your pants off. You need skin to grip the pole.
    “Her skin could grip my pole any day,” Levi says, and I turn and give him the finger.
    I smack my hands against Zed’s chest. “Let’s do this, Atwood.”
    “Ali. You don’t have to do this,” Cooper says.
    “I want to do this.” I grab the pole and swing around it the way Zed did moments before, only he made it look effortless and I about wrench my arm out of its socket with that one graceless move. I grunt and try again, only this time there’s a body in my way and I run smack bang into it. My nose stings and I blink away the tears pricking my eyes. “Ow.”
    “Stop,” Cooper says, grabbing hold of my shoulders. “I know this is about what you told me today, and you don’t need to do this, Ali.”
    I think back. I remember