Free Cruel Summer by Kylie Adams Page B

adjusting to the glossy green décor accented with earth-toned couches where the pretty, prettier, and prettiest people hung out, chilled out, and made out.
    “Check it,” Max said, gesturing across the room.
    Pippa glanced over to see rocker Tommy Lee tattooed, trashed, and tangled up in a gaggle of suntanned Miami beach girls. One word: Yuck.
    “Show him what you showed me, and maybe he’ll let you see it in the flesh,” Max said.
    Pippa gave him a confused look. “See what?”
    “His dick,” Max said. “It’s supposed to be, like, a foot long or something. Unless the camera adds inches or something.”
    She pulled a face. “Not interested. Apparently, you are, though.”
    Max laughed, sidled up to the bar for two Red Bull and Levels, and returned, looking bulletproof in a place so jammed with beautiful people that even the superattractive could develop self-doubt. But not Max.
    And not Pippa, either. God had blessed her with an amazing figure—long legs, a tiny waist, breasts that could make the lads cry for their mums, slightly broad shoulders, and a tummy so pancake flat that it concaved a bit, no matter how many bags of M&M candies she wolfed down. Of course, she still had body issues. What teenage girl didn’t? Pippa secretly longed to be shorter, like some of the girls in her ballet class back in London.
    “God, I can’t believe I’m cranking it up again,” Pippa remarked, as she accepted the offering from Max, downed the vodka, and chased it with the Red Bull.
    “Never give in to a hangover,” Max said. “It’s accepting defeat.”
    “Oh, thanks for the tip, gladiator,” Pippa chortled. Then she passed him her empty containers, puckering up her lips into a beautiful pout charade. “More.” One beat. “Pretty please?”
    There was a second drink. Followed by a third. And when the fourth cocktail arrived on the beat drop of “Lose Control” by Missy Elliott with Ciara and Fat Man Scoop, Pippa felt an uninhibited buzz going strong. She smiled at Max. She smiled to herself.
    The futuristic techno sample from Cybotron bent the air of the packed club. Suddenly, the hard-charging rhythm kicked in, whipping bodies into a frenzy. Even Max was dancing—in that ultracool way that only some guys could pull off.
    But Pippa didn’t hold back. She let her body go loose over the beat, wiggling her ass, throwing back her head, laughing and laughing, shimmy-shaking in a show that proved to every other female in the special orbit of Mynt that a true dancer was present and accounted for.
    “Shake what yo mama gave ya, girl!” Max hooted and hollered.
    Pippa grooved between Max’s stretched-out legs, pointing at him, her long finger aimed like a gun between his happy, bleary, wide-open eyes. Spinning around, she dipped low, just barely grinding against his crotch, bringing out a caged howl from the rich brat of Star Island that made him sound like the guest of honor at the wildest bachelor party on earth.
    The music flowed within her, and Pippa felt a strange sense of total surrender. In fact, her body didn’t belong to her anymore. It was a slave to the rhythm.
    Max’s eyes were all over her. So were other eyes. Male ones. Females ones, too. Mynt was full to bursting. And a girl with too much booze on the brain who looked like her and moved like this was a clap of party thunder in the night.
    “Dance on the bar, baby,” a male voice yelled.
    Pippa turned.
    It wasn’t Max. It was Tommy Lee.
    Several more people screamed their agreement.
    Even though Pippa felt in charge of the situation, all freedom had gone away. They wanted to watch her dance. She wanted them to see her dance. And as the raw power of mutual wish fulfillment raced through her bloodstream, she negotiated the climb onto the bar with eager assistance from the crowd buried there at least ten-deep.
    “Rump shakin’ both wayz/Make u do a double take.”
    The Missy Elliott sound track ruled her body as it rocked to the beat in a series of