Dance, Lust And Them

You can read Dance, Lust And Them free below.

Blurb:

A dance, threesome, Black urban romance story. Dancer Janelle’s hard work in the hip hop scene is finally getting noticed, bringing her well-earned success. And it’s certainly an added bonus that her friend and casual fling, Curtis, has connections!

Now that she’s secured her spot on Vance Quick’s elite dance team, Janelle is poised to take the dance world by storm. But she’s about to find out that womanizer Vance is captivated by her alone, and he’s ready to go to any length to win her over!

But then there’s Curtis, the man she’s also starting to have feelings for… Will she be forced to make a choice between Curtis and Vance? Or can she have her cake and eat it too? Get answers in this Black three-way romance book by Leonie Miller.

Chapter 1

 From her childhood years onward, Janelle always knew she would grow up to be a dancer. She grew up in Dark Stars, California in a family of artists. Her great grandmother was a poet, her grandmother created sculptures, her mother was an oil painter and Janelle was a dancer. Though she had no dancers in her immediate family, she was still infatuated with the craft. It was an incredible art form to her, one that allowed her to bond both body and mind. Even on her worst days, she could just dance for an hour and everything would melt away.

 It started out in high school, when she joined the Dark Stars dance team. It had been hard at first, as she was the only African American girl on the team and she felt different from the other white girls. She knew it was crazy, but she felt like there was something wrong with her body because of her natural rhythm and enthusiasm for her craft. The other girls thought she was trying too hard and would make fun of her behind he back. On more than one occasion she would walk into the locker room and hear them talking about how she was too “ghetto” to dance with them.

 When she came home crying to her father about how stupid her classmates were, her father would tell her to be quiet. He said that as long as Janelle had dancing, nothing could ever hurt her.

 “But what about the fact that they make fun of me? All the freakin’ time?” she’d asked, jutting her hip out at a ninety degree angle.

 “Honey, when you grow up you’re going to realize that none of these girls mattered. They’re all going to disappear and you’ll move on with your life and never see them again.”

 Janelle sighed, blowing her curls out of her face. “But what if we’re all stuck in this town for the rest of our lives and they make fun of me when I’m a successful adult?”

 “Huh. Then I give you full permission to beat the crap out of them,” her father had said.

 He’d been in the middle of creating an oil painting of their backyard, which looked over a small section of ocean. They’d inherited it from their grandfather’s side, which was quite wealthy. Unfortunately for Janelle, her father and her never saw any of that money. The minute her grandparent’s divorced, all the wealth disappeared. The grandfather agreed to pay for a few bills here and there, but other than that they didn’t see any money from him. It was an unfortunate situation, as the town of Dark Stars was quite expensive.

 Though her grandmother lived with them, Janelle was essentially raised only by her father. She’d lost her mother when she was very young, which had definitely taken a toll on both her and his mental state. However, this didn’t prevent her father from raising her as best he could. Though he was sad, he pushed aside his feelings for Janelle and gave his all in their relationship. He made her brown bag lunches for school and made sure to always meet her at the bus stop so she wouldn’t have to go home alone. When she decided to join the dance team, he supported her all the way, and told her to never let anything get in the way of her dreams. Janelle’s true dream was to become a professional ballet dancer, but she knew this would never happen. Even when she was younger, she was treated as an outcast because of her social status and lack of wealth.

 When Janelle advanced from the dance team to the cheerleading team, she needed more money for uniforms and sneakers. They had to beg her grandfather behind her grandmother’s back for the money. Janelle had lived with her father and grandmother all throughout high school, and understood why her grandmother hated her grandfather, and vice versa. Her grandmother was old, and conservative. She was agitated with Janelle for joining a team of “white-girl dancers” and believed that Janelle should be devoting her life to something more suitable for her background. Her grandfather, on the other hand, was twice as bad.

 Not only had he been an abusive prick, hurting her both physically and mentally, he’d also made it a habit to break each of her ceramic creations. Janelle would often come home in the middle of the day to find her kitchen covered in broken glass and clay. It was a warning sign that her grandfather had come home drunk again, and was angry about something. Looking back on it, it pissed Janelle off that her grandfather was such a drunk. He had a ridiculous amount of wealth and he would spend it on hookers and blow, as well as alcohol and massive amounts of food.

 Her family never saw a penny of this money. The only proof that they’d ever had any money at all was the house they were living in, which was thankfully paid off. Janelle had put off moving out for a long time, as she didn’t want to become bankrupt renting an expensive California apartment. But the older she got, the less she could handle living with her father and grandmother. Even though her grandfather wasn’t around, everyone was still arguing on a daily basis.

 It was a Tuesday when she decided to move out. She’d found a cheap piece of property to live in, located in the heart of Dark Stars. It was close to a studio that hired dancers for music videos and performances that Janelle had applied to recently. She’d had her eye on the studio for quite some time, but wasn’t sure if she’d be offered the job.

 “Why are you being so insecure?” her friend Mads would ask her over and over again.

 “Because why would they even want me? I’m just another poor black girl—they’ll probably think I’m a terrible dancer, or they’ll assume that I’m just using them as an excuse to stay off the streets.”

 “But you are using them to stay off the streets. Anyone who doesn’t work a full time job always has to resort to either prostitution or drug addiction, you know that. It doesn’t matter if they’re black or white—poverty doesn’t see color.”

 Mads had been right; if Janelle hadn’t applied for the job, then she would either be living with her father or letting men do lines of blow off her stomach in the backseat of a dark car.

 She was surprised that Mads had managed to leave high school and actually continue on to college. The two of them had been real troublemakers in college, constantly skipping class and never doing their homework. Janelle had eventually gotten kicked off the cheerleading squad because she hadn’t been able to maintain a B average.

 “You’re just not squad material,” one of the obnoxious girls had said. Unable to think of a good comeback, Janelle had returned her pom-poms and left the gymnasium in shame. She could no longer think of any reason as to why they should have let her on the team in the first place.

 “It’s going to end badly, I just know it,” Janelle had gushed to Mads about the new job.

 “No it’s not,” Mads reassured her. “You’re going to get the job and everything will work out perfectly. Why don’t you trust me?”

 “Because,” Janelle laughed. “I don’t trust anybody, you know that.”

 “But didn’t you say your friend was helping you out? What was his name again, Curtis?”

 Curtis and Janelle had been hooking up on and off for the past couple of weeks. They’d met during an internship she had at a low-key music studio during her freshman year of college. Years later they were still talking, and had become friends of sorts. Janelle was still emotionally unstable from the loss of her mother, and it prevented her from entering into a committed relationship with another man. Though she didn’t live with him anymore, Janelle knew the only true gentleman in her life was her own father. He was both her best friend and her parental figure, which was not something most girls could say they had.