I’m In Lust With A Stripper (Erotica) by Desiree Day

 
     
    Chapter 1
     
    Bryce Lucas looked at the gift in her hand then at the crowd of friends and family smiling at her. She pasted on a smile as she pulled the paper off the prettily wrapped box. Bryce lifted the top off the gift box and pulled out another piece of lingerie, the fake smile grew broader as she held it up for everybody to see.
    After everyone oohed and aahed over it, she passed it to Vanessa, her best friend of ten years who was also her Maid of Honor. An hour later after opening another dozen gifts, half of which were lingerie, Bryce excused herself to go to the bathroom.
    Her bridal shower was being held in a private room of a local restaurant. After she finished in the bathroom, she bypassed the celebration and detoured to the bar, she needed a drink, a strong one.
    Bryce was almost done with her drink when, Vanessa found her at the bar. She sat on the barstool next to her. “Everybody’s looking for you; it’s not a good sign when the bride-to-be goes M.I.A. at her own bridal shower. What’s wrong?” she asked, sympathetically.
    “ I don’t think I can do it,” Bryce admitted bluntly.
    Vanessa nervously glanced around to see if anyone from the bridal shower had come out of the room and heard them, they hadn’t. “Come on Bry, you’re just getting cold feet.”
    Bryce shook her head and took a big gulp of her drink. “It’s not that. I’ve been feeling this way ever since Bernard proposed to me. I knew that I never should have said yes, but he looked so eager and—” She dropped her head in her hands. “And now I’m getting married in three weeks. And I just want to run away. I don’t want to marry him.”
    Vanessa sighed. “Give me something with vodka,” she called to the bartender. “I’m not going to tell you what to do, but really think about your decision; I’ll support you either way.”
    Bryce lifted her head and smiled gratefully at her friend. “I know you will, thanks. I love Bernard. He’s comfortable, reliable, dependable, sweet, funny, but then he’s predicable, boring and not very spontaneous. If I feel like this now, how the hell am I going to feel five years from now, hell maybe even two? We don’t have a spark. And I don’t think we ever did,” she added sadly. They had been dating for the last two years and engaged for one.
    The bartender placed Vanessa’s drink in front of her, he lingered just a little longer than necessary, but most guys do that around Vanessa, she was gorgeous. She was the color of dark chocolate, smooth unblemished skin, and with a little help from her hair stylist Tyrone and sixteen inches of Remi hair, she had flowing hair down to the middle of her back.
    Bryce was equally as pretty as her friend. With Native Americans, Italians and African Americans in her family tree, she had an exotic look that made it very hard for people to pigeon hold her into any specific race.
    Bryce groaned. “Our parents will be devastated if we break up. We’ve known each other before either one of us could talk, our mothers even sent us to the same preschool.”
    Vanessa took a sip of her drink. “Yep, you guys saw each other’s wee wee and cookie before you knew what you were looking at.”
    Bryce rolled her eyes at her friend. “Yeah, then we ended up at the same college. I still haven’t figured out how we both ended up at Howard,” she muttered. The situation still stumped her. She had kept her college choice a secret from her parents until the very last minute, when she knew there was no way that Bernard could follow her. It surprised the hell out of her when the morning she and her parents had planned on driving to Howard, Bernard and his family were already waiting in their driveway. Naturally, everybody knew what was going on except for her; the entire trip up to Howard was spent laughing at her. When she had asked how Bernard found out about her decision; that only garnered knowing looks between the parents and Bernard.
    “ I guess it