EPILOGUE
Austin watched Zander pull his jeans up over his hips, his boxers left forgotten on the floor where she’d flung them a few hours ago. After Lady Divinity’s touch, she could now see all members of the Otherworld, but Zander held her rapt. He stole her breath. His back muscles flexed up his spine, his wings adjusting as he tightened his belt and sheathed his Crystalline dagger at his hip. He went bare-chested more often than not these days, which suited her just fine.
She picked up his Watcher’s vest and stroked it for luck. The new design slid over his head and strapped at his sides. It accommodated his wings and incorporated light-weight Kevlar to keep him safer from the new weapons that had surfaced over the past weeks.
“Is Phoenix on rotation tonight? Seth mentioned earlier he’s been anxious to get back out on the streets.”
“Not tonight,” Zander said. “I gave everyone the night off for a little mental regrouping.”
“Downtime? And what do celestial enforcers do for fun? Trivial Pursuit?”
Zander laughed. “Danel is an ancient scribe gifted with perfect recall. We wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Nah, I have something else planned for tonight. It’s going to be fun.”
She pulled on her favorite pair of jeans and scanned the room for the bra she’d had on earlier. “Will Kyrian be there?”
Zander stepped into the walk-in closet and she knew it was as much to keep her from seeing his expression as it was to check his wardrobe. Something happened between those two during the days she’d recovered from dying. No one talked about it but her instincts lit up like a Christmas tree every time the two were in the same room together.
He waited a heartbeat before responding, his voice level and uncharacteristically cheerful. “He’s busy with Drina working out details for the new clinic. He sends his love, though, and wants you to have fun.”
Austin sighed. She’d play along for now but in short order, she’d dig her heels in and demand to know what this was about.
Zander returned from the closet and set something in her hands. “Why don’t you put these on?”
She felt the material and raised a brow. It was the chaps and vest she’d worn in the office the afternoon she’d danced in the cage. “I thought we were headed out of the bedroom.”
He sidled up close, way too sexy to be real. “We are. Put the chaps on over your jeans. I don’t want to kill any of my patrons in the club.”
Her gaze widened as his intentions dawned on her.
“No arguments, cowgirl. We’ve had nothing but stress and I want to unwind with you.” As he shrugged her arms into the vest, his fingers splayed across her ribs and along the curves of her breasts. “I’m showing you what my club is really about.”
“But Zander . . .”
He shook his head and finished the last of the snaps on her vest. She touched the precariousness of her containment. It was one sexy outfit, something she’d never had the nerve to put on before her life here. Nerve only went so far.
Before she could argue, he pulled her out the bedroom door.
Wearing just his shitkickers, jeans, and dagger, Zander led them downstairs. Music throbbed through the walls in the kitchen and notched up a level when they stepped out into the club proper. Her sight went wild. All the patrons, chatting, laughing and singing, lit up, highlighting a world of people she never knew existed.
Zander weaved them past scantily dressed patrons tipping bottles to their lips, past crowded seating areas set on tiered platforms against long walls, past pool tables where women bent forward, and men ground behind them, demonstrating how to hold a cue and get the best out of her stroke.
And beyond all that, the hedonistic shenanigans of the dance floor ensued, deep within a jungle of sexual energy. Zander laughed as he read her expression and tugged her into the sea of promiscuity. He circled behind her, sliding firm hands across her hips and encouraging her to sway to the techno beat pounding in her chest. Moving them in tandem, he orchestrated her body and explored her willingness to participate.
“It’s not as bad as you imagined, is it?”
She looked around the club, wide-eyed. “Do they arrive in their skivvies or do they undress here?”
Zander’s chest vibrated against her back. One hand moved to stroke below her breasts and the other down to her side. Pulling her tight against his front she could feel every rigid plane of his body as they swayed to the rhythm of the music.
“Relax, cowgirl. No one will make you do anything you don’t want to do. Let the atmosphere seep under your skin and let go a little.”
It was the heat coming off his bare, muscular frame that captivated her. It didn’t take long before she matched Zander’s lecherous moves, reaching behind her head, lacing her fingers into the thick silk of his long hair. She turned in his arms, running her fingers over the brutal width of his shoulders, down the chiseled planes of his chest.
Her nails scored through the soft hair of his navel and over the bulge of his jeans. His wings flexed. Gawd, they were sexy. The two of them carried on as if they were alone upstairs not in a crowd of anonymous strangers.
She kind of liked the crowd.
The wandering glances. The eroticism. The lust in the air.
Zander grabbed her by the rounds of her backside and pulled her close. Man, he could grab her like that for the rest of her life and she’d never get enough. Their bodies moved well together, in perfect rhythm, the rightness of it went far beyond the dance floor. She pushed away the vague reality that it could be taken away. Nephilim led dangerous lives.
She tamped down the panic rising in her chest and let her head drop back. Moving with power, he bent her off balance and arched over her. His lips descended to her throat, her breastbone, her cleavage. A shudder shot through her as Zander’s smug sense of possession seemed to grow.
With eyes boring into hers, he brought their lips together, his dark and dangerous side surrounding her stronger than ever. Usually, that heated, sensual something flowed from him in well-constrained doses, but tonight it emanated out his every pore. It crawled inside her, claimed her and seeped into her cells to set up shop.
She swallowed, struggling to find her voice. “You can’t look at me like that.”
His smile was slow and far too sexy. “Does it bother you?”
“That you’re about to devour me?”
He melded his body to hers and proceeded to kiss the ever-loving-sense out of her. The heat, the music, the smell of him filling her mind—it was dizzying.
He drew back after a long while and smiled. “I was hoping for a replay of some of those moves the girls taught you.” With a pointed finger, he gestured to where people were cage dancing on either end of the small stage.
“Here?” She cocked her brow so high she was sure it disappeared under the fringe of her bangs. “Not on your life.”
“No one will even notice, except me.”
Austin looked around. Everyone was focused on their own business, but still . . . she couldn’t dance in front of this many people, could she? “Do you know how drunk I’d have to be?”
Zander’s grin was sinful. “Well, let’s get the lady a drink and find out.”
They made their way through the sweaty, sparingly covered bodies to the main bar. Seth was hustling, helping the girls keep up with the thirsty crowd. Seeing them, he inclined his head and held up a finger while he popped the tops off two beer and handed them to a pretty girl with no top on.
Austin blinked twice, but yep, completely topless.
Seth dropped the money into the cash drawer, slammed it shut and shuttled down the galley of the bar to where they waited. “What can I get for you, cowgirl?”
“Liquid courage,” Austin said, chuckling at Seth’s blank look. “Zander wants to see me in one of the cages tonight.”
“Yee-fuckin-haw, so do I.” He held his fist up and knuckle bumped Zander before turning to mix her a drink. “So some liquor bravery for our Texas wildcat? You like strawberries?”
Austin nodded and Seth went to work. She watched his movements as he scooped ice into the base of a blender, opened a bottle and poured some in, added a few things she couldn’t see and then retrieved a golden glowing flask from under the bar. When he’d added everything, he snapped the lid in place, flipped the blender on, and reached up to the glasses rack.
Austin accepted the fruity pink concoction and sniffed it warily. Mmm. It smelt like a strawberry daiquiri had sex with a candy apple and gave birth to an exciting new flavor.
Zander leaned to her ear. “Ah . . . fair warning, my love, Seth’s drinks can—”
Before Zander finished, Austin downed it. Swallow after swallow she tipped back the glass and then dragged her tongue along the sugared rim. “Oh, my goodness, Seth, that was incredible. It was sooo fruity and . . ..”
“Orgasmic?” Seth’s guilty expression had her wondering what she’d missed. “Thank you. I invented it myself. I call it a Damp Panty.”
Austin laughed at the name and froze. Sensation tingled between her legs, a warm flush breaking out under her skin. A few pounding beats of the song played and that tingle geared up into a pang. Then, the pang morphed into a full-on hungry burn. Moisture gathered between her legs and her nipples tightened behind her vest.
“Oh my.” She bit her bottom lip to hold back the moan rising in her throat. Throbbing heat barreled over her like an avalanche thundering down a mountainside. Her legs trembled, and Zander caught her weight.
Seth winked and retreated down the bar to serve other customers. With characteristic grace, he left the two of them to be swallowed up by the crowd. She rubbed against Zander’s swollen shaft like a cat on a scratching post, pulling his hands around her to cover her aching breasts.
“He added something Otherworldly to that, didn’t he?”
Zander chuckled. “Beware the golden flask.”
“You men are so depraved,” she mumbled.
Zander laughed, cupping the front of her jeans, rubbing her discretely with the heel of his palm. “Don’t fight it, love. It’ll only make it worse. Ride it out.”
She bit her lip and breathed hard through her nose as her release hit. Zander’s one arm held her standing, while his other hand worked her right where she needed it. She fought not to cry out, to not writhe against Zander with abandon, to at least appear composed. She failed.
With her head back and her eyes closed, she flew apart.
When her panting slowed, and her eyes opened, Zander was there, his own breathing ragged. “I love to watch you come.”
Seth edged his way back, looking sheepish. “The effects only last a few minutes, but it’s always worth the show.”
The change of song caught Zander’s attention and he pulled her toward the crowd. “Seth, getcha ass out from behind that bar and show Austin how this place really rolls.”
“Fuckin-A. I thought you’d never ask.” Seth up-and-overed the surface of the bar, peeled his shirt over his head and tossed it into a crowd of cheering girls like a rock-star. With his eyes practically glowing, he swaggered onto the dance floor wearing ripped jeans that flashed the waistband of his boxers beneath. It was impossible to miss the total male perfection. Seth’s moguled six-pack rippled and flexed in the colored lights as he moved in tight.
The sexy ridge of his lats drew her gaze even as he trailed his palms down the sides of her bulging top. He winked, kissed her cheek and started moving close to her front.
Zander took up position against her behind, rubbing her as they danced. Warm hands crept around her hips, splaying across the skin of her midriff, caressing, titillating.
“Fuck,” Zander growled, “I want to bend you over and bury my cock inside you.”
She gasped as he gripped her hips and jerked her against his bulging jeans. Before Zander—she should have been horrified by this behavior in front of all these people.
But with Zander—she didn’t object.
If anything, it made her hotter for him, wetter for him.
The three of them moved as one, dancing to the club’s techno drone that she no longer really heard. Hands and kisses, touching, searching, playing. With Zander’s possessive heat behind her and Seth’s teasing in front, her head spun.
There were moments like these, now and then, when she honestly wondered if this life with Zander was dream or reality. If it was a dream she didn’t want to wake up. Lost in the desperate passion of him and his world, she’d found something extraordinary.
She ran a finger over the ornate fretwork across her brow and sent a prayer to Lady Divinity. For the first time in more than a decade, she was grateful to be living. She now believed in something greater than herself.
She believed in Zander.