Chapter Eight
I kissed Sam and Tolliver goodbye on the footpath in front Epicurean, the flash of waiting paparazzi dazzling me.
“Don’t worry, my scarf means that none of their photos will be usable,” Sam said, kissing me one more time. I'd wondered about the odd shimmery texture and pattern of his scarf, but I had just thought it was some odd fashion statement. I still didn't know anything about fashion, even after today's makeover.
The valet brought around the SUV, and Oz, Sam and Tolliver climbed in. Tolliver was back in the driver's seat, unsurprisingly. Oz was going with them to bring the car back to the apartment; Tolliver didn’t trust other people with his precious cars.
I stood between Ri and Lux, having said goodbye to Eli, who was on call for the ER again tonight, and was going to nap in Valery’s office. Valery still had three more hours of the dinner service before he could go home.
“Where’s your car?” I asked the guys.
Ri grinned and took my hand, leading me around to a side alley behind the restaurant. Sitting under a street light are two mean looking Harley Davidson motorbikes.
I looked down at my outfit, and smoothed a hand over my tousled hair. I could do this. I’d always wanted to ride a motorbike.
Lux grabbed my other hand. “She rides with me.”
Ri smirked, and held up his hands. “No problems. As long as I get the first dance.”
“Dance?”
“We are going to Dante’s.” His grin got wider.
“But it’s not Saturday.”
Ri chuckled. “Holding out for S&M night, were you? Don’t worry, Beautiful Girl. We can go tomorrow too, if you want. I’ll take you any night you like.” He winked and threw a leg over his bike, pulling a black helmet down over his head. I appreciated his muscled thighs and the way his leather jacket pulled tight across his shoulders. That guy was just pure sex. There was no way I could ever null his lust abilities.
He revved the bike and sped out of the alley, the steady vibration of the motor’s purr thrumming in my chest.
“Ugh, he is so ridiculously hot it’s not fair. I feel like he should come with a warning label. Warning: will have incendiary effect on your panties.”
Lux just grunted and handed me a helmet. “I’ll take your word for it.” He shrugged out of his leather jacket. “Take this too.”
I slipped my arms into the sleeves, appreciating the lingering warmth of Lux’s body, and the smell of leather and man. It was a heady mixture that spoke straight to my libido.
He hopped on to the bike and patted the seat behind him. Thank goodness my Louboutin’s were bootie style. The spikes actually look a little badass biker-esque.
“Where’s your helmet?” I asked, running my fingers over his scalp. I felt the tiny ridges of old scars running in a criss cross pattern across his skull.
“Don’t need one.”
“Are you guy’s immortal?”
I had wondered this one and off for a while. Could they die? If I redeemed them, would they die again? Just fall to the ground in a pile of ash? I needed answers to these questions before we worked out how I was going to help them. I didn’t think I could become so invested in them, only to watch them die at the end.
Huh, I wonder if that's how people thought about me?
“Yeah. We can’t die by most mortal means.”
“What if I strapped C4 to your chest and detonated it?”
“I don't think any being can come back from that.” He sounded amused. “Is there a chance you might do that?”
“Well, no. But it’s nice to know where the line is.”
“Just get on the bike,” he grinned, and I couldn’t help but smile back. I threw a leg over the bike and kind of half shimmied, half dragged myself onto the back. It’s not as easy as it looks in the movies, especially when you are as short as I am. Even with the fuck-me heels.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed my torso tight against his. When he turned on the bike, the rumbling sensation went straight between my thighs.
“Hoo boy. Why don’t more women ride bikes?”
“Hang on.” With that, he revved the bike twice and tore out of alley, my arms becoming steel bands around his waist. I could feel every hard nuance of his abdominals, the strength of his back and the wetness between my thighs. Woah.
We tore through the traffic, weaving in and out of cars, going so fast that the lights blurred in my peripheral vision. I couldn't hear anything over the roar of the engine, even when we had to stop at the lights. I loved it.
We rolled past Dante’s, the line to get in snaking around the block. The sign was lit up in blood red neon, flames licking around its edges. The club was apparently called ‘Dante’s Seven Circles’ but everyone just shortened it to Dante's. We pulled into the staff parking lot around the back. Ri was there, leaning up against his bike, looking as sexy as… well sin.
“How was your ride?” he asked, double entendre fully intended.
“Invigorating,” I smiled coyly back, and he laughed.
“Welcome to Dante's, Beautiful Girl. Let your corruption begin.”
We pushed through a back fire exit and into a long dark hallway jammed with people lining up for the bathrooms. Ri led the way and Lux was at my back, a hand on my hip.
When we finally got to the main room of the club, the place was packed, probably past capacity. There was hardly any room to move without rubbing up against a stranger, and the dance floor was a writhing mass of bodies.
From what I could see over the heads of supermodels on teetering heels and gym jocks with shoulders as wide as a VW, the club was set in circles. In the center of the room was a round bar, a dozen leather clad bartenders behind there. The women wore tight bustiers and leather mini skirts, and the men wore tight leather pants and no shirts. Not one of them had an ounce of fat on them and they definitely looked sinful.
Around the bar was standing room, people talking, flirting, and in one spot doing a drug deal in a rather obvious manner. Beyond that was the dance floor, a slightly sunken circle of smoke, flashing lights and grinding people. Above us was a balcony that circled the room in curving arches, and more people were jammed up there.
“We’ll go up. That's the VIP area. We’ve got a table,” Orion yelled over the heavy bass of the music.
We climbed a curving set of stairs, and Ri led us to the back corner of the VIP section, where three plush black sofas sat in a U shaped on a raised dais, a long glass coffee table in its center. Lux guided me to the couch that was up against the wall, and sat down next to me. We looked down over the rest of the VIP like overlords on their fiefdom.
“Um, isn’t this a little over the top? We aren’t royalty. Why isn’t anyone else sitting here? I’m pretty sure that kid over there made like seventy million dollars last year and had six number one songs? And isn’t that the guy from the superhero movie? You know the one with the really awesome arms? Shouldn’t the club put a big name here, rather than just… well us? A bartender, a fighter and a nobody.”
Ri let out a huge, booming laugh then and even Lux cracked a grin. “What made you think I was just a bartender? Tolliver owns this club, and he is co-owner of Epicurean and a bunch of other businesses around the world. The guy is seriously loaded. This is the owner's table. We definitely get to feel like King Shit up here. If we aren't using it, which is most of the time, we let some of the more elite clientele up here. But tonight it's reserved for our Queen.”
People were naturally giving us the side eye, and I wasn't very comfortable being the center of so much attention.
“Would you like to dance, or maybe a drink?” Ri asked, motioning to a waitress in tight black pants and a torn white tank that barely covered the underside of her boobs.
I was even less comfortable on the dancefloor sober. “Tequila and lemonade, please.”
The waitress nodded at me. “Sure thing.” Her eyes skimmed over Lux’s body. “How about you, Lux? What can I get you?” The invitation in her voice was pure sex; she may as well have just asked if he wanted to fuck right there on the couch.
“Grey goose. Bring the bottle.” He placed his hand on my thigh and I resisted the urge to punch the air in victory. Take that super-hot waitress with perfect boobs.
She looked at his hand, and Ri’s arm still around my shoulder, and curled her lip ever so slightly. Apparently, I had been found wanting.
She left with the orders, and I sank back onto the couch between their bodies. “People are going to think I am sleeping with you two.”
“So?” Orion whispered in my ear, and I shivered. “That waitress thought I was a slut. A slut completely unworthy of your attention at that.”
“I don’t give a shit what other people think. Yours is the only opinion I care about,” he licked the outer shell of my ear and I nearly came right there on the couch.
“You are dangerous, Orion… uh? What's your last name? Actually, I don’t know your last name either, Lux. I can’t believe I’ve thought about having sex with you, but don't know your last names. The waitress was totally right.”
“Pfft. Raquel just thinks she’s the shit. Want me to fire her?” Orion asked, in complete seriousness.
I wasn’t that petty. Okay, I had to seriously think about it, but in the end my morality won out.
“No. It’s fine. It’s something I’ll have to get used to if we are going to do...this.”
“This?” He asked as he kissed his way down my neck.
“Helping you and the other sins find your redemption, or whatever,” I looked down at my feet and mumbled, “and the sex.”
“What was that, Beautiful Girl?” I could tell by his smirk he knew exactly what I said. I raised my chin and looked him dead in the eye.
“I said if the eight of us are going to be fucking, then I will need to get used to the slut shaming. I mean, I probably am, by definition, but I don’t care.”
Lux grabbed my chin and turned me to face him. “You will not speak about yourself in such a derogatory sense. You are a beautiful, sexual woman and we fully intend on worshipping in the way you deserve to be worshipped. Yes?”
God, I drowned in those eyes every time the focused on me. There was something arresting about them that drew me in and kept me trapped until he chose to release me.
“Yes.” It was a breathy whisper.
Unfortunately, Raquel returned at that moment, placing the tray of drinks on the table with a hard crack. She unloaded them slowly, her ass toward Orion and her breasts towards Lux. If I wasn’t so annoyed, I’d be impressed by her ability to twist like that and still look natural.
“Is there anything else I can get you? Anything at all?” Wow. She couldn’t take a hint
Ri went to reply, but I cut in. “No thanks, Rebecca, we’re good here. Really good.” I gave Lux a smoldering glance, my tongue darting out to lick my lower lip. His pupils dilated as he watched the movement, and Raquel was all but forgotten.
Orion chuckled and dismissed the waitress.
“Well now, the little lamb has teeth,” Ri chuckled. I shrugged and my cheeks tingled as I blushed. “If we are going to do this, I want monogamy from you guys. I don’t share well. I was an only child.” I stared into Orion’s amber colored eyes, just so he knew I was serious. He was the Sin of Lust. If anyone was going to have trouble with my terms, it was him.
His brows drew together, and I knew this was an important moment. If he could agree to this, it might mean that I could help him, help them all.
“I will try and help you find your redemption regardless of your answer, but I can’t sleep with you, share something so intimate with you, if you are sharing that same intimacy with every other woman who breathes.”
“And men,” Lux whispered.
My eyebrows shot up. Why would lust be confined to some cookie cutter version of western social ideals? But the same rules applied. “No men either. Just me.”
Orion nodded, but he didn’t agree or disagree. He stood and I tried to quell my disappointed. Six out of seven wasn’t bad.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked instead, and I gave him a tight smile.
“Sure.” I downed my drink quickly and stood, straightening my outfit so I didn’t accidentally have a nip-slip. Tolliver had shifted the fashion tape that was holding it all together earlier, so it wasn’t as secure as it could be.
Lux said he would wait at their table, so Ri took my hand and led me past the VIP tables, teeming with rich kids and rappers. One table was full of rich kids who looked like Abercrombie models and were generally treating their waitress like crap.
Ri stopped beside her. “Tell Raquel I said to swap tables with you,” he said, and she looked grateful. I didn’t think Raquel would feel quite so positive about the move.
He led me slowly down the stairs and we flowed with the crowd onto the dancefloor. We moved through the crowd, closer to the DJ booth that seemed to be suspended halfway between the two floors. There was a definite energy on the floor, and electricity that flowed through all the bodies swaying and grinding, and in the case of one couple to our left, fucking.
My hips began to sway to the beat as the music consumed me. Ri stood close, our bodies moving together as he slipped his thigh between my legs and put his hands on my hips. It was a fast beat and we moved with a frenetic energy as songs changed seamlessly. He turned me and we danced, my back to his front, our movements so provocative that my mother would have locked me in my room until I was forty if she’d been alive and had seen the spectacle. But I was caught up in the music and the scene and the hard feel of Ri’s body swaying into mine. And boy, the guy could dance. His movements were like liquid, and the press and swirl of the whole thing just made me think of sex. Hot, sweaty, dirty sex.
Another song came on, and everyone began to jump around.
I got jostled away from Ri, who was turned toward the DJ booth like everyone else. I got dragged backwards, further and further away by a set of hands. I called to Ri, but he couldn’t hear me over the music or see me in the press of bodies. I turned, trying to see the person pulling at me, but I had to concentrate on not losing my footing. Eventually, we stopped, still on the dancefloor and two bodies pressed into me. I recognized two of the guys from the Abercrombie Jerks table.
“Come dance with us. We can see you like two dicks at once and we are so fucking down with that,” said the one in front, although his words were slurred and his breath smelled like stale beer.
“No, thanks. I’d like to get back to my boyfriend now.”
“Don’t you mean boyfriends? You are a dirty little whore, aren’t you?” said the one behind me, holding me tight as I tried to wiggle away,
My heart started to thud wildly, unevenly, and sweat began to run down my spine as I realized that even though we were surrounded by people, no one here was going to save me.
Stink breath in front of me ran a finger down the vee of my top, between my breasts and I squirmed away, but that only seemed to excite the guy behind me.
“Calm down, we just want to dance,” Stink Breath said, pushing his body into mine so tightly that I could hardly breathe let alone move. Panic started to choke me. I couldn't move my arms or raise a knee to pulverize some balls. A hand slid up under my shorts and I tried to squirm away futilely.
“We are going to have so much fun.” The guy behind me grabbed my jaw, squeezing it tightly until extreme pain made me open my mouth. I tried to scream as Stink Breath forced a pill into my mouth, the sealed it shut with his hand, and the other guy behind me moved his hand from my jaw to my nose, pinching it tight so I couldn't breathe and was forced to swallow. As it slid down my throat, terror settled like a lead weight in my chest.
“I'm going to-”
Stink Breath didn't get to finish his sentence as a scarred fist wrenched him away by his hair. The same fist grazed past my face and into the nose of the guy behind me in bizarrely slow motion. His head snapped back in a deafening crunch, and then his arms were gone and I was frozen as I watched Lux fall onto the guy who was behind me, pounding his face in a sickening barrage of violence. Stink Breath was on his feet and trying to escape through the crowd, but Lux roared a sound that made a primal part of me want to run in fear. He was on his feet and he dove at Stink Breath, pushing him forward until the other man landed on his face. Lux was on his back, straddling his waist in an instant.
He grabbed the back of Stink Breaths hair and smashed his face repeatedly into the floor until the other guys face was an unrecognizable mess.
My head began to spin, my legs and hands going numb. The drugs were starting to kick in.
“Lux.” My voice was strangled because my tongue felt fat. “Help.”
His head snapped around, his hands still holding the guy's head, although Stink Breath’s face was mangled and blood dripped in a river onto the dancefloor.
I wondered if he was dead, if the thing that looked like Lux, but with flat dead eyes, had killed him.