She tapped her foot absently to the beat. Dancing had been in her blood as long as she could remember, but she hadn’t indulged in it anywhere but inside her apartment for a long time. That wouldn’t be changing in this club. Because while the dance floor was normal enough, what was above it wasn’t.
The mezzanine level was basically a large wraparound balcony that looked out over the dance floor. Tables and seating arrangements were laid out in intimate groupings on that level, the stairs up to the mezzanine guarded by bouncers who, again, let up only the chosen.
In club terms, it was nothing to write home about.
However, suspended just below the mezzanine by what looked like steel cables on each of the four corners, was a sheet of transparent glass. Glass walls about two feet in height grew up from the large flat sheet on all four sides, creating a shallow box with no top. In the glass box was a live show.
Right now, from what she could tell, two male vampires dressed in full-on lace and leather, their shirts froths of white and their black leather pants so tight they appeared painted on, were feeding from a ripped mortal who was either naked or wearing a G-string. Then the two vamps threw the mortal to the glass on his front and she didn’t have to guess anymore.
She could see every inch of him, including the turgid red of his erection.
One of the vampires, his hair sleek and blond, lay down on his side beside the donor, pulling up the donor’s head by the hair to kiss him long and deep. When he released the breathless male from the kiss, it was to a raven-haired female vamp who’d stepped into the box. She took over the kiss, while the second male vamp watched.
Words were spoken that made the woman smile, her poison red nails on the donor’s throat. Then the blond vampire stroked long white fingers down the man’s back . . . and shoved him down on his distended cock right as the second male vampire sank his fangs into the donor’s thigh. The woman went for his throat at the same instant.
The donor screamed, drops of blood splattering the glass, but Ashwini saw no terror on his face, only a naked sexual ecstasy.
She looked away before she ended up witnessing him spurt his semen against the glass. Not that she was sure the show would stop there. Nakedness wasn’t required for feeding, so the donor had probably volunteered for public sex or pain or both. It wasn’t her idea of a good time, but she wasn’t about to judge as long as it was all consensual.
“Well,” she murmured to Janvier, shifting her hand to play with the hair at his nape, “do you come here often?” It didn’t seem his kind of thing, but maybe he had a kink she didn’t know about.
He ran his hand up and down her hip. “Only so I can maintain my contacts.” His lips brushed her ear as he spoke, the music too loud to permit anything else. “For me, feeding from a partner is a private thing. As is fucking.” He nipped her ear with sharp teeth, the contact sending a jolt straight to the heat between her legs. “Not for public exhibition, but to be savored in hushed intimacy.”
Her body was so primed, she barely resisted the urge to shove him into a dark corner and ride him to oblivion. “I’m going to the ladies’.” It was the best place to find mortals in between dancing or donating, especially if she wanted to have an actual conversation.
Janvier’s hand slipped low enough that he was now officially—and very possessively—cupping her ass. “I’ll make sure the bouncers know to let you upstairs if we get separated. No one should bother you here, but if anyone does, feel free to fillet him or her.”
“I don’t need your permission for the filleting,” she said, then leaned forward to bite him on the jaw.
He jerked, hand clenching convulsively.
“There”—pounding heart, shallow breath—“now no one will bother you, either, not unless they want to get filleted.”
Walking away to the sight of his growing and hotly sexy smile, she felt her skin flush. What had started out as a lighthearted dig at his increasing possessiveness had instead betrayed her own. Annoyed with herself for her inability to stick to her guns until she’d told him everything, she snarled at a vamp who went to make a move on her.
His eyes gleamed, but she’d already pulled a blade and had it at his crotch. “I’m no donor.”
He became erect between one heartbeat and the next. “I know. I wouldn’t feed without permission, mistress. Please, hurt me. Please.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” She’d apparently managed to find the one vamp in this place who wanted to be prey rather than predator. “Since you asked so sweetly,” she said and slashed the blade across his thigh, careful not to do anything but prick him. His eyes rolled back in his head.
Leaving him shuddering in ecstasy, she pushed open the door to the ladies’ room. It was as luxurious and classy as she’d expected. In front of her was a large area with mirrors on every wall and curved seating in plush red. Several women sat on the backless red couches, touching up their makeup, talking to friends, or, in one case, snorting coke. Apparently being fresh meat wasn’t enough; this one wanted to be hopped-up fresh meat.
Going through the second door, to the section with the actual stalls, she went in one, flushing it after a reasonable pause before getting out and washing her hands, all to maintain the fiction that she was just another mortal on a night out with her vampire lover. It was unlikely any of the humans would recognize her as a hunter, and even if they did, there was no law that said hunters couldn’t date vamps.
“Damn,” she muttered after returning to the seating area, making a show of digging into her pockets beside a gorgeous, plump brunette who was fluffing up her hair.