He sounds like rusty razorblades dripping with treacle.
He laughs again. “Lucifer? Close enough.”
“Hey,” says a voice next to us. Neither of us look away. “Hey,” the voice insists. But now I don’twantto look away. I know who the voice belongs to. It’s the Boring Bear, following me down here and trying to make himself look like a big man.
My devil in black looks at him. Gives him a hard, eyebrow-gathered glare. The bear turns tail and runs while Lucifer turns back to me with a charming smile. His eyes are still dangerous, but I like dangerous. “Dance with me.”
It’s not a request. I turn around, sling an arm around his neck, and give him my best booty-rub into his crotch. We fall back into the beat fast, and then I feel his hands on my body, up and down, exploring every inch of my tight silver pants and mesh shirt. He settles his fingers at my belly, tucking into the waistband of my pants, going no further.
I put my hand on his, encouraging him to go lower, lower, faster, hurryup—I’m already aching for him to touch me, but he pulls his hand away sharply and turns me around to face him. I just about get freezer burn from his damn eyes. He leans in towards me, his lips brushing my ear as he murmurs, “Behave.”
“I want your dick in my mouth,” I shout back over the music. His lips twitch, but he just pulls me close to dance again. “Why you playing so hard to get?” I ask in his ear, wrapping my arms around his neck.
“Why areyougiving it away so easy?”
I might take offense at something like that, if I were the kind of guy to take offense. But I don’t mind being negged by someone as hot as this asshole. If he gets off on it, whatever. Guy likes to be teased?
I can tease.
I move with him, grinding against his thigh, leaning back so he has to grab me before I pull us both over—grab my ass, specifically, where I make sure it fits right into his palm. It’s working. I canfeelit’s working where his crotch nestles into mine, feel him hard up against me. I’m about to turn around again and give him an upright-lap dance when he does this old-fashioned move, wraps one arm around my waist, anddipsme.
“Alright,” he says, his lips an inch away from mine, and his eyes just about burning mine out of their sockets. “I guess you can suck my dick.” He pulls me up again and I let out my laugh, the one everyone hates because it’s too loud, too much.
But he just laughs with me, and the aura of light around him gets even brighter. Only then he looks over my shoulder, towards the entrance, and he freezes.
“Damn. Rain check,” he says.
“Fuck you,” I say back, and he finally looks into my eyes instead of past me.
“Sorry,” he says, and has the grace to look it. “But I gotta go to work.”
I put my hands on my hips and stop moving in the middle of the dance floor, ignoring the jostles of the crowd. “Listen,” I shout over the music, “if you don’t want your dick sucked, just fuckingsaythat.”
Before I know what’s happening, he pulls me in for a long, sweet kiss, and then presses his forehead into mine. “You’re amazing. But I gotta take care of business first. I’ll come find you later.”
I want to sayFuck youagain, and with any other guy, I would. “I might be sucking someone else’s dick by then,” I say as a compromise.
“Then it’ll be my loss,” he says into my ear, and presses his lips to mine again in a farewell.
And then he’s gone, the motherfucker, melting into the crowd while I can still taste him on my tongue.
Chapter Two
FINCH
Ihead up to the bar and slam a shot, wondering what the hell to do now. Especially since that guy is not someone I’m gonna forget in a hurry. Maybe hewillcome back.
Maybe he won’t.
All I know is, I need company tonight. I take another turn of the room, even accept a drink from one guy well below my usual standards, but I can’t bring myself to hook up with any of them, not after I had that glimpse of perfection. I can’t get his face out of my head.
It’s probably the drugs, I decide. I should get some fresh air. I make my way through the club to the fire exit. People aren’t supposed to use this exit, but everyone does. Only once you’re out, you can’t get back in; it locks behind itself. No one cares, though, because the alley it opens into is the traditional place for hookups. Well, there and the toilets, but the alley is a little more sanitary.
When I get out there the cool night air stings my face. The quiet after all that club noise makes my eardrums feel like they’re ballooning in my skull. The wafting ofeau de trashfrom the nearby dumpster only adds to my melancholy.
Nights like this, I tend to remember Mom. Not the good things, just the last things. The way she was smiling at me, but scared of something. I could see that, young as I was. Thirteen years old and trying to be brave for her like she asked me to be. We were going away on an adventure, and we were going to be happy together.
We never got our adventure, though. She got a bullet, and I got ostracized from the family.
