A dark woman beneath him had her skirt pulled over her hips, her body flush against a low bar on the left. She gripped the edge—head turned away from me, thank God. An empty bottle of wine lay beside her, precariously close to the edge.
Christian had shucked off his jeans below the waist, just low enough for him to get down to business. His right palm was flat against her back, and the other rested on the bar.
She moaned, gasped, and he kept a steady and controlled rhythm. His body was magnificent—I’d imagined him gaunt and full of warts, because Vampires shouldn’t be attractive. They should be dastardly creatures who are pallid and bony, like I’d seen in all the movies. I stared at the rogue whiskers that grew along his jaw, wondering what it would feel like to have them scratching against my skin. His rigid stance and slow movement accentuated his muscles, tightening and contracting with every thrust of his hips. I glimpsed enough of him that it made me swallow, and he suddenly covered her with his body, resting his forearms on the bar.
His pace quickened, and my eyes skated down to admire the profile of his ass. A coil of need tightened within me, and I found myself unable to control the rapid pace of my heart. Christian was a canvas of slender muscle all the way to his strong hands. His hair was no longer neatly groomed but disheveled from a woman’s touch.
The fact that he was roguishly handsome made me hate him even more.
“Do you like watching, lass?” he asked in a growly voice, his head turned away.
I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he knew someone had walked in on him, but I was curious how he knew it was me.
Christian turned his head, and I quickly looked away before he could charm me into doing something I’d later regret. He said nothing, and his gaze nailed me to the floor as his body responded to someone watching him, his rhythm becoming more frenetic. The girl beneath him cried out, and for just a brief second, I imagined myself changing places with her.
It seemed like ages since a man had made me feel that way. I shifted my thoughts to distract myself from thinking about Christian in a sexual way. Cleaning a toilet, the smell of sauerkraut, men in lederhosen…
“You got what you wanted, Christian. You’re solo from here on out.”
“Not at the moment,” he said with a dark smirk.
I turned away, facing the doorjamb, but I could see him out of the corner of my eye through the crack in the door. I lowered my voice to a whisper so the girl wouldn’t hear. “I’m calling on that favor tonight.”
“Stay there, lass,” he murmured to his companion.
Christian appeared at the door, and the crack revealed the left side of his body from his eye to the flap of his unzipped jeans, which he’d attempted to pull up. He smelled like sex. “What’s the favor?”
“I don’t want Viktor to scrub my memory. If he asks you, tell him you did it. If he asks someone else, then make sure they don’t come near me.”
“And you trust me with that kind of request?”
“I have no alternative. So?”
“Aye. I’ll not take your memories. If this favor will remove me from your debt, I’ll make sure of it.” He stroked the vein in his neck, and his fangs descended. “Care for a drink, precious?”
I jerked the doorknob and slammed the door.
Why did seeing him with another woman have an effect on me? A sickly mixture of desire and hatred. Christian was worlds apart from the kind of man I found attractive—not only physically, but also personality-wise. The things he said when he opened his mouth should have instantly turned me off, but I found myself even more curious about him. In many ways, he was like every other Vampire I’d staked. But he’d also carried me to his car and covered me with his jacket. Ripping his shirt to make a tourniquet had been necessary to stop the bleeding, but why had he taken the extra measure to keep me warm? He’d also carried me to his bed but made no sexual advances even though I was drenched in blood like some kind of Popsicle stick for Vampires. Maybe I was more curious to know if he really hated me as much as he professed.
The sooner I forgot about him, the better.
I made a beeline for the front exit, passing by a table of men on the right who caught my attention. I was the kind of girl who noticed things—especially someone watching my every move.
It was Cyrus, the man who’d attacked Niko and me in the alley with his goons. He raised his glass and gave me a sardonic smile. When I glowered at him, his table erupted with laughter and he took a slow sip, resuming conversation as if I were inconsequential.
Outside, the streetlight cast a spell on the falling mist, the ethereal glow giving the appearance of a thin veil between two worlds. I pulled my hood over my head and circled around the right side of the building where I’d hidden my duffel bag in the alley. It took more than rejection to kill my spirit, but it was wounded. What did it take to get a leg up in life? The more I thought about my situation, the angrier I got.