Sins of the Flesh

Twenty-eight months since she’d allowed herself to be touched, held, stroked to fulfillment. The longest she’d ever gone before this was seventeen.

She’d pushed it as long as she dared, held on to her rigid control and her impenetrable serenity, blunting her emotions with her usual success. But she’d lost her cool a few weeks back when confronted by four soul reapers in her own home. She’d made bad choices. And she hadn’t been able to fully get it back together since then, even though three of the soul reapers were dead, and one of them was almost an ally.

Almost…but not quite.

As her former acolyte Roxy Tam was fond of saying, almost only counted in horseshoes and hand grenades.

So tonight, a fast and dirty impersonal encounter was on the menu. Just enough contact to make her feel as though the ice that ran through her veins wasn’t so cold, so complete. To make her believe that the edge she perched on, so close to losing it, wasn’t precipitously sharp.

The edge would be better afterward. And worse.

It always was.

But she was out of options. Her kind had two choices. Sex, or blood.

For her, blood had always been the hardest path. She closed her eyes for a second, pushing back the memories. The past had no place in her present. She would not let it free.

She left the ladies’ room and made her way through the crowd, searching. She’d seen him earlier, dressed all in black, the sort of man mothers warned their daughters about.

The sort of man who lured daughters to ignore the warnings.

She found him in the crowd on the dance floor, and for a moment, she simply watched him.

He didn’t dance for others. He danced for himself, for the pure joy of it. The way he moved was a thing of beauty, the flick of his hips, the sway of his shoulders. His hair moved as he moved, dark and straight, lifting to reveal the glint of metal hoops in his ears, then falling to settle in a clean line against his jaw.

The bass from the powerful speakers pounded up through her spine and into her skull as she made her way a little closer. She’d been watching him since he’d arrived about an hour past. He’d downed a double shot of whiskey, neat, as soon as he’d walked in. Then he’d gone out on the floor and been there since. A couple of women had gravitated toward him, and after that a couple of more until there was a small crowd of six or seven vying for his attention now.

If she left him to it, he would pick one and take her to his bed tonight. But Calliope had no intention of letting that happen. He was hers. She’d spotted him and stalked him, and she meant to have him. No harm, no foul. He would go on his way happy, and she would go on her way with the gnawing ache inside her tamed. For the moment.

Turning to the side, she edged through the throng of gyrating bodies and then she was there next to him, close enough to see that his lips were sculpted and full, the perfect blend of hard and soft. A scar sliced a thin, white line from his lower lip to his chin, pale against the dark stubble that shaded his jaw.

She wanted to run her tongue along that scar, to feel the rasp of his stubble on her tongue.

His gaze slid over her, impersonal, disinterested. And then it slid back.

She didn’t look away. She didn’t smile or flirt. She only held his gaze and moved as he moved.

One song bled into the next. The girl to his right tugged at his sleeve. He glanced down and smiled at her, white teeth flashing, then bent to hear what she offered, only to straighten and shake his head.

His reward was a pout, and then the girl turned her back and stalked off through the crush of bodies. But he didn’t watch her go. His gaze had already returned to Calliope, and she knew in that instant that he was hers. For this moment and the ones that would immediately follow, he was hers, and she meant to take all she dared from him.

Catching his hand, she led him off the floor. He let her, glancing down at her with a slightly puzzled expression. The lights flashed, painting his features in colors and shadows and hollows.

This close, she could see that his eyes were a clear, pale gray, startling against dark lashes. She had a thing for dark hair and light eyes. Gray eyes in particular.

Because, once upon a time, a gray-eyed man had come to her rescue. After a fashion. But that had been forever ago.

His gaze held hers, assessing. She frowned. For such liaisons, she preferred a man who was less than observant. Perhaps even less than intelligent. This man was too sharp. She saw that now as he studied her, his gaze sliding slowly over her features, marking every detail. She almost turned and walked away.