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By the time I got through the crowd, it had ceased to be a group of individuals watching a performance and had transformed into a single entity that moaned and writhed and sweated out the experience right along with the Irin. It was like he was a conductor and we were his orchestra, only what was playing wasn’t notes on a page but sensations on skin. And he was damned good at it.
I had to stop and give myself a mental shakedown before approaching the guards, sloughing off the tendrils of sensation that wanted to wrap me up, to pull me back, to sink me into the collective wave of pleasure building behind me. And force myself to face the job ahead. Because the vamps guarding the door were both masters.
Not that it mattered in this case. Even a baby vamp can sense the presence of another, especially one as powerful as Marlowe. Which was why he was hanging back, waiting for me to get the door open before moving up.
Since I had to manage it in full view of the main salon, the idea was to split one guard away from the other and deal with them separately. The dress should have helped with that, being cut up to here and down to there and fitting me like a glove. Along with the extras I’d spent half a day on—short, sleek dark hair, heavily lined black eyes and shiny red lips—I’d expected it to provide a decent enough distraction.
I’d expected wrong. Thanks to the show the Irin was providing, no one was paying me the slightest attention, including the two guards. I actually had to tap one on the shoulder to get noticed.
“Got a cigarette?” I asked, a little more harshly than normal. But, damn it, I could have worn jeans.
“What? Oh, yeah.” He dug a case out of his trousers and passed it over, his eyes never leaving the show.
I hiked the dress up and put a stiletto-clad foot on a nearby chair, flashing more than a little thigh. “How about a light?” I asked huskily.
“In a bowl on the bar.”
“How about you get one for me?”
“How about you get it yourself?”
“How about I knock your teeth in?”
“What?”
I sighed and gave up. I put the cigarette case back in his pocket, took out the passkey and let myself in through the door. The guy never even blinked.
My new phone rang. I dug it out of my purse and checked the readout. Marlowe.
Of course.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded.
“You wanted in, we’re in. Now come on, or I’m going to do this myself.”
I didn’t get an answer, except for an irritated clic
k in my ear. But a few seconds later he slipped through the door I was holding open with one aching foot. And a second after that, I was shoved against the wall, a hard body was pressed against me and a practiced mouth came down on mine.
For a second, I just froze.
The kiss was crazy enough all on its own. But then there was the knee pushing between my legs and the hand moving up my thigh, sliding the slick material of the dress out of the way so he could wrap my leg around his. His hair was cool and soft, his mouth was hot and hard, and he smelled like whiskey and smoke and electricity. And he could kiss; not as well as Louis-Cesare, but more than competently.
Which was going to do fuck all to preserve his manhood in three, two—
A wedge of sound pushed out into the quiet corridor: tinned laughter from some TV show, the buzz of a drink machine, the scrape of a heel against a doorframe. And then—
“Hey,” someone said. “You can’t be back here.”
Marlowe didn’t respond, and I couldn’t, since it looked like he was going for authenticity. Which worried me less than the fact that it was doing exactly nothing for me. And okay, it was Marlowe, but still. Considering the, uh, intensity of the situation, I’d have expected to feel something.
But I didn’t. Not a damned thing. Nothing but anger and annoyance and a weird sort of sadness, because he wasn’t the one I wanted.
Oh, God, I thought in horror. Louis-Cesare’s ruined me for other men.
“Hey, I’m talking to you!”
Marlowe didn’t react, since the voice was still too far away. And neither did I, except to freak out a little and wrap my other leg around him, climbing his body and grabbing his hair and sticking my tongue down his throat, all at the same time. He made a strangled urk sound, but manfully hung in there, bracing his legs and gripping my thighs. And yet I still felt exactly zip.
