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The guy’s laughter boomed around the small space, enveloping me. For a really bad, frozen moment, everything in the entire club seemed to pause and focus on him, and me bydefault.
I swallowed and shoved the clipboard his way, holding out my bare wrist. “Satisfied?”
“Far from it.” He showed teeth again and tossed the clipboard over my shoulder without looking. I missed the clatter of it falling to the floor, and assumed someone had caught it, filing me away while I got the honor of wearing the pink strip of plastic. “Be safe. Throw yourself this way if you need help, and use the lungs God gave you to announce you’ll kick anyone in the jingle bells if they try to hurt you.”
“And if it’s a woman?” I closed my eyes, willing the words back.
“Same difference. Stings like shit,” a tall woman in a long red dress murmured in my ear as she and her latex-clad partner sashayed past and slipped out the door.
“Do you prefer women?” Bouncer dude eyed me. “Your form said—”
“I didn’t know a security dog could read,” I snapped and spun on my heel to the music of his surprised laughter, intent on losing myself in the crowd before the man caused me further grief.
Who knew it could be so hard to get inside a sex club? Mind, this one hosted its own menagerie of crazy critters. I cringed inside at the thought of not fitting in yet again, but I’d been given a mission and I strode forward, wearing my determination not to fail like a shield.
A shield that lasted all of two seconds when I ran nose-first into an open and very bare chest that appeared to be comprised of an endless expanse of tanned skin and muscle. Hell, he even smelled like coconut and nougat. White Christmas. Like the sort that made it to the dinner table, not the sort that fell outside in the northern hemisphere, though I was sure that was pretty too.
I might have moaned if my mouth hadn’t filled with saliva and watered at the thought of the seasonal treat.
A hand settled firmly on my waist, and a knuckle beneath my chin drew my attention up and up and up to meet the brilliant blue glaze of a blond Santa who appeared to own the dessert-sized chest I’d been inhaling.
There was something wrong with that thought, but lost in the warmth of him, I couldn’t for the life of me work out what that was.
“Merry Christmas, cutie. You must be the one I’ve been waiting for.” He dipped a little lower to whisper in my ear. “The one on my naughty list that I never, ever share with anyone.”
My mind was half drawn into his honeyed toes while the other half wrangled with the obvious pick-up line that could have at least suited his costume. “I don’t think—” I started.
“I do.” He flashed me a panty-melting grin and tossed what looked like my clipboard to the reception desk at my side.
It disappeared behind a goth-looking girl with a snake tattoo on her hand who snapped gum and slumped back in her seat, searching for someone outside my range of vision that wasn’t swamped with the Santa chest in front of me. His hand folded around mine in an intimate gesture more suited to a second date than a by-chance meeting. His warm touch wrapped around my wrist, calloused fingertips skating along my skin to leave sweet zings in their wake of his touch. His smile turned happy-predatory, if there was such a thing, that left my stomach fluttering and my panties in proverbial shreds. Interlacing our fingers, my Santa-sized dessert pulled me forward, into the throbbing crowd.
I twisted back, searching for the bouncer who’d told me to kick an aggressor in the nuts, but hadn’t he been the one who tossed my clipboard at the man behind me in the first place? Was everyone here colluding against me or had I done thatmyself?
What in the hell had I actually put on the form?
The man dragged me into the center of the room, and for the first time all night, I was part of a crowd, rather than off to the side of one. Safety in numbers and all that. Warm arms slipped around my middle, and before I realized what I was doing, my body took control and I leaned back into him. That sweet, tempting scent wafted around me as I watched people dance and touch and writhe around me. Beaded, glittering clothing lay half-shed around bodies that needed more sunlight on a regular basis while the hands that held me stayed in a perfectly neutral position.
I wanted more and moved my body, encouraging his hands to slide along my green dress.
What the hell was I doing here in the first place? I wasn’t in the club to get laid, and I had an assignment, a mission. A mission that fast transformed into an assignation as those palms drew up along my stomach and covered my breasts, kneading and squeezing. My body responded with a flush of heat that headed south in a heady rush and left me spinning though my feet stayed in one place.
A strong hand I was starting to recognize slipped higher to wrap around my throat and drew my head back to rest on his shoulder. His generous lips curved in a sharp smile, and for the second time in as many minutes, I was pinned in place by those startling, bright-blue eyes.
I needed to take the bouncer’s advice and lash out, use my big girl words to save my ass. But the only thing that slipped from between my lips was a truly pathetic little moan that hung in the still, humid air between us while the song changed, ratcheting the energy in the club up a beat.
I stayed lost in his gaze.
My secret Santa’s smile widened, twisting as his gazebecame predatory. “I’m not a fan of crowds, are you? I can think of somewhere nice and quiet where we can play.”
Ignoring every stuttered, half-baked objection I offered, he slung the red velvet sack off his shoulder and over me. I stood frozen in shock, breathing in my own scent as one arm bent me in half at the knees that buckled in an all too easy fashion. My darkened world tipped upside down.
My body formed a loose ball at the bottom of the sack where something sharp and crinkly and something else heavy and metal based tapped against my cheeks as he moved us through the crowd, meeting no resistance at all. My head banged against his legs as he strode away, still humming something. I opened my mouth to scream, but the music chose that moment to blast out a DJ’s horrendous mix of mismatched Christmas carols.
Then the music faded, and I recognized we were leaving the main area. My chest spiked in short fits of breath and pain, the onset of a panic attack leaving me in a series of breath-stealing palpitations. The idea of walking away from everyone in the club left me in abject fear, though not one of the party-goers had stopped to help me in my plight. I lashed and kicked but only managed to spin my body around in tight, dizzying circles.
Why had my manchest Santa just hauled me away in his red sack, in the middle of a crowded room, no less?
And what in all the hell had I written on that form?
