She was perfect, and she was what he had been looking for.
By the time she made it halfway up the line, he began to catch her fragrance. He caught it all, everything from her shampoo and cosmetics to the clean perfection of light lemon and verbena. Even better than all of that was the sweetness of pure female, everything sexual and exotic to her gender in specific, kept in pristine balance and calling to him in every way. To Julian’s surprise, his body began to react quickly and eagerly, an out-of-control response that was very unlike him and, thereby, all the more exciting for its uniqueness. Maybe it was the beautiful smell of her that enthralled his senses and translated so strongly into his quickly hardening sex, but when those riveting blue eyes roamed over him and just as obviously dismissed him without any impression on her coolly stunning features, that was when he knew it went much deeper than that.
The color around her eyes was striking, but it was also annoying to him. He wondered what she looked like when her face was scrubbed as clean as the rest of her body smelled. She was dusted with sparkles over every inch of her bare skin, of which there was quite a lot. Her ebony hair was also lightly glittering, but in his opinion did not need the artifice. The jet locks picked up the lights outside of the club, turning them holographic with color. He itched with a sharp, insane desire to know how long it was. Long, he guessed, and it would be quite straight. There was a touch of something about her features that hinted at a possible Asian heritage, but it was far too vague for him to be certain.
The woman struck an impatient, autocratic pose when she reached the velvet rope, her eyes sweeping over Vincent just as dismissively as they had Julian. Julian was already there, disengaging the link to let her through, yet standing in her way to prevent her passing.
“ID?” he asked.
She carried no purse that he could see and if she had pockets in her dress he’d be damned. She was obviously of age and he was just as obviously baiting her, his teasing smile meant to charm her into breaking her hardcore attitude.
“Back off, Lurch,” she said dryly, pushing a finger into the center of his chest until her long fingernail dug deep into his flesh. “We both know I’m old enough to be here. I’m not giving some fluffy piece of candy an eyeball at my address. You’ll have to be satisfied with what you see.”
She dropped her hand to indicate her stunning figure with a careless sweep of her fingers.
“Julian,” Vincent warned in a sharp whisper, “let her in.”
Julian frowned at the command and ignored the other bouncer so he could maybe provoke her into touching him again. The contact had been positively electric, charging up every nerve ending in his body and making him rather regretful that he hadn’t tucked in his shirt that night. He would have loved to see how she reacted to knowing he had a hell of an erection just from her approach. She probably wouldn’t appreciate it the way he did for its uniqueness, but it might have gotten a pause from her, or at least a fiery reaction of indignation he would have loved to feel and witness.
“What will you do for me if I let you pass?” he asked archly, definitely risking his job and not caring any more than he had a few minutes earlier. This was what he was there for. She was what he was there for. Now that he had his target, there was no longer any reason to wait around for another.
She placed a hand on a curved hip, the opposite one jutting out as she rested her weight back on her heel and slowly looked him over.
“Look, I realize you are used to that smarmy charm working on the little girls who come in here, but I am neither a girl nor charmed, so back off before I call Vernon out here and get your ass fired.”
“Go ahead. I would rather quit than pass up an opportunity to stand in your path.”
She smiled at that, a slow curving of her lips that very obviously did not reach her beautifully cold blue eyes. “That sounded almost regal and sincere. You practice that one in the mirror?”
“No, actually, it was sincere. Doesn’t majesty deserve regality?”
She tilted her head and studied him, looking briefly perplexed, an expression that finally did make it to her eyes. He realized these American women were not used to men who spoke in such ways without coming off as insincere or obviously…what was the term she had used? Smarmy.
Julian turned aside at last and offered his arm to her.
“At least let me buy you your first drink before the undeserving throng tries to sweep you away?”
“Thanks, but I don’t drink,” she said as she ignored his arm and breezed past him. “I’m just here to get laid.”
The remark set up a cheer from those in the front of the line who had overheard her, and Vincent chuckled into his fist. Julian was barely paying attention to him as he kept his focus on the sway of her behind under that slinky silver fabric while she walked away in bold, sexy strides. “I believe,” he said softly aloud to no one, “I could consider that an invitation.”
Julian dismissed the other bouncer and the line of people outside and instantly followed his target. The club had what Vernon liked to call a “comfortable” crowd. It was just enough to look popular and wildly fun, but not so much that it felt like an icebox jammed full of meat. Julian never took his eyes off her, and it wasn’t difficult at all to track her. The silver of her dress had much less to do with that than the fact that she was wickedly tall for a woman and that every inch of her became a magnet to everything in the room with a penis.
“Shit,” he muttered when he saw the room shift to accommodate and then crowd her arrival. She blew off the first few predators with a cold warning look and a sharp, silent palm to ward them off, but Julian realized she had dressed to attract what she had claimed she wanted, and before long she would have her pick of the room.
He frowned as he thought of all those other men moving aggressively into her sphere. Not that competition worried him, because he hardly considered them as such, but he realized he didn’t think he was going to like watching her play the game of social flirtation and invitation as she searched for someone to invite to her bed.
Julian found himself suppressing a severe vocal reaction at the thought of her offering herself to anyone but him. Even muted, the possessive and feral sound startled a few nearby patrons, and he curled his fingers into fists in an attempt to get control of himself. It was to be expected, he told himself sternly. He had stayed longer than he should and his patience was wearing thin as his next target had eluded him.
But now, he was certain, she was here; a vision in silver looking for a man to mate with. The odd thing was that despite her declaration of such a goal, he sensed no sexual readiness from her. He could smell not a hint of active pheromones spiking in search of a target of their own. Oh, he could scent the rush of her adrenaline well enough, and he heard the excited pounding of her heart, but there was something more akin to fear and anger in that mix than there was of sexual predation. But perhaps that was just a matter of allowing herself time to sit back, relax, and slowly open herself up to the possibilities.
However, Julian was going to be her one and only possibility. He would see to that. He hadn’t come this far and waited this long for his prize only to be turned away by mere attitude or be pushed aside for a simple human male.
Julian walked by her as soon as she sat down on the raised stool at a lone little round table. Surrounded by others, yet alone in the sea of humanity, for a moment she seemed ill-fitted to her surroundings. She was perfectly turned out and confident as hell, but he somehow got the impression she was just there to do what she had to do to get what she wanted, not because she enjoyed very much about it. It baffled him that someone so striking would have to resort to such raw tactics to find physical satisfaction. Men should be spilling out of every crevice to get close to her, just as they were doing now. Julian found it fascinating that she wasn’t already marked by another.
Not that this would have stopped him. It hadn’t before and it wouldn’t now. Especially not now. He just found it curious. He had to assume it wasn’t for lack of trying by others, and taking into consideration her