Читать книгу I Only Have Fangs For You - Kathy Love - Страница 8

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a beautiful neck?”

Sebastian pressed his lips to the neck in question. The bare skin just below the woman’s earlobe was warm and wonderfully scented, and just like that, his fangs lengthened. But he repressed the hunger and smiled slightly as he felt the woman startle. She leapt away and spun to see who was taking such liberties. Her outraged expression dissolved into a slow, pleased grin.

“Sebastian,” she breathed, unconsciously tilting her head so her silky blond locks fell back over her shoulder, exposing more of her lovely neck and collarbone. The tiny pulse at the base of her throat quickened, a rapid, delighted flutter under her tanned skin. Her eyes roamed over him with appreciation.

Sebastian grinned. He could always count on Hannah to be very welcoming. And he needed Hannah’s sort of welcome tonight. After the week he’d had, he deserved a very, very welcoming Hannah.

He frowned slightly. Her name was Hannah, wasn’t it? Or was it Anna?

Sure, they had spent a few nights together in the past, but really, there had been very little talking involved. And they had met here, in the nightclub, with the mobs of patrons and the loud, pulsating dance music—it was an easy mistake, right? Hannah. Anna. An honest mix-up.

In his mind, he suddenly saw his brothers’ disapproving looks. Rhys with his censorious frown, and Christian with that condescending arch of his eyebrow.

Sebastian refocused on Hannah—well, probably Hannah. Her name didn’t matter, not for what he had in mind. Although, he did catch himself studying her, estimating her age, even though he knew she was old enough to be here at the club. But after being called home from his vacation (if anyone could call time spent with his preachy brothers a vacation) because the cops had been tipped off that Carfax Abbey, his nightclub, was serving minors, he felt the need to be more cautious. Even though it was an utterly ridiculous accusation.

Of course, he couldn’t very well tell the police that his club had never served a minor because the men carding at the door were actually preternatural creatures. And preternatural creatures were absolutely great at sniffing out underage partygoers. Minors always gave off a specific and strong vibe. Youth, nervousness, and excitement. Hard to miss and easy to turn away.

Fortunately, the police decided the accusation was unfounded without that information. With that problem solved, he was now ready to focus on more pleasurable things. He needed that. Between the NYPD, and his brothers, he needed some fun.

He also needed to reaffirm himself. To reaffirm that his existence was just fine the way it was, despite his brothers’ opinions to the contrary. He was single, he was undead, and he was damned happy about both.

He grinned at Hannah.

“Hi there, Han…darling.” Maybe it was better to avoid names, though.

Probably-Hannah’s smile widened, her eyes narrowing with a predatory hunger that would put any vampire to shame. She stepped back to him, pressing her breasts against his arm as she leaned in to speak.

“Sebastian, I missed you.”

He sighed at the sensation of her body against his. Oh yeah, Probably-Hannah was definitely the right place to start reaffirming. He didn’t have that confused.

“Where have you been? I couldn’t find you the last time I was here.”

“You were looking for me? When?” he asked, making sure his voice dripped with disappointment.

“Last Saturday.”

He could have guessed that. Probably-Hannah was one of his club’s many regulars. Repeat mortal customers who his vampire patrons labeled “Fang Freaks.” Mortals who returned to his nightclub over and over in hopes of hooking up with a preternatural being. Of course, the mortals didn’t understand that was what kept them coming back, nor did they understand the source of their addiction. They just knew that what happened here didn’t happen anywhere else.

Sebastian glanced over Probably-Hannah’s shoulder to see a group of women watching him.

He smiled. They each responded with some form of invitation: a tempting smile, a coy bat of the lashes, an enticing shift of their bodies that readily said, “Here I am.”

He breathed in deeply. Damn, it was good to be a vampire. And the owner of one of the most popular nightclubs in Manhattan. This is where he ruled, where he had control. And his possibilities were so open. But for tonight, he’d made his choice. He might not remember if she was Hannah or Anna, but Sebastian hadn’t forgotten this woman’s reaction to him or her taste on his tongue. His body responded, his fangs distending just a bit.

“Care to dance?” He motioned to the dance area, where muted red and purple lights glowed under the frosted flooring.

She nodded, twining her arms around his and falling into step beside him.

Carfax Abbey, a name taken from his favorite novel, Dracula (of course), was busy tonight. As he stepped into the throng of gyrating dancers, he was overwhelmed by the scent of mortals, warm and musky with a heady undertone of sweet rustiness. Mingling with that was the impression of other preternatural beings. Their presence made the air vibrate as if the molecules and atoms were agitated by their very existence. The sensation was as exciting as the humans’ scents, but not quite as alluring.

He pulled the lovely blonde against him and began to move with the sultry beat of the music. Her arms came up to snake around his neck, her fingers toying with his hair. Her eyes locked with his as she followed his movements instinctively. Their bodies pressed tight together. A delicious friction.

“I love this song,” she said, her lips grazing his ear as she spoke over the music. “I love how you dance.”

He pulled her tighter, more interested in enjoying her body than her small talk. Which could explain the uncertainty on her name.

He dropped his nose to her hair, smelling the fruity perfume of her shampoo and the sweet scent thrumming just beneath the surface of her smooth skin. Maybe one more dance, then he would invite her to his apartment upstairs over the club.

Tonight he was edgy. His hunger barely contained. Sex and feeding were his two favorite pastimes, but this evening his body literally ached for both.

“Hannah, you found him.”

Ha! He’d been right; it was Hannah.

He turned his head to see an auburn-haired beauty in a black-and-red brocade corset and a very tight, very small, black leather skirt. A pair of black boots came up over her knees.

Sebastian started to speak, but paused. He’d slept with her, too, hadn’t he? What was her name? Alex? Alice? Elise? Damn.

“Yes, I did find him. See, Sebastian, you’ve been very, very missed.”

The new woman, whose name definitely did start with a vowel, smiled widely and nodded. “Very missed.”

“Sebastian Young!” Another woman with exotic dark eyes and long black hair joined them. “Where have you been?”

She stepped between the two women and hugged him.

Now, he did know this woman’s name. “Hello, Leah.”

The dark-haired woman pulled back and smiled admonishingly. “Gia, love.”

“Right. Right. Gia.”

“So, Sebastian, why have you been so scarce lately?” The redhead touched his arm as she spoke.

“I had some family commitments I needed to attend to,” he said. Actually, it had been more like family torments. He loved his brothers, but they were newly reformed and utterly fang-whipped. In other words, dead dull.

Not that they’d ever been that much fun anyway.

Which was why he was here. “But enough boring talk. Let me get you beautiful women drinks.”

He herded them toward the bar, his thoughts already on the delights that lay ahead for the night.

The entire length of the bar was lined up a couple rows deep with waiting patrons as two of his bartenders, Nadine and Ferdinand, rushed to fill drink orders. He strolled to the end, which was left clear for the cocktail servers to pick up their orders.

The area was empty, except for one waitress, a rather ordinary-looking woman with her black hair pulled into two messy ponytails/knots on the top of her head and plastic-rimmed glasses. At first he thought she was a mortal, which surprised him, because it was standard club policy to avoid hiring humans. Then as he got closer, he realized she was actually a preternatural. A vampiress.

He frowned, regarding her in disbelief. This creature was a vampire? The vibe radiating from her wasn’t as obvious as it was with most vamps. In fact it was quite faint, but it was definitely there.

He studied her, realizing her faint preternatural vibration wasn’t the only thing strange about her. Not all vampires were beautiful, but they were all striking in some way. This vampiress had nothing remarkable about her. Not looks, grace, style. She truly was plain. The only thing unusual about her was her skin, which was the palest he’d ever seen. Even for a vampire.

As he came to a stop near her, she cast him a wary glance, then rushed to pick up her drink tray, nearly toppling over a few of the glasses in her haste. Without another look, she scurried toward the booths in the corner of the club.

Sebastian frowned, watching her briefly before Nadine’s voice drew his attention away.

“What can I get you tonight, boss?” she asked, a smirking grin on her full, burgundy-glossed lips.

Calling him boss was their joke. At six feet tall, not many people were Nadine’s boss. Add that she was a werewolf, and no one was. That being said, she was his best employee and one of his closest friends.

He gestured with his head in the direction of the waitress. “She’s new. Did you hire her?”

Nadine nodded. “Wilhelmina? Yes.”

“Wilhelmina?” Sebastian grimaced, he should have guessed she would have an odd name. “You’ve got to be kidding?”

“She’s fine. She needs this job,” Nadine said. “And not all of us can be as unnaturally perfect as you.”

Sebastian laughed. Nadine knew she was just as unnaturally perfect as he was. It went with the territory of being preternatural. He glanced back to the new waitress.

She cleared a table, fumbling with an empty glass. She did manage to catch it by the stem just before the goblet hit the floor and shattered.

Okay, that usually went with the territory. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“So what can I get you?” Nadine asked again.

“I’d like to get these ladies a round of drinks,” he said, nodding to the trio, who giggled and twittered behind him.

Nadine raised a perfect, arced, black brow, then chuckled and shook her head. “Only three?”

Sebastian smiled. She loved to give him a hard time about his women—or rather the amount of them. “Yes, three. I’ll wait for mine.”

“Mmm, mmm, mmm.” Nadine shook her head again. “Well, I guess you have been away for a while.”

“Yes,” he agreed. He had. And the way the hunger was gnawing at him tonight, he had no doubts that he could satisfy all three of these ladies. Maybe more than once.

He turned back to them. They beamed at him, excitement and anticipation in their eyes.

“So,” he smiled slowly, “what would you ladies like to do this evening?”

Wilhelmina set the tray on the bar as she blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. Then she tugged at the snug waitress uniform, an Asian-inspired black brocade dress with a mandarin collar. The uniform covered her from neck to knee, well mid-thigh anyway, but she still felt barely covered.

“Busy night, eh?” Nadine said, sliding a drink down the bar to Ferdinand before turning back to Wilhelmina.

“Yes, I’m afraid I’m not very fast either,” Wilhelmina admitted. Being a bit of a recluse, she’d thought the crowds and the noise would be the hardest part of working in a nightclub. She’d never been able to handle crowds. She hadn’t expected the actual job of cocktail waitress to be such hard work. While focusing on her drink orders and the carrying tray helped to keep the crowd from overwhelming her, it was distracting from her real reason for being here.

She handed Nadine a slip with a dozen or so drinks listed. Nadine nodded and hurried off. Wilhelmina fiddled with the strap of her high-heeled maryjanes, another part of the uniform that she wasn’t accustomed to wearing. It was little wonder she was slow.

High heels, she shook her head. So impractical.

Taking a breath, she used the small break to survey the club. Vampires, werewolves, other shapeshifters of various breeds mingled and danced with mortals. And the mortals didn’t have any idea.

She watched one female vampire take the hand of a mortal male and lead him to the exit. Wilhelmina’s first instinct was to run after the mortal and tell him what would happen if he left with the vampiress. But she knew from past experience that approach wouldn’t do any good. She’d tried it several times before, and all she ever received for her efforts was a look that stated that the human thought she was a loon. Oh, and there was also the one time that a mortal had threatened to have her arrested. Even now, she shivered at that idea. She definitely wanted to avoid that.

No, chasing them down and telling them the truth wasn’t the way to protect mortals.

Someday she hoped vampires and mortals could live truly together, without vampires having to hide and without humans being little more than a source of food and entertainment. That was the hope of all the vampires, shapeshifters, and other creatures that were involved in the Society of Preternaturals. But the only way that dream was going to be achieved was to end all the legends and myths about supernatural beings. Thus preternatural creatures couldn’t continue to act like the monsters of folklore. They had to realize their actions were propagating these myths.

She watched the couple exit the club, feeling mildly ill and saddened. She wanted to do more to help these mortals. And thus to help the vampires too, of course. Unfortunately, real change was often a slow process. Think globally, act locally. Which brought her back to why she was here.

Scanning the huge club, she assessed the layout of the place again. She studied the large upper level with its tables and private booths. Then her gaze dropped to the dance floor mobbed with dancers. She hoped her plan would work better than her first one. And she hoped it wasn’t too dangerous. Her intent was to protect mortal lives not to find a nonpreter-natural way to harm them.

Then she noticed him. Even in the sea of very pretty humans and stunning preternaturals, he stood out. Tall and lean in his stylish designer clothing with his intense eyes and pouty lips, Sebastian Young was the poster child for unnaturally beautiful vampires. The only thing that didn’t quite fit was his hair. Instead of black like the images of Dracula or other gothic undeads, his hair was mussed and blond like a surfer—or maybe an Abercrombie & Fitch model.

She had heard that he was a gorgeous creature, but even with that knowledge, she hadn’t been prepared for her first sighting of him earlier this evening. When he’d approached the bar with his entourage of mortal women, she’d actually been physically stunned by his beauty.

Wilhelmina considered herself very practical and hard to impress, so she hated to admit it, but he was impressive. It was little wonder mortals couldn’t resist him.

He now danced with one of the women he’d been with at the bar. He held the blond woman against him, her back pressed to his front. Wilhelmina watched as his hands caressed the mortal through the thin material of her dress, stroking upward, moving slowly over her belly, then up her rib cage to stop just under the curve of her full breasts.

Wilhelmina swallowed, telling herself to look away. Yet she couldn’t tear her gaze from him, and what he was doing. He nuzzled his cheek against the woman’s silky hair as his hands moved back down over her midriff. His pouty lips parted as he pressed them to the curve of her bare shoulder. His tongue tasted her golden skin.

Wilhelmina’s own lips parted as she breathed in a sharp breath.

“He’s something, isn’t he?”

Wilhelmina jumped, then glanced guiltily at Nadine.

“Wh—who?”

Nadine smiled, obviously not believing Wilhelmina’s attempt to sound unaware of who she referred to.

“Our employer,” Nadine clarified anyway. “The one you were eyeing as if he were good enough to eat.”

“I was not.” Wilhelmina frowned. That was ludicrous.

Again Nadine didn’t seem convinced. Her smile widened further, her teeth gleaming white against her lovely, dark skin.

“I will have to introduce you.” She glanced to where he danced with the lovely blonde. “Later, though. I’d say he’s busy for the night. You know, after being away.”

Wilhelmina glanced back, too. Another woman joined them on the dance floor, her hands slipping around him from behind so he was sandwiched between the two women.

“Very busy,” Nadine said, with a wry, yet almost fond chuckle. She began to place drinks on Wilhelmina’s tray.

Wilhelmina watched the antics of the dancing threesome for a moment longer, then determinedly picked up the tray.

So she’d finally seen the Sebastian Young. She knew she would eventually, and she wasn’t going to be shaken by his presence. The goal was to stay focused on why she was here. Why she had picked this nightclub and this vampire. Sebastian Young disgusted her. He was everything she despised in a vampire.

And she planned to destroy him.