The thumping nightclub isn’t far, and I lose Jérémie almost immediately. More than half the occupants are young humans. Their clothes glow under black lights, their necks and wrists ringed in luminescent jewelry.
I sidestep between two young men at the black-glossed bar. Out of habit, I size up the young man standing closest. Shirtless, revealing tight, tanned muscles brushed in some kind of gold dust. Droplets of sweat coat his freckled shoulders. Shaggy, sun-bleached hair halos a long face. Not even near my type, not to mention practically in diapers.
“You going to buy me a shot of tequila?” I ask, swiveling around to press my spine into the bar. I prop my elbows up and back, pushing forth my breasts. His eyes widen.
He’s quick to ask the bartender for my shot, which I gratefully accept.
“Wanna dance?” the kid asks.
I push away from the bar. “Try someone a little more your speed, pup.” But because I’m not totally heartless, I kiss his cheek, then whisper in his ear, “We’d break you.”
“We?”
Laughing, I part with a wink, tequila already igniting a fire in my stomach. More and more tension leaves my shoulders with every step I take. I work deeper into the crowd and blend in with the more daring of hands. Nothing like getting felt up in a room lacking inhibitions. I don’t hate the attention and it comes with no strings.
Although it soon becomes clear that while there were no strings, the skin contact offers a high I hadn’t expected. Skintasy is apparently the drug of choice tonight. All it takes is one high kid to share the love. The more skin I rub against, the more the drug passes. My blood laps it up, and in no time every touch zings and sparks. I want to touch and be touched. The outer edges of everything glows in gold.
I sway all the way through the dance floor, following the ebb and flow of the beat, rotating my hips into anyone who welcomes it. My focus drifts away, swallowed up by a burning need. The high is exactly what I need.
Okay, maybe not exactly.
Who I need appears almost out of nowhere and is in quite a state when he does. Jérémie’s jacket is missing, and so is his shirt. He’s clearly met with the same fate I did, and rubs sensually against a tall redhead. Their eyes are locked, and every part of me burns.
Fuck ownership and pasts and even the death sentence that awaits me on the other end of this trip. This Flux is mine.
I slide between them and lock eyes with his partner. She looks angelic limned in the golden drug haze, but an angel she is not. The girl smiles and works her hands over my hips, claiming me instantly.
Jérémie presses against my back, and I gasp. His hard length teases against my ass. My head falls back against his chest. I reach up and back until my fingers comb through his thick, dark waves. His hips guide mine into a carnal circle.
The redhead dips her head and licks my collarbone. She cups my breasts. Each point of pressure from her fingers sends lightning bolts straight to my throbbing sex. Meanwhile, Jérémie’s palms slide down my hips, beneath my skirt over my bare ass, leaving a hot trail of tingles in their wake. So many sensations. So much need.
The woman brings her mouth over mine, taking a deep, uninhibited kiss. She tastes of vodka and weed. She smells like arousal. Between her scent and Jérémie’s, I almost can’t handle it.
She pulls away with a wide smile. “You two are so hot.”
“You have no idea,” I say.
Jérémie abruptly yanks a tall man between me and the redhead. Her attention newly distracted, he jerks me around. I slam into his hard, bare chest, and he fists my hair at the nape of my neck, angling my head up. He backs us off the dance floor, his gaze locked with mine.
This is exactly what attracted me to him in the first place. The way he looks at me as if no one else in the universe exists. It’s maddening how easily he turns me into whatever he wants. I’ve murdered for him. Run for him. And now, set aside my soul for him. I’ve turned myself inside out again and again and again.
We back into a dark corner where Jérémie flattens me against the wall. I want him, and he wants me. There’s no hiding it. We’re bathing in our own sweet scents of musky arousal.
He presses against me until I can’t take a full breath. I don’t want to. I want his weight on me. In me. His lips edge toward mine, but veer away just before contact. His nose trails up my cheek, then down my neck, inhaling me. His lips drag up to my ear. A hot tongue draws my lobe into his mouth. Teeth nibble my sensitive skin.
My already ragged breath catches. His every touch tortures me. “What are you doing?” Why aren’t you doing more? is what I really want to ask.
He lifts his mouth to speak into my ear. “Retaliation.”
“For what?”
A low, rumbling growl vibrates his chest. “For letting that human in your mouth. And for this.”
His deft hand reaches up my dress and cups my sex. I moan and angle my hips forward. The heel of his palm rubs my aching clit.
Movement through the dance floor catches my attention. They’re slower than the blitzed crowd and don’t move with any sort of rhythm. The men are covered in black graphene armor and synthetic fabrics from the neck down. Even their hands are protected. Their focused stare tells me they’re missing out on the drug experience running rampant through the club.
“Stop,” I cry. “Jérémie, stop.”
He stumbles away. “Why?”
“Flux,” I say, and point.
Edmond leads three other men. He’s bald, has a beak-like nose, and a very square jaw. All four Flux showcase their race like a badge of honor. Their faces ripple fluidly between their humanoid forms and something other. That otherness differs with every Flux with one exception: they’re all just as dangerous as the next.
Jérémie grabs my hand. “Back to the room.”
I let him guide me through the drugged crowd currently stumbling to get away from our new visitors. Outside, a Tu'Ver forces us to inhale a detoxin that clears my head so quickly, everything appears razor sharp and brighter than before.
“Hey,” I say to the Tu'Ver, with a glance over my shoulder. “You had some Flux board the ship?”
“Yes,” he says, using four of his arms to detox more club-goers. “They received permission to board an hour ago.”
Jérémie and I exchange a look. There goes the privacy of my suite, and all the money wasted to get it. And while I love my dress, I don’t really want to spend the next few days hiding, running, and fighting in it.
“We cannot share information pertaining to our passengers,” the Tu'Ver adds helpfully. “Your identity is safe. But if they were to find you on any of the open levels...” He trails off, but we understand.
In the open, we’re fair game.
“I’m going to take a bath,” I say upon entering the expansive cabin. “I feel like I was manhandled by a Xem.”
Jérémie closes the door behind us. “So I am a slug now, am I?”
“It’s a step up from where you were yesterday.”
I only hate Jérémie a little less tonight, and my feelings for him are all over the place. Coming in contact with skintasy was the worst thing that could have happened to me tonight, and yes, I count the Flux sighting in that. At least with Edmond I know where I stand. Killing his brother put me on his permanent kill list, and knowing him, he has the full support of the Flux council.
I turn into my bedroom, shed the dress and heels, then enter the enormous, tiled bathroom. I’ve just slid into the hot water when Jérémie inches the door open. He holds two red wines and a smile. As if I’m not about to come out of this tub and wreck his incredible manhood.
“Get out,” I say, gaze drifting down his bare chest and straight to the money spot. He’s as naked as they come, and despite my anxiety against continuing what we started downstairs, I’m excited.
He sets a glass beside me—I’m not touching his offering with a ten-foot pole—then strolls to the other side of the freestanding tub. “Do you remember how we met?”
It’s pretty obvious what he’s trying to do. A trip down memory lane...soften up the girl...remind her how good things once were. They won’t erase how he let me leave without so much as a blink, so I’m pretty safe going along with it.
“Alexandre had just stepped up my status to consort, and unveiled me at the annual ball. You were there with that handsy Minir—I remember she lost control and drank all the water in one of the fish tanks. Wasn’t she sentenced to five years solitary for that? She killed five very rare Impen fish with that stunt.”
Jérémie steps into the opposite side of my bath, forcing a gentle current of heated water and suds to lap over my breasts. “She dried out before the sentence was carried out, but that’s not the point of my question.”
“I’m well aware of your point. You want to finish what you started, but unfortunately for you, I’m sober and the moment has long past, Beast.” Even as I say it, my gaze drifts once more to what awaits me if I give in to his tactics. His erection grows right before my eyes.
“See something you like?” he asks, lowering into the water.
“Actually, I was just thinking about how your dick looks exactly as I remember it.” Truth.
“Is that right?”
I bat my lashes and smile. “Barely adequate.” Lie.
Jérémie’s strong legs stretch out, and maneuvers one of mine right to the middle. More hot water sloshes up my cool-skinned chest. My legs aren’t nearly long enough to reach his goods, but if he slides down a few inches, my toes will get a little action.
“Why do you do that?” he asks, then sips his wine.
“Do what?”
“It takes a human drug to give you the courage to let me get close to you. There was a time when you sought me out. Begged me to touch you.”
“I was so high tonight I would have fucked just about anything standing. Even you. As for the past, I like to think of myself as being in a constant state of evolving. What that means is I’m over you.”
“You kissed me back yesterday. Outside your car. So”—he dips a hand below the water line and gently cups my ankle between his legs—“you can say what you want, but I sense you want me back. Just as I do you.”