A hand landed on my shoulder, and I jumped. I opened my eyes to Kara, who inclined her head behind me with a twinkle in her eye.
She leaned forward to yell in my hear. “Check him out. Four o’clock.”
I turned my head, trying to be casual, but failed. A man in black had sidled up behind me. He wasn’t touching me, not rude, but I could feel the warmth of his gaze on me. He reminded me of a guy from an eighties band, and something was charming about that: blonde hair that flopped into his eyes, black leather jacket, and a blue-eyed gaze that was both sharp and sultry at the same time. As he danced, I got a whiff of leather and cloves and something that reminded me of dark amber. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t place it.
He smiled at me, a brilliant smile that made me a little weak in the knees. Or maybe that was the wine. He leaned in and said, “I’m Merrel. What’s your name?”
“Garnet,” I said, hoping he heard me over the music.
He nodded and extended his hand to me. It was a curiously civilized gesture on a dance floor where more than one couple was getting tangled in sweat and pheromones. One woman was leading a man out on the dance floor by a rhinestone-encrusted leash.
I took his hand, and it was cool as glass.
“I like your ink,” he said, glancing at the back of my shoulder.
“Oh.” I ducked my head and blushed. “It’s not ink. It’s a birthmark.”
“It’s really beautiful,” he said, his eyes drifting to my shoulder. There was something odd in his expression. He seemed strangely fascinated by it.
“Um, thanks,” I said. I glanced back for Kara. She was fading off the dance floor, giving me a wink that said she’d be watching from the table.
I turned back and smiled at Merrel. His dancing had slowed to match mine. I was never good at small talk, but I’d give it a try. “I hear that this is an...interesting place.” I glanced past him at a man coated in silver body paint, writhing on the dance floor like he’d been dipped in acid.
He glanced at the man. “It can get interesting. It just depends on what you’re looking for.”
“I’m not interesting,” I blurted. I then shook my head and blushed.
“Oh, I disagree,” he said. He extended his other hand. I put mine in his, and he twirled me, as if we were in a 1940s black and white film.
The music changed, slowed a bit. He held my hand, and I considered moving away and returning to my friends. I looked back at their table. Curt and Kara had fresh drinks. They caught me gazing at them and lifted their glasses in a toast.
I rolled my eyes and returned my attention to my dance partner. I surrendered my right hand to him and rested my left on his arm. His left arm circled my waist, and I got a stronger whiff of leather and cloves. There was something else, too, that I was surprised to smell...he smelled improbably like snow.
My mind raced, trying to find something to talk about. “So...what do you do?”
His voice came close to my ear, and I found that I could hear him effortlessly over the music. “I’m a security consultant.”
“Ah.” He had a job. That was a good sign. I was expecting a guy who looked like that to tell me that he was surfing on his ex-wife’s couch while trying to find himself a new sugar momma or something.
“And you?” he asked.
“I work in medicine,” I said, vaguely. People sometimes got weird if they found out I was a doctor. At parties and family gatherings, it was a surefire way to invite some random self-involved soul to show me their bunions.
“Let me guess,” he said, turning his intense blue gaze on me. “If I guess correctly, do I get another dance?”
“Okay.” I lifted my chin. I bet he thought I was a dental hygienist. Or maybe a dermatologist. Nobody ever said: ‘You look like a trauma surgeon.’
He gazed into my face, scrutinizing me with a smile playing on his lips. “I bet you are where the action is. Maybe an emergency room. Maybe a surgical suite. I see you as being unafraid of blood.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Not a bad guess. I’m a trauma surgeon.” I immediately changed the subject. My work was my entire life, but I didn’t want to tell him that. “And what does a security consultant do?”
He gave a small shrug. “It’s mostly boring. A lot of gathering data and running scenarios. Target hardening of buildings. Threat assessment.”
I knew that I was getting a bunch of buzzwords. I lifted an eyebrow. “My turn to guess. Ex-military or something?”
“I was in the military for a while,” he said. “But not anymore.”
The music changed again, moving slower. He drew me closer, and I acquiesced. My cheek brushed the lapel of his jacket. I liked the feeling of having another person close to me. It had been a long time since I’d felt that spark of fascination, and I realize that I’d missed it.
Merrel’s fingers laced with mine, and he drew my hand to his chest. Dancing with him felt both innocent and intimate at the same time. My other hand slipped up around his neck, and his hand moved from my waist up to my bare back, his fingers brushing the ties of my halter top and the edge of my birthmark.
I glanced away for a moment, realizing that I could no longer see Kara and Curt. We’d moved farther into the crowd, toward the back of the warehouse. It was darker here, and I felt enveloped in the warmth of the crowd pulsing around me.
I looked up at him. A sense of familiarity tugged at the edge of my mind, and then it hit me.
He looked like the guy from my dream, the man in armor I’d killed. The guy whose blood I drank.
I stepped back, confused.
He reached for my shoulder, his brow furrowing. “Hey. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I just—” I rubbed the back of my neck. It was just a dream. But this guy looked so much like him. I felt hot and a little sick, and my pulse pounded in my temples.
“Let’s get some air,” he suggested. He reached for my hand, and I gave it to him. I craned my neck back, looking for my friends, but I’d lost them.
We passed the bar, and Merrel grabbed a bottled water from a cooler behind the bar. He led me to an emergency exit. I opened my mouth to tell him to stop, that the fire alarm would go off, but he pushed it open, and nothing happened. Gloriously cool air hit me in the face, and I ducked out to the alley with him.
The door clanged shut behind us, and my ears rang. The alley was poorly lit, and we were behind a Dumpster, within view of the brick street. My instincts screamed that this was dangerous, that this man could be the kind of guy who stuffed people in trunks and drove off with them. My hand slid to my jeans pocket, where my keys were. They’d be a makeshift weapon if I needed them to be.
But he handed me the bottled water and watched me with what seemed to be genuine concern. I took the bottle from him, cracked it open, and drank.
“Thank you,” I said, after I’d drained half the bottle. I pressed the bottle to the back of my neck. I probably hadn’t eaten enough before going out, and that was dumb.
“No problem,” he said. “It gets a little intense in there.”
“You’re talking about the woman in the polka-dotted assless chaps?”
“Well, yeah.” He grinned and shrugged. “There’s always something to see.” He gently reached toward me and cupped my cheek in his hand. His hand was colder than the water bottle, and I felt a bit dizzy at his touch.