She wished she wouldn’t disappoint her admirers, but unless she was sloppily drunk, no way could she rub herself against a man, a vampire on top of it, in some base, seductive dance in front of a club full of onlookers. Killing rogue vampires was tons easier.
Taking a deep breath, she figured she might as well introduce herself and get it over with. “I’m Selena.”
“Atreides.” He bowed his head, then turned to the band.
Several of the band members smiled, their gazes shifting from Atreides to Selena.
She was in trouble now.
The music played just as seductively slow as when she’d first entered the club, the mood enticing lovers to bare all. She tentatively touched Atreides’s waist with her hand and reached for his with her other in a formal distant way, but he pulled her hard against his body.
She gasped and instantly the temperature in the room elevated to sauna level—or at least her body heat had.
Murmurs filled the club, but she couldn’t make out what was being said. Probably that the huntress was out of her element, and her boldness served her right. Which about now, she totally agreed with.
Atreides gripped her hand, keeping her tight against his body, then moved his leg between hers, and that was the last thought she had about how others viewed her. His free hand roamed down her back, sliding the red silk against her skin, slipping lower until he caressed her buttocks. She should have kept her huntress calm, but she lost whatever huntress sensibility she’d been born with and melted against the rogue’s caresses. She knew he had to be a rogue to want to seduce a huntress. Or maybe he didn’t want to seduce her but was just toying with her for being so brash to enter his world.
Determined to show him she could do this too, as much as it went against everything she was, she leaned against his thigh and gave a tentative rub. It would have been much more effective if she hadn’t been trembling when she did it.
The vampire’s eyes blazed with heat, and his neck muscles tightened. She swore a low growl rumbled in his throat. It was then that she felt his arousal hard against her hip. She barely noticed that he was moving her along the floor at a snail’s pace. Her every sense was attuned to the way his hand cupped her buttock, the way his thigh lifted higher, connecting with her damp mound, and his smoky eyes devoured her with ardent attention. He might not like her at all, but he was definitely lusting after her.
Closing her eyes, she savored the erotic feeling and pretended she was on another planet, that her misbehavior was perfectly acceptable there, and that the man who had freed her from her earthbound world was her lover.
She tossed her head back and laughed.
The other hunters were right. She was insane and needed to be locked away for everyone’s good. But not until after she’d had her dance with the hot vampire.
Atreides would show the woman how wrong she was to have entered the vampire’s lair. He truly didn’t think Basil had ordered the bartender to lace her drink with drugs, but he couldn’t be certain. However, if it made the huntress wise up that she risked her life by coming into the place, spilling her drink was well worth the effort.
Who knew if any of Tamblyn Dance Club’s patrons might be renegades? Any of them might be on the huntress’s target list, and any would be ready to fight her if she made a move to take him or her down. Hunters were as arrogant as the vampires, though this one was more so if she thought to come to a vampire club and leave unscathed.
What Atreides hadn’t expected was her offer of a dance. Did she think getting in thick with the vampires who weren’t rogues would give her a way to locate those who were?
He grunted under his breath. It was the hunters’ jobs to locate and terminate the renegades. They got paid for it, not the vampires.
But the feel of her soft buttocks and the way she moved against his hard body enticed him to want more, made him forget what she’d come here for, made him forget his own mission. Or that she was a huntress.
Hell, all evening he’d declined every offer from vampiresses to blood bonds alike to dance when Iconia was so late coming to the club, so why had he accepted the huntress’s offer? To show her that she could not dance like the women here, that she didn’t belong, and she should give up whatever game she was playing?
He released her hand and planted his free hand on her other buttock, lifting her higher against his thigh. God, she felt good, yet he tried to concentrate on his reasoning for dancing with her. To scare her off.
Yet some dark part of him remained intrigued. She’d offered herself to him like a blood sacrifice, yet if he moved in that direction, he was certain she would have wished she was armed. No huntress had ever offered to dance with a vampire in the club. Hell, none of the hunter kind would be so forthright as to walk into a vampire’s dance lair. Something deep inside him wanted to experience the sensation. Not that he thought she would live up to the way his usual partners danced. However, Iconia was late, and what the hell, he was always looking for some new diversion in his life. After having lived so long, life did get dull at times.
He could barely move on the floor he was so enraptured with the feel of the huntress, the way her jasmine fragrance tantalized him, the whisper of her breath against his neck, the racing beat of her heart that sent his senses reeling. All her soft curves pressed against him, molding to him, making him all the harder. He fought the insane urge to taste the huntress’s blood. He hated the hunter kind, he vehemently rebuked himself.
Many hunters loved their job too much when terminating rogues. Some killed vampires who weren’t even killers. And then the hunters had to eliminate their own kind. But sometimes the hunters got away with the deed, the murder covered up, or explained as an accidental killing. Vampires who were on the right side of the law tolerated the hunters, but that was about it.
Although he had to admit, he did feel a brotherly affection for his brother’s mate, a huntress turned vampire, and her younger sister. But she and her sister were exceptions to the rule.
Most of the telepathic communication between the vampires had stopped because they were so intrigued that he would accept a dance with the huntress. Iconia was not happy. He’d seen her enter the club right after he’d taken the huntress to the floor, and she was glowering at the both of them at the edge of the dance stage. The vampiress would have words with him later, which might help to spark their dreary relationship of late.
The huntress leaned into him, pressing her soft body against his hard one, rubbing her mound against his thigh, and he nearly lost it. She had no business using her feminine wiles to attempt to ensnare him. He’d meant to scare the huntress off with his erotic moves. Normally a good judge of character, he hadn’t believed she would have the fortitude to dance like this. What else had he mistakenly misjudged about the woman?
Instinctively, he knew she had to leave before she became a rogue’s target. But part of him wished to know why she’d come here. He refused to get sucked into caring. Getting rid of her remained his priority.
If she’d been Iconia and heated him the way the huntress had, he would have left the club and finished the dance moves in private. Still, he couldn’t rid himself of the elicit thoughts of taking the huntress away from here and showing her some new moves to see if she was as willing to play the game further. Which was downright madness. He despised the hunter kind, every last one of them, except for Tezra and Katie, he reminded himself.