lane? Well, sometimes pressure had to be released in one place so the rest of the whole could continue in relative peace. And again, having a problem here was better than anywhere else in Caldwell—
Over to the right, the crowd was thickening up, sure as if the bodies were cells and a tumor was spontaneously sprouting amongst otherwise healthy tissue. It was some kind of argument, the dim light and the black costumes and the pushing and shoving making it impossible to tell who the aggressor was, what the tussle was about, whether punches were being thrown or if it was just another case of humans posturing in front of a peanut gallery.
At least that was the information his brain registered. His talhman, on the other hand, was aroused by the physical expression of anger, tantalized by the possibility of blood welling and dripping from wounds, kindled by the prospect of stalking and taking down prey.
“Not for us,” the male muttered.
Reaching up, he pulled the black skull cap he had on lower. The action was reflexive, and it was only afterward that he recognized what he’d done.
He was preparing to go in. Get something. And he didn’t want his identity known.
As it turned out, his testing field found him.
From the chaotic knot of humans, a female broke free, and his first thought, as he recognized her as one of his own species, was what the hell was she doing getting involved with a bunch of rats without tails? But then nothing about her mattered at the same time all parts of her became significant.
She seemed harried as she looked around, her black hair tangled in the mask that covered her eyes and half of her face, her lipstick smudged, her bodice asymmetrical, one breast about to pop out.
The discordant scatter of her aura instantly changed as their eyes met. Her body, lost on its feet, caught itself, becoming still. Her breathing stopped and then resumed at a calmer pace. Her hands readjusted the bustier into proper position.
He was willing to bet her thoughts did the same beneath her skull, her cognition righting itself.
And focusing on him.
Leaving the melee she’d come out of in the dust, she strode up to him, kicking her bouncy hair over her shoulder, tilting her chin high.
Whether that was so she could meet his eyes from her lower height or as a show of independence and aggression, he couldn’t tell. And didn’t actually care.
“I am Nightingale,” she announced.
Like that is supposed to mean something to me? he thought.
By way of responding, he let his eyes travel the curves of her body from behind his dark lenses. That black hair was long, so very long, cascading over her shoulders and falling down to her hips, a river of spiral curls that caught and held the flashing blue in the lasers. That black bustier of hers trimmed her waist and pushed up her breasts, creating creamy globes that she had powdered with something shimmery. Her lips were blood red . . . her throat pale and lovely.
“What’s your name,” she said on a drawl.
The male drew in through his nose, scenting her. She was turned on, her sexual stimulation obvious and directed at him, an equation she wanted him to solve, a distance she had decided he would carry her, a fantasy she had chosen him to satisfy.
His blood surged. And underneath his own arousal, his talhman prowled. If she knew what he was really like, she would not have picked him out of the crowd. But that was the danger and the excitement of what places like this offered, wasn’t it: anonymous sex with strangers who you could wallpaper with your own fantasies, each side fulfilling needs that might or might not have been expressed outright, the reality that you didn’t know what you were really getting lending an edge to it all.
An edge that patched over the lack of true attraction, a tarp of make-believe to cover the holes left by the shingles that had blown off the roof of reality.
Vengeance, he decided. As he measured the hellfire in her eyes, and the way she glared back at the crowd like someone in the club had gotten into her face, he was willing to bet she was in search of some hot and heavy in retaliation for an offense.
Talk about burning off steam.
The male extended his hand and placed the tip of his forefinger on the soft spot between her collarbones, that divot in her flesh