"Dear heaven," Dee breathed, lolling against the body she’d become intimately familiar with in the fortnight of their association. "I'm in stud heaven."
"You like it? Better than the other clubs?" Roc asked smugly, his arm draped over her bare shoulders, his blunt fingers caressing her exposed cleavage. "I have friends here. This is where I began my business."
Dee ignored the mournful blues drifting from one corner as she inspected the elegant piano bar. There were few women, and most of them looked like money. The men looked like sex.
"Are you telling me all this is for sale?" she whispered, openly leering at a couple of sailor boys leaning against the bar.
Roc laughed and squeezed her closer. "Most of it, but remember, you're here with me."
"For now," she replied, her haughty expression fading into a pout as he burst out laughing.
"I love you drunk," he said, kissing her softly.
"So do I," she confided. Then she kissed him back, knowing her lips were lush and red and irresistible tonight. In fact, everything about her was irresistible. Either that or she was very drunk. "Let's do it here," she whispered against his lips. "You must know some dark corner."
"You just want to get me in trouble," he whispered back, and kissed her again, hard, as though to satisfy her with that. "I know the owner, If he caught us, he'd kill me."
But Dee wasn't satisfied with the kiss. She wanted danger, excitement, sex. It was a drug and she craved a fix. She eased back from Roc and patted his chest. "Don't worry about that," she said. "There are plenty of live specimens about. I'd survive."
He laughed then, the dramatic lines vanishing as his chameleon face transformed into a picture of wry disbelief. "Now you are you trying to make me, jealous?"
The word hung between them like a challenge, and despite her alcohol induced fog, Dee felt the sensual throb start deep between her thighs. An idea formed hazily in her mind.
She slid backwards out of his grasp, teasing him with her eyes before executing a remarkably coordinated turn. Then, head held high she sashayed towards bar, concentrating on keeping her heels from buckling under her.
After a quick appraisal of the talent, she slid on to the stool beside a bronzed thirty-something with bleached dreadlocks and an expensive suit. Pausing for a moment to still her dizziness she composed a creamy smile which she aimed at him with all the subtlety of a stun-gun.
"Drink?" he inquired.
Dee sighed. It was too easy.
"An orgasm," she decided. "If I can get one here."
He didn't reply immediately, and Dee was left to wonder if he was incredibly stupid, or whether her sledge-hammer approach had put him off.
Roc was close, leaning against the wall watching her and although he didn't look particularly jealous, he was frowning. She didn't want to strike out.
"It's a cock-tail," she added as clarification. Then surprised by her unwitting double entendre, she burst out laughing.
Her prey wasn't put off in the slightest. In fact, when she'd stopped gurgling she discovered he was leaning closer, resting an elbow on the bar. Definitely interested.
Dee tried to copy his posture but it was too complicated and she ended up with one slender arm sprawled across the bar, and the cleavage precariously confined in her black velvet sheath ready to burst out.
"Cock tail," she repeated solemnly.
"I guess they are," he replied, his gaze slowly travelling from the crest of one escaping nipple to her unfocused eyes.
"But does the dog wag it," she asked, poking him in the chest with a forefinger for emphasis, "or does it wag the dog?"
"Have you ever tried cocaine?"
Dee blinked and dropped her hand, leaving it where it landed on the top of his thigh as she framed a reply. For some reason it took a long time.
"No."
"It's better than sex."
Better than sex? Dee's gaze wandered to where she'd left Roc. He was gone.
"Better than sex." She repeated the words dully as she waited for inspiration. She had no idea what she'd do.
The room was seriously starting to spin. Her hand slipped on her quarry's thigh and she frowned up at him. Why she was wasting her time with this…
"Or perhaps you'd like both," he offered belatedly as she slid off the stool. But she was staring at his crotch, still frowning.
"Why would I want limp spaghetti," she gestured vaguely at his lap, "when I've got salami… around here somewhere." Her blurred gaze wavered erratically as she searched the smoky bar. Roc was nowhere to be seen.
Instantly forgetting dreadlocks, she turned on her heel and set off to find Roc, but the quick movement unsettled her equilibrium and after only a couple of steps her heel buckled and she was flung against an unseasonably heavy overcoat, an overcoat with a lean hard body inside it, and about which clung the scent of night — not musty, but cool and deep.
"Very impressive," its occupant said, before she was hauled back and held by someone behind her.
"Gently, Mr Black," came the voice from the overcoat.
She struggled, trying to free her arms, but only managing to liberate her breasts, then she was too drunk to realise what had happened. Long elegant fingers emerged from the overcoat pockets to grasp the front of her dress and she stilled. To Dee, the background drone of music seemed to fade, and as she watched through tumbled-down hair, he pulled her bodice up into place, inadvertently trailing the backs of those fingers over her nipples.
Slowly, as though it was attached to strings, she raised her head.
Her first thought on seeing the beautiful bone structure and connecting it to the deep commanding voice, was that she'd fallen onto a visiting European Prince. There was a courtliness about him, an old-world quality to his bearing that immediately distinguished him from the other patrons. His face was that of a young man's, possibly no older than Roc, but his air of authority enveloped her like a force field.
No, a tractor beam.
"Good evening, Wendee. My name is Pietre DeMartande," he said, his pronunciation perfect and completely accentless. His pale green eyes were strangely reptilian and she couldn't seem to look away from them.
"Mr Black?" he said softly, and the man behind her released her arms. They fell listlessly to her sides. Her drunken stupor was rapidly evaporating and in its place came a new intoxication. This… Pietre DeMartande was like no man she'd ever met. Behind those cold assessing eyes was an intelligence to rival her own and a lack of pretence that cut straight to her soul. No-one controlled this man.
Her head cleared a little more. "You know my name."
"We have a mutual acquaintance." His gaze drifted to her side and she found herself expecting the slow shutter of a nictitating membrane. They were the strangest eyes.
"Wendee?" She became conscious of Roc beside her, pulling on her arm and she turned to him, reluctantly.
"Give us five minutes, DeMartande," Roc said over her shoulder as he led her to a quiet corner of the bar. When he had her alone, he gripped her shoulders firmly. "I want you to go with him."
"But…" Walking had stirred up the alcohol in her system and she took a moment to let the vertigo subside. "Why?"
His expression was almost pitying. "I don't like to let a paying customer go, but you're wilder than I'd thought. I can't give you what you want."
"You don't know what I want." What the hell’s going on?
"DeMartande will know."
She thought about that for a second. "You're passing me on to him." Was this some sort of professional etiquette? "He doesn't look like a — "
"He's not." Roc seemed edgy. "There’s no money involved. He's just… He's an explorer, like you."
She shook her head. What was he talking about?
"It has been good for me, Wendee, but now…" he shrugged eloquently. "Go with DeMartande. I know him. You won't be hurt. He'll take care of you."
"He'll take care of me," she echoed softly, turning to meet DeMartande's watchful gaze. There was nothing in his bland expression to influence her, but in that contact she experienced a thrill of anticipation unlike anything she'd ever known. Easing away from Roc, she stared into those ice-green eyes, feeling fear and challenge and… submission. In Pietre DeMartande she saw the seeds of her own downfall and like a lemming on a cliff, she jumped.
"Hello, Wendee," a deep voice whispered next to her ear, but Dee found she didn't want to stir. She was warm and comfortable. "Open your eyes," the voice coaxed. "We know you're awake."
We? Dee stretched, feeling the softness of some kind of fur brushing her skin — her naked skin? Her eyelashes fluttered open, and when she could focus she found six pairs of masculine eyes staring back at her. Behind them, firelight flickered on a cave wall.
She wet her lips. "Where am I?"
"Never Land."
"Never… land." She blinked, a couple of times. "Who are you?"
"We're your Lost Boys, Wendee."