“I’m sure he’ll like your hair,” I poked, then grabbed keys and stuffed my wallet into a small black clutch purse. Mallory stuck out her tongue. We gathered up Catcher—who guiltily flipped off a Lifetime movie—and headed out.
Red was located in a stand-alone building, a three-story brick structure that looked, architecturally, like it might house a design studio. The facade was dominated by three rows of high, arched windows, each topped with an intricately carved relief. We parked the car on a side street and approached the door, bass thumping through the walls. We were headed for the back of the short waiting line, but the guard at the door—bald, clad in a black T-shirt and fatigues, and wearing a headset—waved a clipboard at us.
“We aren’t on the list,” Catcher told him.
“Names?” he asked anyway, his voice flat and deep.
“Catcher Bell, Mallory Carmichael, and Merit,” Catcher told him. Face bunched, the bouncer flipped through the sheath of paper clipped to his board. But then his gaze rose, and he stared blankly ahead and nodded as, I imagined, he listened to someone on the other end of the headset. Then he stepped back from the door and waved us inside.
Weird, but who were we to argue with VIP service?
We entered to the rhythmic thump of a slow bass beat that carried enough power to vibrate my core. But while the music was raucously loud, the decor was chic. Elegant. Drinks were served from an enormous mirror-backed bar that was tucked against the building’s front wall, while the side walls were lined in curtain-edged mirrors and red leather booths, tables in front of them. Tiny lamps lit the tables and reflected against the mirrors, giving the club the look of a European coffeehouse. A wrought-iron spiral staircase was positioned near the bar, and a small but completely filled dance floor dominated the back of the room. The clientele was as classy as the decor—chicly dressed couples in the booths along the wall, chatting over martinis and cosmopolitans. They were all oddly attractive—lots of Louis Vuitton bags and Manolo Blahnik shoes, carefully coiffed hair and perfectly tailored clothes.
Some, I knew, were vampires. I’m not sure how I knew that—although the fact that they were all, to a one, weirdly attractive was a sure tip-off. They just had a different vibe, a different sense about them. And here they were, sipping ten-dollar drinks, flirting, and swaying to the music just like people.
Catcher took our drink orders—vodka tonic for Mal, gin and tonic for me—while we headed for the last available mirror-backed table. We slid against the wall, leaving the outside seat for Catcher.
“Gorgeous place,” Mallory yelled over the din, surveying the room. “I can’t believe we haven’t been here before.”
I nodded, watching the dancers move, taking the drinks Catcher handed us when he returned. One song ended and a second began instantaneously, the opening beats of Muse’s “Hysteria” ringing through the club. Eager to dance, I took a quick sip of my drink and grabbed Mallory’s hand, pulling her to the dance floor. We shuffled through the throng, finding a gap in the crush of designer-clad bodies, and danced. We shifted, moved, swayed hips and arms, and let the music overtake us, swallow us, beat the worries from our minds in time to the raging synthesizer. We stayed on the dance floor through that song and another, and another, and another, before tunneling back through the bodies for a break, a seat, a drink. (And we’d left Catcher guarding our purses, so we felt a little duty-bound to go back.)
Mallory slid into the chair next to him, filling him in on her fabulous dance experience, his eyes alight with amusement as she chatted with vital animation, pushing her hair behind her ears as she talked. I sipped at my cocktail and downed the water that waited for us.
Suddenly, the song ended and the club became silent, even as strobes flashed around us. A haze of fog began to flow around our feet, a prelude to the ominous beating vibe of Roisin Murphy’s “Ramalama,” which began to spill through the room. The club’s dancers, who’d paused tremulously between songs, waiting for the signal to move again, screamed joyously, and began thrusting to the music once again.
We rested for a few minutes, chatting about nothing in particular, when Catcher took the drink from Mallory’s hand, deposited it on the table, and led her back to the dance floor. When she turned back to me, her face radiating shock that he’d had the nerve to expect her to follow without a fuss, I winked back.
I rolled the ice around in my drink, watching Mallory blush as Catcher swayed against her, when a voice next to me suddenly asked, “Good song, don’t you think?”
I looked over, surprised to find a smiling man with his arm stretched along the booth behind me. His hair was cropped, vaguely wavy, and dark brown, framing cut cheekbones, a cleft chin, and a strong jaw dotted with a day’s worth of stubble.
But for all that he was handsome, it was the eyes that pulled me in, that focused the attention. That accelerated the pulse. His were dark, and set beneath long, dark eyebrows. He peered at me beneath long, black lashes, his gaze seductively masked. The lashes rose, fell, rose again.
Sexy Eyes wore a fitted black leather jacket—trim lines, Mandarin collar, very alt-rock—over a black shirt that snugged his lean torso. Around one wrist was a watch with a wide leather wrap-band. Altogether, the look was urban, rebellious, dangerous, and damn effective on a vampire. And he was definitely a vampire.
“It’s a great song,” I answered, having finished my look-see, and inclined my head toward the dance floor. “And the kids seem to like it.”
He nodded. “So they do. But you aren’t dancing.”
“I’m taking a breather. I was out there for nearly an hour,” I told him, practically yelling to ensure that he could hear me over the pulsating music.
“Oh? Like dancing, do you?”
“I get around.” Realizing how that sounded, I waved my hands. “That’s not what I meant. I just mean I like to dance.”
He laughed and settled a bottle of beer on the table. “I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt,” he said, smiling softly and giving me a full-on look at his eyes. They weren’t brown, as I’d first thought, but a kind of mottled navy blue.
And I was struck by the thought that when he finally kissed me, they would flash and deepen, silver pulsing at the edges—
Wait. When he finally kissed me? Where in God’s name had that come from?
I narrowed my gaze at him, guessing the source of the trickery. “Did you just try to glamour me?”
“Why do you ask?” His expression was innocent. Too innocent, but a corner of my mouth twitched anyway.
“Because I’m not interested in finding out what color your eyes turn when you kiss.”
He grinned wickedly. “So it’s the condition of, what, my mouth that’s on your mind?”
I rolled my eyes dramatically, and he laughed and tipped back his beer, taking a swallow. “You’re wounding my ego, you know.”
I gave his body, at least the portion that wasn’t hidden under the table, a quick appraisal. “I doubt that,” I told him, and took a heartening sip of my own cocktail. A quick glance around the club confirmed the suspicion, revealing more than a few women—and a handful of men—whose eyes were glued to the man beside me. Given the intensity of their gazes—and my penchant for stepping on toes—I wondered if he was some kind of vampire celebrity I was supposed to know about. Afraid of being gauche again, I didn’t want to come right out and ask, so I decided to carefully steer my way toward an introduction. “You come here a lot?”
He wet his lips and looked away briefly, then back at me, grinning wildly like he knew a special secret. “I’m here quite a bit. I don’t remember seeing you before.”
“It’s my first time,” I admitted. I inclined my head toward Mallory and Catcher, who swayed at the edge of the crowd, their bodies mashed together from the waist down, their hands at each other’s hips. Quick work, I thought, grinning at Mallory when she caught my eye.
“I’m here with friends,” I told him.
“You’re new—newly made, I mean.”
“Four days. And you?”
“It’s impolite to ask someone his age.”
I laughed. “You just did!”
“Ah, but this is my place.” That explained the secret smile, but since I knew nothing about the club, it didn’t give me any helpful information about who he was.
“Can I get you a drink?”
I held up the half-full cocktail in my hand. “I’m good. Thanks, though.”
He nodded and sipped his own beer. “How are you finding vampiredom?”
“If it were a house,” I answered after some serious consideration, “I’d call it a fixer-upper.”
He snorted, then covered his nose with the back of his hand while sliding me an amused glance. It made me smile to think that even cute vampire boys got beer up their noses. “Well said.”
I grinned at him. “We do try. How do you find vampiredom?”
He crossed his arms, cradling the beer against his chest, and gave me a once-over. “The perks are nice.”
“Oh, come on. Surely you’ve got better lines than that.”
He looked heartbroken. “I’m pulling out all my best material.”