The Nightlife: London (Urban Fantasy Romance) (The Nightlife Series) (5 page)

Slowly, carefully, he worked a torturous glide all the way
in her ass.

“
Céleste.”
 
Heavenly
.  She leaned back into him and whispered.  “Don’t hold back.”

He pushed harder, digging in that last little bit.  He didn’t
hold anything back, not one inch.

She was about to come again when Urvashi leaned in and
kissed her on the lips.  Urvashi’s free hand stroked Michelle’s right nipple
while her other hand continued reaming out her pussy.  “You want to come for him,
but I want to see your eyes.  Tonight you come for me.”

As her insides clenched in orgasmic spasm, she came for
Urvashi, and almost cried out her damned name aloud.

* * * *

Stepping into a pile of brown-grey slush on the sidewalk,
Aaron complained to the world, “Come see Europe, she said, see the sights.  She
forgot to mention how London is a sloppy, wet iceberg in the winter.”  He trudged
through the half-frozen muck and pulled the lapels of his coat up to brace
against the merciless wind.

Michelle stepped gingerly from the taxi onto the street, and
pulled her coat around her slender hourglass curves.  She had been walking a
little funny since waking up.  Though she tried to hide it, Aaron knew Michelle
was hurting.

He hadn’t held back last night.  He and Urvashi left
Michelle so exhausted from the grueling sexual marathon that Aaron had to carry
her down the hallway to their suite just before sunrise.  Now, she could hardly
walk.

Michelle looked him in the eye, trying her best to pretend
she wasn’t in pain.  “
Oui
,
I did forget to tell you how cold London is in the winter.  I always follow the
birds south.”  Her loving emerald eyes twinkled with mirth and apology, but
underneath it her aura gleamed with devotion.

Dammit
.  He had fucked her raw, and she slobbered her
love all over him.  It’s like she wanted him to hurt her.

He would have to be more careful next time.  He had reveled
in giving Michelle all his passion, but he hated seeing her in pain.  Though he
might have been rough with her, he wasn’t a sadist.

Urvashi stepped out behind Michelle, trench coat cinched
tight at the waist with a tie.  A second taxi pulled up behind them and out
stepped the two wet dogs, Ivan and Katya.  Aaron wondered if they might shake
their overcoats like a dog flinging the water off its fur.

He sighed in acceptance of their strange alliance and nodded
to them.  “Thank you for joining us.  Your help is much appreciated.”

Ivan grunted to Aaron and company by way of reply.  Silent
and brooding, Katya glared at Aaron with barely contained malice.  Her guarded
stance conveyed a very unwilling participant.  Aaron stared right back,
allowing the full impact of his gaze to penetrate her cold hate.

Her eyes assessed him, and then it happened, something
changed.  She began to thaw.  Aaron had the insane urge to grab hold of her and
tell her how much he was tired of the strife and pain and death, how he wanted
to live a simple life with Michelle and Urvashi, how he’d rather walk away from
this ridiculous manhunt.

She snapped out of his spell abruptly.  “Stop staring at
me!  Keep your damn eyes away!  I know what you do to women.  They look at you
and spread their legs.  You take and take until there’s nothing left to give. 
You thrive by taking life that is not your own.  I know what you are,
iobanie strigoi
.”

Guilty as charged.

With raised eyebrows he gave her a lopsided grin.  “Feel
better now?”  The woman nursed her hate, held onto it desperately.  Must take a
lot of energy to harbor that kind of hate and keep it smoldering.

Especially on this frozen bitch of an island.

She opened her mouth for another sharp jab, but Ivan put a
hand on her shoulder and shook his head slightly.  She swallowed whatever bitter
retort hovered on the tip of her tongue and averted her eyes.

Silently, they all slogged through the darkness, cold and
slush towards the flashing neon words The Rocking Horse, one of several Soho
strip clubs.

Aaron whispered low to Michelle.  “That woman would gut us
like fish.  She hates you, and who can blame her.  But I can’t figure out why
she hates me.”

Michelle leaned into Aaron and purred in his ear.  “Is like
cats and dogs. 
Ennemis
naturels
.”

Urvashi wrapped her arm around Aaron’s and added her piece,
speaking directly into his mind.  {{Too many apex predators together in the
same territory.  Cats and dogs indeed.  And vampires are the worst.  They can
rarely stand any of their own kind, let alone the wolves.}}

She caught his interest with that line.  “Are there many of
us around?”

{{A few.  Soon to be one less when we find Jamison.}}

He caught Michelle’s squint of irritation as she watched his
one-sided conversation.  He wished Urvashi wouldn’t play this game in front of
Michelle.  It was rude to keep Michelle out of the loop.

Thumping rhythms of bass music hit his ears as Aaron opened
the door to a black light enhanced world of sexual fantasy.  Topless girls with
breasts painted in swirling fluorescents weaved through the tables, serving
drinks and mesmerizing all with their glowing nipples.  Their painted flesh swayed
in time to the loud music.

Curious stares followed Aaron and their odd gang as they
made their way to a corner booth.  The overlapping thoughts directed at them
crowded his senses.  “
Jaysus, Mary and Joseph, I’d give half a paycheck to
fuck all three ‘o them Totties at one time – What’s a stunner like that blonde
doing with that skinny git? – Love the hips on the darky, I’d bugger that ass
all night long.”
 Aaron instantly realized how strange they looked, two men
and three women, in a strip club filled with lecherous men.

A waitress with a glowing-glittery butterfly painted on her
chest took his drink order.  Her soft round breasts had been artistically shaped
into the upper wings of a butterfly.  Her dental floss bikini bottoms covered
virtually nothing.  She smiled wide as Aaron slipped a tip in the front strap
of her panties, his fingers
accidentally
brushing across her delicate
folds.

Might have to look this girl up later.

Settled in the booth, scanning the room, Aaron finally saw
what he was looking for, up on the raised platform, dancing topless on the
stripper pole.

Janette.

A dub step bass line ground out enough power to vibrate
glass as Janette humped the stripper pole as if she was about to pop an orgasm
right on the stage.  She wore nothing but glowing white thong panties.  The
scrap of fabric barely covered her ankles as she polished the stainless steel
with her shaved mound.  All eyes were on Janette, and there was not a limp dick
in the room.

When she caught Aaron’s stare, her dance faltered.  The sexy,
sultry temptress illusion faded in the wake of her fear.  Terror flickered
across her face as Aaron held her eyes and bored into her mind from the other
side of the room.  He scooped it straight from her head.  She had spoken to
Reza.  He rewarded her candid confession with a slap to her face and a sincere death
threat to assure her silence.

Reza was a real lady’s man.

Aaron didn’t even have to look for Reza.  Janette did it for
him, a spike of paralyzing fear in her chest.  Aaron followed her gaze to Reza
standing by the bar, unaware that his beautiful Janette was about to piss all
over the dance platform in terror as she stood petrified, gripping tightly to
the stripper pole like a lifeline.  The man was mostly bald, but with a
five-o-clock shadow of stubble wrapped around the sides and back of his head,
and a little trimmed goatee.  He had that unmistakable look of a man who has
traveled through the dark alleys of the world and lived to tell the tale.

Glancing back to Janette, their eyes met again, and she had
a fleeting fear for him, knowing Reza would not be merciful.  Mostly she was
worried about the big ass knife her boss had threatened to shove between her
legs if anyone else came around asking questions.

Aaron felt compelled to carry her off to safety, hold her
and promise it would be alright.  But that would have been a cruel lie.  He
wasn’t here to solve her problems or open a can of whoopass on the bad guy in a
flurry of kung-fu kicks.

All he needed was five minutes with Reza.  Poor Janette had
made her bed in this shithole, and now she had to lie in it.

Ivan slapped his hand on the table.  “Ladies, remember our
bargain.”  He stood, his eye tracking Aaron’s focus on Reza.  He missed nothing. 
“We have fifteen minutes.  Stay here until we return.”

Ivan tossed a fifty pound bill on the table.  “Have a lap
dance on me.”

Michelle and Urvashi both smiled, seemingly amenable to the
idea.

Katya sneered, “Give me your credit card and we’ll make it a
real party.”

Aaron smirked.  Somewhere inside Katya resided a living,
breathing woman, with a sense of humor.

“That’s our man.”  Aaron nodded towards Reza who just now
glanced in their direction.

“Follow me, and try not to speak.”  Ivan strolled off,
casually weaving around the tables, headed for Reza.

In the spirit of their agreement, Aaron nodded silently and
played follow the leader.  Michelle yelled to his back, “Fifteen minutes.”  He
looked back and winked at all three ladies.

Wouldn’t that be interesting, all three women in the same
bed
.  He doubted anything could top his experience with Michelle and
Urvashi, but you just never knew.

Reza watched them curiously, a hint of anxiety in his eyes. 
Ivan was not a small man.  Though Aaron did not fear him, or any man, he could
see Ivan carried himself with confidence, and he had that wide, powerful jaw.  One
of those bite-your-arm-off jawlines – probably a wolf thing.

“
Dobri vyehcher
.”  Ivan offered his hand with the
greeting, but Reza just looked at him suspiciously.  Dropping his hand, he
continued, “My name is Ivan, and this is Aaron.  We need to speak with you. 
Privately.”

Reza sipped his drink, looked Ivan up and down, and then
glanced at Aaron.  That’s when he noticed Janette slinking off the stage with a
fearful glance over her shoulder.  He instantly knew Janette must have fingered
him, because he’d never seen these two men before in his life.  The look on his
face conveyed much.  “Bitch.”

Aaron followed Reza’s thoughts as he imagined wicked, bloody
things he would do to Janette with the six inch blade hidden at the small of
his back.

* * * *

Aaron couldn’t help himself.  “Just talk.  And we can pay
for information.”  The idea of Reza slicing into Janette for the trivial
information they wanted didn’t sit well with him.

Ivan raised his eyebrow in an unspoken warning.

“I have nothing to say to you, and I don’t want your
money.”  Reza attempted to play casual with his dismissal, but his hand was
shaking and a bead of sweat ran down the side of his face.

“Five minutes, no more.”  Ivan lifted his heavy square jaw
and stared Reza down, not once breaking eye contact.

“Five minutes, five hundred pounds.”

Aaron snickered.  So much for the
I don’t want your money
bullshit.

Ivan agreed with a nod.  “If you have what we need, we have
five hundred.”

Reza smiled, but he was not happy.  “Come.”

They followed Reza off to a side door leading into a
corridor with rooms on either side.  Aaron scanned the hallway and knew
instantly that Janette was in the room on the second door to the right.

She was packing a suitcase and praying to God she would make
it out of there before Reza grabbed her.

Reza tried the doorknob to Janette’s room and found it
locked.  He cursed under his breath again, “Bitch.”  He walked on down the hall
and tried the next door.  “Step in my office, gentlemen.”  He smiled smugly as
they followed him into a room with a queen size bed that reeked of cheap
perfume and desperate loneliness.

Aaron imagined all the men who found some temporary
happiness in a place like this, paying money for a few minutes of warm flesh, and
the poor women who sold their bodies here, night after night.  The oldest
profession in the world, and yet surely the least gratifying.

“So, what do you need to know?”  Reza got right down to it. 
He pulled six inches of shining steel blade from his belt and began flipping in
his hand intimidatingly.

Ivan didn’t mince words.  “The American you sold a gun to. 
We need to know about him.”

Reza pointed his knife at Ivan, then Aaron.  “What are you
fucking cops?  You come in here speaking Russian, with your little American
boyfriend.  Fuck off.”  Reza’s suspicions were confirmed, Janette had talked to
them, and he would make her pay for it.  He spat at their feet in disgust,
sheathed his knife at his back stepped towards the door.

Aaron’s suspicions were also confirmed, Michael Jamison had
been there.  The entire encounter flitted across Reza’s mind, but he didn’t
know jack shit.  Reza sold Mike a gun, way overpriced, and that was it.  He didn’t
know where Mike came from, where he was going, or anything useful.

But wait, there was something.
  “Who did he come
with?”  Aaron grabbed Reza’s sleeve and stopped him before he left the room.

Reza turned on him, a mind to stick his knife in Aaron’s ribs. 
“I am done talking to you.  Go suck Russian cock.”

Ivan chuckled.

With that Aaron let Reza go.  The bastard spun away and
slipped out the door, but he had given up the last piece of information in his
mind.  Reza had watched Mike leave in a taxi.  As the cab driver opened the
back door for Mike, Reza had caught a glimpse of a middle-aged blonde woman
waiting for him.

Seemed Mike had his next victim lined up already.  If they
didn’t find him soon, that woman would end up dead in the slush-covered street,
shy a few pints of blood.

Aaron led the way out with Ivan right behind him.  “Let’s
go.  I got what I came for.”

They headed down the hallway and out into the strip club.  A
dull haze of stale cigarette smoke assaulted them as they made their way to the
women.  Reza was talking another stubble-headed Albanian man standing behind
the bar, a heated exchange.  Reza glanced back at Aaron and Ivan repeatedly.

The bartender said something and nodded at the back of the
building towards the private dance rooms, and the rear exit.  Reza took off at a
fast clip.

Shit
.

The bartender had seen Janette pass that way seconds
earlier, with her suitcase.  Aaron caught it all from the bartender’s mind and
decided it was time to get involved.

Urvashi grabbed Aaron’s arm.  “Don’t.  Leave it be.”  She
was always siphoning off his emotions, using their bond to intuit his thoughts,
even when he tried to block her out of his mind.

Though he knew it was foolish, he couldn’t leave it be.  His
actions had put Janette in danger.  It was on his shoulders.  Just like Michael
Jamison was his responsibility.

He slid Urvashi’s hand from his arm and pecked her on the
cheek.  “I’ll be back in few minutes.  Have another lap dance while you wait.”

He took off, walking as fast as he could without attracting
too much of the wrong kind of attention.  Vampires move unnaturally fast. 
People notice that kind of thing.

In the dark recesses of the back rooms, he headed for the
red exit sign, moving at a full jog now.  Out the door and into the freezing
wet, graffiti-covered alley, he found them both.  Reza had pinned Janette by
the throat against a slimy brick wall, her suitcase lying in the dirty slush. 
He reached behind him for the knife tucked in his belt.

“Twasn’t me, I swear!”  She choked out the words.  Mascara
ran down her face in dirty streaks, and her wool coat was open, exposing naked
breasts.  In her rush to escape, she hadn’t even dressed properly.

“Lying bitch!”  He was an inch from shoving that blade
between her legs when Aaron snatched his forearm in a wicked, clawed grip.

Aaron’s talons punctured through jacket and into fleshy
muscle.  “You should have taken the money,” Aaron growled as he wrenched Reza’s
arm away from Janette, twisting up and back at the wrong angle.

“Fucking wanker!”  Reza cried out at the crunchy, gristle-snapping
sound of his dislocated shoulder, and the knife fell from is hand.

Aaron pivoted and tossed Reza across the alley to land in a
cussing grunt of pain.  He turned back to Janette who was staring at him, jaw
agape.  “Get your bag and go.  Stay the hell out of Soho.  Better yet, get out
of London.”

Whimpering in relief, shocked, terrified, she did exactly as
he ordered, scooping her bag off the snowy street.  She backed up slowly, her
fear now redirected to Aaron.

Stupid woman
.  “Go already!”

With a startled jump she took off running.  She didn’t even
try to make the wheels of her suitcase work, dragging the hard, red case as
fast as her three inch plastic heels would allow in the snow-rutted, uneven
brick surface.  
Finally.

“You can run bitch, but I’ll find ya!”  Reza regained his
feet, but his right arm dangled uselessly.  He squinted at Aaron in pain and
fury.  “You nancy bastard, don’t you know who I am?”  He felt his shoulder
gingerly, trying to figure out why his arm wasn’t working right.  “Keljmendi
clan, and you’re right royal fucked.”

“I don’t give a shit who you are.”  Aaron considered what to
do with him.  He was tired of killing.  He had more than his fill of killing in
Las Vegas and New York.

Reza reached into his jacket with his good arm, going for
his cell phone.  He fully intended to have somebody inside the strip club grab
the women and Ivan.  “You’re already dead, and your women will be sold to fat
Italians with small cocks and big bank accounts.”

Aaron snarled.  “You’re too stupid for your own good.”  In a
flash of movement, he smashed through Reza’s jaw, snapping his head back.  The man
flew across the alley, cracked the back of his skull on the brick wall and
crumpled in a heap in the slush.  If Reza lived, he’d be eating ice cream and
apple sauce through a straw for weeks.

Didn’t even need a kung-fu kick
.

* * * *