Chapter Sixteen – Jack
Chapter Sixteen
Jack
Luna generously paid out Nilesh and then ran to my side.
“You absolutely, positively, cannot trust her.” Behind her, Nilesh started packing up his kit.
It was already nine. The place had thinned a little in my absence, but that was normal for a weeknight near the end of the month.
People were always more interested in covering rent than in getting tattoos.
I looked to Luna. “Someone told me that about you, and you’re still here.”
She put her hands to her temple as though holding back a headache. “Yes, but they were wrong. I’m not. Have you asked yourself what she is getting out of it, at least?” She was speaking in a rough whisper—but other people were still watching.
“This is not the time nor the place, Luna. We’ll talk about it later.”
“When?”
“My place. Eleven. Be there.”
“Why? Where are you going?”
“Out to get dinner.” She knew what I meant—someone else’s blood that wasn’t hers.
Luna’s eyes narrowed and I knew she wanted to shout at me. Instead her hands clenched into fists and her whole body shook with barely contained anger. “Fine,” she said, and turned on her heel, stomping away.
I almost felt bad pissing her off, except that now it’d become sort of a pattern. Plus she was right the other morning—I was bad enough with Zach. I didn’t need another human I could take for granted long term, look where that’d gotten me with Paco.
All I needed right now was a human I could take for granted for an hour.
I hopped into my car and drove to the Strip.
I’d have to get Luna to find Betty tomorrow.
I’d left her—my beautiful 1963 Lincoln Continental—outside of Mark-the-lawyer’s house, and she’d probably been towed by now.
The loaner truck the Pack had given me probably needed to be returned, and it wasn’t exactly a girl-or-guy magnet-type.
I couldn’t tell you want kind of truck it was and I was driving it, it was that bland.
So I parked a little off the Strip in a hotel lot, and caught a cab to the Fleur de Lis so no one would know.
There was an upscale club there that I might barely get into dressed like I was, because it was early in the night and I knew how to tip bouncers, but not if anyone saw me getting out of the Pack’s ride.
I could’ve gone to any of the numerous ‘dive bars’ in Vegas, the ones you see on the TV shows that purport to capture our great town—or any of the actual dive bars that didn’t make the cut, the ones in strip malls, with the faded yellow signs.
But I’d learned that even in dive bars people took their sweet time to get drunk.
No one was looking for adventure at a dive bar.
Dive bars didn’t show up as background sets on glamorous reality shows where people got swept off their feet.
No one wanted to sleep with anyone from the cast of Cheers, not really—and in gay clubs, things didn’t even get started until at least eleven.
I needed to be home by then—so I was taking my chances at the Fleur de Lis’s club.
The elevator doors opened. The hostess wasn’t even at her station—I just walked on in and started being me.
If I wanted to, I could exude a kind of vampiric charisma.
Mind you I’d gotten plenty of play as a human, but being vampire was something more.
Often as not, people would come over to me, men and women, and just start talking.
Sometimes so much so it was hard to get them to stop—I’d had plenty of conversations I’d had to whammy my way out of for sanity’s sake.
When I had the time, it was nice. It was good to remember what being human was like. And I wasn’t particularly picky about who I slept with. I viewed it as my personal mission to give as many people as possible a very good time. They took home Vegas stories and I went home sated, it was a win-win.
But I couldn’t leave tonight to chance. I only had ninety minutes, and I was ethically averse to whammying people into sex with me. So I’d have to pick my prey carefully and then very quickly show them a fabulous time.
I walked up to the bar and ordered a Manhattan, taking a quick glance up and down to see who else’s drink was getting low.
A man across the bar was also looking at me.
Our eyes met and held. He was positively Nordic, both in appearance and stature, and I felt the hunger writhe inside me in anticipation. Men were so much easier than women—
“Order me one too?” said a woman’s voice beside me.
I broke eye-contact with him to look at her. She was mind-numbingly gorgeous. Possibly professionally so. I didn’t mind paying for sex occasionally, but I had a feeling I couldn’t afford her.
“Sure,” I said, jerking my chin at the bartender who’d overheard.
“Thanks,” she said, giving me a subtle smile.
She had waves of dark hair, pinned back by a real rose—I could smell it.
Her body was perfectly proportioned curves, breast, waist, hips, swooping in and out, wearing a green satin dress with a halter top, and in perfectly matching green sandals that tied around the ankle.
Her skin was light brown, her eyes were darker, and her lips were full and painted a perfect red, and somehow she was alone.
That was the professional kicker. No girl who looked like her ever needed to be.
The bartender returned with her cocktail and she raised it to her lips, taking a sip and closing her eyes to savor it before saying, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome…?”
“Camila,” she said, with a light accent.
“Jack.” I tilted my glass to hers to make them clink. “Come here often?” It was a bad line, but it worked.
She laughed. “No. Just tonight. Drove up from L.A. Needed to get my head on straight.”
“Why? If you don’t mind me asking.” I already knew she’d tell me. My charisma was at work.
“I thought I was going to get a part, and I didn’t. It went to some other girl instead.”
“In a movie?” I guessed.
“No. In a car commercial.” She pouted preemptively. “Don’t laugh.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” I said, sincerely.
Her full lips curved up into a smile. “I’m a good actress, you know? But it’s so hard to get ahead there. And no matter what they say about open calls—they mostly want you blonde. And skinny.”
I gave her an appreciative scan. “That may be what they want, but much of the rest of the world disagrees.”
“If only L.A. were in Nicaragua then. I would be so marketable!” She laughed, and took another sip of her drink. “Anyhow. I’ve taken up enough of your time. Thanks for the drink.”
“It was my pleasure,” I said. I wanted to keep her there, but the Nordic man was more of a sure thing and time was of the essence. She lifted her glass in salute and sashayed away, giving her phone a glance. I couldn’t help but watch her go.
Just as I was about to turn back to the bar, she turned as well and trotted back up to me. “What about you?” she asked.
“What about me?”
“Do you disagree?” She gave me a look that was challenging yet hopeful. “With that casting director?”
Whatever-the-fuck-did they put in the water in LA, to make a woman who looked like her insecure? “He made the biggest mistake of his life,” I told her, sincerely.
She gave a slight gasp, and then seemed to come to a decision, setting her drink down on the bar before grabbing my wrist. I set my drink down beside it and let her pull me.
We were in the elevator before she spoke again—and she had a room key. She swung it over the key pad and pressed a number. “You won’t judge me, will you?” she asked.
“Never,” I swore.
“I have a side-piece up here. He keeps me afloat. I can’t waitress all the time, or I’d never have time to audition.” She spoke in a rush, as if trying to convince me.
“That makes sense,” I assured her.
“We were supposed to meet at the bar, but his flight was delayed—he won’t be in for another few hours. So….” The elevator doors opened, and she leaned up to kiss me.
Camila’s lips were as sweet as I had hoped, and they parted for me, letting me gently push my tongue in.
She folded into me as I wrapped my arms around her, keeping my hands chastely on her waist. The satin was smooth and enticing, practically asking them to roam.
As the doors were about to close again, I swung an arm out to stop them and pulled my head back. “Is this your floor?”
Her eyes were wide and she nodded, breathily saying, “Yes.”
Camila’s hand found my wrist again and pulled me down the hallway, looking this way and that, worried about getting caught.
I didn’t know about her, but that made it hotter for me—that and listening to her breathe roughly as we walked below a jog, me watching the way her ass wriggled in that skirt—and how I could now see that she had on stockings with Cuban seams. We got to her room at the end of the hall, she swiped the key.
“Can I come in?” I asked her, once she was on the other side. The key made it a private residence—by vampire rules I had to ask.
“Of course you can,” she said, and pulled back.
The room was palatial—less a room and more a residence—and on a table in the center of it was a bouquet of roses, where the one in her hair had come from, no doubt.
When the door was closed, she turned toward me and leaned against it, flush with the excitement of what we were about to do. “His wife is a blonde. So even though I’m the one he wants, I’m not the one who gets to live like this.”
I hated him on principle. “Then you should leave him.”
Camila looked taken back, and then shook her head with a short laugh. “I will. Someday. But not tonight.” She brought a knee up so her foot stamped against the closed door behind her, her satin skirt rising at a precipitous rate. “I only have an hour. Hurry?” she asked me—and so I did.