Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
SANTA
It was September 26, and I still didn't have an idea for the VIP room for October. My demented spring bunny had been fun, but the rest of the year's theme days had been uninspired and boring as fuck.
The only aspect of my job I enjoyed was dancing. On the nights I wasn't in the VIP room or tending bar, I danced with the polite patrons and bounced the rude ones. Bouncing had once been my least favorite assignment, but now it was entertaining.
While dancing, I had an idea for October but far removed from the VIP room. After close, I slipped into Mr. Caynik's office and shut the door. My vampire boss glanced up from his laptop and rubbed his eyes.
"Good night?"
"Not really." I'd destroyed a few pieces of particle board trying to build a Halloween set before we opened, and then I'd spilled a drink on an angry bridesmaid.
He nodded. "If you're giving your two weeks, get it over with."
"What? No." How had the conversation escalated so quickly? I wasn't one for dramatics, especially not with my boss. Yes, I'd begged to keep my job after Boz's attackers had destroyed the VIP lounge and my back room, but that had been months ago.
He frowned at me. "You're going to drag this out for another year?"
"Drag what out?"
He rose from his leather office chair and sidestepped his desk to lean against the front, crossing his arms and glaring at me as though he could see into my soul. "Your spark is gone. This is just a job now."
I stared at him for a moment, too stunned for words.
"You're too popular to fire, but it's obvious. Stop hurting yourself and go home to your cute little twink."
"What if I could convince him to come here?"
Mr. Caynik shook his head and dark curls spilled over his shoulders. "Nobody's going to pay to watch two vampires fuck. They can do that at home."
"Dance," I said. "Not fuck."
He stared at me. After a moment he motioned for me to continue.
"Boz is trained in ballroom, classical, and new age dance. Flamenco. Tango. Freestyle. We could put on a show. We could even encourage other couples to pay to join a dance-off with us. Get the crowd involved. Maybe reprogram some trivia night tablets to allow live voting."
He sighed. "I appreciate the level of thought you've put into this, but dancing went out of style with disco, and we've signed a non-compete agreement with the strip clubs." Per the rules, I couldn't decorate with poles or hanging cages in the VIP room, let alone use them.
"I disagree," I said. "There are two or three reality television shows with dancing at their core."
"For celebrities."
I laughed. "What bigger celebrity than Santa Claus?"
He chuckled at my joke, and I wondered why we'd never made it to one-night-stand territory in all the years we'd worked together. He was gorgeous, and a great boss, but we'd never crossed that line. Now, we never would.
Boz was it for me. Soon, I would tell him so.
"I'll give you one month to see how it goes," he said, "if you put together a set for Jewel to take over in the VIP Lounge."
Jewel was one of the new vampire staff he'd hired after Key and Greed left. She was five foot nothing with pink hair framing her sweet little heart-shaped face. She had a kinky streak longer and wider than mine, which was saying something.
"I have the perfect idea." We'd never tried an all-out BDSM theme for Halloween before, but it would be perfect for Jewel. I could even sew her clothes.
"One month, and what?" I asked. "Double the revenue?"
"How about you increase the overall traffic by half on the nights you dance? What nights?"
"Friday and Saturday." Increasing our weekend traffic, which was already stellar, would be hard. It meant stealing customers from other venues, like the BDSM club down by the docks and the college dance clubs closer to Cambridge. I didn't mind putting in a little marketing time if it meant running or driving around town with Boz.
"Your boyfriend is okay with this?" Mr. Caynik leaned back with his hands behind him on the desk. If he was anyone else, I'd think he was putting himself on display. Thankfully, I was no longer tempted to look.
"Haven't asked him yet."
That earned a surprised laugh. He rose from his desk and slapped me on the back, half walking, half shoving me to the door. "Come back when you know for sure."
Boz was a harder sell than I expected. I thought he would love the idea of dancing with me, which he did. What I didn't understand was his stage fright.
When we danced at Irena's, people didn't pay attention to us until we were already well into our routine. We often drew a crowd to the dance floor, which was why I'd suggested the idea for the club.
Once Boz sank into the rhythm of the dance, the rest of the world melted away. Now, I had to convince him to let the world melt away before he took the first step.
On the first Friday night in October, I delivered Boz and Colette's orders from Blood Drive to their office. Boz usually worked Sundays through Thursdays, but he'd declared he needed to work overtime.
Colette wondered why we were both bothering her. Boz explained his trepidation about our first dance night to Colette, and she offered to join us at the club.
"Are you going to brainwash me into dancing?" he asked.
She shook her head. "It doesn't work like that. What I can do is dance with Mel and make you feel better about yourself."
"Mel?" He batted his eyelashes. "How is this the first time I've heard about Mel?"
"It's never come up," she whispered. "We've been together for centuries."
"You and Mel are always lovely together," I said. They'd been regulars at the club when it was still a tavern.
"We step on each other's toes, and we both try to lead," she said. "We're much better when we're horizontal."
I'd taken a sip of blood as she said that, and I almost spit it all over Boz's laptop.
"You'll meet us there?" Boz asked, oblivious to my struggle. I didn't need to breathe, but trying to inhale a mouthful of blood was unpleasant. We also needed to get going, so we'd have time to squeeze into our costumes.
"I'll be there," she said. "Break a leg."
"Maybe not?" Boz shook his head. "I'd hate to see the dance move that would break a vampire's leg."
I could think of two I'd used on Cassius, not that we'd been dancing. Boz had probably missed the violence while he was fighting for his life.
My lovely vampire boyfriend had dared to walk alone at night on his college campus, but he was still as risk averse as he was when he'd been human. It would take more than a few months to show him all the ways vampires were superior. We owned the night.
Tonight, we'd start with stamina and plain old flamboyance on the dance floor. We could out-dance the humans who dared to take the floor with us, and most of the vampire couples, too.
Since it was October, I'd dressed us up in classical vampire costumes, complete with capes and slicked-back hair. Once we dropped our capes, neither of us wore shirts underneath, and our tight Lycra pants with bell bottoms left little to the imagination. The audience was in for a show.
Boz's nerves settled when he saw Colette. She and Mel wore matching flared skirts with pink poodles on them. They'd tied matching pink scarves around their necks above their white blouses. They looked lovely, but they would be no match for our secret weapon.
Shortly after I twirled Boz onto the floor with our signature move, Colette and Mel took the floor. They were both graceful and lithe, but Colette was right about one thing. She and Mel could not decide who should lead. Mel stepped on Colette's feet and almost fell backward into a table. Colette yanked her upright, almost giving the audience a show of what Mel wore underneath her skirt.
Mel stomped on Colette's chunk-heeled Maryjanes again, and they'd both had enough. With a laugh, Colette pulled Mel to the table she'd almost fallen over and they plopped down for the show.
That was my cue. I tugged at the laces holding our capes around our necks, letting them fall to the floor. Jameson swept in with superhuman speed and gathered them so no one tripped.
Then, the music changed and Jameson dropped a rose in my outstretched hand. I stuck it between Boz's teeth, same as we'd practiced, and we tangoed. Boz latched onto me with his burning gaze, and the world around us faded away.
My eyes misted over. I wanted to stop the music, end the farce, and go home. Boz was mine, not the club's. I wanted him all to myself.
Then I looked around. Couples crowded the dance floor as they did their best with the dance of love. Some knew the steps, but some tried to watch us while stumbling over their own feet.
"We bring the crowd, sweetness," I said when he rested his head on my shoulder. Our feet flew beneath us while our upper bodies stayed still.
"You bring the crowd," he said. "Nobody's here to see me."
"I'm here to see you," I whispered, barely more than the scuffle of our shoes on the floor. His blush was even prettier now that he was a vampire. I opened my mouth to say the words I'd avoided until now, but the beat changed and Boz took my arm, coming to my side for a rousing Irish jig.
The set blurred into a few more popular dances Boz knew. He'd shared his freestyle routines with me over the months at Irena's, and we dazzled the crowd. Even Mr. Caynik clapped and tapped his toes to the beat along with the rest.
"That was fun," Boz admitted when I finally pulled him off the dance floor. He fished a five-dollar bill out of his waistband. "Were they supposed to tip?"
Mr. Caynik followed us to Colette's table. He laughed at Boz's na?ve joke. "Where did you advertise?" he asked me.
"Nowhere." I shrugged. "I wanted to see if people liked the show first."
"They certainly did." My boss pulled a chair over to sit between Colette and me.
"We always have a bigger crowd on the first Friday of the month," I reminded him. "They're here for Jewel, not me."
His smirk showed a little fang.
"That group of girls," Colette pointed to the table behind us, "said they'd be back tomorrow with some friends."
Word of mouth was better than any flyer I could put up. Mr. Caynik seemed to think so, too. "Several people were filming. I let them go for a few seconds before telling them no recording allowed."
"You'll be all over the internet tomorrow." Mel beamed. "We might have to take some dance lessons before then."
"Dance lessons?" I saw dollar signs in my boss's eyes.
"I already have a job," Boz whined.
"Which do you prefer?" Colette asked. "Working for the empress or dancing with Santa? "
"I like both for different reasons." He grabbed my knee under the table as a peace offering. "I've never been a good teacher, though. Santa would be better."
Mel's eyes sparkled as she pulled me back onto the dance floor while Mr. Caynik and Colette discussed how much I should charge for half-hour dance lessons.
By the end of a half-hour, Mel could follow as well as she could lead, and Colette declared it a hundred dollars well spent. It wasn't my usual fee, but considering I'd enjoyed myself more than I would have with my clothes off, it was worth it.
The priceless heat in Boz's gaze when I returned to the table made me wish we were home already.
When I finally got Boz home, we played a game to see who could shed clothes faster. I won. Boz was too careful with his pants. I knew their limits, having made them. I might have stretched a seam in my haste, but I would fix it later.
Finally, we were both blissfully naked in my bed. Boz straddled me and pinned my arms above my head, reversing our usual position. I could have broken free from his hold, but his soft gaze held me captive.
"I didn't ask you to give up the VIP lounge." His voice was barely a whisper in the quiet room .
I grinned. "Caynik did." I gave him the highlights of our conversation and embellished a little. "He said I should quit."
Boz leaned closer and brushed his lips across mine. "I don't want to change who you are just because we're together."
"You didn't change who I am." I broke his hold to cup his face and pull him in for a kiss. "You, us," I kissed him again. "This changed what I want to be. I was bored before. Irena would even say depressed."
"Mm-hmm," he mumbled as he leaned in to press his lips to mine again.
"I want to be better for you. I love you, Boz."
He blinked and his gaze sharpened. "Me? But?—"
"If you say you're no one, I will take you to Rome to prove how important you are."
"To the empress, sure, but you?—"
I rolled him onto his back and flattened his body to the bed. "I love you because you're worth loving. You're kind, funny, and scary smart, not to mention hot as fuck."
He laughed. "Me."
"You."
He tried to object again, but I kissed him, letting my body say more than I could ever express in words. I wanted him. I needed him. Damn right, I loved him. He was everything I didn't know was missing in my life until he filled up all the empty spaces and made me feel whole.
I worked myself open as I worshiped his body with my mouth. He shivered beneath me in anticipation. We'd done this almost every day for a year now, and his body still responded to me like it was the first time.
When I took his cock head into my mouth and swirled my tongue around it, he gifted me with the taste of his sweet precome. With our daily supply of human and shifter blood, we could still produce seminal fluid, but no semen. He didn't taste the same as when he was human, but it didn't matter. Either way, I loved to taste him.
I wanted him inside me, needed to feel him within me the way he'd filled my life and made it full.
I lubed up his cock and slid onto it in one fluid motion. He tensed beneath me, his hands bunching the sheets. His cock felt divine inside me, but sex with Boz had never been about his cock, or his body. He was mine in every sense of the word. I'd been his first sexual partner, but I hoped to be enough to be his only partner. I didn't want him to spend his life looking for his missing pieces the way I'd been looking for mine.
He wasn't my missing piece, though. With him, I felt healthier than I had in years, but it wasn't because he completed me. It was because he saw me as complete. I'd thought I was broken, but to him, I was a work of art with gold poured between my cracks. Until he'd seen the beauty of it, I couldn't see it myself.
I moved against him, dragging my cock along his abs with every thrust. He planted his feet on the bed and thrust into me, his cock hitting my prostate just right. I wasn't going to last.
"I love you too, you know," he whispered in my ear.
"Yeah, I think you do." All the signs had been there since last Christmas, but I'd been in denial.
Boz curled his strong fingers around my cock and cupped my face with his other hand, dragging me down for a brutal kiss.
"I love you so much." He emphasized every word with a powerful thrust that pushed me closer to the edge. "I'm going to prove it to you every night of your life."
Christmas came early this year, and so did I. My orgasm rolled through me like lightning, sparking every nerve ending and tensing all my muscles at once. I collapsed to Boz's chest, gripping his shoulders like a life raft while the sexual and emotional energy warred for dominance.
Boz shouted my real name when he came, and happy tears leaked from the corners of my eyes.
"Aw, sweetness." I kissed his cheek. "You are my early Christmas wish."
He laughed. "The way I see it, you waited almost a year to open the present I gave you last year. "
"Oh, is that how it is?" I laughed with him. "I suppose you're right."
I wouldn't wait another minute. I peppered him with kisses, saying, "I love you," each time.