Chapter 19
Violet
Jules greeted us at the entrance, an ebony-clad Romeo positioned stoically behind her like a shadow given human form. Somehow, she’d anticipated our arrival, her blue eyes bright with welcome beneath the club’s crimson and violet lighting that painted everything in shades of sin.
“Violet! So glad you made it. And early, too?” Her platinum hair was tied in two impossibly perfect pigtails adorned with trailing white ribbons that cascaded down her bare back, the silk whispering against her skin with each movement. “So nice to have young ones who understand professionalism.”
Her well-endowed breasts were barely contained by a simple white two-piece bikini that left little to the imagination, the triangles of fabric straining against curves that defied physics.
Gold glitter covered every inch of exposed flesh—and there was considerable flesh exposed—catching the light with each breath, each shift of weight.
She looked like sex personified, wrapped in innocence and dusted in precious metal.
“I thought you could not wear white after Labor Day?” Rowan’s voice rumbled behind me, apparently unbothered by Jules’s state of undress. His tone carried that particular dryness I was beginning to recognize as his version of humor.
Jules turned those vivid blue eyes on him, one perfectly sculpted brow arching. “Superstitious?”
“Not particularly, but most Southerners are.” He stepped closer, his presence a wall of heat at my back. “I am surprised you are not.”
Jules pursed glossy pink lips—the color of cotton candy, matching the scent that seemed to follow her everywhere—in contemplation. “This ain’t the mountains, honey. Although Appalachian folklore runs deep and rich about luck, death, and protection.”
“Folklore such as?” Rowan’s curiosity sharpened his voice, transforming casual conversation into interrogation.
“Oh, all kinds.” Jules’s smile widened, showing perfect white teeth. “Don’t whistle at night, don’t walk over graves, don’t speak of evil lest it come visit.”
“When you say evil, do you mean supernaturals?”
A strange tension crystallized between them as we continued towards the bar, the air thickening with unspoken challenge.
Jules smiled and patted Rowan’s arm with familiar ease, her fingers lingering against his forearm.
“Don’t worry, honey. Those Appalachian superstitions are over a hundred miles away. ”
His response came dry as bone. “Appalachia is not the only place with folklore.”
As we walked past the bar, Andy called out to us and interrupted Jules and Rowan’s back and forth. Jules waved us to the bar as she said, “Go on and pay him a visit. He'll be all pouty if you don’t go say hi and nobody likes a sad bartender.”
Jules headed backstage as we turned towards Andy.
The genial bartender waved and shouted out, “Hello, friends! So glad to see you both again.” His dark-eyed gaze washed over me with open appreciation, noting I wore the same sleek black dress from my previous visit—simple, elegant, easy to move in, and easier to remove. “Back for more, eh?”
I smiled, genuinely pleased to see him. Something about Andy’s easy charm felt safe and unthreatening. “Couldn’t stand another day without seeing your face.”
He laughed, the sound rich and warm beneath the club’s throbbing bass. “Careful. Compliments get you everywhere around here.”
“I’m counting on it,” I said with a smile.
Rowan brushed up behind me, and my spine straightened involuntarily, hyperaware of his proximity. Heat radiated from his body, seeping through the thin fabric of my dress. His scent enveloped me.
“Hello, Andy.” Rowan’s voice carried an edge I’d come to recognize as possessive—controlling, even. “Do you want to let the lady start her shift?”
He was being overbearing again. I elbowed him playfully, hoping to defuse whatever territorial nonsense was building in his chest. “There’s nothing wrong with a little mingling.”
He turned to me and gestured towards the hallway where Jules had disappeared. “When the mingling delays your start time and keeps us here longer? I disagree.”
His perpetual state of grumpiness was starting to wear on me. “What do you need to be happy, Rowan?”
“I could think of a few things that might ease my anxiety about this whole charade you seem so intent on pursuing.” His voice dropped lower, intimate despite the pulsing music.
I poked him again, daring him to vocalize whatever pent-up desires seemed desperate to escape the fortress he had constructed around himself. “Whatever could the stoic Rowan want?”
He grabbed my waist then, pulling me into his arms with enough force to steal my breath.
With my heels, we stood nearly eye level.
I couldn’t help but stare at his gorgeously pale irises—blue-gray like winter ice, like frozen lakes that you would drown in if you fell through.
They glimmered in the club’s strobing lights, reflecting crimson and purple back at me.
“Do you really want to know, Violet?” He pressed me closer, eliminating every centimeter of space between our bodies.
His mouth brushed against the shell of my ear, breath hot and relentless against sensitive skin.
“I want to gouge out the eyes of every single person in this fucking club for daring to look at you.”
“Oh, fuck.” The words slipped out before I could stop them, helpless and hungry.
Somehow, his admission of violence was unbearably arousing.
He let out a dark laugh that slithered between my legs in an unrelenting pulse, as if he knew exactly what depraved thoughts had crossed my mind. “I do not know what you are really searching for here, volchok, but I plan to let every fucker in this room understand you are not theirs to touch.”
His thumb stroked my waist, leaving a trail of fire despite the fabric. I have felt threatened or frightened, but with Rowan? There existed only a perplexing surge of desire for him and his possessive madness.
“How are you going to do that?” I asked. “You planning on pissing on my leg?” I retorted, clearly enjoying this side of him—raw and unfiltered, the civilized veneer stripped away to reveal something feral underneath.
“No.” His voice turned to gravel.
“Then how will they know?”
“Violet. . .” He seemed torn, waging a war within himself as he looked into my eyes.
“Do you wanna show me, Rowan?” I dared him, tilting my chin up in challenge.
He let out a growl, his restraint finally snapping like overstressed rope. “If you insist.”
His lips crashed into mine in a searing kiss that scorched through every ounce of resistance left in me, as if he had mapped the exact shape of my defenses and knew precisely how to demolish them.
The kiss tasted like possession and promise, his mouth claiming mine with brutal urgency.
Heat exploded through my body, pooling low in my belly, making my thighs clench.
Before the kiss could deepen, he pulled away, leaving my mouth swollen and burning.
“This is how,” he said, apparently undeterred by whatever had just transpired between us, despite the exhibitionist nature of our public display.
Oh, this absolute asshole.
“You cannot just do that.” I huffed, my skin pebbled from the ghost of his touches, my nipples hard beneath my dress.
“I clearly just did.” He gave me his infuriating grin—all teeth and triumph. “And now everyone will know.”
I shoved him hard, gathering my scattered wits like dropped weapons. “Know what? That you are an overbearing ass?” I snapped and took a step back, desperate for distance, in an attempt to rebuild the wall between us. A wall he seemed determined to demolish brick by brick.
He shrugged, his smirk growing even more infuriating. “Overbearing? No. Vigilant? Yes.”
“As if. A word of advice? Use your tongue more next time,” I snapped. “Now be a good boy and wait here.”
Rowan had the gall to offer me a mocking salute.
Andy possessed the foresight to appear busy polishing the same glass he had been holding prior to our little display, though I caught the amused quirk of his lips.
I complimented Andy on his daring choice of leather pants and crimson crocodile boots before heading backstage, my heels clicking against polished floors.
As I walked, I surveyed the main floor. The crowd had swelled since our last visit. Every table was occupied by men and women of varying ages, all wearing designer clothes, jewelry, and watches. Several gazes tracked our direction. I knew those looks. . . assessing, cataloging, pricing.
I was nearly to Jules when a hand wrapped around my wrist and the cloying smell of cologne filled my nostrils. A voice tinted with an accent said, “I have decided to grace you with the honor of giving me a private dance, mon amie.”
My body reacted on instinct, snatching my hand away before I’d even looked at the speaker.
I turned to see a well-dressed man staring at me with a pair of heterochromic eyes—one blue, the other brown.
I recognized him from a few nights ago; the memory of how he’d hungrily studied me from his shadowed booth was still fresh in my mind.
Revolted—partly from how possessive his touch felt, partly from how he looked at me—I said, “I don’t do private dances.”
He smiled, shrugged, and opened his mouth to say something, but I’d already turned my back to him and kept walking. Pretentious and presumptuous prick, I thought as I weaved my way through other patrons.
In my first life, I didn’t have the luxury of choosing who could touch me or when. But I sure as shit do now, and I plan to enjoy that simple privilege.
Jules greeted me just beyond the velvet curtains that separated the public space from the dancers' domain. She nodded towards the bar and said, “Your friend is very protective of you.” Her statement carried hidden meaning, a question wrapped in observation.