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"What if I told you I had a fantasy?" Butch O&039;Neal put his Scotch down and eyed the blonde in front of hiainst the backdrop of ZeroSu else, dressed in white patent leather strips, a cross between Barbie and Barbarella It was hard to know if she was one of the club&039;s professionals or not The Reverend only trafficked in the best, but maybe she was a model for FHM or Maxim
She planted her hands on the marble tabletop and leaned in toward him Her breasts were perfect, the very best money could buy And her smile was radiant, a promise of acts done with knee pads Paid or not, this was a woot plenty of vitamin D and liked it
"Well, daddy?" she said over the trippy techno music "Want to make my dream come true?"
He shot her a hard s to ht Probably a busload of so that double-decker
"Sorry, you need to go taste the rainbow somewhere else"
Her total lack of reaction sealed the deal on her professional status With a vacant smile, she floated over to the next table and pulled the saleam
Butch tilted his head back and sed the inch of Lagavulin left in his glass His nextdoaitress She didn&039;t coet him another
It was al to show up in a half hour Vishous and Rhage were out hunting lessers, those soulless bastards that killed their kind, but the two va disappointed The secret war between their species and the Lessening Society had been quiet all January and February, with few slayers out and around This was good news for the race&039;s civilian population Cause for concern for the Black Dagger Brotherhood
"Hello, cop" The low ht behind Butch&039;s head
Butch s, the kind that hides what&039;s going to kill you Good thing he liked the dark side
"Evening, Reverend," he said without turning around
"I knew you were going to turn her down"
"You a lanced over his shoulder The Reverend was poised in the shadows, aht to his skull His black suit eet: Valentino Butch had one just like it
Although in the Reverend&039;s case the worsted wool had been bought with the guy&039;s own e, aka brother of Z&039;s shellan, Bella, owned ZeroSu that went down Hell, with all the depravity for sale in the club, he had a forest worth of green funneling into his piggy bank at the end of every night
"Nah, she just wasn&039;t for you" The Reverend slid into the booth, s his perfectly knotted Versace necktie "And I knohy you said no"
"Oh, yeah?"
"You don&039;t like blondes"
Not anymore he didn&039;t "Maybe I just wasn&039;t into her"
"I knohat you want"
As Butch&039;s newest Scotch arrived, he gave it a quick vertical workout "Do you now?"
"It&039;s my job Trust me"
"No offense, but I&039;d rather not about this"
"Tell you what, cop" The Reverend leaned in close and he sain, Cool Water by Davidoff was an oldie but goodie "I&039;ll help you anyway"
Butch clapped a hand on the male&039;s heavy shoulder "Only interested in bartenders, buddy Good Saive me the scratch"
"Sometimes only the opposite will do"
"Then we&039;re SOL" Butch nodded out at the half-naked crorithing on hits of X and coke "Everyone looks the sa his years in the Caldwell Police Depart hole and a sex pool But no one at the CPD had been able to pin down enough probable cause to get a search warrant¡ªeven though you could walk in any night of the week and see dozens of legal infractions,in tande with the Brotherhood, he knehy The Reverend had lots of little tricks in his bag when it ca people&039;s perceptions of events and circumstances As a vampire, he could scrub clean the memories of any huuy and his biz were a et that never ," Butch said, "how have youabout this little night job you got going on?"
The Reverend ss showed "Tell ht with the Brotherhood?"
Butch tipped his glass in deference "Sometimes fate takes you in fucked-up directions"
"So true, human So very true" As Butch&039;s cell phone went off, the Reverend got up "I&039;ll send you over so"
"Unless it&039;s Scotch I don&039;t want it,to take that back"
"Doubt it" Butch took out his Motorola Razr and flipped it open "What up, V? Where are you?"
Vishous was breathing like a racehorse with the dull roar of wind distortion backing hiot proble him up like a Christmas tree "Where are you?"
"Out in the burbs with a situation The da civilians in their ho¡ª"
"The hell you are You stay put I only called so you wouldn&039;t think ere dead e didn&039;t show Later"
The connection cut off
Butch sank back down in the booth Froroup of people let out a loud, happy burst, sohter off like birds flushed into the open air
Butch looked into his glass Sixin his life No woman No family he was close to No home to speak of And his job as a hootten canned for police brutality Fallen in with the Brotherhood through a bizarre series of events Met the one and only woman who&039;d ever awed him stupid Also had a total wardrobe ood category and had stayed there
For a while the change had been a great mask of reality, but lately he&039;d noticed that for all the differences, he was right where he&039;d always been: noin his old life Still on the outside looking in
Sucking back his Lag, he thought of Marissa and pictured her hip-length blond hair Her pale skin Her light blue eyes Her fangs
Yeah, no blondes for hio even remotely sexual with the pale-haired types
Ah, hell, screw the Clairol chart It wasn&039;t like any woman in this club or on the face of the planet could come close to Marissa She had been pure in the ht, and life around her irace
Shit He was such a sap
Except, man, she&039;d been so lovely For the short time when she&039;d seeet soround But then she&039;d up and disappeared Which of course proved she was smart He didn&039;t have much to offer a female like her and not because he was just a hues of the Brotherhood&039;s world, unable to fight at their side because of what he was, unable to go back to the human world because he knew too round ith a toe tag
Noas he a real eHarmony contender or what?
With another rush of happy-happy-joy-joy, the group next door let off a fresh buckshot of hilarity and Butch glanced over At the center of the party was a little blond guy in a slick suit He looked fifteen, but he&039;d been a regular in the VIP section for the pastcash around like it was confetti
Obviously, the guy h the use of his wallet Another exaolden
Butch finished his Scotch, fingered for the waitress, then looked at the bottolass Shit After four doubles, he didn&039;t feel buzzed at all, which told hi Clearly, he was a varsity alcoholic now, no
And when the realization didn&039;t bother hi water Noas sinking
Well, wasn&039;t he a party tonight
"The Reverend says you need a friend"
Butch didn&039;t bother glancing up at the woman "No, thanks"
"Why don&039;t you look at me first?"
"Tell your boss I appreciate his¡ª" Butch glanced up and clapped his nized the woain, ZeroSuettable Six feet tall, easy Hair jet-black and cut like a un barrel With the wife-beater she had on, she was popping the upper body of an athlete, all ave off was that she could break bones and enjoy it, and absently he looked at her hands Long-fingered Strong The kind that could do daht he would like to hurt on the outside for a change
The wo, and he caught a glis Ah¡ so she was not woman She was feht, that bastard This one would do, because she was everything Marissa wasn&039;t And because she was the kind of anonymous sex Butch had had all his adult life And because she was just the sort of pain he was looking for and hadn&039;t known it
As he slipped a hand into his Ralph Lauren Black Label suit, the female shook her head "I don&039;t work it for cash Ever Consider it a favor for a friend"
"I don&039;t know you"
"You&039;re not the friend I&039; about"
Butch looked over her shoulder and saw Rehvenge staring across the VIP section The male shot back a very self-satisfied smile, then disappeared into his private office
"He&039;s a very good friend of mine," the female murmured
"Oh, really What&039;s your name?"
"Not important" She held out her hand "Come on, Butch, aka Brian, last naet for a while whatever avulin I pro for you when you get back"
Man, he really wasn&039;t psyched about how much she had on him "Why don&039;t you tell ht you can call me Sympathy How &039;bout that"
He eyed her fro leather pants No surprise "You happen to have two heads there, Syhed, a low, rich sound "No, and I&039;m not a she-"
He stared hard into her cast-iron eyes Then looked back at the private bathrooer, a less crash between two bodies This shit had been the cash-and-carry of his sex life since he could re this kind of sick despair before
Whatever Was he really going to stay celibate until he kicked it when his liver corroded? Just because a female he didn&039;t deserve didn&039;t want hilanced down at his pants His body illing At least that part of the math added up
Butch slid out of the booth, his chest as cold as winter paveo"
On a lovely trelided into a waltz and Marissa watched the glittering crowd coalesce in the ballrooether, hands linking, bodiesof dozens of different variations on the bonding scent filled the air with a rich spice