through the door of the Blood Bank, she reassessed that thought.
Black was definitely the one and only theme.
Everything and everyone in the bar was swathed in darkness.
The floors and walls were black, as were the surfaces of all the tables and booths scattered throughout the club. The dark color swallowed up the overhead spotlights that panned the sea of bodies on the dance floor and at the tables.
As the light swept the far end of the bar, however, she caught sight of one glaring platinum-blond head. The daring of that one brave individual brought a grin to her face before she forced it away and tried to adopt a serious glare in response to the threatening looks being sent her way by the patrons.
She slipped into a gap at the bar area, close to the spot where she had noticed the man with nearly white hair. After she and her friends had squeezed their way to the edge of the bar, they all ordered shots of Cuervo.
The punky, peroxide-headed Goth down at the end of the long wooden bar wasn’t drinking. Instead he shuffled an empty glass from one hand to the other. He had big hands with long, nicely shaped fingers. His hands were sure as he repeated the shuffle of the glass back and forth, obviously bored by all the goings-on around him.
When he finally picked up his head, their gazes connected.
He had amazing ice-blue eyes, and when he smiled, a sexy grin dragged a dimple out on the right side of his handsome face.
She smiled back, picked up her glass of tequila and downed it in one gulp, wincing at the strength of the straight liquor.
Mr. Platinum Punk clearly seemed amused by her as he chuckled and shook his head. The longer strands of hair at the top of his head shifted with the motion. He picked up his empty glass and motioned to it with an index finger. She noticed as he did so that he wore a steel ring with some kind of ornate design on his thumb and some thin black bracelets on his wrist.
He definitely had the whole Bad Boy thing down pat.
She didn’t need any further prompting, determined to live out the dare that had been made earlier in the day. The dare that said she not only had to visit the hangout but hook up with at least one bar denizen before leaving for the night. While she wasn’t into one-night stands, a makeout session with someone as sexy as the man at the end of the bar wouldn’t be so bad.
She shoved two fingers into the air and waved them to get the barkeep’s attention. When he brought the shots over, she reached into her jeans, pulled out a twenty and tossed it on the counter. Ignoring her friends’ excited squeals as they realized her intent, she sashayed the few feet to the handsome punk, smiling as his gaze drifted down her body to where her hips were encased in snug black jeans, then shifted back upward across her breasts and finally settled on her face.
Slipping onto the cracked plastic pad of the empty bar stool beside his, she slammed the shot onto the bar.
“This is what you wanted, right?” she said.
Blake’s gaze slipped from her attractive face to linger on her body, admiring all the lush curves. Her full breasts strained over the edge of the cotton tank top she wore beneath a leather jacket that was a bit too big, almost as if she had borrowed it for the night.
She shifted the glass closer to him and a hint of black lace peeked out from the neckline of the tank top as she said, “Well? Cat got your tongue?”
“No would be the answer to both of those questions, love.” He pitched the tone of his voice low, striving for that sexy rasp women seemed to find so enticing.
“Brit?” she asked before downing the contents of her shot glass. As she had done before, she winced after the drink went down.
“New to this, love?” he teased.
He picked up his own glass and tossed back the drink, the strong liquor dragging a grimace from him, too. His preferred beverage—blood—generally went down smoother and had a far different kick.
She chuckled at his reaction and shook her head. “Seems you’re new to this as well.”
The liquor warmed his belly, but not as much as the thought of taking a nip out of her luscious flesh. Scooting to the edge of his bar stool, he leaned toward her, brushed aside her shoulder-length hair and whispered in her ear, “Cat definitely doesn’t have my tongue.”
To prove it, he licked the shell of her ear, and she couldn’t control the shiver that traveled over her body before she moved away from him.
“Fast, aren’t you?” she said, but her words lacked sting. An amused expression slipped across her cute Girl-Next-Door features before she resumed the scowl she had worn when he had first noticed her.
“That makes two of us, doesn’t it?”
She arched a perfectly waxed brow. “So you think you and I are alike somehow?”
He eyeballed her from head to toe again before signaling the bartender for another round. The man sneered and ignored his request until Blake reached into his jacket pocket and tossed a hard-earned twenty onto the bar. After that, the bartender deposited the shots with little finesse and snagged the payment quickly.
Blake raised his glass and slugged down the drink, as did his companion. After mutual grimaces, he motioned to her with the empty tumbler. “I think that getup you’re wearing is borrowed and the shots are for courage, love. I think you might even be a cheerleader in another life. Am I wrong?”
Meghan crinkled her nose in response.
“A cheerleader?” she said, but damn, did she resent that he had nailed it on the head. Deciding a little payback was in order, she pointed at his getup with a perfectly manicured finger sporting blush pink polish. “That look is so carbon-dated. Besides, a cheerleader beats a bad Billy Idol clone any day.”
To her surprise, he threw back his head and laughed. When he faced her again, that damned sexy grin and dimple were back, flushing her body with a warmth that had nothing to do with the liquor.
“Care to test that theory, love?”
“Test?”
He leaned close once again. The sharp scent of tequila wafted around him as he nuzzled her cheek with his nose and said, “You asked what I wanted before.”
“The tequila, right?”
“Wrong.”
He closed his mouth over hers, his lips surprisingly tender as he moved them against hers, inviting her to understand just what he wanted.
Possibly what she wanted as well, she thought, as she opened her mouth and accepted the sweet slide of his tongue. She shivered as he slipped his hand to the nape of her neck and cradled her close.
“Get a room, Blake.”
She jumped away from him at the abrupt command coming from beside them. A lean rail of a man, with skin so translucent and pale that he almost seemed like a ghost, slipped his hand between them and slapped it on the bar.
The specter jerked his head in the direction of the barkeep, and the shoulder-length strands of his nearly white hair barely
