Moira Rogers - The 13th Step

The first time he saw her under the flashing lights on the dance floor, Blake thought it was his imagination. The second time, he thought he'd seen a ghost. The third time brought a harsh curse to his lips, because he knew the truth was far more disturbing than either of those options.

Ella.

She spun around, dark locks swinging, and gyrated her hips in quick, skillful circles that made his cock harden. The multicolored lights reflected off the fine, soft leather of her pants. Those'll take forever to get off her. Then he grimaced. In five seconds, he'd gone from detached professional to horny, slavering teenager. Just like always.

A man beside him watched her as well. "Hot, huh? Damn."

Blake murmured his assent then snorted. "She's trouble."

"You know her?"

"Used to." She shimmied and flipped her hips from side to side, her arms in the air. The tiny halter top bared her back all the way down to where the soft curves of her hips peeked out above the low-riding pants. If he didn't know better, he'd think she'd staged this little show. "She'll eat you alive."

The man sighed. "It'd almost be worth it."

He finished his beer and arched an eyebrow at the man next to him, ready to admonish him for being a horny idiot. A flash of pale blue fabric and skin dragged his gaze back to the dance floor.

She was staring at him.

The minute he made the mistake of meeting her gaze, she smiled. Even, white teeth flashed at him. They barely deserved to be called fangs, though their daintiness didn't make her any less capable of sinking them into a man.

A shudder wracked him as he remembered how good it felt to have those teeth on his skin. In, he corrected silently. In his skin. Too damn good, and exactly why he'd left her.

He watched as she walked off the floor, disappearing into the crowd. He knew he should turn around. Leave. He should get the hell out of this club, out of Vegas—hell, out of the damn state of Nevada.

Instead he followed her, a man possessed. Obsessed. It should have been hard to track one scent in the jumble of bodies on the dance floor, but it wasn't just any scent. It was her. It was Ella.

He caught a glimpse of her when he reached the far side of the crowd. She waited for him, obviously posed for effect with her hands braced against the door. Her back formed a graceful arch down to her ass, which looked damn fine hugged by tight leather on display for him.

Anyone who didn't know better would think she'd struck a pose of submissive offering. Like everything else about her, though, her invitation was a trap. Oh, she'd bend over for him. She'd wiggle and moan and beg him to fuck her, and she'd feel so fucking good around his cock that he'd wonder if this time he just might die from it.

And even bent over a table, held immobile with his hand twisted in her hair, she'd own him.

She knew it, too. He saw it in the teasing glint in her eyes as she twisted her head back to look at him. Her tongue snuck out, swiped across her lower lip, and she blew him a kiss.

He took another step. She straightened and disappeared through the door, a smooth, old-fashioned piece of wood with a tiny black sign that read Employees Only.

He growled and followed. He had come to Las Vegas for a job. Falling off the wagon wasn't part of the plan. Now every instinct screamed that there was no job, that Ella had lured him to the city, to the club, for reasons he'd yet to discover.

Self-serving reasons, no doubt. Nefarious ones. The knowledge irked him. He slapped his hand against the wood of the door with a dull thud. It popped back into the wall. "What the fuck is this all about, Ella?"

"Missed you, too, baby." She looked relaxed, leaning back against the wall. When he glared at her, she shifted her arms, holding them above her as she slid a few inches down the wall with a devastating smile and shimmied her way back up again. "Not even a little bump and grind for old times' sake?"

"Old times are old times for a reason." He ignored the heat that washed through him and settled in his stiffening cock. She was bound to mention it, anyway. "There's no bounty here, is there?"

"Oh, that's right..." She turned again, presenting her smooth back as she braced her hands against the wall. The leather pants fit her ass like someone had sewn her into them. She twisted her head and grinned at him. "You like to embrace your inner animal."

He moved. One hand slammed into the wall next to her head, and the other slipped tightly around her waist. He spoke low in her ear, his voice rife with frustration. "I'm not playing, Ella." He wanted to run his hand up under the halter that left the bottom curves of her full breasts exposed. He wanted to catch her nipples between his fingers, squeeze them until she cried out from the pleasure and the pain of it. He didn't. "I'm done with that, remember? Done with you." The words served a double purpose. Remind her. Remind yourself.

"I paid your damn fee." She rubbed back against him, grinding her ass against his cock in a blatant move. Too blatant. Ella was patient, could wait inches from the line for as long as it took him to lose control and cross it.

Which meant she was desperate for something. He sucked in a shocked breath and laughed in her ear. "I'm not a whore." If he'd ever held the upper hand with her before, he hadn't known it. It was a heady feeling, intoxicating, and it threw him into hard, full-fledged arousal with brutal efficiency. A woman like Ella, at his mercy. It tripped every dominant alpha kink hardwired in his brain, all the ones she usually catered to so carefully. "What do you want? I might give it to you."

He knew he had her when she tried to slip away. "Fuck you."

Blake stilled her with another low, lusty growl. "You should know better than to run from a wolf, honey." His traitorous hand moved up over her ribs, his fingertips brushing the swell of one magnificent breast. "We chase."

She moaned for him, and that sounded real. She may have faked submission for him, but she'd never had to pretend desire. He could smell her arousal, hear it in her too-quick breaths, feel it in the hardness of her nipple. He gave in to temptation and pinched it, tightened his fingers until her rough, panting whimpers turned into a low keen.

There had been a time when he'd been able to play her body almost as skillfully as she could play his emotions. Maybe he hadn't forgotten all of the notes.

His cock ached so he stepped closer, trapping her against the wall with his hips close against hers. "Tell me what you want," he repeated as he shifted his hand to her other nipple, grazing the taut nub with his thumb. "Why you called me."

He could feel the tension in her body, the inner struggle. He had no doubt she was scrambling for a way to regain the upper hand, to put him back in his place. Her wolf, her trained pet.

Not so trained anymore.

He felt her surrender in the sudden passiveness of her body. Her head fell back against his shoulder, and she rubbed her ass against his cock again. "I'm in over my head. This guy I'm mixed up with... He's too powerful. I needed help. And you. Your power."

Your blood. She didn't have to say it to make his erection twitch in his jeans. He'd never met a vampire with a stronger ability to cloud the mind, to control it, than Ella. She could drain you dangerously dry and you'd beg her not to stop. God knew he had on more than one occasion, and the memories still assailed him sometimes. They woke him in the night, kept him thrusting into his own clenched fist, thinking of his blood on her tongue.