Keystone (Crossbreed #1)(30)
Separating him from his buddies was going to be a challenge that required a little ingenuity.
I hopped off my barstool and slid my plate toward Christian. “You can finish my hot dog.”
As I strutted across the bar, my peripheral caught my target’s head turning in my direction. I made brief eye contact with him and smiled coyly, making sure he saw my interest. My destination was a jukebox just a few tables over. Breed bars loved jukeboxes, so I leaned over and gave him a nice view of my ass as I studied the song selection.
After counting to ten, I straightened up and pretended to fix my hair in the mirror, searching for an opportunity around me. When I saw a man on my right heading my way with a pint in hand, I sprang into action and crashed into him.
“Ah, shit!” he grumbled, the glass shattering on the floor.
Beer splashed all over my dress, and I gasped, stepping back with a horrified expression.
Darius’s man rose from his chair and stalked in our direction. I could tell he was the kind of guy who wanted to be the badass in life, and maybe that suit made him feel more important than everyone else in a low-class bar.
“Why don’t you apologize to the lady?” he said.
The man with the empty glass didn’t look like he wanted trouble.
Especially after Darius’s goon opened his jacket and showed him a gun and two daggers.
And now I knew what he was armed with.
The man nodded at me apologetically and backed away, his hands raised in a defensive gesture.
While Darius’s man watched him with a sharp eye, I used the heel of my shoe to slice the top of my left foot.
“Thank you so much,” I said, playing the damsel in distress.
I started to turn and stumbled so he’d catch me. We both looked down at my bleeding foot, but I made sure to keep our body contact nice and tight.
I lifted my gaze with an amorous look in my eyes. “Will you help me to the bathroom? My Creator is going to be furious if this beer stains my dress. And my shoe is covered in blood—he spent so much money.”
This simple little statement conveyed two things. One, that I was a Mage—the main reason he’d find me attractive. Two, that I was still under the care of my Creator, which meant I was new in the Breed world and a little more na?ve. Mage men didn’t get excited over the prospect of sex so much as binding—the exchange of sexual energy through holding hands.
The man eagerly hooked his arm around my waist and led me to the bathroom. “You’re a Mage?”
“Just last year,” I said. “This is the first time he’s let me out with no escort. He wants to see if I’m ready to be independent. If I go home like this, he’ll never agree to it.”
“Maybe I can lend you a little of my light.”
I gave him my best doe-eyed look. “I’ve never taken light from a stranger. Do you think that’s okay?”
I could practically hear him growling with anticipation.
Viktor had given me a brown contact lens for my blue eye so my mismatched gaze wouldn’t become a distraction, but it was annoying the shit out of me. I kept winking as if I had some kind of facial tic.
“Do you live with your Creator?” he asked.
The crowd thinned in the hallway, and we chose the private bathroom instead of the public one.
“I’m in the same building, but I have my own apartment. He’s slowly weaning me from being so dependent on him, but he still likes to lavish me with gifts,” I said with a coquettish smile. “What’s your name? I’m Bella.”
The private bathroom door closed behind him, and without looking, I knew he was hard.
“Owen.”
I lifted his sunglasses and tossed them into the sink. “Is that with a big O or a little one?”
I nestled my body against his and wrapped my arms around him in an embrace so that I could unlock the door for Christian, wherever he was.
“Your light’s so strong,” I moaned against his chest, silently turning the lock. “I like the way it feels on me. Do you have a car?”
“Uh…” He drew back.
“I don’t care about this dress anymore, but I was hoping that maybe… Well, you know. I’ve never done anything spontaneous like this, but I can’t do it when there’s a toilet three feet away.”
“What exactly do you want to do?” he asked, a bead of sweat rolling down his cheek.
Binding energy with another Mage was highly erotic, but I’d heard that doing it while having sex was otherworldly.
I rubbed up against him like a cat and whispered, “Everything.”
Owen trembled, cursing under his breath as he leaned back. There was a peculiar look in his eyes that I couldn’t discern. “Devon’s going to kill me, but fuck it. He gets all the fun. Come on.”
Before I knew it, we were moving out the back exit. He opened the rear door to a dark sedan, and I climbed in.
Owen slammed the door and got into the driver’s seat.
“Don’t you want to come back here?” I asked warily.
The plan was to get him out of the building so his friends wouldn’t be able to corner us in a bathroom if they came looking. Usually men didn’t go searching for one another, but since these guys worked together, it might be a habit, and we couldn’t take any chances. Viktor had suggested either inside a car or in an alley near the building, just so long as we could make a quick getaway if caught.