Forget About Midnight (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #9)(37)

I closed the door behind me, the sound particularly loud in the sudden quiet. The steady beat of the music from the heart of the club could still be heard, though it was muffled, sounding farther away than it was.

“So what is this?” The tall brunette questioned, glancing about uncertainly. “I’m not into group encounters.”

“Trust me,” Jenner said with a sly smile. “You’ll love this one.”

The woman, whose name I learned was Liz, began to protest. Jenner silenced her with a look. He reached to lay a gentle hand on her face, ensuring she gazed into his eyes. The power he called slowly filled the room like a balloon being inflated. It caused something to tighten in my core as my body reacted with a flush of heat.

Aware of my response to him, Jenner caught my eye and winked. He could have his moment. Once I began to play the game, he would be the one swooning.

Turning to Hayden, I draped him in the heady rush of my thrall without even a touch. His eyes glazed over as he fell easily under my spell. Almost too easy. A little resistance would have been nice. However, I hadn’t come for a kill. I’d come to take the edge off.

I was wary of Jenner’s intentions when he steered Liz over to the bed. I couldn’t help but flash back to the orgy at The Wicked Kiss Las Vegas. That was so not happening here.

“Damn, you’re good.” A wan smile played about Hayden’s nicely shaped mouth. His apprehension had vanished at my unseen touch. He reached for me, and I stepped back, a hand held up.

“Settle down there, sweetheart. I’m running the show.” With a hand on his chest, I backed him up against a chair at the small bistro table in the corner, forcing him to sit.

The hunger drove my actions as I straddled him, adjusting the sheathed dagger. Peering into him, I let the power rising up inside me overflow out of me and over Hayden, pulling him deeper under my influence.

Jenner’s head snapped up, and he turned to look at me with eyes that were drowning pools of hungry blue. A victim of my thrall himself, he seemed to wrestle with the urge to abandon Liz and come to me. I shook my head, warning him off.

Sitting atop Hayden, I was able to feel his arousal. Young and virile, he was eager, and it showed. I held Jenner’s gaze until he turned his attention back to Liz. This was going to be a problem for him. I could just see it.

Ignoring Jenner, I focused on making Hayden beg: a breathy sigh in his ear, the tip of a claw down the side of his neck, a gentle pulse of power. In no time at all, he was oblivious to the fact that we weren’t alone.

The power quickly filled the room until it buzzed audibly in my ears. My energy mixed with Jenner’s, and the two forces happily mingled, dizzying in their sameness. It brought forth the painful reminder that Jenner was not the vampire I should have been with. My longing for Arys hurt like a bitch. The longing led to frustration, which caused my fragile control to slip. Emotions were dangerous.

“Tell me what you want, darlin’.” Jenner’s husky whisper echoed in my ears, as if he’d spoken to me instead of Liz.

Liz’s response was punctuated with several sighs and moans. I risked a glance over that way to find her splayed on the bed with Jenner hovering over her. His hand was on her thigh, and she brazenly begged him for more. That hadn’t taken long.

Hayden tried to grope my breasts, but I shoved his hands down, allowing it when he settled for slipping a hand beneath the hem of my shirt to touch my stomach. The hard part was that I wanted him to touch me, and then I wanted to kill him. It was all wrong. I couldn’t do this.

In a sudden act of aggression, I grabbed one of his hands and shoved it down to his side. The other, I dragged to my mouth and ran my tongue over the veins in his wrist. His groan fed my bloodlust and my desire for the heady energy only arousal could produce.

“I want to feel you,” Hayden said, his words sounding drunken and slurred. “Please. I don’t think I can take much more.”

I could feel Jenner’s gaze on me, watching for my reaction to that request. I pushed Hayden’s head to the side and eyed his jugular. Small bite. No kill. I could do this.

“That’s not how this works, handsome. Just relax and let me take care of you.” Again I had to push his hands away. My soaring hunger was affecting him.

Before I could overthink it, I bit him. His blood was warm and thick on my tongue. I nearly fainted in relief. It wasn’t enough. His erection strained between my legs, and I pressed closer, groaning in elation as he twitched and moaned with sudden climax. The flood of erotic energy shattered what remained of my control.

I pulled back to stare down at him through a bloodlust haze. He’d only scratched the surface of my need. One pitiful, willing human wriggling beneath me with joy was not what I wanted. Not even close. Where was the fight? The resistance? Staring at Hayden’s dopey expression, I understood completely why Arys could not exist this way. Why had Kale clung so hard to this way of life? It was a total farce, a mockery of what we were.

Eyeing his carotid artery, some monstrous part of me decided that at the very least, I deserved that much.

As soon as I bared my fangs to go in for the kill, Jenner’s hand closed on my arm. He dragged me off Hayden and forced me to meet his gaze of ice. The touch of his power was like stepping into a warm house on a cold winter day, that first bite of a favorite food, or the familiar caress of a well-known lover. Jenner felt so much like Arys that I could have wept.