“I don’t have time for this now.”
POUND THE ALARM
Elena Torres & Luca Radulescu
prompt: don’t you dare
The music was loud enough to rattle her bones and she felt it pulse through her with every thrum of the heavy bass. It had taken her a while to get used to the noise in the beginning, the clamour and the press, the sheer intensity of the volume, the way the music sang through her body as well as throughout the room. It went right through a person, filled them up and spilled out like too much water from the rim of a cup. Elena was used to it now but sometimes too much bass still made her ears ache. Tonight was one of those nights, it made her irritable and short-tempered, much more likely to show her feral side than any other night of the week. Her hair carried the finest threads of her fair wolfen pelt and her eyes held a shimmer of gold when they caught the light, her body movements were predatory, the elegant but powerful sway of a hunter on the prowl. The way she weaved through the thick crowd of bodies betrayed her years, the ease with which she picked her way past them, sometimes needing only to meet their eyes in order to make couples and groups part to let her pass.
So many clients insisted on meeting in places like this, the din made it difficult for people to eavesdrop and pick up their secrets for free. They felt safer in these places for some reason, like Elena wouldn’t double cross them if there were so many people around, like she wouldn’t slam their faces down into the stale alcohol and peanut shells if there were so many watchful eyes close by. Wrong. On both counts. Elena didn’t need to double cross people though, she was good enough at her job that she knew just where to sell and where to buy, who from and when, how hard to push and how long to hold back to make them offer those few extra bills. You didn’t climb as high as she had on the ladder without knowing the tricks of the trade.
The biggest problem with meeting in these bars and clubs, with their strobing lights and pounding bass, was that it made finding the bastards a pain in the ass. It was so hard to trust her senses with so many sweaty bodies pressing in on all sides, so many voices crashing over one another in shrieks and shouts of delight and indignation alike, so many cloying scents and clashing sounds. She knew this man, had met with him several times, but even her familiarity with his scent and face couldn’t help her now. There were too many people.
“Hey!”
Just when she was about to turn and plant the flat of her palm against the chest of the man who reached to grab her wrist she saw his face, his long hair falling around his jaw, the darkness of his eyes and the olive hue of his skin reminding her so much of home that her stomach clenched and she had to swallow hard against any emotion that might have made its way to the surface. Luca knew better than to startle her like that. He should know better by now.
“Where you goin’ in such a hurry, sweetheart?” he asked her over the racket, his eyes dancing with mischief and hope. He was still calling her sweetheart. Hadn’t she asked him to stop doing that?
“I don’t have time for this now,” she told him, pulling her wrist from his grasp, light as it was, little more than a feather touch against her skin. Elena rarely cared to be touched by others and yet this male continued to press his luck. She had tried -- oh how she had tried -- to educate him but he was as stubborn as any human.
“You don’t have time to talk to me?” He had the nerve to look put out. Was that a pout she saw on his face. “And here I was thinkin’ we were friends.”
Elena almost laughed at that. She had stopped searching the crowd for her contact. Damn him for distracting her. “I’m meeting someone.”
“Ouch.” Luca set a hand over his heart. “So you don’t have time for a drink?”
“No.” Her jaw clenched so hard she thought her teeth might crack, tension threading through her frame, tightening her muscles and bunching her shoulders. The look of knowing amusement she saw on Luca’s face was enough to make her growl. Quietly. She suspected he missed it.
“Come on, darlin’,” he said, practically pleading. If he had been human she would have sworn he was drunk but that couldn’t be it, it was so difficult for wolves to get intoxicated. “I still owe you a drink if memory serves.” His hand reached for her, aiming low and dangerously close to the bottom of her back.
With one swipe she knocked his hand off course. “Don’t,” she warned, her voice a low rumble. “Don’t you dare.” Call her sweetheart or darlin’, press his company on her, invite himself to touch her.
Luca stood there looking at her, expression caught halfway between amused and uncertain and in the fleeting instant when his gaze moved elsewhere Elena seized the opportunity and turned to walk away, to continue pushing her way through the crowd to reach the bar and the corner tables overlooking the dance floor.
A hand touched her ass.
With a snarl she spun on her heels, hand flashing out and landing with a resounding crack, snapping Luca’s head to the side with enough force to startle the humans around them. The women gasped and tittered, the men jeered and feigned sympathy. Elena felt her anger flare at all the attention.
Damn him.
“I warned you,” she ground out past gritted teeth. With that and a meaningful flash of yellow in her gaze she gave him her back and stormed off through the crowd, no longer having to glare or shove to make them part for her.