EXCERPT: Marianne Lauren's Red Rio Blue
An Excerpt from Red Rio Blue
Marianne Lauren
Genre: Vampire Paranormal
Length: Novel
Price: $5.99
http://www.loose-id.com/Red-Rio-Blue-1086.aspx
Aubrey Hunnisett, the owner of the successful nightclub the Rio Blue, is determined to buy out the Club Lunar, run by the dark and mysterious Michael Lennox. Michael is a vampire, and although he can feel intense mutual attraction arcing between them, he's suspicious of Aubrey's offer. Two tragic murders have thrown his club into rough financial waters.
Passionate sex fulfills her exhibitionist fantasies and gives Michael the chance to sift through Aubrey's memories to see if she's working for his hated enemy, the vampire Richard Sands. Though he discovers she's not, his trip down her memory lane leads to its own batch of problems: he's halfway to falling in love with her.
Aubrey's a weakness his enemy can use, and does, dragging her into a vampiric conflict that's more than a century old. But he's underestimating Aubrey and her feelings for Michael.
Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: Exhibitionism, violence.
~ * ~
Aubrey Hunnisett could walk in heels. High heels, low heels, wide or stiletto, it didn't matter; she could glide with perfect grace across any surface short of ice. She made an excellent show of it now as she spiked her way around the half-empty dance floor, following one of Club Lunar's beefy bouncers in perfect time to the throbbing techno. The hungry heat of male eyes burned into her back as she passed, and even more of those mixed hate/envy glares from the women, neither of which were unusual in this environment. Which was why she employed her own massive bouncers at the Rio Blue.
Still, being watched by strangers had taken on a whole new meaning after the dead girl was found in Club Lunar's back rooms.
The techno bass pulsed through her like a massive beating heart. Flickering lights swept the dance floor, turning the movement of the dancers into jerky frame-by-frame animation. The sharp scents of sweat and alcohol called to her as they always did, and for a moment she wanted nothing more than to be out there, lost in a sinuous rhythm of her own.
But she hadn't come to Club Lunar to dance. She'd come to pick a fight with Lunar's owner, the reclusive but reputedly oh-so-urbane Michael Lennox.
She followed the bouncer, but even in four-inch heels, she still couldn't see over the broad back wrapped up tight in Lunar's requisite silver lamé. A person could land a 747 between those shoulder blades. She'd never really gone for the bodybuilder type. Steroids wreaked havoc with the parts she liked a lot more. This guy had a nice ass, though, and she wondered briefly if there was hope for whatever else was going on in those tight, dark pants. But idle fornication wasn't on her agenda either. If she played her cards right, Mr. Beefy might end up working for her. And how awkward would that be?
The bouncer led her to a corner table on a dais, barely illuminated with an indirect silvery light. He leaned his pretty face in close enough that his warm breath tickled her neck when he spoke. "Mr. Lennox will be just a moment."
Aubrey gave him a smile and took a seat. The bouncer's glance strayed to her cleavage as she crossed her legs and smoothed down her silk halter dress. That was fine. She'd dressed this way for a reason -- a very Machiavellian reason -- skirting the line between sexy and trashy. Now that she was here, she thought she may have strayed just a tad too far into trashy.But it was damn expensive trashy.
Mr. Beefy melted back into the crowd, and a moment later a cocktail waitress cruised over, gliding in and out of the tables and slipping past patrons like liquid mercury in her lamé dress. Tall, gorgeous, graceful.a real professional. Aubrey ordered a Black Russian, and the girl smiled and drifted away. She'd have to make a point of keeping her on if. Well, just if. No use jinxing what was sure to be the most difficult negotiation of her life.
So Lennox was going to make her wait. That was okay; she would've done the same to him had their situations been reversed. Her drink came, and the surface of her Black Russian rippled with every bass thump. She lifted the glass and sipped it, looking out over Club Lunar with interest. Her spies had told her all about it, of course, but this was the first time she'd been past the front door since Lennox had outbid her on the defunct strip club two years ago.
He'd done good; she'd give him that. A domed ceiling arched high over the dance floor. The bastard had installed a damn planetarium projector, and a million pinpricks of light flooded the ceiling and spilled down the walls, slowly turning, galaxies of stars mimicking the beauty of the night sky. The moon appeared huge, brilliantly detailed, slowly climbing overhead. She smiled to herself as she sipped her drink. Maybe Lennox was some kind of werewolf or something.
Above her rose a second level with another dance floor and light show, braced by narrow steel girders and railings so that it appeared to float on its own. On the wall across the open space ran a wide, floor-to-ceiling window, tinted dark and inscrutable, but if memory served, it was right where the back offices had been. Lennox's office? She gazed up at the dark glass and wondered if he was behind it now, watching her -- if he'd seated her on this dais just to observe her like a fish in a bowl.
Probably. It's what she would've done.
She raised her glass in salute to him, to let him know she wasn't blind, and then turned her gaze to the main bar lining the far wall. The word Lunar sat above the bar in raised black letters, backlit with purple neon. Below it stretched an impressive collection of top-shelf liquors arranged in front of a mock silhouette of the Providence skyline: the Superman Building, the Biltmore, 50 Kennedy Plaza.even the three smokestacks from the electric company. Clever. Two bartenders worked efficiently in the purple neon glow. Then one of them turned around.
Gary Nelson. What the hell? He'd quit the Rio Blue a while back and had told her he was moving away. Apparently he hadn't moved far, the bastard. She stared at him while her anger did a slow burn in her stomach. It seemed Mr. Lennox had done some headhunting of his own.
Gary seemed to feel her gaze and glanced at her. She ignored him, focusing again on the dance floor embedded with a huge LED screen, flashing Hubble Telescope images and shots of nighttime lightning storms and wolves running through moonlight. But the dance floor was less than half filled, and that pleased her more than just a little. The Rio Blue had been packed when she'd left.
A young woman in lamé approached her, distracting Aubrey from her view of the floor and the writhing, almost hypnotic motion of sweat-glistened limbs.
"Mr. Lennox will see you now," the woman practically yelled.
And so it begins.
Aubrey took a deep breath and followed her past the dancers and through a jet-black door into the back of the club. A stairwell with mahogany railings cut back on itself, all stainless steel wall panels and recessed lighting, leading to the second floor. They climbed the stairs past a strange surrealist painting of two large disembodied eyes smeared with bright color, above the blurred silhouettes of female dancers with too many arms. That would be the first thing to go if.
Just if.
The woman gestured her toward an open door and stepped aside.
Inside, a huge floor-to-ceiling window looked down onto the flashing activity of the club. From here, Aubrey could see everything, including the dais in the corner where she'd been sitting a few moments before.
"What can I do for you, Ms. Hunnisett?"
Aubrey spun toward the deep, cool voice that had wrapped around her like a lover's embrace.
He leaned against the edge of his glass-and-chrome desk, his arms crossed over his chest in a classically defensive posture, which on him looked defiant instead. It was his eyes, though, that made her feel as if she'd guzzled the whole bottle of vodka instead of just one glass. Beneath his closely cropped dark hair and sharp slash of brow, his eyes shone an odd shade of blue, two shades closer to purple than she'd ever seen. A swirl of unreality washed through her, a kind of momentary disconnect from her body, as if her mind were sending signals that her muscles would get around to obeying.eventually.
His face was classically handsome, model cut, with bold lines and a strong, clean-shaven jaw. Hard, though, not pretty, as if he belonged on a sailboat or a polo pony instead of just posing with one in a magazine. She couldn't fault him for his pale skin, since hers would've been the same if she didn't go tanning. By definition nightclub life existed in the nocturnal. He had his shirtsleeves rolled up and his collar open, but he'd draped his suit jacket over the arm of the white leather sofa on the far wall. His shoulders didn't spread as far as Mr. Beefy's, but he still appeared in very good, very alluring, very perfect shape.
Her gaze strayed down to the front of his dark dress slacks.
"Ms. Hunnisett?"
She snapped back to his face. "Uh, yes. Mr. Lennox. Thank you for seeing me."
He came toward her, and she had a moment to admire how gracefully he moved. There was something powerful yet precise -- controlled -- in his walk, making her think of the wolves she had so recently seen hunting on his dance floor. Her heart did a little jig in her chest. He exuded raw sexuality, like the energy generated by the writhing dancing bodies downstairs. It seemed to grow more intense as he approached, overpowering her in this confined space. Aubrey struggled to keep her poker face on, but her body started shooting off sparks of arousal.
Not good. Not a good way to start a business meeting, wanting to push your competitor down and fuck him on his huge glass desk.
His voice sounded deep and powerful, a mix of orator and Isaac Hayes. His eyes were even more striking up close. "What can I do for you?"
What could he do? Oh, God. Roll down her stockings and run those big hands up her legs? Unclasp her halter and knead her breasts? Or go straight for the thong? A flush of moisture seeped past the wisp of lace between her legs and dampened her thighs.
He held out a hand to her, and for a moment she only looked at it, the wheels of her brain seeming to spin in mud before she realized she was supposed to shake it. She took his hand, but when her warm skin slid against the coolness of his palm, something else passed through her.
The world shattered into fragments like a breaking mirror. An image overwhelmed her mind, driving out all other thought, dominating all her senses. She found herself on a moor, lying on her back on the grass, her head turned to the side to peer out across a wide sweeping land of hills and distant, rocky tors. Waves of pleasure coursed through her. She was getting the fuck of her life.
The man on top of her thrust deep, over and over, and she was sweaty and slick and trembling with sensation, with an intensity that seemed to melt her from the inside out. She bit at the side of her mouth to keep from screaming, and then not caring, screaming and not caring, and looking up into her lover's face only to find those haunting, just-short-of-purple eyes staring back into her own. Then the hunger in those eyes, the lust, impaled her, as his cock thrust into her, owning her and freeing her both at once.
She jerked her hand away, and the vision vanished, leaving her with a heavily thudding heart and an arm that trembled as if she'd just grabbed a live wire. Her hand tingled slightly where they'd touched.
"Sorry." He smiled with an expression she couldn't read. "Static electricity."
Like hell. Her pussy still throbbed, and a drop of juice glided down her thigh and spread into the top of her stocking. She took a deep, steadying breath. "No problem. It's good to finally meet you, Michael. You have quite a place here."
"Thank you." He gave her a new smile -- the smile of a proud father.
Changing the subject gave her time to get control of her body again. "May I sit down?" Before I drip on your expensive carpet?
"Please, have a seat." Lennox gestured toward the chairs in front of his desk.
She sat and crossed her legs, showing the best angle of thigh without overdoing it and leaning in just enough to present the best view of cleavage without falling into tramp territory. She wanted to display just enough skin to be a distraction. Payback for.whatever the hell just happened.
"So, Ms. Hunnisett --"
"Please, Michael. Call me Aubrey."
Another warm smile from him, but his eyes lost not a bit of their intensity. "Aubrey, then. In what way might I be of service?"
She took a secret deep breath from behind the plastered smile of her game face. "I want to buy your club."
His eyebrows raised, and his smile cooled. "Direct, I see. I'll return the favor. The answer is no. Lunar is not for sale."
"Everything is for sale, Michael. We only have to agree on a price."
"I'm afraid you don't understand, Aubrey. Lunar is not for sale. At any price."
"Somehow I don't believe that."
He shrugged. "I've forgotten my manners. May I fix you a drink? I make excellent martinis, if you'll forgive my lack of humility."
"A martini is fine, thank you."
He walked across the room, once again displaying that easy predator grace, both fascinating and slightly unnerving. She watched his back silently as he poured and shook, wondering what it was about him that drew her so. He finished pouring, returned with their drinks, and handed her the glass. He looked at her for a moment, and she thought she saw a flash of amusement in his eyes.
She was very careful to avoid touching his hand as she took the narrow stem. "Your business is down by half in the last month." She nodded toward the huge window overlooking the dance floor. "And the trend is continuing."
"A slight downturn. The economy. My investors are confident we'll be up again by year's end."
Liar. He had no investors. Club Lunar was owned solely by Lennox, through a shell company that owned several other interests. He'd covered his tracks very well, but her investigator had been thorough. Fine, then. If he wanted to hide his cards, then she wasn't showing either.
"Michael." She leaned toward him, not aggressive this time but confiding. "May I speak frankly?"
He smiled. "I wasn't aware you were holding back."
"I believe your investors have painted you a bit too rosy a picture. Perhaps an.outside perspective would help you see things more clearly."
"I think a rosy picture comes with being an investor," he replied. "And I disagree with your assessment. I'm in a position to know, since I actually manage my club myself."
She clamped her teeth shut to hold back her retort. She didn't know whether to be angry at his implied insult that she employed a general manager or complimented by the fact that he'd taken the time to dig up information on the Rio Blue. Or maybe on her? She stirred her martini with her skewered olive and then popped it into her mouth. She set the pick back in the glass, where it leaned like a tiny wooden spear.
The dance floor still writhed with rhythmic motion, the sound of bass only a very faint boom through the thick glass. Her gaze fell on a dark-skinned man and a woman locked together in a scorching rhythm, grinding and thrusting on the punch of the bass, his hands sliding over her, her arms lifted high overhead, her head thrown back, her hair wild. The image of Lennox and her joined together on the grassy moor flashed back into Aubrey's mind. Another rush of liquid seeped between her legs. She shifted in her chair.
Lennox's nostrils flared almost imperceptibly.
No, they couldn't have. He was at least seven feet away. Though his striking gaze had dropped down from her eyes to her lips, and then to her cleavage -- no, her neck.
How odd.
"May I be even more blunt?" she asked.
"Nothing has stopped you thus far."
She smiled at the gleam in his cool blue eyes. "The bad press over the murder is killing your business. There are people out there who think this murder is connected to another woman murdered last spring a few blocks from here. Even if there's no connection, the press is bad for business. You'll be bankrupt within the year. Sell to me now and you'll at least have a decent amount of cash to roll over into another venture. If you'd like, I'll even keep you on as general manager."
His expression hardened. "Interesting that you'd use the word killing."
"An unfortunate choice of words." She gave a little half shrug. "But it's the truth. I've been following the story closely. Is the investigation even close to being wrapped up?"
"If you've been following it closely, then you know it's not."
"Look, Michael. You and I both know this business is all buzz and aura. Stain that in any way, and you risk everything you've invested. Have a woman turn up dead in your neighborhood, not three months before another girl turns up in your own back hallway?" She nodded toward the glass and the dancers. "You're lucky the place isn't a complete ghost town."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he asked softly. "We were closing in on your numbers. Pulling in the best crowds. The faces. The names. We had the buzz."
Aubrey shrugged. "The newest thing on the scene is always hot. The Rio Blue keeps pulling them in from all over, year after year, good economy or bad."
"I didn't realize you'd come all this way to discuss whose was longer."
"I'm trying to give you perspective, Mr. Lennox. Here's what I propose. We close down for a few months, remodel, rename, and then relaunch -- hell, you can even choose the theme -- and we ditch the black cloud of a brutal murder that happened on-site. We generate a ton of play for ourselves. Make a lot of money."
"They'll catch the man who murdered that young woman, and when they do --"
"They won't catch him; it's been over a month. The damage is done, regardless. I'm sorry it happened." The murder was a tragedy, no doubt about it. The dead girl had been young, and according to her friends, it had been just her second time at the club. Only a monster would fail to see the horror in that, or in the sleazy newspaper reports that she'd been found naked, after consensual sex, with puncture wounds in her thighs piercing the femoral artery and not a drop of blood left in the body.
The nutcases on talk radio had a field day screaming about vampires and chupacabras roaming the city; others blamed the girl, saying she "asked for it" by dressing wrong and going to bad places. Namely Club Lunar.
"No one's sorrier about it than I am," he said. His handsome face appeared strained but closed off. His right fist clenched. He seemed to realize it all at once and slowly opened his hand again.
"Lunar's impressive," Aubrey said. "I'll be the first to admit it. That girl's death was a tragedy, and it's a shame to see it dragging down a good club. I can see that you run the place well, and if you're as good an investor as you are a manager, like everything I could find out seems to imply, then you know I'm the answer to your prayers."
He stayed silent for a long moment, standing near the glass, looking down on the diminished crowd. "How much?"
"Two million."
He didn't even flinch, she'd give him that much. "The building was worth that before I even started."
"We're talking total remodel here, Lennox. Not cheap."
"The answer is still no."
She stood slowly, trying to display as much grace as he did when he moved. Her thighs were still sticky, and she wondered if she'd left a wet spot on the chair. "If I have to buy this place after a bankruptcy, I won't be keeping you on."
He turned toward her, his eyes flashing. Her heart raced again. Had that last comment gone too far? She'd admired him, had been turned on by him from the first, but it hadn't occurred to her to fear him. She'd never even considered the possibility that he could have killed the girl himself. Until now.
"You smell blood," he said, his indigo eyes shadowed beneath drawn brows, "and now you're circling in for the kill."
She lifted her chin. "I'm not a shark. You misunderstand --"
"I understand enough." His eyes were brighter suddenly. Strange. Almost seeming to glow with their own internal light. He stepped toward her, and her heart began to pound faster in her chest. "I understand that you might just be taking advantage of an unfortunate situation, Ms. Hunnisett.or perhaps you were involved in that poor girl's death."
"What? Why would I have killed some innocent girl?"
"How did you put it? 'To generate a ton of play for ourselves. Make a lot of money?' Or maybe you have an investor who's not happy about losing all that buzz."
He took another step toward her, his eyes blazing. Then his aura hit her as hard as a punch. It swarmed around her in a cloud of sex, of lust, of wild abandon. The air seemed to vibrate with it. She couldn't breathe. Her panties immediately soaked through as heat exploded from her pussy, suffusing her body, and little electric arcs of desire shot up her spine. Her nipples tightened to hard nubs, standing out proudly from the silk of her dress. A shudder of pleasure whip-snapped through her, and she moaned softly. She couldn't look away from his strange blue-purple eyes. They seemed to hold her frozen. Her knees might have buckled, but his gaze kept her paralyzed, unable to move, to flee, to resist.
© Marianne Lauren, November 2009
All Rights Reserved