“Amara.” Jessica couldn’t help laughing as the woman looked up at her impishly beneath her fall of dark tresses. Tugging at the hem of Jessica’s short skirt, Amara eased forward on rocking knees, scattered a circle of kisses up Jessica’s thigh before she was on her feet again, turning her in her arms, getting her to move out of her stiff, self-conscious sway into a more abandoned movement.

As she moved around Jessica, keeping her in a protective circle, giving her space, Jess tried to relax and focused on the music, let it move into her.

She had loved to dance. High school dances, college parties, then the wide offering of clubs in Rome. As if answering her desires, the next song was a vintage heavy metal favorite, Quiet Riot’s “Bang Your Head,” sweeping her back to that time of her life. A smile spread over her face despite herself. Nothing said loss of inhibitions like hard rock.

Closing her eyes on instinct, she began to move her body with the vibration of that insistent opening drumbeat. When the lead singer belted out that opening scream, the dance floor screamed with him, and she was lost, remembering Mason’s Berber yell in her ear as they sailed across the sand and surf on Coman’s back.

She was rocking back and forth, her arms lifting as her upper body gyrated left, then right, hips swiveling, adopting some of the novice moves Amara had taught her into a couple turns, a light step or two. She was finally giving that gasping male slave a show, moving back and forth over his body as if walking on him, turning so he’d see the cleft of her bare ass and the slick lips between.

Not as blatant as Amara, but she liked the power of it, the way it flowed over her. His desire was hot and potent beneath her while she remained untouchable, taunting him with what he couldn’t have. Something that belonged to another Master.

As that power and unexpected thought filled her, she remembered her thought to Mason. Maybe I want you off the chain . . .

I’ve left the gate wide-open. Her movements became even more provocative, a mating dance meant only for the strongest, most dangerous beast among this seething mass of humanity.

You are the bravest woman I’ve ever met . . .

She remembered his words, remembered she’d survived what few could. If she wanted him, damn his sense of honor, her fucked-up head, her fears. She could call him to her, make him break the chain himself. Letting her hands drop, she molded them over her breasts, her thumbs caressing bare flesh inside the low neckline. Sliding her palms down to her abdomen, then lower. Curling her fingers around the dress hem, she raked it high on her thighs, responding to the wild abandon of the song. She rocked down, bending low, tossed her head up and led with her hip to pivot and come back up straight. Her eyes still closed, she gave herself over to the music, her own raging desire. She would fear nothing here, not with the music beating through her like blood, like the pounding of sex, all its unbridled, mindless rush of euphoria and dangerous need. The way it was supposed to be.

When her arms brushed something metal, she opened her eyes and realized she’d reached one edge of the dance floor. In between the scaffolding, they’d put panels of tall cage doors without the cages, the illusion of imprisonment. Some had slaves bound against them, and now she found herself brushing muscled flesh, a blond, blindfolded man of lean, tall physique who quivered under her touch. She curled her fingers around the bars beneath his spread arms and used them for leverage, pulling forward, then back, her rhythmic hip thrusts and circles far more insistent when she was straddling his thigh, brushing herself against his flesh. His cock was in a chastity cage, the organ bound in a condom inside, because, cage or not, he’d already been goaded to climax.

She lifted on her toes, wondering how far she could push this, if she could put her mouth to his throat, tease his neck with her ca nines. Right before she made contact, a pair of familiar, strong hands closed on her hips. Triumph surged through her.

I would hate to ruin my membership by killing someone here, habiba . There is a long waiting list.

He spun her around. Thrillingly, he shoved her back against the man’s body, using it as no more than a functional wall, underscoring who held control over her. His amber eyes were molten gold, taken straight out of the heated earth, and her eager hands slid up to grip that silk shirt over the thundering of his heart. She was so glad that vampires weren’t dead and cold, as lore depicted. Right now she thought he could consume her in flame and she’d burn in joy.

He locked a hand over one of her wrists, but she wouldn’t be denied this time. Sliding her free hand under his arm, along his waist, she gripped the muscular feast of him through that mesh shirt. When his mouth tightened, she twisted free with a quick move and ducked under his arm so she was pressed against his back, the curve of his taut ass. She began to work against him those same hip movements she’d offered the blindfolded and bound slave. Teasing her mound with the feel of the luscious male buttock inspired her to hook her leg over his hard thigh, her calf moving down the inside of his knee, her own knee brushing his arousal. She would twine around him like a vine, seduce him.

He was so tall, broad-shouldered. So much larger than her. She wanted to feel it, wanted that control to break, all the power unleashed.

She spun away and returned to his front. As she did, she closed her eyes, wanting everything about him conveyed through her fingers. It maximized his effect on all her other senses, for his body’s perfect beauty was best experienced by touch. A vampire lost none of his impact in the dark, after all, because they were creatures of the night. Sliding a closed fist up his chest to the base of his neck, she spread her fingers like a starfish, caressing his throat, then began to slide down.

Abruptly her wrist was manacled by his again. Twisting her around, he maneuvered her to an unoccupied cage door and shoved her against it, face forward. The steel erection he brought against her buttocks was more unyielding than the metal. Clamping his hands on the bars on either side of her, he caged her there. Her breath caught in her throat.

Yes.

“I’m not them.” She wasn’t one of his damsels in distress. She wanted to be taken by him, and taken rough, because that was her desire, different from Raithe’s, the rapes he forced on her. “And I’m not her,” she added savagely, wanting to tease the beast to raging.

He bent, his breath caressing that sensitive juncture of her throat, the promise of his fangs so close. Possession. That was what made the bite of a vampire so scintillating, so overwhelming to a woman’s imagination. That, and the knowledge that such a possession allowed her to give him what he needed to live. So many truths Raithe had buried beneath the brutality, but Mason had dug them out with his impact upon her senses, her very soul.

She turned her head to the right, giving him full access, closing her hands on the section of the bars beneath his. He released them to follow the line of her forearms, her elbows, the tender inside of the upper arm. She moaned as he swept her rib cage, molded her breasts, then settled on her hips, grip flexing, demanding.

The music had changed. No longer hard rock but the Latin strains of Marc Anthony’s “I Need to Know.” Mason swept her around again, away from the cage and firmly into his arms. When she looked up, his expression was pure predator, warming her skin. I strongly suggest you let me lead, habiba.

I’ve been waiting for you to do so.

A muscle twitched in his jaw. Surprising her, he took the lead literally, spinning her into a flawless Latin rumba, full of intimate twists and turns. She didn’t know the dance, and so she had to rely solely on his command of the dance and her body to stay in step with him. While she trusted him to do just that, she teased him with a brush of bare skin, a length of slim thigh, giving herself any chance to touch him.

His hand rested on her lower back, one finger slipping under the scant back of the dress to nestle into the channel between her buttocks. Her breath shortened, her gaze fluttering up to his. She was tired of fear, of not understanding herself, of wanting him and not having him. Wanting him was the clearest thing, and though she knew he thought he was being a gentleman, giving her time to sort the rest out, it wasn’t going to sort out. That part of her was going to be fucked up for a long, long time. That was a different person, a different Jessica.

This Jessica, the one at the club, was impatient. She knew what she wanted, and since she knew she couldn’t consistently hold on to those moments of clarity, knew they could be fleeting, it ratcheted up her impatience that much more.

Still moving her in the steps of the dance, he lifted one hand to her face, touching her lashes, her needy mouth, all so sensitive since they were the only part of her face he could touch with the mask he’d put on her. Another turn, a dip, and she caught hold of his shoulder, though she didn’t need to. He had her. As he lifted her in his arms, she slid her arms all the way around his neck, folding them over his broad shoulders.

It brought her body fully against his, and he adjusted his hold, continuing to turn her, though her feet were no longer on the floor.

Music and lights, the sounds of other people, all of it became part of the rush of feeling inside of her, something beyond words or thought. Since she no longer believed in Heaven, she thought this might be as close to perfection as her slice of Purgatory could get, wrapped in the arms of a vampire she wanted beyond rational understanding, her heart and body vibrating in a near-perfect accord for once.

When the song at last ended, he lowered her back onto her ice-pick heels, retaining one hand as she stared up at him.

“Lord Mason.” The shout had him glancing left, and she saw a male leaning over the nearby rail, giving him a wave, gesturing with his cocktail as if offering a drink. She recognized him as another vampire, as Amara had indicated might be here. He had a servant with him, a man decked out in a pair of tight black jeans and an impressively tattooed bare upper body. The man glanced at Jessica with typical interest. All servants were curious about other servants, as any guild of a specialized profession were. But the kind she’d experienced before Amara and Enrique had never been anyone she wanted to meet, let alone socialize with.

Things had been going well. Better than okay. But now, the music became a discordant blare, the notes ricocheting in her suddenly roiling stomach. She didn’t want to go anywhere near this servant, or his vampire.