Chapter 9: Tequila and Temptation
The phone buzzed again, a persistent, judgmental vibration against the wood. Kate stared at it. The ghost of a heartbeat thudded under her palm.
“Well?” Meg prompted, sipping her espresso.
Kate flipped it over. The screen illuminated her face.
Unknown Number: It’s Eric. The clothes… thanks. Hand okay?
A simple, neutral sentence. It felt like a door being cracked open, just an inch. Her throat went dry. Meg was watching her, reading every micro-expression.
“It’s him,” Kate said, her voice barely audible over the cafe din.
“Of course it is.” Meg stubbed out her cigarette. “And?”
“He’s asking if my hand is okay.”
“How gentlemanly.” Meg’s tone was unreadable. “Are you going to answer?”
Kate’s thumbs hovered over the screen. What was there to say? Yes, fine, thanks for not murdering me. No, it aches in the rain now, a permanent reminder. She typed slowly, deleting three times.
Kate: Hand’s healed. Thanks again for everything. The fridge is a champ.
She hit send before she could overthink it. The response was almost immediate.
Eric: Good.
A pause. Three dots appeared, hovered, vanished, then reappeared.
Eric: Meg make you meet for interrogation?
A startled, breathy laugh escaped Kate. She showed the screen to Meg.
Meg snorted. “He’s not stupid. Tell him I extracted a full confession under the gentle glow of a caffeine IV.”
Kate typed.
Kate: Basically. I’ve been debriefed. Threat level lowered to ‘cautious observation’.
The dots danced.
Eric: Tell her I’m flattered. You should get out of your head. Do something that isn’t… hibernating.
Kate blinked at the message. It was an echo of her own word to Meg, a faintly chiding push. It felt intimate, like he’d overheard them.
Kate: Like what?
Eric: Don’t know. What do you do?
She almost laughed. What did she do? She read. She watched movies. She existed in a carefully controlled radius of comfort. Before she could concoct a pathetic answer, Meg’s phone chimed. She glanced at it, and a slow, wicked smile spread across her face.
“Perfect,” Meg murmured. She looked at Kate, eyes gleaming. “Tell your biker that you’re going out. Tonight. With me.”
“What? No. Meg, I’m not—”
“You are. Alicia just bailed on me for a DJ set at Karma Lounge. Industrial, darkwave, very you. I have a plus-one that’s going to waste.” She leaned forward. “You just got permission from a scary man to ‘get out of your head.’ So get out.”
“He’s not giving me permission,” Kate hissed, her face flushing.
“Isn’t he?” Meg raised a brow. “You’re looking for a sign, Kat. That’s it. A neon-fucking-sign in a shitty club. Now tell him.”
Fingers trembling with a confusing mix of dread and excitement, Kate typed.
Kate: Meg is kidnapping me. Going to a club. Karma Lounge. Consider it therapy.
She sent it. The reaction was slower this time. A full minute passed.
Eric: Know it.
Eric: Have fun.
And that was it. No further questions. No warnings. Just have fun. It felt dismissive and freeing all at once. Kate put the phone down, her heart thumping against her ribs. “He knows it.”
“Of course he does,” Meg said, standing and tossing cash on the table. “All the moody bastards do. Now come on. We’re going home. You are not wearing that sweater to a club. We’re doing makeup. We’re doing hair. We’re exorcising the past week with bass and bad decisions.”
---
Karma Lounge was a throaty bassline felt in the teeth before you even reached the door. The line snaked down the block, a river of black fabric, fishnet, and pale skin under the sickly glow of a purple neon sign. Kate, tugged along by Meg, felt violently overexposed. Meg had put her in a tight black band t-shirt—The Cure, faded and soft—ripped fishnets under a leather mini, and her own moto boots. Her hair was loosely curled, her dark eye makeup smudged to perfection. She looked the part. She felt like a fraud.
“Stop fidgeting,” Meg yelled over the pre-door noise. “You look hot. It’s a state of mind.”
They bypassed the line with a wave from Meg to the bouncer, a mountain of a man with a kind smile who nodded them through. The wall of sound hit Kate physically as they entered. It wasn’t music; it was a weather system. A deep, tectonic beat underpinned shivering synths and a distorted, anguished vocal. The air was cool and smelled of fog machine, spilled beer, and human sweat.
The main room was a cathedral of subculture. Exposed brick met sheet metal. Chains hung from the ceiling. The lighting was a strobe-slowed heartbeat of crimson and indigo, carving the moving crowd into fleeting, dramatic tableaus. On a small, raised platform, the DJ was a silhouette, head bowed, commanding the emotional turbulence of the room.
Meg grabbed two shots of tequila from a passing waiter’s tray, handed one to Kate, and clinked the glasses. “To not hibernating!” she yelled.
Kate knocked it back. The fire in her throat was a familiar, welcome pain. It spread through her chest, loosening the tight coil of anxiety. Meg took her hand and pulled her into the swirling mass of bodies on the dance floor.
At first, Kate moved stiffly, self-consciously. She was a spectator in her own skin. But the second shot Meg procured blurred the edges. The third one, which she fetched herself from the bar, dissolved them completely.
The music wasn’t something you listened to; it was something you let inside. The driving, repetitive rhythm bypassed her brain and connected directly to her spine. She closed her eyes. The lights strobed against her eyelids. She let her head fall back, her arms lifting, her hips finding the pulse. The weight of the last week—the fever, the vulnerability, the silent apartment, the watchful grey eyes—began to sweat out of her. She was just a body in a dark room, moving to exorcise a ghost.
She was pure motion, a release of pent-up everything.
Across the room, tucked into a shadowy booth near the back wall, three figures watched.
Torque saw them first. He’d been scanning the crowd with a predator’s idle interest. His gaze snagged on the flash of purple and silver hair, then dropped to the woman with her. The woman with the black hair whipping like a dark flag, the familiar curve of her hips in that tiny leather skirt, the pale skin of her thighs stark under the lights. He let out a low, appreciative whistle.
“Well, well. Look what the cat dragged into the bat cave.”
Dez, sipping a whiskey, followed his gaze. His face, already set in its usual grim lines, hardened further. “You gotta be kidding me. Is that…?”
Ghost didn’t need to look. He’d known the moment she’d stepped onto the floor. He’d felt it, a shift in the atmospheric pressure of the room. He’d been tracking her since the door. Now he let his eyes settle on her.
He’d never seen her like this. Not helpless, not sick, not curled in on herself. She was a live wire. The shy, cautious woman was gone, burned away by the music and the tequila and the dark. She was all raw, untamed energy. The way she moved was hypnotic, a kind of fierce, abandoned grace. It was visceral. It was a punch to the gut.
He didn’t move. He just watched, his grey eyes unblinking, absorbing every detail. The sweat dampening her t-shirt. The way her teeth caught her bottom lip when the synth hit a certain pitch. The flash of the lollipop tattoo on her arm as she raised it above her head.
“Damn, G,” Torque grinned, elbowing him. “Your little stray cleans up nice. And she can move.”
“She’s not a stray,” Ghost said, his voice flat, but his knuckles were white where they gripped his bottle of beer.
“She’s a problem,” Dez muttered, downing his whiskey. “What’s she doing here? And with the witch?”
“Living her life,” Torque shot back, amused. “A novel concept. Come on, man, she’s just dancing. It’s kinda beautiful. In a terrifying, might-summon-something way.”
Dez ignored him, his eyes on Meg, who was dancing near Kate with a possessive, celebratory joy. “The friend’s a piece of work too.”
“I like her,” Torque declared, standing up. “I’m gonna go say hi. Be social. You two can sit here and brood about it.”
“Torque,” Ghost’s voice held a warning.
“What? You don’t own the club. Or her.” He winked and melted into the crowd, heading straight for Meg.
Dez watched him go, then turned his glare back to Ghost. “This is what you want? This… drama? She’s a mess, Ghost. A pretty, dancing mess, but a mess. You can see it from space.”
Ghost finally looked away from Kate, meeting Dez’s eyes. The intensity in his own was cold. “You don’t know her.”
“I know she’s got ‘complicated’ written all over her. I know you’ve got a fucking savior complex the size of Texas. And I know this,” he gestured vaguely at the dance floor, “never ends well for you. You find the broken ones, patch ’em up, and then they either leave or they shatter all over again. This one… she’s got shatter written all over her, brother.”
Ghost said nothing. He took a long pull from his beer, his gaze inevitably drifting back to her. To Kate. To Kat, lost in the music, a temporary queen of the dark.
On the floor, Torque sidled up to Meg. He didn’t try to dance with her, just stood beside her, leaning down to speak into her ear. She startled, then saw who it was. Her expression shifted from surprise to acute, unimpressed skepticism.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he yelled over the noise.
“Is it?” Meg yelled back, not missing a beat of her dance. “Seems like exactly the kind of place I’d find a walking tattoo parlor advertisement.”
Torque laughed, delighted. “You wound me. I’m here for the cultural enrichment.” He nodded towards Kate. “She’s good.”
Meg’s eyes followed his gaze, a softer pride there. “She’s necessary. What are you doing here? Babysitting?”
“Something like that.” Torque’s eyes flicked back to the booth, to where Ghost sat, a statue of pure attention. “He’s watching. Just so you know.”
Meg didn’t look. A slow, knowing smirk spread across her lips. She took a sip from the drink in her hand, her eyes never leaving Kate. “Let him watch.”
Kate was unaware. The world had shrunk to the beat and the heat and the sweet, numbness of release. She spun, laughing at nothing, catching Meg’s eye. Meg gave her a brilliant, encouraging smile and a thumbs up.
It was in that spin that her gaze, hazy and unfocused, swept across the back wall. It passed over the darkened booths, a blur of shapes and shadows.
And stopped.
In the darkest shadow, two points of reflected light gleamed back at her. Not lights. Eyes. Grey, piercing, and fixed solely on her.
The connection lasted only a second. The spin took her away. But the feeling remained, a cold trickle down her sweat-slicked spine.
The music swelled, crashing around her. She stopped dancing. Her chest heaved. The pleasant buzz in her veins turned sharp, electric.
He was here.
She looked back, searching the gloom. The booth was there. She could make out the shapes now. Torque was gone, talking to Meg. Dez was a scowling silhouette.
And Ghost. He was just sitting there. Still. Watching. Not with a smile, not with anger. With a hunger so stark it felt like a physical touch across the crowded room.
The spell was broken. The frantic joy of moments ago solidified into something heavier, more potent. It was a challenge. An acknowledgment. A thread pulled taut between them in the strobe-lit dark.
She didn’t look away this time. She held his gaze, her chin lifting slightly. The shy woman was gone. This was someone else. Someone he’d helped create.
She saw him take a slow drink from his bottle, his eyes never leaving hers.
Then, deliberately, she turned her back to him. She closed her eyes, found the beat again, and started to move. But it was different now. The abandon was gone, replaced by a conscious, deliberate performance. Every roll of her hips, every arch of her back, every sweep of her hair was now a message. A defiant, breathless broadcast sent directly to the shadows behind her.
She was no longer just dancing.
She was answering.
The bassline was a second heartbeat. It rattled her teeth, a tangible pulse in the air thick with condensation and intent. She moved for him, and for herself, a reclaiming of every quiet, sheltered moment. Her skin was alight, humming with the awareness of his stare like a physical touch between her shoulder blades.
Meg materialized at her side, a knowing glint in her eye. She pressed a cold bottle of water into Kate’s hand. “Hydrate, hero. You’re putting on a hell of a show.”
“Is it that obvious?” Kate shouted back, gulping the water, her eyes darting again toward the shadowy booth.
“Honey, it’s a broadcast.” Meg followed her gaze, her smirk softening. “He hasn’t looked away once. Not even when Torque tried to tell him a story. It’s almost romantic, in a thoroughly unnerving way.”
Across the room, Dez slammed his empty glass on the table. “I’m getting air. This is fucking ridiculous.” He shouldered his way out of the booth, his departure a storm cloud moving through the crowd.
Ghost didn’t acknowledge him leaving. His focus was absolute. He watched Kate accept the water, the line of her throat as she drank. He saw the moment her bravado flickered, the brief uncertainty that crossed her features before she fortified herself again. That was the real story. Not the dance, but the resilience.
Torque slid back into the booth, wiping sweat from his brow. “Your girl’s friend is a hellcat. I like her. She told me my aura ‘needed laundering.’” He nudged Ghost. “You gonna go over there or just keep doing your statue impression all night? The tension is giving me hives.”
“She’s not ‘my girl,’” Ghost said, the words automatic, hollow. His beer was warm, forgotten.
“Yeah, and I’m the queen of England.” Torque laughed. “Look at her. She’s waiting. She’s all fired up. Go say something that isn’t a text message, you monumental idiot.”
The song bled into another, slower, darker, with a creeping synth line. The crowd shifted. Kate stood still by Meg, the water bottle dangling from her fingers. She looked directly at him. It wasn’t a glance. It was an invitation. Or a challenge.
Ghost stood up.
The movement was deliberate, unfolding his height from the confined booth. He didn’t look at Torque. He moved through the crowd, which seemed to part for him without conscious thought. People felt the intensity rolling off him and gave way.
Meg saw him first. She leaned into Kate’s ear. “Incoming. Ten o’clock. Try not to pass out.” She gave Kate’s arm a squeeze and then tactfully melted toward the bar, intercepting Torque who was eagerly following in Ghost’s wake.
Then he was there. The noise of the club faded into a muffled roar, secondary to the sheer space he occupied in front of her. He smelled like leather, faint cigarette smoke, and the crisp, clean scent that was just him. His grey eyes were up close, scanning her face, reading the adrenaline, the fear, the defiance.
“You came,” she said. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, raw from shouting, laced with a tremor she hated.
“You’re here,” he replied, as if it explained everything. His gaze dropped to her hand, to the faded pink line now visible under the strobe. “Healed clean.”
“You did good work.” She had to tip her head back to hold his eyes. The height difference was staggering, making her feel small but not weak. The music pounded around them, a discordant soundtrack to the quiet intensity of the standoff.
“You dance,” he said. It wasn’t a question. It was an observation soaked in all the things he wasn’t saying: You surprised me. You’re beautiful. You’re tearing me apart.
“Sometimes.” She took another swig of water, just for something to do. “When I’m not concussed or bleeding or hiding in my apartment.”
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. It vanished quickly. “Not hiding now.”
“No.” She took a step closer, emboldened by the tequila and the thrumming music and the way his eyes darkened. “You watched.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
He was silent for a long moment, the muscles in his jaw working. He looked over her head, into the swirling lights, then back down at her. “Because you look alive,” he finally said, the words gruff, pulled from somewhere deep. “You usually look like you’re waiting for something to be over.”
The accuracy of it stole her breath. It was a more intimate observation than if he’d described her body. He saw her chronic stillness, her endured existence. And he’d just witnessed it break.
“Maybe I was,” she admitted, the confession loud in the space between them.
“And now?”
She didn’t have an answer. The song ended, dropping into a momentary void of ringing silence before the next track kicked in. In that sudden quiet, his question hung, enormous.
In that sudden quiet, his question hung, enormous. Before she could form a word, a jostle from the crowd pushed her forward. She stumbled, the toes of her boots knocking against his.
His hands came up, not quite catching her, but framing her shoulders. A steadying presence that burned through the thin cotton of her shirt. His fingers were rough, warm.
“Sorry,” she muttered, righting herself. She didn't pull away.
He didn’t let go. His thumbs pressed gently into the hollows above her collarbones.
The music started again, a slower, grinding track. The crowd pressed tighter, a swell of bodies seeking the new rhythm. They were forced closer together, an inch of charged air the only thing between his chest and hers. She could feel the heat radiating from him.
She turned in an attempt to put a little more space between them when the crowd pressed her backwards into him. Her back bumped his chest while her rear pressed against his crotch unintentionally.
The contact was electric, immediate.She froze. So did he. The pressure was unmistakable, a solid ridge of heat against her through the layers of denim and leather. The crowd surged again, a wave of oblivious movement that ground them together for one endless, searing second. His breath hit her ear, a sharp, ragged intake.
She tried to jerk forward, an automatic apology on her lips, but his hands on her shoulders tightened. Not painfully, but with a deliberate firmness that held her in place.
“Don’t,” his voice was a rough vibration against the back of her neck, barely audible over the synth. “Just… don’t move.”
It wasn't a command. It was a raw, strained request. The bass thudded through the floor, up her legs, mingling with the frantic beat of her own heart. She could feel every hard line of him, the heat simmering through his jeans. The unintentional friction was now a deliberate, stationary contact, a silent communication more explicit than anything they'd said.
Her face burned. Her own body responded, a treacherous warmth pooling low in her stomach. She should pull away. This was a crowded room. This was too much.
She didn't move.
He lowered his head, his lips now perilously close to the shell of her ear. The scent of him, the faint whiskey and clean sweat, was overwhelming. "You have no idea," he murmured, the words thick, "what you're doing."
"Then tell me," she breathed back, the challenge automatic, braver than she felt.
His response was a low, guttural sound that wasn't a word. His right hand slid from her shoulder, down her arm. His fingers traced a slow, deliberate path over the lollipop tattoo on her bicep, a feather-light touch that made her shiver violently. His other hand remained on her left shoulder, an anchor.
His touch was incendiary. It mapped her skin through the fabric, a silent exploration that felt more intimate than if she were naked. He wasn't groping. He was learning her. The outline of the lollipop, the curve of her arm, the taut muscle beneath. His fingertips brushed the sensitive skin at the inner crook of her elbow.
She let her head fall back against his chest, a silent surrender. Her eyes drifted shut. The music, the lights, the crowd—it all dissolved into a blur of sensation focused entirely on the points where his body met hers. The hard heat at her lower back. The sweep of his thumb over her inner arm. The solid wall of his chest rising and falling against her spine.
This wasn't dancing anymore. This was something else entirely.
Across the room, Meg watched from the bar, her drink forgotten. Torque stood beside her, uncharacteristically quiet. A slow, knowing smile spread across Meg's face. She nudged Torque. "Told you. A hell of a show."
Torque just shook his head, a look of genuine amazement on his face. "He's actually... I've never seen him...wow."
Dez stood near the exit, having witnessed the whole thing from the fringe. His scowl was deep, etched with a concern that bordered on anger. He turned and pushed the door open, disappearing into the cool night air, a solitary figure rejecting the scene.
Ghost’s hand continued its path. It slid down her forearm, over the band of her watch, to her wrist. His fingers circled it, his thumb pressing against her pulse point. It was hammering, a wild bird trapped against her skin. He could feel it. He held her wrist lightly, as if holding the proof of her reaction.
“Your heart is going crazy,” he said into her ear, his voice a low, intimate rasp.
“So?” she managed, the word breathless.
“So it’s not just me.”
He shifted slightly, just an adjustment of his stance, and the pressure against her intensified for a fraction of a second. A sharp, sweet ache shot through her. A small, involuntary sound escaped her lips, lost in the music but not to him. He heard it. His grip on her wrist tightened infinitesimally.
The track began its long, slow fade to an end. The final notes decayed into feedback. A smattering of applause. The lights came up a fraction, from hellish crimson to a murky, exhausted blue. The spell was broken by the mundane shift in set.
The space between them cooled, became just air again. The crowd’s pressure eased. People began moving toward the bar, to the bathrooms, to each other.
Slowly, he released her wrist. His other hand lifted from her shoulder.