Chapter 2: The Confrontation Outside
The world outside the bar door was a cold, wet slap. The Rusty Nail’s neon bled into the alley, painting the puddles and slick brick in streaks of garish red and sickly amber. Rain misted the air, carrying the concrete-and-garbage scent of the city at night.Marcus barely felt it.His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. This stranger, this impossible woman, stopped a few paces from the door and turned. The platforms made her even more monumental, a tower of black against the weeping brick. She looked down at him, her kohl-rimmed eyes unreadable.
“So,” she said, the rasp in her voice like gravel under leather. “You’re the one who shows off pictures of his girlfriend’s tits for beer money.”
Marcus opened his mouth, a dozen denials and explanations tangling on his tongue. “It wasn’t—Derek bet me—I didn’t think—”
She took a step forward.He took an instinctive step back, his shoulders meeting the damp, cold wall. She closed the distance, one hand planting on the brick beside his head, caging him in. Her body didn’t touch his, but he felt the heat radiating from her, a furnace contained in leather and mesh. The scent of her—incense, night air, and something uniquely, indefinably her—wrapped around him.
“I saw you,” she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial growl.“Through the window. Leaning over that sticky table, looking so damn pleased with yourself.”
He stared up, helpless. “You… saw?”
The corner of her full, burgundy-painted mouth twitched. Then it broke into a wide, wicked grin, all white teeth and playful malice. The severity melted from her face, replaced by a vibrant, knowing joy.
“It was incredibly hot,” she confessed, her tone shifting from accusatory to intimate.“Watching you be that bold. My shy, sweet Marcus, winning a bet with a photo of my piercings.” She leaned in closer, her breath warm against his ear. “I almost came right there, pressed against the glass.”
Relief, dizzying and intense, flooded him.This wasn’t a hitwoman.This was Lily.His Lily. On a warpath of her own design.
“Christ, Lily,” he breathed, a shaky laugh escaping him.“You nearly gave me a heart attack. Why the… the whole…” He gestured vaguely at her imposing attire.
“The gothmosphere?” she supplied, pulling back to look at him, her dark eyes sparkling.“I came straight from the Conclave. Chef’s tasting for a bunch of necromancers.Very serious business. Needed to look the part.” She shrugged, the chains on her harness jingling softly. “Also, I wanted to see the look on your friend Derek’s face when I walked in.Priceless. Almost as good as the look on yours right now.”
She was enjoying this.Reveling in it. He could see the thrill in her eyes, the same thrill she got when she’d surprise him by slipping an ice cube down his pants during a movie.
“So,” he said, his own smile returning, “you’re not mad.”
“Mad? Baby, I’m aroused.” She said it plainly, a statement of fact.Her gaze dropped to his lips, then back to his eyes. “And you’re getting a reward for being such a brave, exhibitionist boy.”
Before he could process the words, her mouth was on his.It wasn’t a gentle kiss.It was a claim. Her lips were soft but demanding, her tongue tracing the seam of his mouth until he opened for her. She tasted of rich coffee and the faint, sweet trace of the vanilla cream she must have used in a dessert. Her tongue, he knew, was pierced too, a small silver barbell he could feel as it slid against his own.
He groaned into her, his hands coming up to cradle her jaw, his thumbs brushing the high curve of her cheekbones. She pinned him more firmly against the wall, not with force, but with the sheer, thrilling presence of her. One of her knees nudged between his legs, and he could feel himself hardening, a swift, aching response to her.
She broke the kiss with a soft, wet sound, her breathing slightly ragged.“Mmm. Okay,” she whispered, her voice thick. “Reward time.”
To his utter astonishment, she sank down in front of him, the platforms keeping her height considerable even on her knees. The damp alley gravel pressed into her leather-clad knees. She looked up at him, a goddess in supplication, her eyes dark with intent.“Lily, wait, here? It’s—” he started, his words choking off as her deft fingers made quick work of his belt and zipper.
“Quiet,” she commanded, not unkindly. “And hold onto my hair.”
She didn’t tease. She took him into the warm, wet cavern of her mouth in one smooth, devastating motion.His head thumped back against the brick, a sharp gasp ripped from his lungs. The contrast was electric—the cold rain on his face, the alley’s grime at his back, and the searing, perfect heat of her mouth surrounding him.
She worked him with a practiced, hungry rhythm.The silver barbell on her tongue traced frantic, exquisite patterns along his length. Her hands rested on his hips, her long fingers pressing possessively into his flesh. He tangled his hands in her incredible hair, the inky black and violent magenta strands slipping like silk through his fingers. He watched, mesmerized, as her head moved, her lips stretched around him, her eyes closed in clear, focused pleasure.Sensation built, a coil tightening low in his gut. The sounds were obscene and beautiful: the soft, slick noises of her mouth, his own stuttered breaths, the distant hum of the bar’s sign, the drip of rain from a rusted gutter. The world narrowed to this alley, this wall, this woman.He was close.So close. Tension sang through every nerve.He tugged gently on her hair, a warning. “Lily, I’m gonna…”
She slowed. Then she stopped, pulling off him with a final, lingering lick that made his legs tremble. She looked up at him, her lips glossy and swollen, a smirk playing on them. She stood in one fluid, powerful motion, leaving him exposed and throbbing against the cold night air.“Not yet,” she said, her voice husky. She smoothed her hair, her eyes never leaving his.“First, you have to introduce me properly. To your friends who think I’m a Tamagotchi.”
She reached down, tucked him gently back into his jeans, and zipped him up with a precision that was its own form of torture. The pressure was exquisite agony.“You are…” he managed, breathless, his voice ragged.
“I know,” she finished, grabbing his hand.Her grip was strong, sure.“Now come on. Let’s go win you another fifty bucks.”
She turned, pulling him behind her like a warship towing a dinghy, and pushed open the heavy door back into the roar of The Rusty Nail.The warm, beer-soaked air enveloped them. The buzz of conversation died in a wave, starting from the door and rippling inward.Every eye was on them. On her, specifically. On him, disheveled and flushed, being led by this otherworldly creature.Derek and Sam were still frozen at their booth.Derek’s mouth hung open. Sam had taken his glasses off and was cleaning them with intense, deliberate focus, a sure sign his brain had short-circuited.Lily marched Marcus right up to the edge of their table. She released his hand and crossed her arms, which had the effect of pushing her breasts together in the mesh top, a fact not lost on anyone in the immediate vicinity.
She looked directly at Derek, her smirk returning, full and triumphant.
“So,” Lily said, her rasp cutting cleanly through the stagnant air. “You’re the one who owes my boyfriend fifty dollars.”