Eternal [HS]

Chapter Twenty-Five

FLASHING IN BRIGHT PINK AND PURPLE lights above the entrance to the building they were told Elias Winston frequents every night, almost blinding her where she walks in step beside Harry, Niall, and Mitch, is the name of the club BLUME.

Great Martier is a city far different from Westbrook.

Westbrook, while populated with a large number of vampires, is stuffy and rich, the kind of place that she could never imagine living. The people attending the dinner party spoke volumes as to the immeasurable type of wealth that inhabits the quiet city, between their three hundred dollar bottles of Dom Pérignon and ball gowns that costed more than anything Jo had ever touched in her life. It was clear that she was out of her depth when she walked in on the arm of a man she also considered far out of her league at the time, but tonight doesn't feel the same.

The streets of Great Martier are bustling with crowds of loud, excited people. None of it bothers her, not the noise or dirt or trash, because it is the first thing to remind her of the human world since crossing over here.

Every place she has been and person she has met here has been alarmingly inhuman, and she has stood out in every group of people she tried to blend into.

Here, that is not an issue she faces. With Harry's scent masking hers and there being too many people for anyone to stop and notice one person with an intimidating man's arm wrapped around her waist, she disappears into the crowds on every corner. They camouflage her, guard her, and she wishes she could thank every person who passes that allows her this sense of anonymity in a place she has never been able to go unnoticed in.

It began to feel like deja vu when Harry got dressed up in one of his tailored suits and held her hand on the drive to a familiar dress boutique that she hadn't seen since they visited it for the last dress he bought her. Only it's different in a few ways, one of those being that when she walked out of the dressing room, walking in the same paces she did those weeks ago, he was allowed to express exactly what he felt upon seeing her.

And express what he felt, he did. He came into the dressing room with her and pressed her up against the wall, lips slotted against hers while she grasped at him and tried not to let the soft moans begging to escape from the back of her throat out. His hands were slipping beneath the hem of the dress when footsteps passed by the closed curtain and prompted her to put an end to their fun, much to his disappointment.

He's still disappointed but tries to stuff the feeling down where it won't interrupt what they're here to do, as they walk past the bouncer and into a long hallway that vibrates with the sound of thumping music beyond its walls. This time, she's the one pulling him along and leading him inside. Their hands are intertwined, holding tight, and he smiles to himself at the sight of her.

The dress that hugs her body tightly enough to drive him just a little bit insane is different from the last one. It's open in the back, with straps that cross near her shoulder blades, but it's much, much shorter than the one she wore to the dinner party. She seems to have a taste for things that shine too, because this one is just as glittering and attention-grabbing as the last one, shining bright green in the neon lights that line the ceiling of the hallway.

His eyes flick down the length of the tiny dress to where it falls at the top of her thighs with barely enough fabric to cover her ass, and it's enough to give him the urge to adjust his where dress pants feel slightly too tight. He finally got himself to go soft again after leaving the dress boutique and here she goes looking so goddamn tempting without even having to try.

"Holy shit," she murmurs under her breath at the sight of the interior of the club.

The hallway opens up into the room in which droves of vampires dance and grind all over one another with drinks filled to the rims of their glasses threatening to spill over onto the floor beneath them. Flashing lights make everything move as though it's in slow motion, and he watches, entranced, as she guides him through to the bar off to the side of the room. She once told him that she doesn't drink often, but it seems that she's in the mood for it tonight because she steps in line beside the man in front of them without another word.