Into the Spotlight (2 page)

Heidi dragged her back toward the mirror, unsnapping straps and clips to free the headpiece. Jeannie could barely remember leaving the stage. It was as though the blue eyes were here, gazing at her, caressing her tingling flesh. She grabbed a towel and blotted her arms, desperate to halt the need trembling through her.

“Drink.” Heidi pressed the water bottle into her hands and Jeannie drank. Dancing was exhausting, dehydrating work. She needed fifty to sixty ounces of water per set to prevent passing out.

The stage manager plucked the bottle away without waiting to see if she was done and jammed one of Jeannie’s arms through the metal brassiere she would wear next. She maneuvered Jeannie’s body, seemingly uncaring that Jeannie stood there like a lump.

Ice-cold metal punctured the heat steaming up her skin. Jeannie blinked at her reflection in the mirror. Emotion weighed down her kohl-outlined eyes, more than the fringe of diamonds decorating the lashes. Her eyelids looked drowsy, and her lips were swollen, half-puckered as though expecting a kiss.

Behind her, Peppermint buckled Amber into her harness. The dancers would fly in this act, their own private circus of the damned. The black bustier fit over the metal brassiere. Heidi pressed the water bottle back into her hand.

“Drink.”

Jeannie swallowed obediently. It was cool. Never cold. She missed icy cold water on a hot summer’s day. The temperature in the Royale was always a brisk sixty-nine. Unchanging. Unvarying.

Her only source of heat was the stage and the dance.

And twin flames that scorched her in the darkness.

Would those eyes still be there? Would he be waiting for her? Did she want him to be waiting? What if it wasn’t a him? No. It was a him. She wanted him to be there.

“Pandora!” Heidi’s voice jerked her back to the dressing room. The empty dressing room.

“Go!” the woman snapped, making shooing motions, and Jeannie pivoted on one shoe and strode up the steps, determination giving lift to the even strike of her foot on the metal plates.

She resisted the cloak of Pandora falling over her. Jeannie wanted to see those eyes again.

For the first time in decades, it would be Jeannie bursting out onto the stage. Jeannie who would dance. Jeannie who would search for the blue heat.

A whispered hush rippled over the audience. The tinny sound of the organ’s music drifted up from below the stage. One spotlight pierced the inky dark, highlighting Roseâtre, the ringmaster for tonight’s circus. A single lock of shocking white-blonde streaked through the rich black of her hair. Tall, long and leggy, Roseâtre fueled the audience’s imagination.

The dancer’s arms were aloft, locked in a pose that tilted her body to the side, her chin up and her gaze targeting some place far beyond the blackened theatre.

“Dearly beloved.” She murmured the words, but they echoed through the chamber, riding the tin notes of the organ.

“Welcome to our circus of the strange, our sideshow of the sinister and the theatre of the bizarre. Come into our realm of dark wonder, and let us engage you in your wickedest dreams. Come, dare to dance in our shadows.”

The light cut out and then the stage exploded in sound and color. The dancers cartwheeled, pirouetted and leapt. Each one was dressed in the same severe black and white gems wrapped around bare skin—alluring and decadent—but their faces. Jeannie bit her lip, tasting the heavy frosting of gloss and glitter. Their faces were macabre masks of death, pain, torture and fear.

The crowd loved it.

Silver hooped circles drifted from the ceiling, lowered on pulleys, and as they arrived at the stage, they burst into flame. One by one, the dancers dove through the circles, bounding out the other side. A sideshow of extraordinary technique, daring and danger. When the last dancer cleared the last hoop, the flames vanished and darkness whispered along Jeannie’s skin.

Her hips rolled as she strode onto the stage. This was what had brought her to Vegas the first time.

The love of adventure. The arts. The performance.

It held her hostage.

Jeannie swayed to the left and the dancers to her left pulsed. She swayed to the right and the six girls on her right pulsed, their fists toward the audience, heads snapping back. They were sprawled against the stage, like so many broken dreams.

They rose and fell at the extension of her arms. Here. In this moment. She was the ringmaster. Her gaze drifted across the darkness until she found the twin flames of blue waiting for her.

He was still here.

A smile teased the corners of her mouth, a break in character and a provocative invitation in one. Jeannie gave into the temptation and openly smiled at his gaze in the dark. The music faltered a note as she extended her arm toward him.

She kissed the air and blew, directing the kiss with her arm so that Blue Eyes would know the kiss was his. A draft of air stirred the mist around her, her skin throbbing as though caressed in return. Her smile grew and her arms shot upwards, palms to the ceiling. The music crescendo struck, and the dancers exploded to their feet at her command. Jeannie gave herself to the dance.

A dance meant for Blue Eyes.

The stage makeup came off easier than it went on. Jeannie applied the cold cream, lathering it to soften the makeup before using a cotton cloth to wipe it off. The ritual activity remained important long past the days of ticking off time or caring who and what she’d been before she came to serve her sentence in this desert purgatory.

Two and a half hours on the stage, ten pounds of water weight lighter, and she performed the ritual out of necessity, as exhaustion and exhilaration swam inside of her.

“Pandora.” Heidi again. The stage manager and keeper stood at the door, her little minion curled around her neck with one hand on Heidi’s hair. The little creature was cute, but forever chattering, so Heidi tucked her away during show preparation and brought her out when they could all relax.

Jeannie schooled her features into faint boredom, wanting to smother the bouncing balls jiggling inside her stomach. “Yes?”

“A customer wishes you to join him for a drink.”

The chattering across the room ceased. Heidi couldn’t have created a larger silence if she’d smashed two large cymbals together.

“What?” Jeannie studied Heidi’s reflection in the mirror. But the woman’s dark eyes and sardonic expression gave nothing away. Heidi had served in the Midnight Mystery Lounge longer than any of her performers. She cajoled. She coaxed. She ordered. She listened. But she didn’t tease.

“A customer has issued an invitation to join him for a drink.”

Jeannie avoided looking at the other dancers. They’d kill for an opportunity to walk out into the theatre, to sit and dine with a wealthy patron. At least they would until he turned out to be a scale demon or a blood-bound sorcerer, or worse—a shifter with animalistic appetites stimulated by the show.

She opened her mouth to say no.

“Let me change” slipped out instead.

Heidi glanced at the other girls who stood in light groupings, staring as though someone hit a pause button on the Pit’s players. “Finish cleaning up. Your suppers will be served downstairs in thirty minutes, and we have no more encores this evening. Pandora, Stan will wait for you at the door and escort you.”

Jeannie tried to blot out the reason why her “no” had become a “let me change”, but she couldn’t hide from the knowing eyes staring back at her in the mirror. She couldn’t hide from the frisson of anticipation that bounced more enthusiastically than Heidi’s chattering minion.

The invitation was from Blue Eyes.

Chapter Three

The crowd in the Midnight Mystery Lounge thinned in the hour since the second show ended. Jeannie dressed in a white silk draped tunic over a lightweight skirt. The soft material helped her feel sexy. Stan hovered silently a pace behind her, following as she let herself into the Lounge from the basement stage. The darkened room left the customers hidden in a dance of candle and shadow.

Jeannie paused as though letting her eyes adjust to the gloom, but she hardly needed to. She knew where Blue Eyes had been sitting. Her gaze hunted the area, hungry for the sight of his eyes, gleaming flames in the darkness. Stan nodded to the grotto tables, a silent shadow, neither urging her onwards nor offering comfort. His only job was to see to her safety and make sure she made it back to the bunker.

Her breath caught inside her throat. Blue Eyes stood a dozen feet away in one of the private alcoves, a grotto table for two. The shadows parted as her gaze grew more acclimated to the gloom. His jaw was thick, square and chiseled. His nose was blunt, crooked in two places, suggesting a hint of a brawler. Full, firm lips stretched into a grin that flashed a pair of fangs.

Her heart paused.

Vampire
.

The surreal fog that shrouded her on stage drifted lazily across her mind, an inducement, an invitation and an incense tailor-made to entice her. Jeannie’s mouth pulled into a smile and she walked—no, she glided—to where he waited.

Closer, his suit was warm earth tones, with a shirt the shade of carnelian and a russet brown jacket. He was rough elegance. Her gaze traced the lines of his face, from the grooves of his mouth to the dimples in his cheeks that deepened with his smile.

This was a man—vampire—used to grinning. Jeannie slipped her hand into his outstretched palm, unsurprised when the warmth of his skin sent electricity racing through her. The unfamiliar sensation—the friction of life—catalyzed in her blood.

“Thank you.” Not even his touch prepared her for his voice. “Thank you for joining me.” It washed over her like hot spring rain, startling and welcome. “I can assure you, I am in not in the habit of such requests, but I could not resist the urge.”

“Thank you.” She wanted him to keep talking. She wanted to drown in the rain. “For asking me. I don’t receive many requests.”

Laughter rumbled out, a snort that echoed with humored disbelief. “I find that very hard to believe.” He carried her hand to his lips and caressed her knuckle with a kiss. “But I am delighted nonetheless.”

Excitement nuzzled her belly on butterfly wings. “Then I should amend my earlier statement.”

“Yes?” He cradled her hand, holding her a willing captive.

Playfulness danced through her, purging the lethargy of sameness from her veins.

“I receive a lot of requests, but I rarely answer.”

“That, I believe.” He tugged her hand, drawing her closer, and swept his hand toward the table, bowing slightly. “Would you do me the honor of joining me?”

“Of course.” Jeannie glanced at Stan, but he was already leaning against the wall, becoming one with the woodwork. He wouldn’t listen or watch, yet he would see and hear everything.

The vampire pulled out a chair, and Jeannie slid into it, crossing one leg over the other. Her date’s lingering gaze on the white skirt’s part and her exposed flesh sent a flush of pleasure coursing through her.

Unexpected, but far from unwelcome. She’d forgotten what it was like to be teased and to tease in return.

“Before I allow you to buy me a drink, I do have a question for you.” The words startled her, but Jeannie rested an elbow on the table, cupping her chin in one hand.

“Yes?” The vampire circled around and took the seat to her right rather than the one across from her.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Malcolm Reynolds. And you are?” He grinned, a flash of fang in the dim light.

“Jeannie. Jeannie Williams.” The name rusted in her mouth. Dry flakes coating her tongue after years of disuse. “They call me Pandora.”

“Which would you prefer?” A woman could become lost in his eyes. Twin celestial pools beckoning her to bathe in their warmth.

Jeannie leaned forward, tasting the swirl of dark spice and cumin in the air. “I’ve been Pandora so long that it feels naughty to prefer Jeannie.”

The corners of his mouth curled up into a deeper smile, wickedness teasing the corners of his eyes. “Then by all means, you must allow me to call you Jeannie.”

“I think I would like that.”

“As would I.”

“What can I get for the two of you?” The waitress punctured the moment. Ferocity darkened Malcolm’s expression, his eyes cooling to hard ice. The waitress took a full step back from the venom.

Another thrill shot through Jeannie’s stomach, loosening an intoxicating wave of emotion. Her heart thumped a pleasant three-beat cadence as though crying out
here I am!

“My dearest Jeannie, what would you like to drink?”

“Water.” After the show, it was what she needed. “With some lime, please.”

“I’ll have another.” Malcolm tapped his empty glass, presumably drunk during the show. “Leave us now.” The waitress scooped up the empty glass and escaped. The chill fled his gaze as it came back to Jeannie. She bit the inside of her lip to capture the grin aching to stretch her jaw.

“You’re a man used to getting what you want.”

Malcolm shrugged. Long tapered fingers folded together on the table’s edge. They were gentle hands, well-toned and trimmed. She didn’t see signs of manual labor, but would such marks scar a vampire? Or would he merely look his best, as he did now? She knew vampires numbered among their repeat audiences, but she’d never taken the time to talk to one or learn about them.