He linked his fingers to her own. Stubborn Cajun. This time, however, she didn’t shake him off. When he shot her a smirking grin, she gave him a dark look. “Don’t get too full of yourself.”
Lifting her hand to his mouth, he pressed a kiss to her knuckles, the contact lips to skin since she’d forgotten her gloves tonight. “Did you dance as a child?” At her nod, he said, “What kind of a dancer were you?”
“Ballet.”
He halted on the road. “Dit mon la verite’!”
She gave in to her laugh, he looked so comically stunned. “It is the truth. My mother took me to my first class when I was three. I think it was meant to give me an extracurricular activity to put on college applications later on, but I adored it.”
Janvier shook his head, dislodging several errant flakes of snow that had fallen from the sky. “I cannot imagine you as a tiny sprite in a tutu, but as a long-legged ballerina, yes.”
“I fully intended to become a professional dancer.” Soaring through the air, free and unchained. “But . . .” She shrugged.
His eyes turned solemn. “A professional ballerina cannot always dance alone and must often be in close contact with her partner.”
“Yes.” She tightened her fingers on his, deciding that maybe—possibly—she could get used to holding hands. If it was Janvier. Only him. “But it didn’t break my heart,” she told him with utter honesty. “By the time I accepted that the constant contact would exacerbate my ability, I knew I couldn’t be a professional dancer for other reasons. Do you know how much crap they take from the choreographers and the directors before they get famous enough to throw tantrums and do what they want?”
“You wouldn’t throw a tantrum.” Janvier’s tone was dead serious, his laugh in his eyes. “You’d just shoot the person who was irritating you.”
“I was tempted to do exactly that during my final years aiming for professional,” she admitted. “Then I realized I didn’t want fame. I only wanted to dance, and I could do that on my own.”
“Where do you dance?” Janvier took her down the narrow steps to the man-made cavern that was Hinge.
“That’s for me to know.” She wasn’t ready for him to be her audience—she had no shields when she danced, was naked in a way she wouldn’t be even if she took off every stitch of clothing on her body.
“Janvier! Here to make the misère, my friend?”
Looking up at the statement she couldn’t quite work out, she found herself facing a solid wall of a man with black hair tightly curled to his skull, his mocha skin pockmarked by acne scars and his eyes a gray-green that caught her attention and would’ve held it if Janvier hadn’t been in her life. This was a man who’d never want for female company.
“I never make trouble, Louis.” Janvier grinned and, releasing her hand, exchanged a back-slapping hug with the bouncer.
Ashwini had seen him do the same thing with another man once, back during the Atlanta operation. So she saw the difference. With Callan, it had been for show. This was genuine, affection pulsing off both men.
“This is Ash.” Janvier reached back and took her hand when the two broke apart.
“Your Ash?” Smile huge, Louis would’ve hugged her if Janvier hadn’t slid in between and she hadn’t stepped back. Instead of being insulted, the other man laughed and said something else in the dialect he shared with Janvier.
Ashwini caught the tone, knew he was ribbing Janvier about being jealous. “I think you’re getting ahead of yourself, Louis,” she said. “I haven’t decided whether to keep him or throw him to the gators yet.”
Louis slapped a hand over his heart. “Janvier, mon ami, I am in love. As I see you’re not carrying your blades today, I think I can take you.”
“I’m not the dangerous one,” Janvier drawled, his arm around her waist. “What can you tell us about Hinge?”
“It’s a meat market, but safer than Masque.” His expression made it clear that didn’t mean much. “I can recommend a club with better music.”
“We’re not here to dance,” Janvier told his friend. “We’re looking for a girl with a tat on her ankle. Cher?”
Taking out her phone, she held it out to Louis. “Yeah,” he said after a couple of seconds, “I think I might’ve seen her here. Remember the tat because feet are the first thing I see when people come down the steps. Don’t know her name or remember much else about her, but one of the regulars might.”
“Can you point out the regulars?”
“Sure.” Louis glanced at his watch. “I’m on break in ten minutes. I’ll come join you.”
There was no coat check inside Hinge, so they stripped off their outerwear and placed it on an open bar stool while ordering drinks. Ashwini had no intention of consuming hers, but with Janvier’s accelerated ability to process alcohol, that’d be easy enough to cover.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket just as the bartender put the drinks in front of them with a flirtatious flash of his fangs directed at her. Sliding the phone out of her pocket, she read the message and had to bite back a cry of delight. When she looked up, it was to see Janvier looking at his own phone, a grin on his face. “Ransom?” She knew the two men were friends, often went out riding together.
“Yeah.” Janvier’s grin grew wider as he input a reply. “He finally did it, asked his librarian to marry him.”
“And she said yes!” Ashwini sent back a congratulatory message.
Janvier’s eyes lingered on her after she returned her phone to her pocket. “What about you?” he murmured, leaning in to be heard over the music, his hand on her lower back and his body heat a languorous caress over her skin. “Will you ever say yes?”
Hanging on to her control by her fingernails, she very deliberately brought her vodka mixer to her lips, forcing distance between them. “I see two women who might be donors.” The glass was icy against her palm, but it did nothing to chill the heat licking over her body. “Faint bite bruise on one.”
Janvier wrapped an arm around her front as she went to move past him on her way to the women. He’d pressed a kiss to her cheekbone before she could avoid it. Gritting her teeth against the craving to haul him to her, take that delicious mouth with her own, she instead moved her lips to his ear . . . and bit down hard enough on his earlobe to leave a mark.