His voice was amazed and impotent and empty when he ground out, “I have never since felt anything similar to that first taste. It was like lightning made alive. Like stars made liquid. Like the moon made into air to be breathed into my lungs to give me life.” He took a breath, his chest moving as if with pain. “It was like riding a wild, icy river beneath a full moon.” Bruiser finished off his third beer, staring at the evening sky.

“And the women took me from him.” There was something in his tone when he said, “the women took me from him.” It matched the melancholy mood I’d noted already. He slanted a look at me, the alcohol riding him hard, consumed so quickly on an empty stomach. “Do you want details?” he asked, his mouth turning up, his mood mercurial, a wicked gleam in his eyes.

“No,” I said. I rotated my bottle, spinning it slowly in my fingers. Leo let them take him. Just like he let the cops accuse him today. Then he kicked Bruiser out. Leo was a son of a bitch. And even Beast knew this experience of Bruiser’s was something painful and sexual and wicked and wrong. She didn’t press for particulars, but hunched out of sight, letting me be alpha without a fight. Finally. “The coals are ready,” I said, my eyes on the bottle, not looking his way.

“There is something about the sight of you that makes me want to tell you anyway.” The threat hung between us as if balanced on the blade of a knife. “But I’m hungry.” Bruiser stood and put two of the steaks on the grill. They sizzled and spat and my mouth started to water. The moment, whatever it was, was broken.

Relief and disappointment in equal measure flooded through me. I should have made him go to a hotel. This was such a mistake, letting him stay here, preparing dinner under the setting sun. Everything, a mistake. I finished my beer and Bruiser went back inside for more while the meat cooked. I wasn’t so sure that letting him get rip-roaring drunk was a good idea, but I wasn’t sure that stopping him would be any smarter. There were many ways to mourn, and Bruiser was mourning Leo, mourning a way of life currently, and perhaps forever lost to him. In which case he would age and die in a matter of years.

I still had to mourn my own past, the death of my father, and I had no idea how to go about grieving that ancient loss. So who was I to make suggestions? I kept my mouth shut.

Beast settled to her haunches deep inside me and groomed her claws, her tongue cleaning the curved, sharp edges. When Bruiser dished up the food, five minutes later, she withdrew in disgust, hissing, Cooked dead meat. I let her go, feeling relief at her departure.

The sky above was deep shades of vermilion, cerise, and plum when we cut into the steaks. The lights of the city blazed into the night, and the music grew torpid and languorous as Bruiser’s selections changed, and we ate. And Beast crept back, like a big-cat through tall grasses, peering for prey, wanting ... something. Something more.

When we were both done eating, the sky was plum, cerulean, and indigo, and Bruiser gathered up our plates, carrying them to the dark house. When he returned, he said, “I apologize for becoming maudlin.” He turned up the music, lit more citronella candles to fight off the insects, and held out a hand. “Will it make up for my faux pas to offer you that dance I promised?”

My lips twitched. Bruiser wasn’t one to wallow in his misery. I appreciated that. The mood between us lightened once again, and Beast hunched, tail twitching. I said, “My choice. Merengue, ballroom style.”

Bruiser let a half smile show. “Club merengue is more fun, more relaxed.” It was also much more sensual, erotic, and suggestive. Beast tightened all over at the thought, but no way was I dancing club merengue with Bruiser. When I shook my head, he sighed melodramatically and changed the CD to a four beat Latin dance number, something fast and sophisticated. He had a great collection of music and I wondered how much of his big suitcase had been packed with CDs. “Come, little girl,” he said.

I started to dispute the little girl comment, but then, he was taller than I. I stood and placed my right hand into his left out to the side at eye level, his right went on my waist. He pulled me closer, his knee between my legs, our right hips touching. I started to protest, but, knees slightly bent, he led me into the merengue, our hips moving, swaying left and right in the closed position of the dance. “Not quite ballroom style,” I murmured into his ear.

“No. Not quite.” We stepped side to side for several measures, creating a wind, candle flames juddering and stuttering as we moved, our faces so close we might have kissed, eyes meeting in the dark. “Better. Much better than classical.” Bruiser pushed me gently into a turn, and another, and another more intricate pretzel as we found our balance and rhythm. “The merengue was always a dance of the masses,” he said, his words matching the beat, “of mating and loving and drums beating a wildness into the air, into the blood. It has always been hot island nights under the stars and firelight and the spiced liquor of love.” He took my free hand so we were swirling around each other and under our arms, releasing one hand when needed, retaking it when a move was completed.

Beast liked the dance, panting into my mind, her breath warm as the music. Content to be beta, seeming content to be led. “No stars here,” I said as he turned me, his mouth at my ear.

“But mating and loving ...” He slid both hands to my hips, the sensual rocking of hips up and down and around in a figure eight. “... we play at that with every step, every move.”

The rhythm was constant but the pace of the moves sped and slowed, our hips meeting and withdrawing, meeting and withdrawing in a dance that shouldn’t have been this sensual, this intense. Beast nudged my hips, pressing forward against Bruiser’s pelvis, easing back. Rocking left and right, followed by a rotating gyre. Not something I had ever done with a partner, but only when dancing alone on a crowded dance floor.

Beast hummed in my ear, “Mine ...”

Bruiser pulled me closer, the suggestion pure sex, a physical demanding. “There is so much more between us than play, Jane.”

I should have tucked tail and run. But I didn’t. And it wasn’t Beast holding me here, but Bruiser’s hands low on my hips. One hand rose, sliding up my side, slowly, so slowly, just missing the outside of my breast, which sent electric pulses through me. My breath sped. My heart raced.

A century of seduction teased his hand along my collarbone and shoulder, down my arm to my hand, which he clasped, holding me with his eyes all the way. Challenging me. The look a dare. The hand on my hip slid around, pulled me closer, resting low on my back at the top of my buttocks, massaging with every step.

“No. Play is all there is,” I whispered back. “I have Rick.”

Bruiser’s eyes came alight and he showed teeth in a wicked smile. My blood pounded, following the percussive beat of the music. Our skin was slick with sweat from the humid night and the glowing coals, our hands sliding through perspiration, flesh heated beneath. “But he is gone. And I am here.” There was an overt anger in the words, and I heard what he didn’t say. Leo was gone too. And Bruiser had no one else.

His hands tilted my pelvis up against him, leading me to a sudden stop. We stood, poised, chest to chest, our breaths matched and rapid, a single beat of immobility, then, slowly, slower than the fast-paced beat of the song, he stepped to the formal, closed position where he held me, his breath on my mouth, my chest to his, our pelvises melded together, his thigh pressing intimately against me.

“I’m here and I want you. And you want me.” My eyes were locked to his in the dim light of the candles, close and intense. Bruiser dipped his head as if to kiss me, his mouth a breath away, taunting, teasing, and then stepped to the side, resuming the dance.

He led us into a series of turns as the music built, rose, and fell. Our pelvises thrust and withdrew, curling closer and away. The urgency of our movements increased as the musical number drew to a close, the drums rising to a fever pitch. He thrust me away and under one arm and back, his lead demanding as the beat. Twirled me hard, slinging my hair around us, and slammed me back. And we ended the dance with my spine against the front of his body, his arms and mine all wrapped around me. Prisoning me. His hands on the flat of my stomach, under my tee, skin to skin.

We were breathing hard, our hearts beating harder. Bruiser’s face was near my ear, his breath moving my hair back and forth. My braid had come partly undone, the wisps and longer strands wrapped around us, sticking to our skin, hot and damp with sweat.

Beast purred deep within me. Satisfied yet wanting more of this potent music, this powerful dance. It is alive, like the hunt, like the play with prey, she thought.

Cat and mouse, I thought back. But which of us is the mouse? I was afraid it was me.

The music changed, a slower number beginning. I tried to step away, but Bruiser held us still for the first two beats of the measure and then stepped to the side. Pivoted my body around and led me into the steps, to the side, slowly, then back and forth in a quick-quick pattern.

I recognized a bolero, danced to a slow rumba rhythm, a conga and bongos providing percussion. The bolero was a deliberate, measured, romantic dance, always performed staring into the partner’s eyes. The heat of the merengue began to segue into a different kind of heat, deeper, more intense, more hungry. Rick is not here, Beast thought. Rick no longer protects his territory. We find another, stronger predator/mate. She kicked out, slamming me away, and undulated against Bruiser.

I needed to stop this. I needed to get away. But Beast wanted more. Much more. Damn Ricky Bo. Why hadn’t he called? He could have called. ... And damn Beast for reminding me that big-cats don’t mate for life.

Bruiser’s hand moved against my back, along my spine with each slow belly ripple, each slow turn, and I could feel the pressure and heat and texture of it. I couldn’t pull away. “I want you,” he murmured. “I want you in my bed, under me. Moving like this. I want you with me forever.”

Rick had never said that. Rick had never said the forever word. Rick never said the love word. Inside, something in me broke, silent and wounded. Only a month, I thought back at the broken part. We’ve been together only a month. And Bruiser’s had a century to perfect the art of seduction. To learn the moves to make and the words to say to get inside a girl’s pants. He’s looking for a place to be, searching for a new den to claim. Deserted and alone, just like me. But he’s a blood-servant. I can’t forget that. His allegiance is to Leo, even after Leo kicked him out.