In Heat (Sanctuary) (2 page)

“Because calling in hungover is such an improvement over calling in horny.”

“As of last year, heat-related absences are protected under FMLA.  I’d be a fool to squander the opportunity.”  Cassie led the way down the hallway, still chattering.  Amused, Aisha followed.  As she walked down the hallway, a strange scent assaulted her nostrils…cologne, a hint of sweat, the smell of a man that Aisha always associated with curling up next to a lover.  She snapped her head around in the direction of the smell and nearly tripped over her own heels.  Cassie grabbed her arm to stop her from falling.

“Are you all right?” she asked. 

“Fine,” Aisha answered automatically, not really listening.  That scent…why did she know that scent…Cassie squeezed her forearm.  Aisha jumped hard and only then realized that her friend had her cell phone out in her free hand, fingers poised over the 9 and the 1.  Aisha shook her head and pulled her arm free from Cassie’s grasp.  “Whoo.  Head rush.  I’m all right.”

“You looked like you were having a stroke.”

“Just my heels hurting me.  Maybe not the wisest of footwear choices.” 

“We can run back up so you can change.”  She really must have worried Cassie, then, for the other woman to be suggesting sensible shoes.  Aisha shook her head.

“Really, I’m okay.  I’ll make sure to sit and look pretty more than I dance.”  Though Cassie’s expression remained dubious, she let it drop.  The two women left Aisha’s apartment building together and stood at the curb to hail a cab.  As they waited, Aisha noticed roughly one out of every five men walking down the sidewalk turning their heads abruptly as they passed behind Cassie, nostrils flaring for a moment before they remembered themselves and hurried on.  Were heat suppressants only mitigated the effects of a were’s hormones so she wouldn’t leap at the nearest male while trying to strip her clothes off in midair and diluted her scent so nearby males didn’t return the favor.  They didn’t mask them entirely.  Cassie’s purse would be filled with more phone numbers than she knew what to do with by the end of the night.  Looking at the dark circles under her friend’s eyes, Aisha still thought held the better end of the deal.

“Are you sure you want to go out?” she asked one more time as a cab pulled up at the curb and she and
Cassie slipped into the backseat together.

“Jesus, are we going to be taking turns holding each other’s hands all night?” 
Cassie nodded, a stubborn set to her jaw.  “Absolutely.  If we aren’t the masters of our biology, then the terrorists win.”

“The meds
are
messing you up, you’re using references at least five years out of date.”  Cassie flipped her off, and Aisha laughed.  The cab driver glanced back at her in the rearview mirror, his gaze moving from her face down to her cleavage and finally ending at the red silk line of Aisha’s dress against her thigh.  She cleared her throat pointedly.  The cab driver jerked his eyes back towards the road before they rear-ended a pickup truck traveling in front of them.  Cassie caught Aisha’s gaze and rolled her eyes a little ruefully.  Aisha read the meaning loud and clear:
at least you’re getting hit on for reasons not related to out of control biochemistry.
  Aisha rolled her eyes right back.

The cab dropped them off in front of
Sanctuary, a relatively new club that had opened within the past year and within a few months become one of the city’s biggest hotspots, particularly among the were population.  It stood as a windowless brick building, a former warehouse turned chic by the silver-blue sign blazing above the door and a reputation for exclusivity.  Full-blood humans flocked to were hangouts with all the enthusiasm of tourists in strange lands, making it the perfect place for Cassie dance off her excess energy while the heat ran its course: her pheromones would be diluted throughout the crowd.   Cassie and Aisha paid their cover and slipped inside, where a throbbing techno beat immediately assaulted Aisha’s ears and the heat of a hundred bodies writhing against each other blanketed her from all sides.  She lifted her hair from the back of her neck, caught Cassie’s eye, and gestured towards the bar with her eyebrows lifted, the music being way too loud to allow for any conversation outside of shouting.  Cassie nodded enthusiastically.

The space in front of the bar was crowded, but still marginally quieter than it had been standing directly beside the dance floor. 
Cassie and Aisha only had to wait a moment or two before two stools became available.  Cassie waved the bartender over for a martini and, upon receiving it, gulped half of it down at a go.

“Whoa,” Aisha said, laughing a little.  She took a sip of her own drink and let out an appreciative whistle at its strength.  “Easy, cowgirl.  I’m not big enough to carry you out of here.”

“Oh, my God, Aisha, you have no idea how much I’ve needed that.”  Cassie took another sip and closed her eyes, tilting her head back to show the line of her throat and making her flaxen hair catch silver in the club’s low light.  “You are so lucky you don’t go into heat.  I would take the worst cramps in the world over this.”

“Says someone who has never gotten a cramp,” Aisha commented drily.  She took another sip of her drink and noticed a man watching the pair of them from the end of the bar.  He was cute enough, with artfully messy dark hair and a slight cleft in his chin.  Aisha lifted her glass to him.  He lifted his own back and then tilted the rim towards
Cassie slightly with a question in his eyes.  Aisha barely resisted the urge to roll her own.  Golden eyes were almost exclusively features of were blood, and were women had a reputation for being wild things between the bed sheets even when they weren’t in the middle of a heat, eager to heed every suggestion and whim.  Completely untrue, as Aisha herself could attest—unless pureblooded humans lived some of the most boring sex lives imaginable—but it didn’t stop Cassie from rarely having to buy her own drinks every time the two of them went out.

“Says someone who has never gone into heat,”
Cassie shot back.  She finished off her martini and smiled both at the bartender and the man at the end of the bar when another appeared at her elbow.  This one, at least, she seemed content to sip at.  “I’m telling you, Aisha, it is the
worst
, even with suppressants.  Sometimes I think
especially
with suppressants.  I’m looking at all of these fine pieces of candy out here—“  Cassie gestured towards the dancing crowd with her drink and spared a special wink for her new friend.  “And all I want is a nibble when there’s something inside telling me I should be feasting.  If I ever meet someone I like enough to lock in my bedroom for three days at a stretch, I swear—“

“Oh, my God!”  Aisha put her hands over her ears, laughing.  “Stop it, please!”

“Prude.”  Cassie regained her grin for only a moment before it faltered.  “Besides, even with the suppressants, I never know whether a guy is into me for me, for my pheromones, or for—“  She gestured up to her eyes.  “A notch on his bedpost.  I’ll take a couple of Midol and a heating pad any day of the week.”

Their fun night out had taken a turn into the somber.  Aisha set her drink down on the bar and put her hand over
Cassie’s.  “Do you want to go home?” she asked. 

Cassie
shook her head and flicked her hair out of her eyes.  In the club’s flashing lights, her irises resembled nothing so much as molten gold.  “Of course not, I already told you that.  What I am going to do, though, is make someone a notch on
my
bedpost.  Even it is just a nibble, sometimes all you need is a bite or two.”  She flashed Aisha her most wicked grin, the one that Aisha knew from experience meant a solo cab ride home, and sashayed over to the man at the end of the bar.  He leaned down to whisper something into Cassie’s ear and she laughed before nodding. 

Aisha snorted to herself and leaned back against the bar, surveying the dancing couples and savoring her drink. 
After a few minutes alone, she received a second courtesy of a cute guy with a coat just a little too severe for the flashy trendsetters that tended to make up Sanctuary.  He hovered at the other end of the bar for a few more moments before working up the courage to come over, a shyness that Aisha found oddly endearing. 

“Hi!” the guy said.  He spoke just a touch too loudly even for the music, probably out of nervousness.  “I’m Mark.”

“Hi, Mark.”  Aisha surprised herself by taking Mark’s chin in her hand and tugging his face close to hers so they didn’t have to shout.  “I’m Aisha.”  She lifted the rim of her glass to her lips and looked at Mark through her lashes as she took a drink.  Just a dainty little sip, but Mark’s gaze strayed down to her mouth and stayed there until Aisha lowered her drink and cleared her throat.  A flush crawled up his neck.

“Do you want to dance?” Mark asked her.  It was too warm in the club for Aisha to be sure, but she thought she felt his breath move across her cheek. 
She shivered.

“Sure.”  Aisha let Mark take her by the hand and lead her out to the dance floor, where the crush of people ensured that they had to press their bodies up against each other in order to avoid being separated.  Aisha draped one arm around Mark’s neck just to be extra sure and grinned up at him when he blushed even further.  Blame it on the drinks, though she had barely touched her second.  Aisha felt good. 
She let Mark guide her to the beat of the music, keeping one arm draped around the back of his neck and using her free hand to hold up her hair.  The club was so
hot
, especially out on the dance floor with bodies moving all around them.  Mark put his arm about Aisha’s waist, tugging her still closer to him, their pelvises aligned together.  He was starting to want her.  Aisha grinned and tugged Mark’s head down for a kiss without caring who saw.  He tasted like beer and something a little sharp and sweet, like maybe he had popped a breath mint before working up the nerve to come and talk to her.  Aisha released her hair in order to take Mark’s face in both hands as she explored the inside of his mouth.  He let Aisha take control of the kiss with only minimal involvement of his own, which sparked a little note of frustration within Aisha, but his hands against her waist still felt good.  Would probably feel better once he slid them under her dress—

Someone off to the side whistled at them.  Aisha’s gut twisted abruptly, and she released Mark’s mouth with a little gasp.
  He leaned in close, presumably to ask if she was all right, but Aisha didn’t hear him over the sudden rushing of blood in her ears.  Her skin tingled all over with a faint electric current.  The pleasurable, lustful warmth of a few moments before became something much sharper, demanding.

Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit.

“I need to sit down,” Aisha gasped.  How Mark managed to hear her over the throbbing beat, Aisha had no idea, but he nodded and guided her from the dance floor.  He supported her with one hand at her elbow and the other resting against the small of her back.  Aisha didn’t think the gesture could have been more gentlemanly if Mark had tried, but the silk of her dress still rucked up just slightly against her back.  The feel of the fabric sliding over her skin drew an abrupt shiver from Aisha.  She bit her lip against a sudden urge to ask Mark to slide his hand lower, uncaring about the crowd.  There were shadowy corners to be had here, the or in the bathroom, or maybe even in the alley out back.

Aisha pulled
away from Mark and stumbled in her heels, barely catching herself.  He reached for her again, concerned, but Aisha stepped back before he touched her.  Her gaze narrowed to his fingers, and she imagined what they would feel like sliding in and out of her.  Not nearly as good as his dick, but the two of them could improvise, draw a little less attention to themselves in the cab until they got somewhere more private. 

“Aisha, what’s wrong?” Mark asked. 

“Don’t touch me,” Aisha gasped.  “I’m fine, I just…I think I have the flu.”  She wheeled and all but staggered from the club without caring about the stares she drew in her wake.  The cooler night air slapped her in the face as she reached the sidewalk; rather than chilling her ardor, it only made Aisha’s nipples harden against the front of her dress.  She folded her arms across her chest, cheeks burning, and flagged down a cab as quickly as she could.  Aisha babbled out her address and then sat in the back seat with her arms folded across her stomach and her head lowered, breathing unsteadily and trying to ignore the way the vibrations caused by the vehicle going over the road shot straight into her cunt.  She pressed her thighs together and bit her lower lip to keep from moaning as the cab went over a pothole, felt the driver staring at her through the rearview mirror.  Aisha didn’t care.  In fact, she had to clench her hands into fists until her nails bit her palms to avoid ordering him to pull over and inviting him straight into the backseat with her.  He wasn’t were and it wouldn’t be the same, but Aisha’s cunt ached like a bruise.

She threw a handful of cash over the divider at the driver and
staggered out of the cab without even waiting for it to come to a complete stop outside her building.  Aisha’s phone tinged at her; she pulled it out and read a text message from Cassie:
where r u? ok?

Aisha typed back,
sick. home. dont worry
as she dug her keys from her purse with shaking hands.  Damn it, this wasn’t supposed to happen, she was nearly twenty-six.  Most people with were blood went into their first heat by fifteen or not at all.