Back in the hunt

“When you finally let loose, you’re a freak.” Lily laughed at me.

I nearly choked on my absinthe trying to not do a spit take. It was her idea to go out to the club. I’d been resisting for months, not ready to embrace my newly single status.

Dabbing the sweat off my face with a handful of tiny cocktail napkins, I was surprised at how much fun it was to be out dancing again. Lily reached across the table to pick pieces of wet tissue stuck to my flushed face.

“Don’t look, but that guy at the end of the bar has been staring at you all night.” Lily nodded behind me, her hand, protectively holding my arm.

I swiveled around to see who she was talking about, her grip tightened and she pulled me toward her.

“I said don’t look!” Her hiss verged on laughter.

He smiled at me and started walking toward our table. I felt a sensation I vaguely remembered as lust.

After the compulsory introductions, we headed to the dance floor. The first song had a throbbing backbeat, still we kept a discreet space between us while we gyrated in time with the music.

The lights dimmed, and the music shifted to a slower rhythm. He pulled me closer, his hand possessively drifting towards the small of my back. I stiffened, knowing my blouse was probably damp from my earlier, sweat-generating dancing.

The instant he touched me, I felt a shiver run throughout my entire body. A crust of rime formed between us, and my top started freezing to my chest. I searched his face for evidence he felt the icing too. His breath was a white puff of arctic air in the stale, humid nightclub. He was bone-chillingly cold, but he sparked a fire in me I couldn’t deny.

I had put my life on hold for so long. There are certain things you give up when you’re married. Now, I’m free again and my first night out this beautiful man appears. It seemed too good to be true. I had no doubts that he would come home with me.

All my training came rushing back. It was like riding a bike, you never forget. The first pair of cuffs went on easily enough. By then he realized I was a hunter. The silver slowed him down, but I still had to work to get the second pair on. I left his legs unfettered. The thrashing later would be more entertaining that way.

I pulled back the shades covering my apartment’s panoramic view of the eastern horizon, then took a seat in a chaise facing the bed. All there was left to do was get comfortable, and wait for the morning fire works.