Free Smut in the City (Absolute Erotica) by Sommer Marsden, Victoria Blisse, Viva Jones, Lucy Felthouse, Giselle Renarde, Cassandra Dean, Tamsin Flowers, Geoffrey Chaucer, Wendi Zwaduk, Lexie Bay Page B

the candle throwing the planes of his face into harshness.
    For over half a year, he’d been coming to the club. She didn’t know his name, but every night when she looked out over the crowd, he was there. They’d never spoken, never even approached each other, and yet it had become so she depended upon the sight of him, that each evening she sought confirmation of his presence and couldn’t fully relax until assured he was there, watching her from behind his table.
    Throwing her shoulders back, she levelled her gaze upon him and offered up a smile. The corner of his mouth lifted in acknowledgement of her regard, and a crazy exultation skipped through her. Fingers sliding up the microphone stand, she pulled it closer and his expression turned pained, his hand clutching the glass.
    Her smile widened.
    Music swelled. Knowing he watched her, feeling his gaze like a caress, Elena closed her eyes and sang.
    Words flowed from her as she climbed the music, soaring and falling, growling and entreating, melding her voice and the music into one. Every heartbreak she’d ever felt, every conquest she’d ever made, she poured into her song, seducing and being seduced, feeling again the hollowness and searching for an answer.
    The feelings the music engendered grew too large to contain and, like a fool, she sought him out. He watched her with those eyes hidden by shadow, his hand still wrapped around his glass even as his other hand balled to a fist on the table. She could feel his gaze burning upon her, could see how his full lips tightened, how his jaw clenched. Her heart pounded, her flesh tingling under his regard, and deep within her, heat rushed to her centre to make her swollen and wet. Her nipples tightened against the thin satin of her dress and she arched her back, teasing herself with the scrape of fabric against flesh. He tensed further, his lips parting as he noticed his effect on her.
    She wanted to touch him, so badly she ached.
    Her voice skipped a note, but she quickly smoothed it over. Where had that thought come from? She didn’t ache for men. If she wanted one, she took him and once they were done, they were done. Though lately... Lately, she’d thought of what it might be like to linger. To have more than an hour or two. To, perhaps, know someone.
    She wanted to know him.
    The drums throbbed. The bass thrummed. Music tripped over her, but she kept her gaze locked with his. Blood beat a rhythm through her, forcing her breath to labour and her heart to pound. Lifting her arm, she curled it to the music, the action heavy with a languid kind of grace.
    Through it all he watched her, his hand clutching his glass as her voice soared, reached a high, pure note. Holding it, she wavered on the edge as time elongated, becoming a moment filled wholly with him and his shadowed eyes.
    The drums thundered, grew to a crescendo. Then, they stopped.
    Her lungs screamed, but she held that note. She held it and held it, and his eyes burned into her, his hand tightening around the glass. Fingers trailing up the stand, she watched only him, her voice rising, swelling, becoming grander than the room.
    And when it was at its height, when the crowd was on the edge of their seats, she cut off the note.
    A moment of hush, two, and then the audience erupted. Wild applause, raucous whistles, frantic cheers, the crowd showered her in their desire and their love. She soaked it in, the adulation of strangers, and thought nothing of the hollow in her chest.
    Leaning to the microphone once more, she thanked them, and they cheered and shouted, wanting more. The corner of her mouth lifted as she cast her gaze over them and faded as she became caught by him. Gaze steady, he regarded her and though his body was a sprawl, she could see the tension in the set of his shoulders, the muscles of his thighs.
    Silently, she extended an invitation. Come to me.
    His eyes widened, and she saw his answer in the increase of the tension wracking his frame. He