Chapter 14

Merlyn screamed again, even though she knew nobody would notice. The crowd was too frenzied, the music too loud, the lighting too psychedelic, the discotheque too full of dark spots where anything and everything could happen -- and did. The three young guys who had looked like such nice fellows at first sight were terrorizing her now with a menacing, gangbang routine that wasn't exciting anymore. They had laid her out on the couch and were leaning over her, toying with her, touching, mauling, licking her bare skin, exploring with knowing mascuine fingers.

"Come on, babe," said the one with the plain face and the gym-built physique. "Scream all you want, people will think it's part of the floorshow!"

He was straddling her, massaging her breasts rhythmically in time to the backbeat of La Vida Loca, his palms abrasing her involuntarily swollen nipples.

Merlyn tried to slap him. But he pinned her arms to the couch in a vise-like grip. Her dress had been ripped in a couple of places, and she was beginning to hyperventilate with panic.

They couldn't actually rape her here, could they? Right in the middle of a discotheque? Then again, maybe what he said was true -- people might think it was all part of the floorshow for the club's launch.

"You bastards," she yelled. "Let me go right now."

Mr GymBod grinned, enjoying her predicament, and was about to retort. She could feel his erection nudging her belly button through the fabric of his jeans. Then, suddenly, he was yanked off her torso and disappeared. Her arms freed, Merlyn sat up at once, and looked around. The guy holding her legs down also let go and vanished into the crowd. She blinked, trying to see what was going on in the now-dark, now-blinding white stroboscopic lighting.

She made out the three guys struggling with what looked like a pair of giants. She rubbed her eyes, wondering if she was seeing things. They were giants, huge, massively muscled men dressed in leotards. And they were making mincemeat out of the three miscreants who had mauled her.

"They're ex-WWF wrestlers," someone said calmly in her ear. "Twenty years past their prime but still tough enough to put the fear of God into drunken punks. I hired a dozen of them as bouncers for the place."

She turned and saw a man was now sitting beside her on the couch. He looked neither young nor old, short nor tall, fat nor slim. His hair was a mixture of silver and blonde. His suit was Armani, or some expensive variation. His eyes glowed even in the dark beats of the music-driven lighting, like an effect in a horror thriller. She realized he was wearing fluorescent contacts. He had the sexiest, most masculine voice she had ever heard outside of a music CD with the faintest tinge of an Indian accent. Roger White and Amitabh Bachchan rolled into one. He smiled at her, and she saw brilliant, perfect white teeth caught in a flash of the strobes and lasers as they pulsed briefly.

The next moment, he was gone. She blinked, still disoriented and shaken from her brush with the beastie boys. She realized he was still there, he'd simply stood up and was standing beside her now, offering his hand.

She took it without hesitating. He had an air of decisiveness that didn't brook questioning.

"Come," he said quietly, and she followed him, curious to see where this day would lead her next. Glancing back, she saw that the terrible trio had vanished. The heads of the two giants were visible over the crowd during beats in the lighting, and she saw their bald heads gleaming as they moved across the dance floor, the crowd parting easily to let them through.

"They will escort your former associates out of the club." he said, seeming to read her mind. "And they will make sure they never try to return here. We don't condone violence or nonconsentual sex in Sin City."

He gestured and she saw a door open where there had only been a dark wall a moment ago.

Now, for the first time, she hesitated. After all, she had just come that close to being ... violated. Sanity demanded that she should think before following this strange man anywhere.

He smiled. It was a beautiful smile, making him look sauve, sophisticated, and manly. It reminded her of George Clooney, that same slightly sardonic look, lupine and predatory, yet oddly protective, vulnerable even. No, not George Clooney, she thought. More paternal than Clooney, but just as sexy.

"I'm AP Singh," he said. "This is my place. You have nothing to fear from me."