Chapter 2

I don’t particularly like to go dancing. It’s not the actual dancing, but I’m not very tolerant of people on a larger scale - I live out on the water for a reason. That said, I can dance, enough to not make a fool of myself, and it’s a good skill to have as a hunter. That’s how I found myself out with Beth and her roommate Julie - Jules - in downtown Miami at a trendy latin bar, acting like I was enjoying myself at salsa night.

As crowds go, Miami is a mixed bag. The women are often very good looking and well put together, especially out at the club. The guys tend to be very uptight and aggressive - it’s a highly competitive arena - and I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t already partnered. Far too easy to get caught up in someone’s petty drama and get socked in the face. I actually enjoy a good scrap, but fighting in a crowd on tile floors is a recipe for disaster.

I’m also a possessive jackass. I can hide it, but I don’t like people flirting with my woman and now that I’ve been inside of Beth, my lizard brain says she’s mine. By extension, I feel some spillover of this to Jules as Beth’s friend even though this was our first time meeting. I probably should’ve been born around 10,000BC.

Even with all these negatives, I was able to enjoy myself - Beth and Jules were much better dancers than I and helped me outperform my skill set. They were also amongst the most attractive in the joint and they happily stayed focused on me so my angry little lizard was resting comfortably. We danced for a tune or two and sat for a bit, sipping wildly overpriced drinks and chatting, and danced some more.

“So whaddya do for work living on a boat,” Jules leaned in to yell in my ear. She was Beth’s opposite - olive complected, straight, jet black hair, and big tits in a low cut thing that showed them off nicely.

“Nothing,” I smiled. “I retired early and got really lucky with some crypto.” She rolled her eyes and laughed.

“I hate you!” she shouted and I shrugged. “But you’re buying!” she pointed at our drinks.

I leaned in and put a hand on her leg. “Nothing in life is free,” I said in her ear. I smirked at her and she laughed again. Beth laughed too but I doubt she could hear us. I pulled back and leaned in to Beth’s ear.

“How’s it goin down there?” I asked her and she looked down and blushed. I caught Jules giving her a look - this was the test date to determine my worthiness so she was on high alert. Beth wriggled a little bit and gave me a surreptitious thumbs up and I squeezed her thigh. I had given her a buttplug at our last tryst and told her to wear it tonight - I’d made her show it to me, flashing her ass in the street as we walked from the restaurant to the club earlier. “Good - let’s dance!” I told the girls.

I settled up and we headed out. I held the door for the girls and then turned and collided into a guy, stepping on his shoe. I took a step back, “Sorry, man. You ok?”

He puffed up and stepped forward. “You fucked up my shoe, holmes!” I could smell alcohol pouring off of him and his arms flapped wildly to the sides as he made himself bigger and ranted about his shoes.

I put my hands up in a conciliatory manner and apologized again. “Sorry, man. I didn’t see you there - was too focused on the ladies.”

He looked at them, looked at me, looked back at the girl he was with - a pretty latina who must’ve poured herself into her dress and was clearly not wearing anything under it. “I’ma fuck you up, holmes. Know’m sayn!? Fuck. You. Up.” He made finger guns, jabbing toward my head as punctuation.

We were pivoting around each other carefully as he shouted and there were several people watching to see how this would play out. Beth and Jules were standing nearby, frozen, shoedude’s girl doing the same on the other side of us. She reached a hand out tentatively, as if to pull him away, but then drew it back.

“Hey, man. I don’t want an ass whippin tonight, and you, you probably don’t feel like breaking your hand on my dome, right? Let’s just tell everyone you kicked my teeth in and we can enjoy the rest of our evening. No broken knuckles, no cops, just quality time with the girls, eh?” Hands still interposed between us, I gave him my best friendly shrug.

He sniffed and stalked around me a few more steps and finally said, “Yeah, that’s right, bitch. Fo’sho woulda busted that head up, but you right. I’ma need these hands later, know’m sayn?” He scooped his girl under his arm and led her through the door, peacocking.

I looked at the girls and we all let out a collective breath and I smiled at them. Beth stepped forward and hooked her arm in mine. As we started walking, Jules hooked my other arm. My lizard, which had woken up and started pawing at its cage, circled around a time or two and curled up in its corner.

We continued our evening at a little cuban coffee joint, sitting at a small wrought iron and tile table on the sidewalk. It was late but the streets were bustling and the air was just the right temperature to be comfortable in just about anything one chose to wear. Thankfully, that meant a lot of women didn’t wear much.

Cuban coffee is strong and bold and this place did it well; I also had a bigass cookie with mine. I was pressed hip to hip with Beth, my hand on her thigh, and Julie sat opposite us.

They were chatting about work - they both worked at Mercy, Julie as a nurse, and I was mostly ignoring them as I rewound my moment with shoedude. I really wanted to tear his head off, but that kind of behavior just doesn’t end well in our more civilized world.

Beth said my name, obviously not the first time. “Sorry,” I said. “I was zoned out there. What?”

“I was saying you should tell Jules that story about that guy in your unit, the one that went AWOL?” Beth was prompting me to be better at this for her friend. Sure, sure...

“Yeah, OK, though it probably won’t be as funny the second time around, especially since I’m not laying on top of Julie.” I waggled my eyebrows at Jules and Beth punched me in the shoulder. Jules chuckled politely.

I took a breath and launched into the narrative, a long meandering story about a young kid who just wasn’t cut out for the army. He was often in a lot of trouble and finally disappeared with a stripper right before a deployment. When the MPs finally dragged him back, he’d gotten her name tattooed across his back in humongous letters and they were engaged. Unfortunately for him, the army had had enough of his shenanigans and so he was eventually cut loose and without the means to elevate the stripper to a dependapotamus, she moved on to greener pastures. Like many a tale of woe, it’s funnier in the telling than the living and there were a few laughs to be had. Hopefully my credibility with Jules was sufficiently boosted; either way, it was finally time to summon an uber.

“I think it went really good,” Beth said as she unbuttoned my shirt. We were in her room, small and very girly. Not childish, but far more pink than I expected - she is young. She did have a real queen bed and no issues with headroom, so thumbs up for civilization. As she worked the buttons, I kicked off my barely appropriate for going out on the town shoes - living on a boat curtails one’s wardrobe - and lightly gripped her hips, ready to lift her dress.