Her current interest’s body held tension in every line. When he glanced up at her, the deep emotional pain in his gaze made her belly quiver. Yeah, blondie, you’re exactly the challenge I need right now. “I can work you over, angel, but not here. I’ll slip you my card later, and you can call me. If you’re lucky, I’ll show you my dungeon.”

He shuddered, his breath coming out in an excited gasp.

Maybe she should take him backstage and give him a taste of what she had to offer. He looked ready to explode with the strain of containing his pain. He needed the release she could give him. And she needed to see him grovel at her boots so she could dismiss him as not worth her time. The sooner he joined the thousands of men on List A, the better.

Aggie dropped down on her knees on the stage to continue dancing as she talked to him. “When do you need this?”

“As soon as possible.”

“I think I have an opening in a few days.”

“Tonight. I’ve got money. Name your price.”

Name your price? He was definitely speaking her language, but making him wait would do half her work for her. She ran her bloodred, pointed nails down the side of his neck, leaving light scratches in their wake. “I’ll check my calendar and see if I can squeeze you in. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day.”

She was eager to raise welts on his flesh and hear him cry out in pain. Wanted the ultimate prize he would gift her: begging her for mercy, begging her to stop. That sweet instant he gave her all of his power and she owned him. That’s what she wanted. What she needed to keep herself elevated from that deep, dark pit she’d once resided in. But it was too soon to indulge him. He’d attain greater fulfillment if she put him off a few days. Let the anticipation settle into his body and his thoughts until he could think of nothing but the delicious agony she promised.

A commotion on the other side of the room drew her attention. Eli, Aggie’s bouncer, darted toward Feather’s stage. Some big, good-looking customer had captured Jessica in his arms. She was wrapped in a leather jacket with her arms trapped helplessly. Several bouncers were trying to secure her release. Several others were escorting some tall, thin guy out of the club. A third guy standing next to Jessica’s captor shook his head in disgrace. All three customers had a similar look to them. Like they were in some rock band or something. Come to think of it, the cute guy at the end of her stage had a similar appearance. A matching set. She looked down to find her potential good time had vanished.

“Motherfuckers!” her blond angel yelled as he launched himself onto the back of one of the bouncers.

When Jace saw that a bouncer was dragging Sinners’ drummer, Eric, toward the exit, he didn’t think, he just acted. All thoughts of the beautiful, black-haired dominatrix and what glorious things she could do to his body fled his mind.

Jace raced across the club, hurdled a chair, and landed on the bouncer’s back. He knew he wasn’t big enough to take him down, but Jace could fight. If things had turned out differently, he might have become a professional boxer, instead of the bass guitarist for a rock band.

He didn’t mind an occasional brawl—he was good at fighting and knew how to knock a man out in one punch—but Jace wasn’t even sure why they were engaging with a bunch of bouncers at Brian’s bachelor party. They were supposed to be celebrating, not stirring up shit. Eric had better have a good reason for making eight club bouncers pissed enough to hit anything that moved. As the fight moved to the sidewalk outside the club, it escalated. Jace took out a couple of guys with one punch, before pausing to assess the situation.

Tall and wiry, Eric was putting up a fine fight, but was outnumbered four to one. Surrounded on all sides with no way out, Eric unexpectedly pointed to the sky. “Look, the Flying Elvises!”

All four bouncers stared up at the dark sky like turkeys in a hailstorm. When their attention turned skyward, Eric crashed into one of the bouncers at waist level, trying to escape the circle of muscle, but as soon as they realized there were no parachuting icons to entertain them, all four bouncers pounded Eric in rapid succession.

Jace decided to even the odds. Two uppercuts and a couple dozen jabs later, two more bouncers lay on the sidewalk: one out cold, the other attempting to rise, but failing to regain his equilibrium.

Eric wiped the blood out of his eye, his surprised gaze shifting from the human debris at his feet to Jace. “Jesus, little man, you’re a one-man wrecking crew.”

Distracted by Eric’s compliment, Jace found an unexpected fist against his jaw. Pain radiated up the side of his face. His ears rang. Vision blurred. The pain he didn’t mind, but the jar to his senses left him unbalanced. He took another hit to the jaw before he could focus well enough to knock his adversary out with one hard punch under the chin.

Breathing hard, Jace spun and saw some guy whack Sinners’ rhythm guitarist, Trey, in the back of the head with an aluminum bat. Trey hadn’t even been in the club when the fight broke out. Why had he been targeted? “Fuckin’ queer,” the bouncer growled.

Trey dropped to the sidewalk, instantly unconscious. Eric went after the fucktard with the bat, yanking the weapon out of his hands, and tossing it into the road beyond the sidewalk.

“No one.” Eric punched the guy in the face. “Calls him.” Hit him again. “A queer.” And again. “Ever.” Eric continued to pummel the guy until he stopped getting up.

Their lead guitarist, Brian (when in the hell had he joined the fray?), had a one-on-one fight going with the last bouncer standing. The two of them went back and forth with blows down the sidewalk. Brian took a hard fist to the nose, which pissed him off enough to take the guy down with a couple of quick punches.

Jace took a deep breath. Glad it was over. Now maybe he could finish his whiskey and make that appointment with that hot-as-blue-flames dominatrix. Sinners’ vocalist, Sed, burst out of the club. Apparently, he’d gotten tired of the stripper he’d captured off the stage and was ready to fight. They could have used him earlier. Sed was huge. A bodybuilder who would have made a good bouncer had he not been gifted with a voice from the heavens. Sed glanced around, looking for someone to hit, but every bouncer was already down.

Unfortunately, so was Trey.

Sed crossed the sidewalk in two strides and bent over Trey. Sed took him by both shoulders, lifted his torso off the ground, and gave him a gentle shake. Out cold, Trey’s head lolled loosely. “Trey? Trey! Trey, open your eyes.” Sed glanced at Eric. “What the fuck happened to him?”

“That douche bag whacked him in the back of the head with a ball bat.” Said douche bag was groaning in the middle of the sidewalk. Eric had made a mess of the guy’s face.

“What the fuck?” Sed eased Trey down to the sidewalk, dropped to his knees, and put his ear to Trey’s chest. “His heart’s still beating. He’s breathing.”

“Well, duh. You didn’t think he was dead, did you? He isn’t even bleeding.”

Brian staggered his way back up the sidewalk to join them. He massaged the knuckles of his right hand, his dark brows drawn together in an angry scowl. “Damn it, Eric, why do you always have to start shit?”

“It was Sed’s fault. He’s the one who grabbed Jessica off the stage.”

Jace’s gaze swiveled toward Sed in astonishment. Jessica? Sed’s fiancée who’d dumped him almost two years ago? Small world. Jace hadn’t recognized her without clothes.

“Who cares who started it? It’s over,” Sed said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here before the cops show up. I doubt Myrna will want to bail Brian out of jail on their wedding day, and then there’s the concert tomorrow. Kind of can’t miss it.”