Woot, two updates in one day! I'm making up for all the updating I missed because of Rachel (shakes fist in her general direction) and her stupid cat, Fathead! Anyway, I have one ded to make, since she is such a dedicated reader, the only one left apparently, which makes me hella sad. Sniffle. "Not much of a body, but better than nothing..."-Sou'unga

Ded:

anime-lover-forever2007 - I'm sorry, I don't think I can fit you into the story, I don't even know yer real name (I'm such a dummy) but even so, thank you thank you thank you for reviewing! I thought for sure you all thought I abandoned you, but really, I was just busy! And it worked out, because I got some awesome ideas and am rapidly putting them down on here, so please, come on, forgive me? Please??? Pretty please with a cherry on top??? (Seriously, Kagome's vision was so much fun, I can't wait for you to read it.)

Oh, and Jen(K'sL), where are you?? I thought you'd be harassing me to update by now! Has my writing become so bad you won't read it anymore?!?! Oh god, I think I'm gonna cry...where's the fucking chocolate when I need it??

Sweet Temptation

Kagome kissed Sesshoumaru one last time before she went to her dressing room. He would stay in the audience, and keep his eye out for Onigumo. Kagome was to carry on as if she were ignorant of the whole deal.

She closed her door, and took off her coat. She had several different outfits for stripping, but the one she'd chosen tonight didn't come off.

Despite what she'd told Sesshoumaru, her boss cared not if she took her costume off, as long as she was showing an obscene amount of skin, by her standards anyway. She had a different song she wanted to dance to tonight, too - something that went with her outfit.

Sitting at the vanity, she noticed an enormous vase of red roses, with a note slipped in between the dark blossoms. Frowning slightly, she opened it, and felt her stomach flip over.

Folding the note, she threw it away, and dropped the whole vase and all the roses into the garbage on top of it. Leaning on her vanity, she began to apply her makeup and do her hair. She had a plan, and it would take everything she had to make sure nothing happened to botch it up. Her life depended on it.

S.T.

Sesshoumaru leaned against a wall, and tried to stay in the background as he scanned the faces in the dimly lit room around him. The club, which opened at six, was already filling up with people, the majority of them men. There were a few women here and there, but most of them were on stage, working.

A waiter walked by and he grabbed a beer off the tray; paying customers were privy to three free drinks before they had to start paying for them, too. He didn't want the beer, but he needed something to calm his nerves, and it was the only thing at hand.

Men began to stream through the doors, the two bouncers on either side checking them for any weapons or illegal drugs. High Thighs may have been a strip joint, but it was a very high-class one, and only permitted the most eligible customers. Its employees were also paid a salary, along with whatever they earned on the floor during their routines.

Sesshoumaru waited for a long time; Kagome wasn't scheduled to come on until seven. She had told him that, unlike some of the newer girls, she was more experienced, and so instead of dancing around some pole all night, which she had started out doing, she had moved up in the chain to specialty performer; her shows were attended and awaited by the most people, and were quite a sight to see.

He'd seen her last week, and hadn't been lying when he'd told her he was impressed - he'd seen some good dancing, but she made dancing look like the art form it was meant to be, and she managed to put a sexy twist into it that suggested much more than she ever showed.

He looked at his watch; it was six-thirty. Where is he? he thought, aggravated, looking for the long greasy ponytail that would mark Naraku Onigumo.

S.T.

Naraku sat in a VIP seat in a private room at High Thighs. He watched the goings-on in the club from a closed-circuit camera, which fed into a large-screen television. He sat alone, and only a waiter came occasionally to refill his glass. The digital clock on the wall read six forty-five.

Only fifteen more minutes, he thought, his skin tingling with anticipation. She should have gotten the roses by now. Soon you will be mine, Kagome, and when I have you in my grasp

He shuddered. Just thinking of her was like a drug. He eyed the phone on the end table on the left side of his leather recliner. He picked it up, and dialled his home phone.

When he hung up, the waiter came back, and, after whispering in his ear, and handing him the watch from his pocket and a hundred-dollar bill, the waiter refilled his drink and left.

Naraku sat back, and waited for the show to begin.

S.T.

Sesshoumaru looked at his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes.

He still hadn't seen him, and there were five minutes left before Kagome was due to come on.

Leaving his post, he noticed a security camera screwed to the ceiling above his head; noticed several of them, in fact. If he could get in to see the tapes…he abandoned that thought for the moment as a bouncer approached him, and stood next to him, his arms crossed.

"Seen you here last week."

Sesshoumaru looked up at him. The man was burly, and quite tall, considering how short the majority of people there were. Sesshoumaru was amongst the tallest himself, but this man made even him feel small in comparison.

"Pardon me?"

The man turned just enough so his one eye was focussing on Sesshoumaru's face. He looked like a bulldog, as if he'd seen many a fight, and he showed the scars. His face was like a mashed pulpy mass that had healed badly, leaving smooth skin but mangled features.

"You deaf? I said I seen you here last week. You come to see her again?"

Sesshoumaru was taken aback at this. The man talked gruffly, but he wasn't giving Sesshoumaru a menacing vibe; in fact, he seemed genuinely curious.

"Yeah. She's my girlfriend."

This seemed to spark the bouncer's attention, and he smiled, and held out his hand.

"Well, then, I'm glad to meet such a lucky guy. Name's Jaken, but you call me Jak. Who're you?"

Sesshoumaru restrained the strong urge to raise a brow at the way in which this Jak spoke of Kagome so familiarly. She'd never mentioned him to Sesshoumaru before. He shook his hand, and replied, "Sesshoumaru. Yeah, she is."

"She's great. The other girls, they won't talk to me on account of my mug, but her, she always smiles, she's always friendly. Ain't another girl here like her. I'd jump in front of a bullet for that girl."

Sesshoumaru suddenly saw Jaken in a new light. He wasn't the dumb lug he had at first appeared to be, but no matter how ugly he was, Sesshoumaru could not squash the feeling of jealousy that rose up his throat as he listened to the man describe his relationship to his girlfriend.

"Yes, she is very special. I'm not here tonight to see her perform, though. I'm keeping an eye on her, she might be in danger."

Jaken turned to him fully now, revealing no eye on the other side of his face, but a patch of smooth, stretched-taut skin.

"What kind of danger?" Sesshoumaru decided that he could trust Jaken, for he seemed to really be concerned about Kagome. Sesshoumaru took him aside and whispered to him the gist of the situation, and just as Jaken was about to respond, a waiter pushed past them, and covertly dropped something in Sesshoumaru's jacket pocket.

When he'd passed, a voice came over a loudspeaker and announced, "Gentlemen, your wait has come to an end. In just two minutes, Miss Conduct will be on to perform her show!"

Sesshoumaru frowned. "Who's Miss Conduct?"

"It's her," Jaken said, and quickly pulled him into a covered hallway.

"Listen, I know the guy yer talkin' about. He's got a VIP room here, that's why you haven't seen him on the floor. Are you sure he's going after her? 'Cuz he's been here once or twice before and left without any problems."

"I'm sure. Now, where is his room?"

Jaken frowned, making him look as if he were in pain. "I dunno, there's a dozen VIP rooms at the club; he could be in any one of 'em. They don't tell us who's in which one, it's a part of our Discretion Agreement, everyone who works here's gotta sign one."

Shit! Sesshoumaru thought. How will I find her if he gets her?

"Listen, is there a surveillance room? If we can keep an eye on her from there, maybe we'll be able to spot him and track him down. This guy's dangerous, I'm not kidding. He wants her, and I won't let him take her!"

Jaken admired the loyalty he heard in Sesshoumaru's voice. He was very fond of Kagome, as he'd said; he wanted nothing bad to happen to her, either.

Nodding, he said, "This way," and Sesshoumaru followed him down the corridor around a corner, and up two flights of stairs to another corridor, and a row of rooms lining each side. At the mouth of that hall, was the video surveillance office.

Jaken opened the door, and gestured, "After you."

S.T.

Kagome took one last look in the mirror, and touched up her lipstick. Leaving her dressing room, she smiled and greeted several girls on her way to the stage, friends she'd made over the months she'd been here, none of them just co-workers anymore.

When she got there, she handed the DJ a slip of paper, and he nodded, giving her the thumbs up sign, and when she had turned away, he admired her backside, and nodded to himself. Anyone watching would assume he was nodding his head to the music he was hearing through his headphones, and would be none the wiser.

She got into position, and the stage manager turned on the smoke machine. She glanced up at the clock on the wall: six fifty-seven.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, and thought of Sesshoumaru. He would be out there watching her, and for the first time since she started this job, she felt her dance had a purpose. She thought of it as a mating dance for him; she had changed just about everything in her routine for tonight. He couldn't accuse her of monotony, not after tonight.

Ken, the owner of the club, came up to her with his ever-present clipboard and headset.

"You ready kid?" he asked, and she nodded. She found it funny that he always called her kid, when she looked nothing like a kid anymore. Perhaps he did it because she was so young…whatever his reasons, she didn't care. She had a job to do, and several people to impress while she was doing it.

As the music started, she took another deep breath, and opened her eyes, the curtain parting before her to let in the spotlight that blinded her to the audience, making stage fright unnecessary until further into her performance.

S.T.

Kikyou looked at the clock on the wall at the Bowling Alley. It read six-fifty.

She looked to her sisters, and they all looked back at her. When Kagome wasn't around, Kikyou slid into her place as the leader, for she was the oldest of the triplets. She didn't get to play this role often, and when she did, she felt the pressure it exerted so acutely that she was more than happy to return it to Kagome when she came back.

But none of them knew if their sister would make it home from work tonight. Kikyou dreaded this thought; she wasn't ready for that much responsibility, should worse come to worse, and it scared her deeply. Inuyasha, who had just beaten Miroku in a chilidog-eating contest, belched loudly and looked over to see if Kikyou had been watching, but what he saw confused him.

She and her sisters all sat around their little scoring table, their heads down and looking forlorn.

Elbowing Miroku, he too frowned upon the sight. Grabbing Kouga, they went over the divider and sat around the girls.

"Kikks, what's wrong?" Inuyasha asked, tucking her forelock of long black hair behind her ear. She looked at the clock again, and he followed her eyes. Rin said dejectedly, "Kagome's about to do her routine."

The brothers looked at each other. Inuyasha took a deep breath.

"Listen, why don't we go over there? At least then we can see what's going on, and if they need us, we'll be there."

Kikyou looked up, one of her delicate brows raised high, her sisters imitating her.

"What? It's just a suggestion, you all seem so depressed at being away from her, I thought that you'd want to be near should anything happen, but hey, don't listen to me, I'm just an idiot who-"

"Inuyasha! Shut up!" Shippo snarled, and turned his attention back to Rin, who hugged her knees beneath her chin.

"Let's go," Sango said, grabbing her jacket. "I don't want to be here anymore."

"It's not that far; Rin, can you and Shippo walk? There's not enough belts in the car for you."

Shippo replied, "We'll be fine. You guys go, I'll get Rin home."

Nodding, they all left, more quickly as the hour approached.Hopping into the Hatchback, Inuyasha asked, "Everybody in?"

"Yeah's," came from all around, and he pulled the keys from his pocket, turning the ignition.

The engine sputtered, coughed, then died. Inuyasha frowned.

"What's wrong?" Kouga asked, smooshed between Inuyasha and Miroku up front.

"I dunno," Inuyasha murmured, looking at the gas gauge; it read three-quarters full. The check engine light wasn't coming on, but another light in the corner caught his attention. It was faint, but it glowed.

"Shit!"

"What?" everyone asked, exasperated.

"The fucking battery's dead! I must have left the headlights on. Fuck!" He pounded the steering wheel, and Kikyou rubbed his shoulder consolingly from the backseat, and he calmed.

"This isn't a problem," Miroku said, pulling off his belt and getting out.

Opening the trunk, he pulled out the jumper cables.

"Now all we need is someone to give us a jump."

In the backseat, Ayame chewed her lip, and both her sisters looked at her wrist when she pulled pack her sleeve and pushed the light button on her digital watch. Ten minutes after.

Time was a-wasting.

S.T.

Just wait, it'll get even better, I promise! Now, hopefully since this is working again, I'll get some reviews, because I'm tempted to quit posting if no one's gonna read this. That will put me in a depressive funk and I'll gain like, twenty pounds, so please, don't let me do that to me! I don't wanna put a number on the reviews I receive before the next update either, cuz that's presumptuous, or at least it can be, so please, don't make me do it! Now, back to writing the intense scene where Kagome meets Naraku in his...