While I do mention the songs in the chapter, if you want to set your playlist ahead of time for Venus/Ema's dance its 1) A Perfect Circle- Magdalena, 2) Rihanna- S & M, and 3) Twenty One Pilots- Heavy Dirty Soul. Enjoy!

Chapter 3- Grimmjow

Holy shit.

Like, holy hard-core fucking shit.

I didn't know what to make of the toga-draped little sex-pot that came out of the back hall, buffeted by some VIP waitress and a bouncer, but the minute those electric green eyes met mine, I fucking jolted. It was like a live wire. Like kismet or some shit. FUCK! It was trying to make me a goddamn soppy romantic asshole.

Not that that would really ever happen. I mean… c'mon. But that little bit of heaven down there would be worth breaking my dry spell for.

I studied her first as she looked around, her lined eyes just panning the crowd with a somber look on her face. The lack of a smile did nothing to lessen the fact that she was clearly Venus reincarnated. I couldn't help but struggle to meld this stoic goddess with the vibrant pixie I had only sneaked a glimpse of earlier. Where was the spunk? The energy?

As beautiful as this version was, she looked… sad.

But then those glittering greens met mine and I knew that I wanted that spark back. I wanted that spitfire hiding somewhere under that perfect shell. I wanted her. And I am the king- I always get what I want.

Too soon, her eyes widened and she withdrew into herself, back into the shadows behind the stage. As if that could hide her from my heightened senses. As if I didn't catch the flash of heat. Oh yeah, this one was gonna be mine.

I was jogged from my attentions on the single good thing about this shithole by the sound of Nnoitra sniggering and a hard hit to my shoulder and I growled at him in response. He only laughed harder. Maniac.

"You see her attraction now?" He didn't even look as the poster-plastic Barbie reappeared with a scowl to set his new drink on the table. "Venus is an ass-et, if you know what I mean."

Then he winked at me. Fucking winked. I barely even registered Barbie's angry flounce away as I had to use every ounce of my self-control to not climb over the table between us and yank out his remaining eye. Considering self-control was not a skill I particularly liked to hone, let's just say that the eye was going bye-bye.

Especially once the lascivious sheen left it and inspection took its place. Nnoitra may be THE crazy fucker to rule all crazy fuckers, but he was more intelligent than people often knew or gave him credit for. It was this intelligence that kept me in my seat most of all.

In truth, us Hollows didn't play nice with one another, despite Aizen's whole gang organization and team meeting shit. We liked to operate alone. The whole had always thrived with us doing our own thing before Aizen and we would keep doing it after he was gone… and he would be gone if I had to kill him my-damn-self. It was no secret that I had a happy trigger finger and loved to leave rubble in my wake, but everything else stayed close to the vest. I didn't like Nnoitra trying to read me.

"Oh shit," he hissed, earning me rolling my eyes back towards him, "You're under her spell like the rest of these bitches!"

Scratch that, I didn't like him succeeding in reading me. Douche.

I rolled my eyes away from him and back to the stage as I started to hear a rumble of bass travelling through the floor. I squinted against the lighting, flashing like lightening through the space as surprisingly orchestral music began to thread over the deep bass line.

I could hear Nnoitra scoff and mutter something about moody music, but I wasn't paying attention at all as I finally placed that it was A Perfect Circle blaring through the sound system. Magdalena, no less. I could hug this woman.

As the music began to build, the people just… stopped moving. All eyes turned to the stage in time for her to begin to slowly climb the steps in time to the beginning of Maynard's rolling voice. The gauzy fabric of a makeshift toga seemed to follow her as she swung gently around the base of the three poles that had been planted on the stage. Too soon the music turned more frantic, and I watched her face change to peace as she sunk into the music, whipping her hair around in a circle before shrugging of the toga to reveal a white corset, garters and fishnet tights. She looked like an angel just waiting for the fall.

Dry ice began to filter over the stage as the song slowed and her clear heels made it look as if she was floating above the stage, still only using the poles as basic props for her dips and bends. Again, the music picked up and her back bend from the pole turned into a flipped over handstand that landed her near the edge of the stage. She carefully skirted reaching hands and the slowly growing piles of money as she crawled, slowly and seductively over to the corner where a quick twist of her legs landed her back on her feet and she twirled away.

Back to the audience, she slowly pulled the bottom lace loose on her corset, before following with another and another, revealing black beneath it.

"So pure. So rare.

To witness such an earthly goddess

That I'd sell, my soul

My self esteem one dollar at a time."

Never had I resonated with a song so much in my damn life as I watched her tempt and tease her way across the stage. She was perfection… but there was so much more. A glint of intelligence hidden in the green eyes, a sadness I wanted to swallow from her. And I sure as hell wanted to worship at that altar of hers.

As the final notes hit, the white corset dropped from her body, revealing a much shorter black one, though her back stayed to the audience, and the lights cut.

But as the stage went black and the cash rained, it could be no more apparent that everyone else was in line to worship, too. Now, I wanted to gouge all of their eyes out. This one was mine and they should avert their fucking eyes. I even stood from my seat! Who gave a damn if releasing my wrath was bad for business?

Nnoitra grabbed my arm and I yanked away from his grasp, but his shaking head gave me pause.

"I want her."

"She won't want you."

I reared back. Time to punch Nnoitra in the face.

He raised his hands with his half empty drink in supplication and a devil-may-care smile, delaying my strike. "I ain't saying don't take her. Who gives a fuck?" He explained and I felt my stomach go sour. I didn't do that rape shit. Not that I ever needed to anyways, but there was no honor in that. It may have been a little broken on a good day, but the moral compass still pointed true north on that one.

"I'm just saying, the girl is a frigid bitch. She wants no one."

Well, we would see about that. The lights began flashing red instead of white as a disjointed female voice echoed around me to the sound of thunder.

"In place of a dark lord you would have a queen. Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn. Treacherous as the Sea. Stronger than the foundations of the Earth. All shall love me and despair!"

I couldn't help but lean forward against the rail as the lights dropped fully to red and my cackle rang around the room. Who the fuck was this woman that she could work a Lord of the Rings clip into a strip tease?

"Dude, we can't see!"

Again, with the glare over my shoulder. Again, they froze in silence. How many of these pussies was I going to have to deal with tonight?

"Good," I growled, turning my attention back the stage's swirling red lights and the hard bass pounding again. Two less pairs of eyes to rip out. Messy business.

Yet, as I pegged Rihanna's shrill voice na-na-na-ing over the speakers to S &M, I realized that I was probably going to have to kill every one of them. Venus, walked up the stairs, dropping to her knees immediately, perky tits propped up even more by the black corset now. Chains wound from the straps on the bottom of the corset and over her thighs to latch onto thigh high boots.

The harsh lighting made her dark makeup even darker and she smiled a wicked half smile to the sound of cheers. Holding a riding crop in her mouth she sneered around it as she crawled across the stage. The damn club could have come down on my head and I wouldn't have looked away. With every gyration against the pole, every lewd pump on the stage, I could feel something growing.

Not that.

Well, yes that. My cock was so hard I could have beaten the crowds to a bloody pulp with it to get to her.

No, something unfamiliar gnawed at me from the inside out. It wasn't until Venus swung from a chair spin on the pole and into a split and someone grabbed her booted foot to pull her to them that the feeling got a word label.

MINE.

I vaulted over that rail like parkour was my side gig and threw people out of the way as I got to the stage. I was seeing red and it wasn't the stage lights. I wasn't going to kill the pussy that had grabbed her, I was going to destroy him on a cellular level.

Or I was- until a loud crack rang out, bringing the music to a sudden halt. I was right behind the man who had touched her, hand on his shoulder, but it looked like I was only there to hold him still as Venus's other boot had come around from behind her to crack him across the face. It wasn't enough to knock him out, but the man would have stumbled away if I hadn't kept him still. Her foot shot out again, straight this time and to the supremely satisfying crunch of bone.

Best. Strip tease. Ever.

At least it would have been until the asshat's head fell forward and revealed my face behind him. I knew that I looked ready to commit murder. I was. Her eyes widened as she sat in her crouch for a full second before stumbling back. Fear.

I'm used to fear. Hell, I thrive on it. I didn't like this fear in her. She had just shown the fire.

I held her gaze before I flicked my eyes at the limp man who was still my grasp then back to her.

"You want him gone?"

My voice was rough, and I had barely gotten the words out, but it seemed to snap her back to reality. As she quickly looked around and then back at me, I could see that reality wasn't a place she really wanted to be right now.

Slowly, that perfect mask of melancholy drifted into place and she stood back to her surprisingly short height. Her eyes flicked to mine again and she gave just the briefest nod and I felt my smile grow. I would eviscerate this coward in front of her if she had requested it, but instead I raised my other hand and snapped my fingers, knowing my men would be scattered around somewhere, before literally tossing the man's limp form over the crowd with a cackle.

I guess I expected joy or thanks or some shit, but Venus's eyes just seemed to grow sadder until the lights went out again and she was gone from my sight.

My heart was pounding out of my chest and I swear I could hear it echoing through the room. Scratch that, a heart beat was echoing through the room, through the speakers. Mine was just pounding right along with it. The girl was a witch.

A light purple red light began pulsing with the heart beats. Black light.

Like no time had passed, Venus stood right in front of me again. Same stare. Same sadness.

But every time that blacklight pulsed, I couldn't fucking breathe. Her body was exposed now except for the tiniest pair of black underwear I'd ever seen and shorter clear heeled shoes. She was on display, but my eyes could barely take in those delicate curves.

I was distracted by what appeared to be scars and slashes all over her body. They fucking glowed. Literally fucking glowed as the blacklight lit up the spider webbing pattern of fine and bold lines meshing her body from ankles to a final large slash across the base of her neck. And her eyes… the green had to be contacts as they lit in the black light, ringed by more glowing paint. Her lipstick appeared to be black, adding to her dark silhouette and serpentine grace.

It was a physical loss when her eyes darted away to the sound of raucous cheers and screaming, but then she launched onto the poles and I truly saw why Nnoitra made this deal. You could barely make out any of her physical features in the near darkness, but it didn't lessen the show in the least as she swung and dipped between all three poles, even bracing between two of them at points to brace herself into revealing positions that left me wanting for light. Her movements only seemed to highlight the pounding bass and desperate pleas of Twenty One Pilots' Heavy Dirty Soul.

The girl had mad taste.

"Bitch," Nnoitra growled, having managed his way silently through the crowds to come up behind me, "She hates the third song and she tried to find a way around everyone seeing her."

"Succeeded," I growled back. Brilliant.

As the crescendo before the end of the song rose, Venus began to climb. Every eye locked on her ascent as she climbed almost to the scaffolding of the central pole. And every breath caught, including mine, as she plunged into an upside-down crucifix, barely catching herself with her legs when her head was inches from the floor.

If I hadn't been about to shit myself, I'd have whooped and hollered with the rest of these numbskulls. Until I really looked at her hanging figure in the comparative silence. She didn't move. Her hair pooled around her like a puddle of blood, leaking from the glowing slash in her neck. Her arms were spread in supplication. Can anyone save her heavy, dirty soul indeed?

I had a feeling that only my eyes were sharp enough, however, to catch the single tear track on her cheek that had brought just a trace of paint with them.

"LIGHTS! TESRA!" Nnoitra roared beside me, clearly still unhappy about his golden goose finding a hiding place.

With a grace I didn't expect, Venus planted her elbows on the floor and lowered her legs in a quick scissoring motion and ran off the stage, beating the lights by a split second.

The crowds dispersed as the waitress came on the stage with a broom and began to sweep up the piles of cash that littered the stage. This new one was pretty, though she didn't hold a candle to my Venus (What? I can appreciate people who aren't plastic) but her worried eyes concerned me as they continuously flicked to the hall behind the stage.

I guess I looked a little too close at the waitress because her warm brown eyes met mine and her brow furrowed. I didn't like the way she looked at me, like she was trying to peel back my layers and find a mushy center. Tough shit, chika, I don't have one. I tossed her the glare that had been working for me all night… this one didn't react at all. Well, shit.

"What's wrong with her?" I asked gruffly, breaking the stare-off.

The woman just looked at me for a moment before dropping her eyes and aimlessly kept sweeping the loose bills and- was that fucking jewelry?- toward the center of the stage.

"This performance was a little different," she finally spoke in a smooth, strong voice, "can I tell her that the other owner of the club isn't going to fire her?"

And not know where to fucking find her til I made her mine? Not be able to bless myself with that beauty whenever I wanted her? Fuck no.

I simply tipped my chin in a yes that the waitress returned.

Now to go calm down the only fucker crazier than me in this bitch.

.

.

.

Hours. It felt like I had been waiting on her for fucking hours.

Nnoitra had been pissed. No, that doesn't cover it. Can humans foam at the mouth? Because I swear to god he went rabid. Mad at Tesra for not getting the lights on fast enough. Mad at Honey (as it turned out the waitress was named) for not telling him what was going to happen. Mad at Venus for finding a way not to blatantly flash her pussy at the crowd.

I kinda wanted to cheer for the girl. One: it kept me from having to kill people. I was this fucking close to combing the security feeds to take out anyone who had seen her before and now even if it meant I would take out the whole fucking gang. MINE. Two: if her death-defying fall on the pole hadn't proven it, her riling up of Nnoitra showed she liked to play with fire and wasn't scared of shit. My kind of woman.

Turns out, Nnoitra hadn't needed me to soothe his wounded pride. Dozens of Hollows lined up to talk to him and buy VIP memberships, telling him how 'his' wonderful idea had made their night.

I finally walked away when I couldn't help but snort at the praise.

Nnoitra's idea my ass. I mean, sure, the guy was smarter than I gave him credit for sometimes, but he couldn't have done that. He liked booze and coke too much to take a break for anything other than his weight bench. Fine literature? No. Understanding symbolism to put together a dance routine like that?

Fuck, I almost spilled my whiskey as I couldn't help but laugh at the thought.

That took brains. That took understanding. That took… damage.

This little girl's baggage may even be as big as mine, but I didn't fucking care. She would be mine, if only for a night. Now I was licking my damn lips in public. She had to be a witch.

But I was already addicted. I can admit it. Look at me, Mr. Badass Espada, slumming it at the main bar for a chance of glimpsing a fiery little pixie that made me hard at a thought.

OH MY GOD, where the fuck was she?

The whiskey was gone and I had to turn my back to the room to get a new bottle, which also seemed to take fucking forever. This waiting shit was for weaklings. I banged on the bar and felt my smile curve as the bartender literally jumped before running for the bottle. That's more like it.

Finally served, I turned to face the room again, only to be face to face with the neon green space buns I'd been hoping for. I finally could see her up-close and personal, and she was even more stunning that I had realized. Her lips, now a paler pink, seemed to naturally curve toward a smile and her little ski-slope nose was perfectly turned up, adding to her elfin appearance. Without the heavy make-up, her eyes were huge and glowing green and- hot damn- looking at me.

Fear. There it was again. I had to keep myself from growling in annoyance. That would help things, huh?

She didn't say anything for a second, but she didn't break our look either. Oh, shit! Was this that 'moment' every stupid sap always seemed to moon over? Were we having one? What the hell was she doing to my head?

Too soon, she looked down and away. I could mourn the loss of those eyes, but then she started nibbling her bottom lip like she was nervous and I swear it did things to me that she clearly had no idea about. I couldn't help but wonder how pissed Nnoitra would be if I shut down the bar right now so I could bend her over it.

"Um, thanks," she eventually said, her voice deeper than I had expected, "for helping me out with that guy at the stage."

I couldn't help but chuckle, remembering how the pussy had gone limp in my grip. "I think you had it pretty well under control."

"Still… no one else jumped in... so thanks."

"That's because they're cowards." I couldn't help the bitterness in my voice. Fucking weaklings, I hate 'em all. "They shouldn't touch you."

Raised eyebrows was the only reply of agreement I got, before she bit her lip as if to say something else. Goddamn but she needed to stop doing that.

But then she turned to grab her tray and I realized she was going to be gone from me again. Oh, hell no. I swear my arm moved on its fucking own! The next thing I knew, my hand was on her arm, keeping her still next to me.

Now her eyebrows damn near hit her hairline as her gaze darted between my hand and my face. Fuck, I was fucking this up 2 minutes in.

"But you can?" she snarked out. There was the fire… unfortunately trained on my and I jerked my hand back like I was burned.

"No, I-"

Yeah, no. If she expected a sorry then she was shit out of luck. Espadas don't apologize and kings don't whimper. That thought got me back on track.

"I just don't want you to go yet, baby?" I crooned. The bitches always swooned for that. "You're too beautiful to be working here and I just want to get to know you."

Her fairly open, if angry expression, slammed closed like prison doors as she let out a snort. I almost had to do a double take at how quickly her expression changed. And that snort… was this love?

"And you're just like the rest of them," she said angrily.

That wasn't.

"Let me stop you there. No, I didn't fall from heaven, I crawled up from hell. The only magic trick I do is disappearing. My sign is do not disturb. The only way I'm going to take your breath away is by ripping out your lungs and the only reason it's hot in here is because you just crashed and burned. As to the reason why I work here- it's none of your goddamn business.

"Being that I'm technically you boss, I would say that actually is my business." I couldn't help but crack a grin as her face tightened.

"Is that an official requirement for the job?"

It wasn't and we both knew it.

"Alright then," she huffed, "Last but not least, I don't sleep around- employment be damned- so don't try. Does that cover it?"

No, that most definitely did not cover it. All that vehemence spoke of desperation.

"None of that sweet little speech included your phone number, so no."

"1-800- fuck off," she spat without missing a beat, grabbing her tray and spinning away, "And don't touch me again."

I couldn't help but full-on laugh as I watched her sway away, spine stiffening at the sound. Oh yeah, she wanted me. And it was only a matter of time before I had her where I wanted her.