A/N: The lyrics in this chapter belong to Alannah Myles, from the song 'Black Velvet'. Sadly, I do not own it or claim any rights to it. I just borrowed it because I love it. Lots. And I'm still waiting on the rating judgement!

The boys remained oblivious to the subtle campaign being played out before them, fortunately for its target, but Kate and Sarah watched its progress with delighted eyes. Reid's obsession with Kai, sparked by the unusual feelings she had inspired in him, grew steadily. She, they noted almost clinically, played him as easily as a child. Every sign of interest was politely but coolly rebuffed, every attempt at a friendly smile responded to with civility but nothing more. Every so often, however, she favored him with a carefully considered glance that showed a hint of her own interest, or a coy smile that was as tantalizingly alluring as a glimpse of forbidden fruit for a starving man.

These small crumbs of hope seemed to content the blonde, and though he sometimes grew angry and flirted outrageously with whichever poor girl happened to be passing at the time, his rampant flings rapidly dwindled into one-night-stands, and then dried up altogether. As though as a reward, the pair of thoroughly amused observers noticed an increase in their friend's warm smiles, and now and then she would brush a light touch against Reid's arm or shoulder distractedly, as though by accident. With such lures she kept his interest firm, and he soon began to lose his focus whenever Kai entered a room, gazing instead with a slightly confused but stormily intense stare at the dark girl, who remained apparently indifferent to him.

There was only a week remaining until his birthday, and Reid was angry. He'd noticed that Kai smiled at Caleb again now, and that some of the stiffness had gone out of her manner when she spoke to him, but had written it off as her forgiving the one of them most similar to her more easily; Caleb's quiet, calming stillness wasn't dissimilar to the girl's own, after all. It still rankled that Caleb had won her warmth and trust back so easily, though, and his temper grew short when there was no marked difference in her attitude to him.

However, when he caught Tyler walking around looking slightly shell-shocked, staring at Kai with a gaping expression so often that she eventually reached out to gently push his mouth shut, he began to realize that something was up. Her brief, maddening touches seemed to be all that he lived for now, and though he knew it sounded melodramatic and loathed himself for it, he couldn't stop staring at her whenever she was in his range of vision. Still, he didn't truly notice anything until Kai allowed the other three brothers to jokingly lift her over a puddle one night on the way to Nicky's, their hands around her slender waist; then, he was certain: there was something going on that he didn't know about.

Sulking, he abandoned the Sons and the three girls as soon as they walked through the door into the heaving room, heading for the pool table. It took ruthlessly defeating three opponents, and winning their money, for his temper to cool slightly – Caleb, watching quietly from the other side of the room, was relieved and surprised that he didn't Use to win – and as he nonchalantly claimed his fourth victory of the evening, Reid began to scheme. Tyler was the most vulnerable of his brothers, and would be the easiest to extract information from, if he could just get him alone.

Fate seemed to be smiling on him. The opportunity arose only half an hour later, when Pogue and Caleb, giving each other long-suffering looks, threaded their way through the crowd to the jukebox in response to the three girls' pleading stares. Sarah and Kate laughed and jumped to their feet, while Kai smiled with feline satisfaction. Reid thought for a moment that her eyes flicked to him, but the next moment she had melted into the throng of dancers. Reid hardly noticed the first strains of music emanating from the direction of the dance floor; he was intent on seeking out his prey.

Tyler was standing with his back against the wall beside the table where their group had been sitting, looking away from the dancers towards the bar. Reid approached him quietly, suddenly smacking an arm against the wall beside his brother's head and leaning his weight on it casually. The younger boy jumped, swinging around in alarm. Seeing Reid's pleasantly smiling face, he began to relax, but then he noticed the threatening glint in those infamous icy blue eyes and swallowed hard.

"Hey Reid." His voice trembled slightly, for all that he tried to sound casual.

"Tyler, little brother! How's it going? Doing a fine job of propping up the wall, I see." Reid smiled toothily as the dark-haired boy gulped.

"Yeah."

The blonde continued, leaning forward as though to impart a confidential confidence. "It strikes me, Baby Boy, that there's something going on. I wouldn't want to accuse my brothers of hiding anything from me, because I know that friends don't do that to each other, right? But I couldn't help but notice-"

Reid suddenly realized that Tyler's attention had wandered. Scowling, he waved a hand in front of the boy's wide, fascinated eyes but didn't get so much as a blink. He punched his friend gently on the shoulder, his temper rising again. "Baby Boy, I was talking to you."

Tyler just raised a hand and pointed over Reid's shoulder, in the direction of the sweaty mass of heaving bodies on the dance floor, his mouth dropping slightly open as his still unblinking eyes glazed over. Sighing and rolling his own eyes, Reid turned to see what was causing his little brother to go into meltdown and felt his own jaw drop. Man, I might even be drooling, he thought dimly through the haze of heat that had just suffused his entire body.

In the center of the dancers, who had formed a rough circle around them, Kai was dancing with Sarah, while Kate watched with a knowing grin from the edge of their 'arena' with a stupefied Caleb and Pogue. Reid tried to swallow, but his mouth was suddenly dry.

In the dim light favored at Nicky's for the atmosphere of intimacy it lent, they exuded raw sensuality that was like a siren's call to any male – and some females – within a thirty foot radius. Kai's black leather trousers clung to her long, lithe legs like a second skin, the red halter-neck top that bared the rippling muscles in her back tantalizingly rising over the taut skin of her stomach as she ground her hips into Sarah's. The blonde's short, shimmering cream skirt and gauzy silver kaftan over a barely-there strap top provided a brilliant contrast between her pale, innocent allure and Kai's darker sexuality.

Oblivious to their audience, Kai skated her hands down over Sarah's sides to twine about her hips, while the blonde threw her head back and stroked her petite fingers over her friend's dark curls, which bounced as they moved sinuously together. Reid was almost panting as he watched Kai descend towards the floor with incredible flexibility, her hips rocking and grinding to the beat of Alannah Myles' 'Black Velvet'. Recognizing the song, he felt a heady rush of searing desire as the words snaked around his senses, the husky singing voice – God, it sounded so much like Kai – making him pant silently for breath. He'd desired her before, of course, but this was new. Dangerous. Intoxicating.

Up in Memphis, the music's like a heat wave,

White lightning, bound to drive you wild.

The girls were twisted so closely together now that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. The lyrics made his knees weak with the strength of his overwhelming lust. Screw Memphis, screw Elvis, this song was about Kai. His ears heard the slow slip of knowing fingers across purring strings and his eyes saw the slow slither of Kai's leather-clad hips across Sarah's, but his body felt the impossibly slow slide of teasing, masculine fingers across black velvet skin. She was all sultry heat, striking against him and sparking him into crackling awareness, as swift and as sudden as lightning.

Mama's baby's in the heart of every school girl.
"Love me tender" leaves 'em cryin' in the aisle.

Kai could feel his eyes on her, feel his sharp blue gaze beyond all the others fixed on them, and her breath came faster. Prickling awareness spread to every tingling patch of skin, feeling without seeing him the burning heat in his eyes. She ran her hands over her hips, seeing his pale, calloused fingers on her skin instead of her own in her mind's eye. That was him, touching their hearts and bodies, leaving them craving his magical touch, always elusive, always gone before they could get a firm enough hold of him to drink their fill. Not with me. Feel this, Reid. Feel our destiny. She breathed in the scent of sweat and dizzying desire, picking out his individual musk with ease as the music pulsed sensually through her body.

The way he moved, it was a sin, so sweet and true.
Always wanting more, he'd leave you longing for.

That was her: sweet, addictive sin wrapped up in a package that always left him needing more of her, her body, her mind, her very soul. He wanted everything she had to give and more, wanted to wrap himself around her and through her so that they were as close as she and Sarah, closer, one being, one entity, warmed by intimacy, bound by love and blazing with exquisite desire. God, he'd been so blind. Even when he closed his eyes, the image of her writhing body glowed in his mind, only now she writhed beneath him and gasped his name as hot ecstasy made her body burn for him. He wanted her, needed her, had become addicted to her without even realising it.

Black velvet and that little boy smile.

Black velvet and that soft, Southern style.

She'd noticed his little boy smile, in those rare moments when he was completely unguarded and totally bare before her eyes. His blue eyes gleaming behind the messy curtain of blonde hair, his cheeks dimpled, he shone with vulnerable youth and life when he smiled like that. But there were those moments, too, like now, when his eyes glowed with desire and something deeper, more lasting. He was like the South, combining that sultry heat and intensity with the chivalry and vitality of a spirit that was as changeable and as wild as her own. He was a study of contrasts, his fair hair and pale skin and his darker, more primal soul, hard in body but soft of heart. He was her match, her opposite, her other half. The animal in her howled and clawed to escape and claim him here, now. Mine.

A new religion that'll bring you to your knees,

Black velvet, if you please.

She could bring him to his knees without even trying. A smile, a touch from her and he was lost, drowning in her with no desire to be saved. Her skin, as soft as velvet, her eyes, as black as pitch in the dim light of the room, everything about her made him feel weak. He would follow her to the ends of the Earth, even further, just to keep basking in the warmth that swallowed and soothed his restless soul whenever she was near. She was his everything.

As the final chords of the song trailed away, the spell she had cast over him lingered. The teens around the two girls cat-called and stomped their feet in appreciation and as Sarah blushed and buried her face in a grinning Caleb's chest, Kai looked straight across the crowd at Reid. Their eyes met, frantic energy crackling between them like lightning, then she gave him a smile that he'd never seen on her face before, a mysterious, slow turning-up of her lush, full lips that promised such delights that it made him shudder. Her piercing, dark eyes beckoned as she turned and, casting a last, intense look at him, slinked out the door that led into the alley behind Nicky's.

Reid didn't wait a moment before stalking hungrily after her.