Izzy Swan smirked from her seat at a free table in her favorite club. It was a weekend again. The time when she could really let her hair down and be who she wanted to be within the masses of people. She held a bottle of water in her hands as she watched people grinding against each other. She smiled a secret smile when the first of too many men approached her.

"Hey, can I have this dance?" He asked shyly.

She of course turned him down. She always turned them down. She didn't mean to be cruel, he just wasn't her type. She wasn't a tease who took pleasure in seeing their crestfallen faces as they took the rejection and walked away, but she didn't like the oppressive feeling of having guys like him clinging to her while she danced. She loved the freedom to move- to sway and twist and turn in whatever way she wanted with no hindrance from a body behind her.

Her hair was pulled back partially, bangs left to frame her face while her eyes scanned the growing crowd. The typical groups were already forming. The drinkers… the club brawlers… the night prowlers… she rolled her eyes… there were the cougars- tacky women who wanted nothing more than to relive the glory days of their youth. She shook her head and refrained from grimacing. The sorority girls had shown up. Fake blonde hair, too much make up, too little clothing and way too available. They didn't understand the term, 'hard to get'. maybe that was what set her apart from them.

The air grew more tense when the hair on the back of her neck rose minutely. She herself was being watched. She took a sip of her water, her eyes flitting over the crowd to see if she could make contact with her observer. Bingo. She took a breath and let it out slowly. Inside, she was melting. She'd seen him when he first walked in. He was gorgeous. And he was coming her way.

With a flip of her hair, she crossed her leg and turned her body slightly towards him. Her hand rested on her chin, one tip of her perfectly manicured nails between her teeth. For all the world, she had a look that screamed she was bored. It was just the invitation she hoped he would take. She was only mildly disappointed that he was momentarily distracted by another woman crowding his personal space..

"Hey, you wanna dance?" He asked, his voice husky, his body completely relaxed as he eyed her up and down.

She smirked. "Why not?"

His hand was held out to her to guide her along after him. She smirked and took it, following him to a dimly lit corner that wasn't quite so crowded. He eyed her up and down before stepping closer to her. He could see the look of want in her eyes. He could tell she wasn't looking for him, but opportunity had knocked and he'd taken it. It must have impressed her a little bit, or else she would have turned him down as well.

"So what are you doing in a place like this, dressed like that?" He asked her just loud enough to be heard over the music.

Izzy arched an eyebrow and put a small amount of space between them. "I'm having fun." She answered him simply.

He smirked and tried to pull her closer to his body. His hands were entirely too eager to feel her body and she couldn't help the small frown that marred her lips. He didn't seem to notice her growing agitation though, and favored trying to look down the top of her shirt instead of watching her face. Their dance was cut short by a bar fight breaking out. Izzy took that moment of distraction to slip away. She shook her head and repressed a shudder. Men. They were only good for certain things, she mused with some amusement.

Another bottle of water was in her hands and her bottom was perched on the edge of her seat at an empty table. Her eyes took to scanning the crowds again, wondering if she could find the man she had really wanted to dance with earlier in the night. It didn't take long. He was there, talking to what appeared to be two of his friends.

He was a god among men when the lights passed over him. Dark, dangerous and she wanted it. She wanted him.

(~ ~ ~ ~ ~)

Pounding bass flooded the building, pulsed through the floors and flowed through the crowd while near blinding strobe lights pulsed overhead, dancing over her vision every so often. Her body was alive- living in the heat of the moment- as she writhed and twisted against the stranger behind her. She was free, her mind calm, her body relaxed and losing the built up tenseness with every sway and jerk of her hips. Izzy Swan lived for nights like this.

Her partner, a man she'd watched since she had arrived at Lux Lunae only two hours earlier, had parted the crowd around him and commanded their presence at the same time with an efficiency she was almost jealous of. The slight disdain in his eyes as he watched the bottle blonde sorority girls trying to hit on him is what had prompted her to grab his hand and whisk him away to dance behind her. The pouts on their all too heavily painted lips were laughable to her. As if he'd stoop so low as to waste his time on them.

She moved her eyes down her body to watch a pair of tanned hands sliding over her hips as she swayed in time to the beat of the song playing. An equally tanned, nearly completely tattooed arm pulled her backwards, just that much closer to his already domineering person. It was subtle, teasing and almost guiding in its insistence to pull her closer. A look over her shoulder had her gaze locked with the most seductive specimen of man she'd seen so far throughout the night- possibly in all of her short life.

He was tall, nearly 6'5" and dressed in dark wash jeans and a tight- almost a second skin- tee shirt as well as black boots. She couldn't help but turn in his embrace in order to face him so she could trace her way up those arms from the wrists to his shoulders, close to his already throbbing pulse point in his neck.

"You're playing with fire, little girl." His voice was deep and husky and wove through her person nearly as effectively as the music they were still dancing to.

That same voice was molten silk and held a certain dangerous and authoritarian timbre to it. It sent shivers through her body as she listened to him murmuring in her ear.

A smirked danced its way over her ruby painted lips. "Maybe that's what I want to do." She teased.

He pulled her hips flush to his so she could feel the growing need he held to have her under him. "Aren't you afraid to get burned?"

"I'll take my chances. Besides, you only get burned when you let your guard down." She said with a smirk.

His words were choked in the back of his throat when she suddenly dropped low to the floor, the skirt she wore brushing the cold concrete before she slowly rose, her lips brushing over his fabric clad stomach while her hips swayed in time to the music. He repressed a shiver as he watched her dancing for him. She was making a scene, using him for her own personal dance pole, but for right now, he didn't care. She was free and living in the moment right now.

His eyes closed briefly as her hand skimmed up his thighs. When he'd first seen her across the room, he'd pegged her for another rich brat born with a silver spoon in her mouth. After watching her twist and gyrate and occasionally grind on those dancing with her, he admitted he became intrigued. Watching her now, the way she moved, the things she whispered hotly in his ear, he had to smirk.

Her outfit- if you could call it more than a few scraps of clothing- was leaving little to the imagination as she writhed against him, her body giving over to the demands of the bass that moved her. The skirt was a pleated black and purple number, the top she wore was purple and very low cut. Her boots were thigh high, leather, stiletto and at least 6 inches high. He couldn't help the images that flashed through his mind of her moving like this on top of him in nothing at all.

"What's your name?" He asked around the lump of desire forming in his throat.

Izzy smirked. "Are you so eager to learn the name of your newest walking fantasy?" She teased.

He groaned when he felt her tiny hand trail down his chest to the waistband of his jeans. "The same thing might be said for you, little girl, if you keep playing with me like this." He all but purred.

"I'm Izzy." She whispered, her lips brushing over the shell of his ear as her name spilled from her mouth.

He nuzzled into her neck, inhaling the vanilla and strawberry scent mixed with her sweat and the cigarette smoke that wafted through the air. "I'm Paul." He muttered.

Izzy smirked. The cracks in her mind weren't so noticeable right now. And she liked it like that.