Moon Over Bourbon Street
Pairing: Lilah/Harmony
Rating: NC-17
Summary: In New Orleans, one really never knows.
Author's Notes: For minim_calibre, who requested Lilah/Harmony with a mention of expensive lingerie, foršs Lilahficathon. Fantastically thorough and impossibly quick beta by aussie_nyc. I pray everyday to be strong
For I know what I do must be wrong
Oh youšll never see my shade or hear the sound of my feet
While therešs a moon over bourbon street
- Sting, "Moon Over Bourbon Street"Lilah thought that New Orleans was ridiculous. If they only knew what really existed out there, these tourists wouldn't flock to Bourbon Street to drink and dance and speculate which pale skinned natives were vampires - they'd flock to the alleys of Los Angeles to see the "real thing", and they'd be drained and left for dead in a New York minute. Better to leave them Louisiana and the tricks played by the streetlights and the heat and the twisting, turning, wrought-iron side streets.
She spent all afternoon wandering places the tourists wouldn't go, the tiny boutiques where real occurrences of the supernatural were far more likely to be found, and ended up in a store that specialized in exotic French lingerie. Not that she couldn't find it in L.A., have it delivered right to her apartment, but what was a vacation for, if not for buying something a little decadent?
So she bought a white lace bra and panties, nothing out of the ordinary but still expensive, and black silk stockings that felt like liquid on her legs, and then she was sitting in a bar somewhere she would never be able to find again, drinking a mint julep and trying to ignore the sweat that was dripping down between her breasts. When she licked her lips, she could taste mint and sugar and just a hint of the bourbon that had slid down so smoothly. And sweat. Lots of sweat.
Lilah downed her drink in two swallows and then looked up to survey her surroundings. The bar was dim, and airless and stifling, and not at all her normal sort of haunt. Too dark to see her carefully matched outfit, too steamy to appreciate the silk against her normally cool skin. Flagging the bartender to order another drink, she felt wilted and alone. This was the sort of place that vampires might hang out, if there really were vampires in New Orleans.
Fact of the matter was, Lilah didn't just think that New Orleans was ridiculous she thought it was a scam. You can come to New Orleans for a great mint julep or some gumbo, she thought, but you're better off in Los Angeles or New York or even - Senior Partners forbid - Cleveland if you want vampires. Fuck Anne Rice. Dumb bitch wouldn't know a real vampire if Darla bit her on the ass. And the swooping, powdered actors dressed up in capes and black silk shirts, they were worse than the gaping tourists. Though the one she'd seen doing a fair impression of Angel, of all people, that one had made her laugh.
Lilah had come down here on her vacation, come here precisely because there weren't things that went bump in the night, and she was sitting here thinking about them anyway. As the bartender pushed her second julep across the battered wooden counter, Lilah resolved to put all thoughts of ghosts, ghouls, and creatures that sucked your blood out of her mind, get plain stinking drunk, and find someone to take her back to her hotel room and appreciate her new lingerie.
When the door swung open behind her, she expected a sort of debonair and fantastically tan but rather common Southern type to sidle up next to her at the bar and order a whiskey, straight up, and start to flirt with that amusing Southern drawl they all seemed to have. Instead, a pale, decidedly female arm rested on the edge, and a painfully perky voice ordered a glass of red wine. Lilah spared the blonde next to her a cursory glance - pink sundress, pink manicure, pink lipstick. Not the sort of girl that would usually be found in this sort of place.
Then again, Lilah wasn't that sort of girl, either.
The blonde curled onto the stool next to Lilah, and chatted cheerfully with the bartender for a couple of minutes, calling him by name and referring to what were obviously mutual friends. After the bartender was called away by the pair of drunk men in the corner, Lilah's barmate turned towards her so their knees bumped and began to stare. Lilah could feel the blonde's eyes on her face, swooping up and down her body, and only after she'd been driven nearly mad by the tapping of fingernails on the bar top did Lilah swing her eyes from the television and glare at her neighbor - who looked strangely, suddenly, painfully familiar.
Of course, the blonde smiled at her and leaned in close. "Do I know you from somewhere?" she asked. Lilah glowered. "No, really," her barmate pressed. "I think I know you from somewhere."
"I don't think," Lilah replied, measuring her words carefully so as to fully repel this woman. "I don't think that you and I move in the same circles."
"But you're not from around here either," the blond burbled. "Maybe we met somewhere else! Have you been to Los Angeles?"
And that was it for Lilah. She recognized her - she'd seen this girl with Angel, and his band of merry men. Hanging on the arm of that tall brunette - what was her name? Cordelia, that was it. Of all the people in New Orleans, she had to end up stuck in a grimy, sticky bar with the one person who recognized her from a random, choiceless encounter.
Just as she decided to drain down the remainder of her drink and make a break for it, her neighbor stuck out her tacky, bright-pink nailed hand in Lilah's face. "I'm Harmony."
Lilah examined the inferior manicure with distaste, considered the open, cheerful expression on Harmony's face and grimaced. She shook the hand offered to her, murmured, "Lilah Morgan," and returned to staring into the depths of her drink. Harmony continued babbling in the background of Lilah's consciousness.
"Do you want another drink?"
"What?"
Harmony leaned in close to Lilah and repeated herself. "Do you want another drink?" Lilah turned to make a polite excuse and Harmony drew back, her hand catching the half-finished glass of red wine sitting on the bar - and knocking it all over Lilah's white silk shirt.
Lilah and Harmony jumped to their feet at the same time. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" Harmony babbled. "God, let me help you wash it out!" She grabbed Lilah's arm before the lawyer could resist and dragged her away from the bar, back towards the bathroom.
Lilah tried to shake her off. "Thank you, but I can take care of this myself. I'd really rather go back to my hotel and send it to the dry cleaners."
"No, no," Harmony insisted. "We should get some cold water on it right away, and maybe some club soda, too. Come on." She pushed the door to the dank bathroom open and gestured for Lilah to go in.
Lilah sighed. No chance that she was getting out of this, apparently. This girl was, Lilah had to admit, attractive in her way, but Lilah could pick up any number of attractive girls who didn't talk nearly so much other places. Still ... there was an appeal. Love this girl and leave this girl. No surprises like you could get in L.A.
Lilah pushed past Harmony and stripped her shirt over her head. She dropped it into the sink and turned the cold water on and heard the door slam shut behind the other girl, who hovered in the background, talking. "I really am so sorry, it was totally unintentional, I'm so clumsy, I'm always doing things like that." As she scrubbed at the wine stain - and it dawned on Lilah that this wasn't quite the stain that wine would leave; it was awfully thick - she could feel Harmony's eyes on her back. Lilah kept her head down and rolled her eyes; when she glanced up to tell her lipstick lesbian companion that she wasn't interested, she caught a glance at herself in the mirror.
And realized that she was the only one reflected there.
Harmony's irises were glittering gold and predatory, and she had pinned Lilah up against the stall beside the sink, which creaked ominously under the weight of two women. "I can't believe you bought the accidental spill ruse," the vampire sneered. She flashed her fangs at Lilah and tilted her head to drink, and Lilah did the only thing that she could think of - maybe, her brain said, this is what you should have done with Drusilla - she kissed Harmony, hard.
The vampire struggled vainly for a moment and her fangs brushed against Lilah's lips, spilling blood into Lilah's mouth. Harmony's struggle suddenly turned to eagerness and she broke the kiss to lick happily at the blood running down Lilah's chin. Lilah seized the moment, made a split second decision, and reverse their positions, pinning her assailant in the spot she'd just vacated. Harmony looked up fiercely and her eyes, still gold, glinted angrily at Lilah. Lilah held her hands pinned against the cubicle wall and considered the vampire beneath her.
"Did you think you could come to New Orleans and fleece the tourists into an easy meal?" Lilah inquired.
"Did you think you could walk into a demon bar and actually walk out with all your blood?" Harmony taunted.
Lilah paled. "Demon bar?"
"Los Angeles isn't the only place with an underworld."
Lilah counted her options: shut this girl up or ship herself right of their. But she was leaving for L.A. tomorrow, and this was slay or be slayed - and she certainly wasn't going home without someone admiring her lingerie.
And with the way Harmony's pupils had dilated and the way her tongue was licking the final traces of Lilah's blood from her fangs, it was obvious to Lilah: kiss or be killed.
She pinned Harmony's arms above her head with one twist, shimmied a thigh between Harmony's and kissed the vampire for all she was worth. The force of Lilah's mouth against Harmony's split Lilah's lower lip again, and Harmony slowly ceased her struggle as she lapped at Lilah's blood between hungry kisses. Lilah dropped her grasp from Harmony's wrist and pinned her against the cubicle with a hand on the hip, her thumb running slowly over the silky material of her sundress. Harmony relaxed into Lilah, and she took the opportunity to drop the hand that had held Harmony's wrists to her left breast, stroking gently in the same rhythm that the hand on Harmony's hip and the tongue in Harmony's mouth were matching.
Harmony's nipple tightened under Lilah's hand and she pinched it, just a tiny twist of the fingers. Harmony moaned, and Lilah made another move, sliding her hand from Harmony's hip to her bare knee, and up her leg to rest at her thigh, the soft brush of the silly pink fabric caressing Lilah's knuckles as her finger tips wandered between Harmony's legs. Lilah let her hand rest calmly there while Harmony's hands began to wander. Harmony traced the side of Lilah's breast gently, fingertips running over the smooth lace and palm gently cupping the underside. She began to suck gently at Lilah's lower lip, and tilted her hips softly but insistently into Lilah's palm.
Stroking the inside of Harmony's thigh, kissing her fiercely, Lilah though to herself - if this vampire is here instead of playing house with Angel and Company, what's to say ... well, what's to say that I couldn't use a new secretary when I get back to L.A.? Only one way to get what you want, Lilah knew that much, and she was in the habit of getting what she wanted. She slipped her hand between Harmony's legs - no panties, of course, she thought - and ran one finger along Harmony's pleasantly cool and unexpectedly wet cunt.
Harmony whimpered, squeezed Lilah's breast, and bit her lip, hard, drawing more blood. Lilah smiled into her partner's mouth and ground the heel of her palm right against Harmony's clit. Harmony screamed, so Lilah did it again, and pinched the same nipple, still hard, still underneath her other hand, brutally, and this time she's rewarded with a ragged gasp and the sound of Harmony's skull thudding backwards onto the stall behind her. She squeezed the breast underneath her hand and, mouth suddenly free, dropped her face to Harmony's neck and bit - hard. Lilah was getting a quick and fast lesson in what vampires - at least what this vampire - like: she likes it hard, and fast, and nasty.
One hand working over the rock hard nipple, the other happily cool between Harmony's legs, and Lilah twisted her wrist and thrust two fingers up, feeling and loving Harmony shuddering beneath her. Harmony whipped her head to the left, hard again, and another thud rang out in the empty bathroom. Lilah thrust again and almost wished their positions were reversed - there's just something about the idea of watching herself in the mirror, watch herself be fucked good and hard by something that isn't even there. But there was no more time for her to wonder. Three strong thrusts, two cruel pinches of the nipple and a wrenching grind of her palm against Harmony and the vampire is shuddering beneath her hands, body going boneless and the lasts glinting of gold fading from her eyes.
Lilah extracted her hands from beneath Harmony's dress and stepped back from the girl, who shuddered again and slid to the floor, staring up at Lilah with glazed, satiated eyes. Another step and Lilah was at the sink, washing her hands, slipping back into her shirt - still stained, but nothing a new one won't fix - and gathering up her purse. She turned back to Harmony and paused.
Extracting a business card from her bag, Lilah bent down and tucked it underneath the shoulder strap on that pink dress - the one that didn't look so bad anymore. "If you're ever in L.A. and get tired of running around with that Chase bitch, look me up."
Turning, sweeping from the bathroom and the bar, Lilah hadn't felt so cool or so glad to be out of Los Angeles since she got here.
Maybe she'd even find a paralegal on Bourbon Street tonight - in New Orleans, one really never knows.
Index