one of the lounge areas, watching her with those devilish mismatched eyes of his as she danced on the stage at Sanctum, one of the more posh sex clubs in the Club District, catering to sex and socialization for the affluent under one roof. Aside from the back rooms, there were also rooms available for the night above the club at request.
It was one of the private parties for one of the higher ups, a private party of over a hundred men and women who came from powerful places—lawyers, judges, politicians, industrialists, mobsters, all of them mingling in a night of lustful celebrations.
People in various stages of undress were already scattered around the room, some fondling, some fucking. The more private ones took their chosen companion or companions for the night to the rooms in the back, ones that catered to all kinds of fetishes they could want to explore.
It had been a while since she’d seen him, physically seen him. She had felt him many times, known he’d been keeping an eye on her even more so, but actually seeing him wasn’t usual. Her heart thud with each beat of the music as he watched her, and she focused on him, danced for him, just for him. Theirs was an odd relationship, if it could even be called that.
She had found him accidentally on a fateful night, and he had helped her out. She had never believed that she would see him again afterward, not until he showed up at one of the clubs where she’d been serving drinks one night. She had pretended not to know him, and he had pretended not to look at her. They’d both been lying. Since then, for years, he had become a constant presence in her life, an anchor she had become emotionally dependent on even though she knew she shouldn’t be. He was dangerous, he was manipulative, and he enjoyed playing with her emotions a little too much. And yet, when he came seeking her, she was found.
“Hey doll,” someone shouted from below her, breaking her trance. She looked down to find Three’s supervisor, the main handler for the entire housing complex, calling her. She descended the steps behind the stage, walking to the supervisor.
“That’s some very important clients.” He pointed to the lounge area where he was sitting with a few other men, most already with companions from the many girls available. “Go make sure they’re entertained.”
Heart pounding, she gave a nod and sashayed toward the lounge area. It was slightly elevated from the rest of the club, with plush maroon and brown couches scattered around an oval glass table, the lighting there dimmer than they were elsewhere.
One of the older men on a couch, already sitting with a semi-naked girl on his lap, grinned at her. “Aren’t you a looker… Come to join us, sweetheart?”
Before she could respond, a voice, his voice, dryly inserted a sharp comment. “Your heart won’t be able to handle more than one, Landon.”
The older man, Landon, chuckled, evidently the sharpness going over his head. “You’re right. Sweetheart, why don’t you entertain Mr. Blackthorn instead?”
Mr. Blackthorne.
Was that even his actual name or an alias? Whatever it was, it was fitting.
Breaths becoming rapid, she turned to the man on the couch, aware of the way his eyes dissected her barely-there golden sequin dress.
Putting one leg on each side of his, close enough to feel the heat of his body for the first time, she straddled him as she did any man about to get a lap dance. But her heart never pounded the way it did as she straddled him, her hands finding his broad shoulders, tentatively steadying herself as she began to move her hips to the music.
Their gazes locked.
Her eyes drifted to his mouth, the slash of pressed lips as he simply sat, appearing unbothered.
But she could see the darkening of his pupil in his lighter eye, could feel the solid bulge in his pants, getting harder the more she moved.
She ground against him, and suddenly, both her arms were behind her, held tightly in a steel grip, his other hand holding her jaw, reminiscent of the way he’d held her in the maze that first time. Breathing heavily, her breasts heaving, almost falling out of her minuscule dress, she watched him as a male singer’s vocals crooned in the background.
The hand holding her jaw moved to her mouth.
Gloves. He was wearing leather gloves. So odd, but again so fitting with him.
His fingers traced her lips, and her mouth parted. She didn’t kiss, had never wanted to kiss anyone and thankfully no one had forced her to. That was something that was only hers, no one else’s. If someone tried to get her mouth, she simply distracted them. She didn’t know why she held onto that, maybe because it was the only thing she could hold onto that left her with any semblance of control in a world spinning out of it. Whatever it was, it was just hers. And she’d never wanted to give it away more.
He leaned forward, his lips moving to her ear, and she held her breath. “I have plans for tonight and you’re ruining them, flamma.”
The heat that had been simmering in her body suddenly died a cold death.
His plans.
Of course.
She closed her eyes, calling on her strength. How could she have forgotten who he was, how he toyed with her for his own purpose?
Although embarrassment wasn’t an emotion she felt often—with the kind of life she had, there wasn’t really any room for it—she felt the flush heating her face as she struggled to get up and walk away.
He held her still, her hands behind her back, her breasts thrust into his chest, her neck tilted for his nose. She had been trying to… she didn’t know what she’d been trying to do. She hadn’t wanted to seduce him, not really, but she’d wanted to be close to him, to feel him against herself, but not necessarily in a sexual way. Though she was aroused, it had been the… safety she’d been enjoying. Even as he held her immobile, she didn’t feel the familiar panic she would’ve been feeling had it been another man.
She’d been trying to create intimacy, and he had been thinking about his plans.
Not good for any girl’s morale.
She’d promised him he wouldn’t hear her voice again, so she kept quiet, focusing on the light at the back, steadying her breaths.
“Are you angry, flamma?” he asked into her neck. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he was amused. But she did know better, and she knew he didn’t feel things like she did. Amusement was beyond his range of emotion, probably. Maybe not. She didn’t know.
She stayed silent and tried to pull away.
His grip on her wrists tightened. “Your emotions will get you killed here.”
He said that as though she was afraid of dying. If someone pointed a gun at her head, she would probably welcome the bullet.
And the devil that he was, he knew her thoughts. “How will you find your answers if you don’t live, hmmm?”
Fucking bastard.
He was holding answers hostage over her head, forcing her to continue to live. He had been doing it for years. Every time she’d asked him about that night, he told her she would get the answer one day if she continued to live. The last time she’d asked him had been a year ago, and absolutely done with his bullshit, she had taken the one thing from him she knew he enjoyed in their limited encounters—her voice.
But he knew she wouldn’t let go without knowing, and he used it mercilessly, forcing her to shake off dark thoughts, forcing her to see another night, forcing her to live another day. She hated him for it.
His breath fell over her neck, slowly on her pulse, before he pulled back, locking their gazes together.
“The world isn’t ready to see who I would become if this—” his thumb pressed on her pounding pulse “—ever stops.”
Lyla stared at him, and once again, marveled at how she would never understand him.
She wasn’t important, and he was mistaken. If her heartbeat ever stopped, it wouldn’t change a thing.
***
The next week, he was there again, the closest she’d come to seeing him in the span of a few days. He was there, and this time, a blonde half-naked girl was sitting on his lap.
Lyla froze in her step, the tray in her hand she was using as a server jostling with the sudden movement.
Something ugly, nasty swirled in her chest at the sight.
No.
She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath in before opening them again. The blonde was still there and the ugliness in her chest deepened. She knew it didn’t make sense, that she had no rights and worse, no claims on this man. But he was hers. Whatever games he played, he played with her. It was she who was the object of his obsessions. She didn’t want there to be another he was fixating on, another he was holding and worse, looking for with those eyes of his.
But she had no rights over him.
None.
Her hand holding the tray shook and she steadied it, reminding herself any spilled drinks would result in punishment.
The same men from last time sat around the lounge, and she kept her chin down, her fingers white at the vitriol inside her. The blonde flipped her hair over one shoulder, exposing her naked breasts to him, tugging on her nipples.
Lyla grit her teeth, placing the drinks on the table, purposely keeping her eyes down and neck turned away from him.
A man from the side, a younger, dark-haired guy smiled at her. “Why don’t you come sit here, darling?”
Oh no.
Even though she didn’t want to, she couldn’t reject. That was one of the things servers were told to do—if a customer asked for something extra, you gave it to them. Thankfully, since the men who touched her had begun to die, the word on the street usually kept them away from her or making demands of her.
Gaze briefly flickering to the devil responsible for each death, she saw his face completely neutral, his eyes on the dancers onstage. With no cue from him on how to behave or what to do, she did the only thing she could without inviting punishment. She moved and tentatively sat down on the guy’s lap, keeping her eyes fixed on a light away as he palmed her breasts. She didn’t make a sound.
“Moan for me, darling.”
She wouldn’t. That was something she could control. She stayed silent, wondering if the devil would kill this one at all, since they were sitting together.
“Tough bitch,” the man chuckled, clapping his hands to get the attention of the table. “A wager. Whoever gets her to moan gets a hundred thousand.”
A few men whooped and her stomach dropped. She instinctively sought his gaze, only to find the mismatched eyes set on the man holding her.
“This one’s trouble, boy,” the older man who’d been there last week warned. “Better let her go before her guardian angel finds you.”
The guy under her chuckled. “There are no angels in this place, old man.”
No, but there were devils, the biggest of them looking at her.
“I’ll make her moan.”
Her heart stuttered at the sound of his voice as he tapped the blonde to get off him. She huffed and got up, finding another lap immediately.
The old man warned again. “She’s not worth it, Blackthorne.”
“Yes, she is,” he stated, spreading his legs slightly and extending his gloved palm toward her.
Heart pounding, she walked to him, putting her hand in his gloved one.
He tugged her forward until she fell into his chest, his muscular leg between hers as he sat her down. Lyla stared at him, enthralled by the lights reflecting in his light golden-green eye and the complete lack of reflection in the black.
He put one hand on the back of the couch, the other going to the side of her thigh.
A shiver skittered down her spine at the simple touch, and it made no sense to her how one man’s touch could light her up where other’s failed to even spark. Maybe it was because of their history, their connection, their twisted relationship. Maybe it was because she was a fool to feel safe with him, even knowing there were multiple people behind her. Multiple men in a small dark space only ever incited fear in her. Right now, straddling his thigh, she felt anything but.
He tilted his head forward, lining his mouth with her ear, exactly as he had the previous week, and calmly asked, “Do you want me to cut his hand off or burn it?”
Lyla shuddered at his words, and not entirely in revulsion. Something inside her, something dark and deranged, wanted to see him do it, see him sever the hand that had touched her without her permission. And it scared her, that side of her.
She swallowed, basking in the power of that choice. “Cut it.”
She felt him smile against her cheek, his breaths warm against her ear as he trapped her wrists in his wandering hand.
“Good girl.”
The words, soft, full of praise, coming from him made something warm flood in her system, her hips grinding involuntarily, her movement limited, controlled by his body.
“And how do you want him to die?” he asked, his voice low, almost seductive. “Should the Shadow Man do it from a distance? Or up close and personal?” He pushed his thigh up on the last word.
He was talking about real murder and she was wet, so, so wet, more naturally wet than she’d ever been in her entire life. She hadn’t even known she could lubricate so much, and the fact that something so gruesome was turning her on was disturbing. She was going to leave a spot on him.
“The slut is enjoying this!” The loud holler from the back made her stiffen, awareness falling inwith sharp blades on her consciousness.
“Shh.” The words whispered against her ear soothed her frayed edges a bit. “It’s just us. It’s always just been us. Focus on me.”
She closed her eyes and did as he asked. The noise of the club, the sounds of the men in the back, everything slowly fell away as she focused on the sound of his voice, the piper leading her to the cliff.
His nose went down the side of her neck. “He called you a slut. Are you a slut, flamma?”
She didn’t know how to answer that, the loathing inside her rearing its head.
“Do you like my touch?” he asked, his grip on wrists firm as he brought his other hand to her mouth, tracing her lips.
“Yes,” she breathed, his thumb dipping inside.
“If I pushed you down and filled you with my cock, would you enjoy it?”
Her pussy clenched at his words, the emptiness inside her acute. She gave a nod.
“Would you enjoy if someone else did it?”
Her body stiffened.
“Then you’re my slut.” His thigh pressed into her where she was empty, pressing her clit hard. “Mine.”
Even though she hated the word, when he said it like that, something inside her bloomed. She would remember it. Next time someone called her a slut, she would remind herself of this moment.
“Now, moan for me and I’ll give you a gift to take back.”
A noise escaped her lips, completely unbidden, muffled as he pressed his thumb inside her mouth while she rode his leg, her movement limited because of the tight hold he had on her.
“Good girl.’ She felt the words against her neck just as he opened his mouth. Teeth scored her flesh and the multiple sensations from all over made her neck fall back, her lips clamping on his thumb as her body shuddered. His teeth on her neck sent heat through her entire body, an orgasm surprising her with its intensity, the stars behind her eyelids so beautiful she chased it for another second, holding onto them.
This was precious. A willing orgasm was so fucking precious.
Tears in her eyes, she blinked, looking up at the high ceiling.
Awareness filtered in slowly, the sound of laughter and music and chattering, and she looked down to find his gaze. For the first time in her memory, the aftermath of an orgasm didn’t leave her feeling dirty, didn’t leave her wanting to rip her own skin open.
She felt… pure. Precious. Powerful. All illusions, but she held on to them for a moment too.
His face remained neutral as it always did, the only sign that he had been affected in any way being the large bulge between his legs and the enlarged pupil in his light eye. He let go of her wrists and took his thumb out of her mouth, her teeth denting the gloves deeply. A throbbing sensation on her neck made her bring her hand up, touching the sensitive spot.
He’d marked her. For the first time, he’d visibly marked her.
In her experience, marks were never good. Marks meant pain and cruelty and carelessness. The mark he had given her had been pleasure and tenderness and deliberation. It was a gift, a claiming for her to remember she was his, that no one could get to her as long as he was there.
And to someone who had been owned but never belonged, it meant everything.
