Chapter 5

AVERY –

I get there right at midnight, which, in this world, apparently still counts as early. Club Lilith feels different tonight – more packed, more intense. 

The bouncer sees me and gives a single, silent nod. He taps something into his tablet, and a moment later, a blonde woman dressed in black appears. She moves with the smooth, efficient grace of staff. Her name is Jennifer, I learn later.

“Ms. Quinn,” she says, “this way.”

She leads me down a side hallway, away from the main crowd, where the plush carpet muffles our footsteps and the music fades into a distant thrum you feel more than hear.

We enter a private room that’s clearly still part of the club but separated enough to feel like its own universe. The music is muted here, seeping through the walls rather than blasting from speakers. There’s low seating, soft golden lighting, and tall mirrors draped with sheer gauze that makes your own reflection look like a secret being kept. 

A bartender materializes without a sound and sets a drink in front of me. I look at him, my surprise clear, and he gives a slight, acknowledging nod before vanishing.

I take a sip. It’s exactly the same – a hint of vanilla, comforting and dangerous all at once, like a familiar temptation. My eyes scan the room. The crowd here isn’t larger, just different. They’re less interested in being seen and more focused on whatever they came here to do.

Still no sign of her.

I cross one leg over the other, smoothing my hands over the suit she sent. It fits perfectly, the kind of perfect that makes you wonder if she knew your measurements before you did. 

And then she walks in.

Fashionably late, of course.

She’s wearing another suit, this one darker and sharper. Every step is deliberate. She moves like she knows the whole room is watching her, but when her eyes find mine, it’s as if everyone else ceases to exist. She walks toward me like the space between us was always meant to be crossed.

I don’t stand up. I just tilt my head slightly, lift my glass, and take another slow sip.

“You’re late,” I say.

I watch the smallest flicker cross her face – it could be surprise, it could be amusement. I get the feeling no one ever calls her out.

But she doesn’t seem to mind.

Not even a little.

***

VICTORIA –

The directness catches me off guard. It’s a challenge, delivered as casually as stating a fact. No one speaks to me that way here. No one dares.

But she does, without hesitation.

I take the seat across from her, settling back and crossing my legs. Her eyes track my every movement – not with nervousness or arrogance, but with a quiet assessment.

And for a moment, it’s more disarming than I want to admit.

She’s wearing the suit exactly as I envisioned, but seeing it on her is different. The fabric drapes perfectly, following her form without fighting it. The lines are clean, the fit is precise, but it’s the way she carries it that makes it work. She doesn’t look like she’s wearing a costume. She looks like herself, just… elevated.

Her gaze drops to her glass, then returns to me.

“Why did you invite me?”

Straight to the point. No small talk. I appreciate that efficiency.

I let the silence stretch for a moment before answering. “Because I wanted to.”

Her eyebrow lifts slightly. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.” It’s not the complete truth, but it’s not a lie either.

She leans back, mirroring my posture, her gaze never wavering. “How did you get my number?”

I expected this question. I tip my glass, letting the liquid roll once before I answer. “I have access to things. People owe me favors. Some of them I don’t even have to ask for.” It’s accurate, though deliberately vague.

She studies me, her expression sceptical. “And my address?”

This time, I pause. Not because I’m unsure, but because I’m considering how much to reveal. My eyes drift from her eyes to her mouth down to her throat, where the light catches the smooth line of her skin.

“You’d be surprised how simple it is to find someone when you’re determined.”

She processes this, blinking once. She doesn’t react with fear or dismiss it with a joke. She just absorbs the information, letting it sit between us.

And that reaction – her calm acceptance of the intrusion – gets to me in a way I didn’t anticipate.

Avery Quinn, sitting here in the suit I chose, drinking the cocktail I remembered, asking questions no one else has the courage to voice.

And the most unsettling part is this: I want her to keep asking.

***

She holds her ground under pressure, and that’s rare enough to be worth paying attention to. Most people start fidgeting under a fraction of this focus – they ramble, they overcompensate, they scramble to charm their way back to safety. Avery just sits there, steady in her own skin, even when she doesn’t have all the answers.

So I shift the balance a little. Let her carry the next move.

“Why did you put it on?” I ask.

She blinks. “The suit?”

I nod. “You could’ve refused. Could’ve left the box unopened. Could’ve walked in here in jeans just to prove you wouldn’t play along. But you didn’t.”

She gives a small shrug – the kind that hides more than it explains. “I was curious,” she says.

“Curious about the suit?”

Her eyes find mine. “No. Curious about what happens after.”

There it is again, the tension that doesn’t need to be dressed up or sold. She’s not trying to be clever, not performing. Just open enough to be dangerous.

“Why did you say yes to the invite?” I ask.

“That’s the question I’ve been asking myself all night.” The honesty is immediate.

One brow lifts. “But you did.”

“I did.” She takes a slow sip, then sets the glass down.

“I think I was afraid that if I didn’t, I’d regret it.”

It’s a vulnerable admission, an open door, and I have no intention of letting her close it.

“And now?” I ask.

Her answer takes longer this time. “Now I think I’m still afraid. But not for the same reason.”

And there it is – that slow pull in my chest, the kind I can bury anywhere else but here. Not with her looking at me like this, her gaze wide and sweeping over me, full of a curiosity so soft it threatens to disarm me completely.

I force my eyes away from her, glance once around the room, and then back to her. “Would you like a tour? Something beyond the front room and the curated drinks?”

Her lips part slightly. “A tour?”

“Of the club,” I clarify, tilting my head. “Privately.”

Something shifts in her expression. That small, inevitable flicker when the next question clicks into place.

“Your club?” she asks.

Now I do smile, slow and deliberate, just short of a laugh. “You’re not very quick for someone as bright as yourself.”

Her eyes drop to her glass for a moment, then lift back to me, and I can see it settle – the realization that she’s been in my space twice without knowing whose hands built it.

I let the knowledge sit between us, weightless but impossible to ignore.

Because now she understands – she’s not just drinking the wine. She’s standing in the vineyard.

***

AVERY –

“Yes,” I say. The word is out, a sharp exhalation, before my brain can engage its usual committee of doubts.

Victoria doesn’t smile, doesn’t make a thing of it. Just a single, clean nod. She stands, the movement fluid and economical, and gestures for me to follow. She doesn’t offer her hand – of course she doesn’t. She doesn’t offer anything. She just moves, and the world rearranges itself around her.

The main room’s murmur dies the moment we step through a recessed door. The private corridor is so quiet I can hear the soft scuff of my own shoes against the dense, wine-colored carpet. The walls are layered in shadow, the air cool and smelling of clean stone.

She stops at the first door, her hand resting on the polished brass handle. “This is the St. Andrew’s Room,” she says, her voice low and matter-of-fact. She pushes it open.

The room is larger than I expected, with dark, sound-absorbing panels on the walls. And in the center, standing stark against the gloom, is a large, X-shaped frame made of polished mahogany – an Andrews cross. I’ve seen pictures, read about them, but never stood in the same room as one. It was both more imposing and more elegant than I’d imagined. Supple leather cuffs, the color of rich espresso, hung from each of the four ends.

“Some people find structure… liberating,” Victoria says, her gaze tracing the lines of the cross before settling back on me. “It’s about surrendering a certain kind of control to gain another. To focus entirely on sensation.” I feel a curious pull, a flutter low in my belly. It wasn’t fear, not exactly. It was the thrill of looking at a cliff’s edge and wondering what the fall would feel like.

We move on. “The Observatory,” she announces, opening the next door.

This space is the opposite: all sharp, cold clarity. Wall-to-wall mirrors reflected into infinity, making the room seem endless. In the very center is a low, wide platform, also mirrored. A single, austere chair sits in one corner, positioned to observe the entire space.

“A room for those who wish to see themselves without illusion,” Victoria explains, her own reflection multiplying around us. I can see myself from every angle, my face flushed, my eyes wide. I see her behind me, watching me see myself. “It’s about confronting the self. The performance. The truth. Sometimes they are the same thing.” I quickly look away from my own multiplied gaze, feeling exposed and strangely seen.

The final door she leads me to is unmarked and darker than the rest. She pauses, her hand on the frame. “And this… is the Chrysalis.”

She opens it to a room that is the definition of intimacy. The walls are a deep, enveloping burgundy, the air warm and still. In the center sits a wide, round bed, heaped with pillows and dark, charcoal-grey sheets that looks impossibly soft. A single, high-backed armchair is positioned in the corner, facing the bed like a throne. But my eyes are drawn to the far wall, which isn’t a wall at all, but a vast, illuminated display.

It holds an array of toys, tools, and objects of exquisite craftsmanship. Silken blindfolds, coils of rope in various weights and colors, paddles of polished wood and supple leather, and other, more intricate devices whose purposes I could only guess at. It’s a library of sensation, a curated collection of potential.

Victoria watches me take it in. “This is a private playroom,” she says, her voice dropping to a near-whisper that seemed to vibrate in the warm air. “It’s for exploration. For trust. Everything here is a question. The answers… are discovered together.” Her eyes hold mine. “It’s the most intimate room in the club. And the safest, if you have the right key.”

 I turn toward her, my mind reeling with the implications of the display, the bed, the sheer focused intensity of the room.

That’s when I see it.

The cut.

Thin, sharp, a clean, recent line right along the top edge of her cheekbone. Mostly hidden in the sculpted shadows of her face, but now that I’m close enough, the light caught the faint, angry red of it. Impossible to miss.

“What happened?” I ask, the question leaving me before I can think better of it, my hand lifting halfway to her face in an instinctive, stupid gesture.

Her hand closes around my wrist.

Fast. Controlled. Final.

Not rough, not enough to bruise, but there is no mistaking the message in the unyielding circle of her fingers. Her eyes lock on mine – steady, calm in a way that says she is not here to explain herself. She is here to establish a fact.

She doesn’t get touched. Not without permission. Not by me. Not by anyone.

For a beat, neither of us move. The world shrinks to the point of contact: her cool, dry skin against the frantic pulse hammering in my wrist. I know she can feel it, the wild, trapped-bird rhythm of my heart beating right into her palm. She holds on long enough to make sure I know she could keep me there if she wanted to – that this is a choice, not a struggle. Then, slow and deliberate, her fingers uncurled. She let go.

The air between us feels heavier now, charged and thick. My hand fall to my side, my skin tingling. I should step back. I know I should.

But I don’t.

Because instead of pulling away, all I feel is a sharp, immediate throb between my thighs. A hot, aching pulse that echoed the one in my wrist. That steady, simmering want is now a live wire, sparking and insistent, melting any coherent thought into a single, shocking realization:

No one has ever stopped me like that. And I’ve never, ever wanted more to see what happens if I don’t stop at all.

***

VICTORIA –

Her hand moves before she even thinks about it. No hesitation, no angle, no pretending she isn’t about to touch me. She sees the cut and reaches – like I am someone you comfort. Someone you take care of. And I can’t allow that.

My hand catches her wrist before she can get close. Not hard – just enough to stop her, to make sure she understands that I decide when that line gets crossed.

Her pulse jumps under my fingers, hot and quick. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t apologize. She just looks at me, wide-eyed, breathing faster, and I feel it – the want. Clear, sharp and pointed straight at me.

I let her go. If she steps back, I can move on. But she doesn’t. She stays, holding that look, holding that heat between us until I can feel it in my own skin. She wants me – not because of beauty or power, but because I stop her. Because I tell her no without saying the word. And that’s dangerous, because I feel it too. The moment my fingers close around her, something pulls – hard enough to make me wonder what happens if I don’t let go.

I turn toward the one-way glass, the red-gold spill of light, the way bodies shift through shadows and curated sins. “People touch too easily in this place,” I say. “They forget how much more powerful it is not to.”

She doesn’t answer, and she doesn’t have to. Her silence says enough. Control settles back into me, but underneath it there’s still a current I can’t cut off. Avery isn’t like the others. She’s not here to impress me, and she’s not here to play by my rules. She’s here because she wants, even if she doesn’t yet know how far that want can go. And I –God help me– I want to be the one to take her there.

She hasn’t moved. Not back. Not forward. Just standing there, watching me unravel on my own. That might be the most dangerous thing about her – she doesn’t push, doesn’t beg, just waits. I catch her from the corner of my eye, lips parted, questions sitting right behind them, and I don’t want her to ask.

So I speak first. “There’s a room here most people don’t see,” I tell her, voice low, steady. “Not because it’s hidden, but because they wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

Her gaze sharpens – curiosity tucked beneath everything else. “I’m not most people,” she says.

I let the smile come this time. Slow. Private. No, you’re not.

“I’ll show it to you. If you want to see it.”

The words are simple, but we both know they mean more. I rarely offer, never ask. But with her, I’m leaving the door cracked – not to test her, but to see if she’ll walk through without being pushed.

She swallows, slow enough for me to hear it. Her hands stay still, but her breath betrays her. “I want to see it.”

I take a single step closer, close enough for her to feel the shift in the air between us. “Then follow me.”