Chapter 7

AVERY

I don’t remember the cab ride home. The city lights were just a blur, the driver’s staticky radio a distant hum. The only thing that existed was the persistent, slick heat between my legs. A deep, unrelenting ache that didn’t fade, but seemed to intensify the farther I got from her, from that room. The silence in the back of the cab was a canvas for her voice, playing on a loop in my head.

That’s enough for tonight.

God. She’d said it like it was both a gift and a sentence. A mercy. And maybe it was. But my body? My body screamed its disagreement, a throbbing protest that echoed with every heartbeat.

In my apartment, I peel the suit off slowly. The silk of the shirt whispers against my overheated skin. Every button I undo feels like a surrender, a small defeat. I should hang it up carefully, preserve the expensive fabric, but I don’t. I let it fall, a puddle of dark blue over the back of a chair, a ghost of the person she dressed me to be.

I climb into bed wearing nothing but my own skin and a deep, restless frustration.

The sheets are cool against my thighs. Too cool. A stark contrast to the feverish heat everywhere else. I curl under the blanket, trying to breathe deeply, to will the ache away. This isn’t me. I don’t usually need like this. I don’t lie awake fantasizing about strangers. I don’t get wet from a look, a voice, the ghost of a hand stopping mine with such absolute authority.

But Victoria Vale isn’t just someone. She walked into my life like a lit match, and now everything inside me is burning.

I close my eyes and she’s there. Standing over me, all restraint and unspoken promise. I see the sharp line of her jaw, the black-polished fingertips I can still feel encircling my wrist, the lips I haven’t even tasted yet but already want everywhere. Not just on my mouth. Lower. Hotter.

I press my thighs together, a desperate, instinctive pressure. It only makes it worse. The throbbing sharpens, spreads into a dull, heavy pulse deep in my core. I want her mouth on me. Her fingers inside me. Not frantic, but slow. Intentional. Cruel in the most perfect, shattering way.

I try to turn over, to bury my face in the pillow and force myself to sleep. But my body won’t let me forget. The memory of her is a physical brand.

So I give in.

I slide one hand down between my legs. And I don’t pretend it’s anyone else. It’s her. Only her.

I touch myself the way I imagine she would. No rush. No mercy. My fingers find the slick, swollen heart of the ache and press in slow, hard circles that make my breath hitch in the dark. In my head, she’s kneeling between my legs, her hands pinning my hips to the mattress, her mouth hovering just above me, her breath a hot promise. Whispering things I shouldn’t want to hear. Not touching yet. Making me beg for it.

The image is so vivid, her imagined control so complete, that the orgasm rips through me fast and hard. A silent, seizing wave that arches my back. One hand fists the sheets, the other is wet and trembling against my skin. Her name isn’t on my lips, but it’s a scream echoing in the hollows of my mind.

When the last wave of pleasure subsides, I lie there limp, trembling. I don’t feel satisfied. Just quiet. Spent. The frantic energy is gone, replaced by a cold, clear certainty.

Because now I know, without a shadow of a doubt, exactly what I want.

And if she ever touches me for real–

God help me.

I won’t want her to stop.

×××

VICTORIA

My home is a sanctuary of quiet.

Floor-to-ceiling windows stretch across the far wall, framing the entire Aurelia skyline – a cold tapestry of glass and steel towers glinting like shards of ice, the city’s perpetual pulse a silent, electric hum beneath the dark.

Inside: silence.

The floors are dark, polished wood, flawless without a single rug. A long, low sofa in charcoal grey faces the windows, anchored by a massive coffee table carved from a single slab of obsidian. A single severe side table of polished nickel stands to one side. Tucked into the corner is a minibar of matching ebony, its surface holding only a crystal decanter and two glasses. Against the far wall, the only other piece is a monumental dressoir, its surface bare and imposing.

It suits me.
It always has.

But tonight, the quiet feels different.
Not calming – sharp. Edged.
Like the silence is holding its breath. Like even the walls are waiting for something I haven’t decided to give.

I stand barefoot in the center of the vast living room, the wood cool and seamless beneath my feet. I’m still in the tailored trousers and silk blouse from earlier, the collar undone just enough to feel the air on my throat. The glass of amaro in my hand is untouched, the ice long since melted.

I don’t want to drink.
I want to feel.

And I do.
I feel her.

The precise way her shoulders tightened, the blades pinching together, when she lowered herself into the chair in my room. The tiny, betraying flush that bloomed high on her cheekbones when my thumb brushed her wrist. The stark, unguarded hunger in her eyes when I told her she wasn’t ready.

She is now.
Or at least, she thinks she is. That’s almost more dangerous.

I can picture her with unnerving clarity – back in her apartment, peeling that bespoke suit from her skin, the fabric whispering against her overheated flesh. Lying in the tangle of her own sheets, the memory of my voice in her ear a brand against her nerves. Probably with her hand between her legs right now, fingers working, her breath catching in a silent fantasy where it’s my touch, my command.

And it could be.
If I wanted.

That’s the heart of it. I made her feel like this without even laying a finger where she aches most. That’s the kind of power I cultivate – the kind that gets under the skin, into the bloodstream, and stays there, a permanent alteration.

But it’s not just her.

I’m feeling it, too. A slow, persistent throb low in my belly. A deep, insistent pulse between my own thighs that hasn’t eased since I walked away from her, leaving her trembling on the precipice.

I keep replaying the way she looked at me in that final moment. With a raw, yielding defiance. Like she’d let me ruin her, break her, and put her back together, all without a second thought.

And fuck – I want to.

The images come, unbidden and sharp. My mouth on her throat, tasting the frantic beat of her pulse. My hand curled around her neck, not to harm, but to hold, to claim. My fingers driving deep inside her, finding a rhythm that would make her shake apart, until she’s so far gone she couldn’t even form my name. I want to hold her down, make her wait, watch the struggle in her eyes as she fights not to beg… and then witness the beautiful, utter collapse the second I decide to give her exactly what she’s been desperate for.

I take a slow, controlled breath, forcing my grip to tighten around the cool glass. I am not going to give in to it. Not tonight. Not like this.

I don’t need release. I need control. Control is the foundation, the bedrock.

But she’s making that harder than it’s ever been.

Restraint has always been the thing I’m best at. My sharpest weapon and my most impenetrable armor.

And she’s the first person in a long, long time who makes me want to throw it all away and simply feel the fall.

×××

AVERY

The morning light pushing through the thin curtains is soft, gentle even – but it feels cruel anyway. Too revealing. It shows the rumpled evidence of a night spent thrashing, of dreams I can’t quite grasp but whose ghostly impressions cling to my skin.

Everything comes rushing back, not as a thought, but as a physical echo.
The padded silence of the room.
The scent of leather and her perfume.
The low, deliberate cadence of her voice.
God.

I press the heels of my hands hard into my closed eyes, seeing bursts of color, trying to push the images out. But it’s not just a memory anymore.
It’s a live wire under my skin.

I turn over and stare at the faint crack running across my ceiling, my heart already thudding against my ribs for reasons I don’t want to name. Reasons that are humid and shameful.
A hot flush creeps up my neck into my cheeks. I push the thought away, a physical recoil, and shove the blanket down. I sit up too fast, and the room tilts, a dizzying spin.
I don’t do things like that.
I’m not that person.
I’m not… needy.

I’m not ruled by sex. By strangers. By beautiful, dominant women in impeccably cut suits who can stop my breath with a single, unblinking glance.
I’ve gone entire years without wanting anyone with this kind of intensity. Without even thinking about it much.

So why her?
Why now?
Why this consuming, shameless, helpless wanting that feels like a hollowed-out ache between my hips?

I get up and walk to the kitchen, my bare feet cold on the worn floorboards, hoping the routine will ground me. But my body still feels alien. My skin feels one size too tight, hypersensitive, every nerve ending still buzzing from a touch that never came.

Coffee doesn’t help. The bitterness is just an accent to the tension.
Toast tastes like cardboard. I abandon it after two bites.
My body is fine. My mind is the traitor.

I should forget her.
I should delete her number and move on.
But every part of me is still humming, a low-grade electrical current that hasn’t switched off.
And I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sound of her saying my name, slow and deliberate, like a secret.

×××

Saturday should feel like a relief.
No boss. No emails. No looming deadlines. Just soft clothes, lazy coffee, and the firm, sensible decision to not think about her.
That was the plan.

Instead, I’m curled into a tight ball on the couch in faded leggings and an oversized sweatshirt, one hand buried in Juno’s thick grey fur as she purrs a steady, rumbling vibration against my side. I’m staring blankly at the same paragraph of a novel I’ve been pretending to read for twenty minutes.

My eyes keep drifting.
Back to the window, where the ordinary world goes on.
Back to my silent phone, dark and accusing on the cushion.
Back to the space in my chest that still feels stretched thin and tender.

Juno lifts her head and lets out a short, piercing meow – annoyed, probably, that my restless fidgeting keeps disturbing her royal nap.
“Sorry,” I whisper, scratching the velvety spot behind her ear. “My brain’s a mess.”
She blinks her golden eyes at me slowly, utterly unimpressed by my human drama.

I shift again, trying to force my focus onto the sentence in front of me.
“Her voice was the kind that stayed with you long after the conversation ended–”

I slam the book shut so hard the cover bends.
“Seriously?”

Of all the books I could’ve picked off my shelf, this one decided to sound exactly like her. Like that voice. Low. Controlled. A voice that didn’t ask, but arranged, and made me feel seen and exposed and utterly wrecked all at once.

I toss the book onto the coffee table where it lands with a disappointing thud and flop backward into the cushions with a groan.
Juno, offended by the sudden earthquake, jumps off with a hiss and stalks to the far side of the room, tail twitching.
“Sorry!” I call after her. Even my cat is sick of my mood.

I reach for my phone without thinking, my thumb automatically waking the screen.
Nothing.
No new messages. No missed calls.
Of course not.
She’s probably in her pristine, silent apartment, hasn’t thought about me once.
And I’ve checked my phone every five goddamn minutes like I’m fifteen and just had my first kiss behind the bleachers, waiting for a text that will define my entire existence.
It’s pathetic.

I’m about to toss the phone aside in disgust when it vibrates in my hand, a sharp buzz that jolts through my nerves.

Eli: Dinner? I’m craving something carb-loaded and sinful and I know you’re waiting to be dragged out of whatever lesbian limbo you’ve locked yourself into. Come with me.

I let out a breath that’s half laugh, half sob. Small. Grateful.
He always knows. Even when I haven’t said a word.

Avery: Fine. But I’m wearing sweatpants.
Eli: That’s a threat, not a response.
Avery: You want honesty or pants? Pick one.
Eli: I’ll be there in twenty. Don’t you dare change.

I drop the phone back into my lap and finally take a full, deep breath.
Dinner with Eli. Loud, easy conversation. Cheap, strong wine. Familiar noise to drown out the static in my head.
It won’t fix anything. It won’t unravel the knot Victoria tied inside me.
But maybe – just for a few hours – it’ll quiet the ache.
Even if I know, with a certainty that settles deep in my bones, exactly whose name will still be echoing in the silence when the night ends.

×××

VICTORIA

Saturday nights are supposed to satisfy me.

The club is at capacity. From my spot on the mezzanine, I watch the crowd. The low thrum of conversation and the clink of glasses against marble is a sound I usually find satisfying. It is the sound of a machine I built, working perfectly.

But tonight, the noise is just noise. It grates.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from Marcus, my head of security.

All clear. Smooth night.

I don’t reply. I’ve already seen the same thing. Everything is under control. It always is.

That was the problem.

I had a session earlier today, before the club opened. A regular client, a woman named Isabelle. We went to the padded room, the same one I showed Avery. Isabelle was paying a lot of money for my time and my focus.

But I couldn’t focus.

My hands went through the motions. I secured the cuffs. I used the low, commanding tone that she expects. But my mind wasn’t on her. It kept drifting, pulling away from the woman in front of me and latching onto someone else.

It was Avery’s face I saw when I told Isabelle to be still. It was Avery’s stubborn jaw I imagined tightening in defiance. It was the memory of Avery’s quick, shallow breathing in that room that played in my ears, not Isabelle’s. I was going through the steps with one woman, but in my head, I was dominating another.

It was unprofessional. It was a breach of control I never allow.

So I did the only thing I could to get through the hour. I stopped fighting it. I let my imagination take over. When I leaned close to Isabelle’s ear to give an instruction, I pictured Avery’s pulse fluttering in her throat. When I saw the submission in Isabelle’s eyes, I replaced it with the fiery, unyielding challenge in Avery’s. The entire session, the body in front of me was just a stand-in. I was using Isabelle to play out a scene with someone else.

The moment it was over, I felt a cold wash of self-disgust. And a deeper, more unsettling thrum of arousal that hadn’t been satisfied.

Now, hours later, the feeling hasn’t faded. It is a persistent ache, a low-grade distraction that makes the perfectly curated scene below me feel like a tedious play.

I turn from the railing and walk away from the view. The crowd, the music, the success – it all feels meaningless. The only thing that feels real is the memory of a woman who isn’t here, and the unsettling certainty that I have let her get under my skin.

I need to get out. I take the back stairs, the concrete steps cold and hard under my heels, and push open the heavy service door. The alley air is cool and smells of damp brick and garbage. It is a relief. It is real. I stand there in the dark, listening to a distant siren, and for the first time all night, I feel like I can finally think.

AVERY

I try to listen to Eli. I really do.

He’s halfway through a story about some guy he met at a bookstore, who apparently teaches hot yoga on Tuesdays and spins deep house vinyl on weekends. There’s a detailed bit involving a can of whipped cream and a wobbly kitchen chair that, on any other night, would have me laughing so hard I’d snort.

But tonight?
The words just bounce off me. They’re just noise.

I swirl the cheap plastic straw in my gin and tonic, watching the lime wedge sink and rise. I nod when he takes a breath. I force the corners of my mouth up into what I hope looks like a smile.

But I’m not here in this sticky booth. I’m back in that burgundy room.

I’m back in that massive chair, the leather cool through my clothes. Victoria is standing over me, her silhouette blocking the light. Her voice is low, a vibration I feel in my ribs. Her eyes are sharp, taking in every twitch, every rapid breath. I feel the ghost of her fingers brushing my wrist, a touch so firm but light at the same time, and so deliberate it felt more invasive than a kiss.

I press my thighs together under the table. A subtle, instinctive clench. It doesn’t dull the ache; it just focuses it, a persistent, throbbing reminder of how wound up I still am.

Eli raises an eyebrow, pausing his story. “You’re weirdly quiet. Are you even hearing me?”

“Mhm,” I say automatically. Then I realize I have no idea what I just agreed to.

He narrows his eyes. “Okay, you’re lying. You’re a million miles away.”

“I am here,” I say, too quickly. “Sorry. Just… tired.”

“Liar,” he repeats, but his voice is softer now, laced with concern. “Is it the club woman? The one from the other night?”

I blink, caught off guard. “What?”

“Ave, you’ve been spacey and flushed since Thursday. You think I didn’t notice?” He leans across the table, his voice dropping. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” I say, the lie tasting sour. I can’t say it.

I can’t tell him that I looked a practical stranger in the eye and almost begged for her to touch me? That I thought those words and meant them with a desperation that scared me. That I left her club soaked through my underwear, my body aching, my mind replaying the sight of her black-polished fingers and the sound of her voice on a loop.

Eli watches me, his gaze knowing. He sees right through me. But he lets it go with a sigh. “Fine. Keep your secrets. But just know, if she hurts you, I will find her and personally ruin her hairline. No one gets a good hairline after hurting my friend.”

I manage a real smile, a mix of gratitude and guilt. “Thanks, Eli.”

We finish our drinks, we pay the bill and step out onto the sidewalk. The city air is cooler now, a relief against my warm skin. We walk the familiar route to the corner where we always part ways.

He pulls me into a quick, tight hug and kisses my cheek. “Get some sleep,” he says. “And for God’s sake, don’t overthink it.”

But I already am. The thoughts are a tangled, anxious knot in my chest.

As I turn to walk the last few blocks to my apartment, I fish my air pods out of my pocket and push them into my ears. I tap my phone to start a podcast, anything to drown out the noise in my head. The world muffles, replaced by the calm, measured voice of a host discussing… something. I don’t really hear it.

I’m focused on the chill in the air and the weight of my exhaustion.

Completely unaware of the man who fell into step behind me the moment I left the restaurant.