Chapter 5 - Aleksei
The music is obnoxiously loud, causing a steady but growing throb in my left temple. Despite this, I’m thankful for the steady rhythm of the bass—combining her swaying body with mine to the beat has my head spinning, fully intoxicated by her presence. I commit the soft scent of her shampoo—a vanilla and sage mix —to memory. Finding my head inching closer to her neck, I find the need to be closer to her. Like a spell I’m unable to resist, my lips finally brush against her tender neck. The sensation of pure need is mutual, I assume, feeling her needy hand grab at my hair to pull me closer to her. What a needy girl.
A small eternity, and then it is gone. She’s the first to break the spell, disentangling from me lazily to turn her body to face mine, all the while continuing our steady sway. Her arms snake around my neck, and I find her eyeing me with the same curiosity I have for her. Does she know who I am? She looks at me as if I’m already at her beck and call, her unwavering confidence betraying that she most likely doesn’t. If she did, she wouldn’t be as self-assured—no one is when they deal with me.
I have to steady myself as I really look at her. She’s gorgeous, with big grey doe eyes that stare up at me with unending curiosity. The constant shift of the colorful overhead lights cast a soft glow over her, making me lose my train of thought for a moment. Perhaps now —in this very moment —I can have her. I can forget who she is, and even more importantly —who I am. It feels so natural like this, our dance surprisingly intimate for the situation we find ourselves in, noting the spark of fascination in her gaze too. Maybe we both have a fantasy we wish to live tonight.
The blinding lights pulsing to the beat drops make it harder to register the litter of freckles sprinkled across her nose; constellations of pigment I try to commit to memory. And her mouth . Her mouth looks unbelievably plump and luscious, glistening invitingly. Lorenzo Rossi, that bastard. She doesn’t look like his daughter, that much is for sure. She looks both too proper and beautiful to have somehow spawned out of that son of a bitch. Regardless of the lack of resemblance, she fits the bill perfectly. It is her , I have to remind myself, and that means she can’t get away tonight . She is that monster’s daughter. A little bird caught in a gilded cage—the ace that is now in my grasp.
We continue to dance for a few more moments before I catch her straining on her tiptoes to whisper in my ear. With the gesture so endearingly cute, I can’t help but reach down with my head in hopes of helping her reach her target. I smirk at her attempts to ground herself by grasping at the material of my shirt at the shoulders.
“Wanna get a drink with me?” She asks, lashes fluttering. I nod at her and grab at her arm, weaving through the throng of undulating bodies. Finding myself too excited for my own good, I school myself down to a slower pace, though the desire persists. I know what I must do today, and I know she won’t be very happy about it, so I need to find out more now. More about what she likes, who she is, what she does.
When we arrive at the bar, the barista is already preparing our drinks, shuffling behind the countertop, stains littering the shiny surface. I look around, realizing she must’ve slipped somewhere just after we made it out of the crowd. Fuck. Just when I find my ace, I already manage to lose her. The disappointment evaporates with a sigh of relief when I notice her curvy form making her way out of the toilets, hips all full and swaying side to side. It’s surprising to see that she doesn’t realize just how jaw-dropping she is. Now that we’re away from the heat of the moment, I notice her frequent nervous glancing around and at the crowd. The way her fingers play around with her rings.
When she notices me standing at the bar with two drinks in tow, her face schools into what I assume is a taught bravado—a lazy smirk forming on her plush lips. I feel myself smirk, too, when I catch the little look-over she gives me, brief enough that most wouldn’t catch it. Unlucky for you, princess, I’m not like most.
When she arrives at the bar, she sits on a stool and crosses her legs, accentuating the curves of her thighs and ass. Oh God , it’s going to be a long night—I can already feel myself growing hard. She props her jaw on her palm and glances up at me, doe-eyed, as she blinks her long brown lashes at me.
“So, do you grind up on someone like that every Friday?” She asks, smiling absentmindedly as she places her finger on the rim of the shot glass. The more time we spend outside the dance floor, the more it dawns on me just how tipsy she is. That should make this a whole lot easier.
“Only if she’s dancing like that all alone. I’m not really the clubbing type, but I’m glad I came today.” The response makes her smile grow wider.
I take the cup, swishing the liquid around a bit in the cup, and I catch her observant eyes glued to my hands.
“A whiskey drinker, huh?” She asks, grabbing at her own cup and raising it up in cheers.
“Yeah, much better than whatever this is.” I down the biting liquid in a gulp, sighing. “Though it’s better than nothing, I guess.”
Leaning forward, she stands up and leans towards me, seemingly a hair's breadth away. “Wanna go again?” Her presence is getting harder to bear by the minute, though it’s the most pleasant obstacle I’ve faced in a while.
Wishing I could take her somewhere private to kiss the smirk off her face, we instead make our way more into the center of the crowd and towards the speakers, where I feel each thud of the bass pass throughout my body. There are more flashing lights, more people, and, most importantly, even more privacy. Being in the middle of the crowd is more like being in the eye of the storm and hiding in plain sight. I turn back to wait for her and smile as she makes it to the space I carved out for us amongst the mass of people.
She’s a daredevil, I can tell already. Her confident sway of hips betraying the intention to play hard to get and tease. I take a moment to center myself in the game, remembering that at the end of the day, it’s me in charge. Her little act is nothing but a bravado, and she needs someone who knows how to handle her. I can be that for her tonight. Admittedly, the picture I imagined of what she was like compared to her here, eyes glistening, mouth parted, couldn’t have been more different. I expected… Someone who wouldn’t make me want to take them to the back and fuck her till my name was the only thing she’d be able to speak.
Perhaps I expected her to be vapid, a little airhead with a flirtatious giggle at my every beck and call, like most women I come into contact with are. But she’s not that. She seems playful and a little tease who needs to be put in place, but she also seems almost… reserved. Not cold and calculating like I’d usually come to expect from colder personalities, but just cautious. And, I smile to myself inwardly, she has good reason to be. It’s a shame that she’s going to despise me by the end of tonight.
I’m the one to pull her towards me this time, focusing on her plush lips and the soft curves of her face. I grip her waist with my left hand, tracing languid strokes on her waist and hips with my right. She grins up at me, giving me no warning before she pushes up closer to me.
When she inches closer, I feel myself growing even harder. This time, I push her against me and she gasps when she feels me against her stomach. My lips make their way over to her earlobe, hovering. She grips me harder, and I feel a sense of satisfaction well up inside me as her fingers grasp at my shirt more and more by the second. Her neck must be an erogenous zone for her. How sweet . She’s too sweet; her angelic face, full body, and little gasps that I feel her expel each time I get particularly close to her neck.
When I touch her skin, it feels like a dam breaking. Her hand grabs at mine and guides them to her ass, which I squeeze appreciatively. Then, the flutter of the lashes. That fucking stare. She knows what she’s doing—she must know just how crazy it’s making me. Her lips part expectantly, and when we just stand there, swaying together, I decide to tease her a little more. Rile her up the same way she does to me.
“What do you want, baby?” I ask, whispering into her ear. She nuzzles into me but also flexes her neck, allowing me to trace a languid line down with my lips.
“Currently? Your mouth.” She responds into my ear, a more chesty and deeper sound than her previous pitch.
“Don’t ask for what you can’t handle.”
“Oh, but I know I can.” She gives me a mischievous smile and I bend down to crash my lips on hers.
It’s surprising just how much a sensation can override any preconceived notion of what you think a touch or a kiss might be like. Just like now, when her already impossibly pouty-looking lips feel tenfold as soft and manage to take me to the cusp of what’s acceptable, even in a sweaty, sex-in-the-air, shitty club.
I feel my kisses become needier despite myself. Despite knowing what I’m here for. But for a few moments, I let myself go, darting my tongue to lead hers and reciprocating her little grasps at my shirt with another squeeze of her ass, before bringing one hand to her face to grab at her jaw to angle her face for a deeper kiss. Everything seems a bit louder in that moment—the colors bolder. Tilting her head, I pepper more kisses down her neck. She sighs, an imperceptible sound I only catch because of her falling and rising chest. So sweet. She tastes so fucking sweet.
I almost lose it when her hands begin to descend from my chest and closer to my abdomen. Each muscle tenses as she passes over it, and I feel chills run down my spine. Keep sharp , I remind myself. I have an end goal here, and I need to stick to it. I grab at her wrist, trying to stay gentle as every cell in my body screams to take her here and now. She freezes, looking up in worry.
“Sorry I-I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” She looks genuinely mortified, as if her light touches could do anything else than make me go crazy.
“You’re making me go crazy, and unless you want me to do that here in the middle of a crowd, we need to get out of here.” Her lips part with another sigh, a thing I note I now can predict. Her cute little sighs of pleasure and relief. Even if I don’t hear them, her parted lips and rising and falling chest gives it away.
“Meet me out the back. There’s another exit behind the bar. Tell the security Aleks sent you.” I bring the hand I’m still holding onto my lips, barely tracing over the pads of her fingers with my mouth. And then I let go, smirking as she rolls her eyes in annoyance.
To make this work, the little bird needs to come out all on her own. She needs to want this. Though seeing our little moment out there, I can tell she does. She really wants it, and so do I. Unbeknownst to her though, neither of us will leave satisfied tonight.
I push on, hurrying a little to make some time to rendezvous with Grigor first. He should be outside at this point, a message from him having lit up my phone half an hour ago.
Everything’s going according to plan.
And it was, a little too well, perhaps. Before I make it to the small arch, the security guard has already lifted the red rope separating the back end of the club from the rest. This is where matters that really matter are usually conducted—well, as important as matters that are handled in a shitty little club can be. The few times I’ve been was to talk about a few low-end business deals with the club, ones that I only came to shake on but that were handled by Grigor, who knew this place much better than I did.
Whenever we came, the rooms down here were always cleared out, making sure that the main meeting room wasn’t reached by the sounds of whatever the hell went on in the smaller ones. But I hear them now. Before I turn right—towards the exit, instead of the corridor leading to the red-illuminated one leading to the private rooms—the sounds of moans and groaning echo. They’re not drowned out much by the music playing in the main part of the club.
The cold air greets me with a sharp nip outside. Grigor is bent over, one hand propped onto the wall for support, and the other pulling at his collar. He winces in pain after forcing himself to straighten up and look in my direction.
“What the hell took you so long, Aleks?” He spits out, almost like letting out an adequate amount of air for speech was painful.
“Who the hell roughed you up this bad?” I take out a cigarette and light it, a bad habit from my twenties when I used to smoke anytime I went out to drink.
“And also, I’m five minutes early.”