12. LYLA #2
I slid off the stool and weaved my way toward the front, the buzz in my veins starting to mellow into something quieter.
At the coat check, I picked up my wrap and draped it loosely over my shoulders.
It had been warm earlier—unusually so for November—but the second I stepped outside, a gust of wind slipped through the folds of my clothing and made me shiver.
Pulling my wrap tighter around me, I picked up the pace, my breath puffing white in the chill air.
The streets were still humming with life, but as I made my way deeper into Hell’s Kitchen, the traffic and crowds thinned.
I cut between buildings, humming a song I could barely remember the words to, my heels clicking against the pavement.
It felt good to move. To walk off some of what I’d had to drink.
But that feeling crept in again.
That hum beneath my skin. That whisper at the nape of my neck.
He was watching.
I glanced behind me. Nothing. Just dumpsters and broken glass glittering under a weak sliver of moonlight. The alley was empty.
Still, my heart and my feet picked up speed.
God, why had I chosen to do this?
I should’ve taken a cab or, at the very least, stayed on well-lit streets.
But deep down, I knew why I hadn’t. I was tempting fate.
Tempting him.
Because I could sense him out there, and part of me wanted him to catch me.
The alley forked between two buildings, and I took the narrower path. One more bad decision.
Then I heard it.
The softest scrape against brick.
I turned, barely breathing.
And he was there.
A blur of black came at me so fast I didn’t have time to scream. A hand slammed into my chest, pinning me hard against the wall. My spine hit the bricks with a jarring impact. Air rushed out of my lungs.
“What the hell—” I choked out, clawing at his forearm.
His other tattoo-covered hand curled around my throat. He didn’t squeeze, but he held me firmly enough to freeze me in place.
Then his face emerged from the shadows, pale in the moonlight, eyes like ice, smoke, and fury. The Russian. The stalker. The man I’d been searching for all night. And now he was here, pressed against me.
“You think this city is a fucking playground?” he said in a voice low and lethal. “You think you can walk home, drunk and alone, through Hell’s Kitchen, and no one will touch you?”
My body bucked against his, but he didn’t let me move. His fingers tightened around my throat in warning.
“I’m not scared of you,” I rasped.
“You should be.” He dragged his thumb slowly along my neck, and I could tell the exact moment he felt my pulse hammering beneath his touch, because a cruel little smirk ghosted across his lips.
Despite my bravado, I was frightened, and he loved it.
“Because you walked into my world, little lamb—and now, I get to decide what happens to you.”
The pressure of his body against mine was overwhelming. The man was solid muscle. Heat radiated through the thin layers of clothing between us, and I struggled again, more out of instinct than intent. My pulse thundered in my ears.
I wanted to hit him.
I wanted to kiss him.
He leaned closer, his lips grazing the shell of my ear.
“You don’t fucking think,” he growled. “Do you have any idea what could’ve happened tonight?
You flaunt yourself as if you’re invincible.
You assume this city’s full of nice guys who’ll walk you home and tuck you in?
No, baby. There are men in this city who sell girls like you by the pound.
Men who see a short dress and think it’s permission.
You walk home alone like you’re untouchable, like some stupid little girl who doesn’t know she’s prey. ”
“I’m not a girl,” I hissed back. “And you’ve been stalking me for days. Who the hell do you think you are?”
He let out a laugh—dark and dangerous—that vibrated against my chest.
“I saw the way you danced with those men in the bar just now. The way you leaned into them, flirted. You let them put their hands on you. Let them think they had a chance. But all the while, your eyes were scanning the room—for me .” His voice dropped an octave.
“You wanted my attention. Congratulations. You got it.”
My breath hitched.
“I didn’t—”
“Lie to me again,” he warned, sliding his hand from my throat to the nape of my neck and threading his fingers into my hair. He yanked my head back. “Lie to me again, little lamb. I dare you.”
My heart stuttered, and my mouth parted, but nothing came out. He tightened his grip on my hair. The hard line of his thigh pressed between my legs. His scent—smoke and liquor—was everywhere.
“You don’t know anything about me,” I managed to say, though it came out too soft.
“I know enough.” His hand dropped from my chest to my hip, gripping it hard and pulling my body tighter against him.
“I know exactly what you want. You’re not looking for a nice boy to hold your hand.
You want to be taken. You want a man who pushes you past the point of no return and doesn’t stop—because he knows you’ll thank him for it.
I know you’re tired of playing innocent when there’s nothing innocent about the way you move.
And I know”—his lips brushed mine, not quite kissing me—“you were dripping wet for me before I ever laid a hand on you.”
My thighs clenched involuntarily, heat curling between them.
“God, you’re sick,” I muttered, even as my back arched, pressing my breasts into his chest. “Your ego is ridiculously overinflated.”
He didn’t respond with words. Instead, he moved even closer. I couldn’t hide the way I gasped when his lips brushed the skin just below my ear. Couldn’t stop the tremor that rolled through me as his thumb stroked my hip bone.
“I could reach into your panties right now,” he murmured, “and find you soaked. Couldn’t I?”
I shook my head.
He growled low in his throat, skimming his nose down my jaw.
“Such a bad liar.”
My knees wobbled.
Because he was right.
My hips rocked against his leg of their own accord, and I hated the whimper that followed. I fisted my hands in his jacket—not to push him away, but to hold on.
“You don’t get to look at me like that all night, tease me from across the bar, then pretend you’re not begging for me now,” he purred dangerously.
I trembled. Every nerve in my body was on fire. I wanted him to wreck me.
I drew a breath, preparing to throw more words at him. Anything. Something to break the spell.
But before I could speak—
His mouth crashed down onto mine.
There was nothing gentle about it. Just raw possession as his lips took mine.
It was all heat and hunger, bites and bruised lips.
I couldn’t tell if he was punishing me or seeking his own personal reward.
He kissed me like he’d already decided I belonged to him and this was how he made sure I never forgot it.
He didn’t just explore—he claimed. His tongue stroked deep, his teeth grazing my lower lip. Each nip was a dark promise. He was marking me. And I let him.
Heat flooded my belly as my thighs clamped around his leg, and before I realized it, my body was riding it like it had a mind of its own—shameless, hungry, out of control. His grip on me was ironclad, like his restraint was one second away from snapping. And a dark part of me wanted it to.
He twisted his hand in my hair tighter, yanking my head back to deepen the kiss. The other hand slid around to my ass, pulling me flush against him. His dick was hard and thick, straining against his pants. There was no hiding what he wanted.
And God help me, I wanted it too.
A groan slipped from my throat. His mouth swallowed it whole.
My back hit the brick again, but I didn’t care. My mind was a blur of desire. He kissed me like no one ever had—like I was something to be consumed, something to be broken and remade with nothing but his mouth.
I shouldn’t have been dripping. I shouldn’t have been melting into him, proving him right. But I was. I couldn’t stop myself.
When he finally pulled back, my chest heaved. My lips were swollen, tingling, and tender.
His mouth trailed lower—hot breath ghosting over my jaw and down my neck. When he flicked his tongue along the pulse point below my ear, I whimpered, tipping my head back instinctively and baring my throat, begging for his touch.
“You taste like sunshine and sin,” he rasped. “Like you were made for me to ruin.”
He slid a hand under the hem of my dress, dragging it up. The cool night air skimmed up my thighs, but his palm was hotter than hell’s fire. Higher and higher, it slowly ascended.
My breath caught.
“No,” I whispered.
But my body didn’t move. My legs didn’t close. My hips tilted toward him.
He smirked against my neck. “No?”
His hand traveled higher until he reached the lace edge of my panties. There, he paused, flexing his fingers over my thigh possessively.
Then he whispered into my skin, “Let’s see how well I already know you, little lamb.” His fingers curled around the delicate lace, and with a slow, deliberate motion, he dragged the panties aside.
Cool air kissed the heat between my thighs.
The first glide of his fingers along my slit stole the breath from my lungs.
I bit down on a gasp as he stroked me in lazy passes through my folds that left no question about what he’d found.
“You’re soaked,” he whispered against my neck, his voice thick with dark satisfaction. “I barely touched you, and you’ve practically come undone.”
His fingertip circled my clit gently.
A whimper broke loose from my throat before I could stop it.
“No,” I breathed, even as my hips chased every little stroke. “Please—”
But I didn’t know if I was begging him to stop or to keep going.
His mouth caressed my neck, brushing kisses as he murmured, “This wet for the man who scared you half to death?”
He teased that swollen bundle until my thighs trembled and my breath stuttered out in desperate little pants.
“I could make you come so hard you’d fantasize about me the rest of your days.”
But he didn’t.
He pulled back just before the pressure tipped me over. Just before that sweet ache could explode.
I swallowed hard, my eyes going wide as he brought his glistening fingers up to my lips.
He traced my bottom lip, coating it with my arousal.
“Taste,” he commanded.
My body betrayed me—again.
My tongue darted out, tentatively at first.
The groan he released was feral.
“That’s it,” he rasped.
Then he leaned in, dragging his tongue along the seam of my lips, licking up every trace of me he’d left with a hunger that made my knees buckle.
“Mm-hmm, that’s what I wanted. You taste like surrender.”
His palm caught my ass, and he held me upright, grounding me against him.
“You’re desperate for me,” he whispered, his voice like smoke. “I could fuck you right here, and you’d take it—wouldn’t you?”
I whimpered.
Part of me—some shameful, touch-starved part—wanted to say yes.
But my mouth stayed shut. My mind spun.
For the first time, I realized how deep into this I’d let myself fall.
The taste of him—and me—was still on my lips when the weight of it all came crashing down.
What the hell was I doing?
My hands flew to his chest, and I shoved him hard, but it was like trying to move a wall. He didn’t budge—just smirked and pressed in closer, pinning me with his body, placing his hands on the wall on either side of my head.
“You can’t do this,” I panted. “You can’t just—touch me like that. I don’t even know your name.”
He dipped his head and nipped at my jaw. “You’ll have to earn that one.”
My heart hammered inside my chest. I twisted against him, wild now, panic threading through the haze of want. “Let me go.”
“Why?” he murmured darkly, his lips grazing my ear. “Afraid of your own cravings?”
I snapped.
Every confused thought, every spark of shame, every second I’d spent burning for this man ignited into fury.
I slammed my knee up toward his groin, but he blocked it with an easy shift of his thigh and laughed—a low, guttural sound that sent heat and rage spiraling through me.
“I’m guessing you fight like you fuck,” he growled, seizing both my wrists in one hand and slamming them above my head against the brick wall. “Messy. Desperate. And so fucking beautiful.”
“Get off me!” I spat, squirming and writhing as I tried to wiggle free. “You’re insane!”
His grin twisted. “Maybe. But you loved every touch.”
I hated him for being right.
My skin burned. My breath came in ragged bursts. Between my thighs, I still throbbed—and it disgusted me.
But it thrilled me too.
That was the worst part.
Without warning, he released my wrists and stepped back. I stumbled forward, off-balance, off-kilter, adrenaline and embarrassment crashing into each other.
I didn’t hesitate.
I ran.
As fast as I could, I flew across the pavement toward the streetlight at the end of the alley, breathing hard and practically choking on my humiliation. My wrap tangled around my elbows, and my dress rode up my body as I fled. I could barely remember the way home.
Behind me, there was no sound. No footsteps.
But I felt him.
Of course he was following me.
Not chasing.
Just…silently pursuing.
Like the predator he was.
He wanted me to know he wasn’t finished.
I made it to my apartment in record time. My palms were sweaty and I was gasping for air as I fumbled with the lockbox and shoved the door open. I slammed it behind me, locked it, and pressed my back against the wood, chest heaving.
“Fucking hell,” I whispered.
My lips were still swollen. My panties were drenched.
And my stalker—the man who had touched me as though I belonged to him—was somewhere in the shadows, watching.
Waiting.