Chapter 7
Everett
Kieran gets dressed like he's preparing for court.
I watch from the bed, pulling my own shirt over my head.
Kieran grabs his jeans off the floor, doesn't bother checking for stains, just steps in and zips up like he's done this a hundred times.
Not the club, maybe, but the morning-after scramble—getting dressed fast, not thinking about why you were naked in the first place.
Shirt next. He rolls the sleeves, runs his hands through his hair.
In less than a minute, he looks like someone with somewhere to be.
Not the same guy who was crying on my knot six hours ago.
It's impressive. Total bullshit, though. His hands still shake. He smells like me, inside and out. There's a bruise above his collar where my mouth was. But he's got the act back up, and I can see him settling into it, like it's a drink he needs to steady himself.
"You're staring again," he says without looking at me.
"You're interesting to look at."
"You said that already."
"It keeps being true." I stand up and find my shoes and put them on, and we're two people getting dressed in a trashed private room at an underground sex club at seven in the morning, and it should be awkward, but it isn't. Or maybe it is, and neither of us is willing to be the first one to acknowledge it.
He picks up his mask from the sheets, looks at it for a second, and puts it in his back pocket instead of on his face. I do the same with mine. We've seen each other now. The masks are just objects.
"So," he says, turning to face me. Without the mask, he's sharper than I expected.
High cheekbones, dark eyes, a mouth that settles somewhere between skeptical and challenging.
Beautiful. I already knew it from his body, his voice, the way he smells.
But his face seals it. I want to see it across a dinner table, in a courtroom, first thing in the morning with real light instead of the club's haze.
"So," I say back.
"I don't usually do this."
"The anonymous sex club or the part where you tell someone your life story while they edge you?"
He huffs a laugh that's mostly air and shakes his head, and the fact that he's laughing at all is a good sign.
"Any of it. None of this is — I don't do this.
I'm not someone who goes off his suppressants and shows up at a place like this with some insane plan to seduce a specific alpha. That's not who I am."
"It's exactly who you are," I say. "That's what makes you unique."
He looks at me, weighing whether that's an insult or a compliment.
"You're going to want to know the whole story," he says. "About why I came here. What the plan actually was."
"Eventually, yeah."
"It's embarrassing."
"I figured."
"Like, genuinely humiliating. The kind of thing I would normally take to my grave and then ask to be cremated just to make sure."
I lean against the doorframe and look at him. "Kieran. You told me you'd been obsessing over me for three months while I had a vibrator in your ass and a ring on your cock. I think we're past the embarrassment threshold."
The flush that spreads across his face is the best thing I've seen all morning. It crawls from his cheeks down his neck. He's reliving it, I can tell. He looks away, rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah, fair point," he says, voice straining for casual.
I pull out my phone. "Give me your number."
"That's romantic."
"I'm not trying to be romantic. I'm trying to make sure you don't walk out of here and convince yourself this was a one-time lapse in judgment that you never need to repeat.
" I hold the phone out. "You're a lawyer.
You'll build a case for why this was a mistake before you get to the parking lot.
I've seen how fast you can reconstruct your walls. I'm not giving you the chance."
He stares at me for a second. Something flickers across his face—surprise, maybe, or that raw discomfort you get when someone sees too much, too soon. He takes the phone, types in his number, hands it back.
"Thursday," I say. "Dinner. Seven o'clock. I'll pick the place."
"You don't even know what kind of food I like."
"I'll figure it out. I'm a quick study."
"You're a controlling asshole is what you are."
"Yeah, you mentioned that last night. More than once, if I remember right. Usually right before you begged me for something." I pocket the phone and grin at him. His flush deepens. His scent sharpens, irritation and arousal both. I'm starting to think that's just how he is around me.
I open the door and the hallway outside is quiet.
The club in the morning is a different animal.
The lights are up to a dim working level, the bass is off, and the air still smells like last night but fainter, like a memory instead of an assault.
A beta staff member is collecting glasses from the gallery railing and nods at us without interest as we pass. Professional as always.
The floor is mostly empty. A few couples are still in alcoves, wrapped around each other in various states of undress and sleep, and the beta staff move between them with water and blankets with the calm competence of people who do this every week.
Over by the far wall, two men are sitting together on one of the low couches — both dressed, one with his head on the other's shoulder, talking quietly.
They have the ease of people who've known each other longer than one night, and I notice the bonded scent coming off them before I notice that neither one is wearing a mask.
A couple, then. Regulars, maybe. They look comfortable in this space the way people look comfortable in a place that means something to them.
Kieran notices them too. His gaze lingers for a second and something crosses his face , less jealousy than surprise. Like the thought is forming for the first time that this place could produce something that lasts.
We head for the exit. The air gets cleaner, cooler, the farther we get from the main floor.
The entrance hallway is all concrete and harsh lights, nothing like the club's haze.
Kieran looks different here, more real. Just a guy in wrinkled clothes, bruise on his neck, hair still a mess from sex.
Still the most compelling person I've ever met.
I'm not letting him talk his way out of this.
"For the record," I say as we reach the door, "I don't know what your plan was and I don't care."
He stops walking and looks at me.
"Whatever story you told yourself to get here — the revenge or the strategy or whatever it was — I don't need to hear it.
What I saw last night was someone who wanted something badly enough to build an entire lie around it rather than admit the wanting, and then the lie fell apart and the wanting was still there.
" I hold his gaze. "That's the part I'm interested in. The rest is just backstory."
He goes quiet. Eyes bright, jaw tight. I can see the fight in him—the urge to deflect, joke, put up another wall, and the part that's been clawing to get out all night and finally did. Now it's terrified.
"You might be the most annoying person I've ever met," he says, and his voice is rough.
"Thursday at seven."
"I know."
"Don't build a case against it between now and then."
"I'm already building a case against it."
"How's it going?"
He looks at me. The corner of his mouth lifts. It's the first real smile I've seen from him—tired, honest, reluctant. The kind of smile you give when you're not used to letting anyone see you, but you do it anyway.
"Weak," he says. "Prosecution's got nothing."
I laugh. He almost does. We walk out into the morning. I already know I'll text him before I even reach my car. Give him an hour and he'll have closing arguments ready for why this was a terrible idea.
He won't be wrong. It probably is a terrible idea. A scheming omega who picked me for reasons I still don't get. An anonymous hookup trying to turn into something with a name and a Thursday reservation. On paper, it's a mess.
But I've never lost a case I wanted to win. And I've never wanted anything the way I want to see Kieran when he's not performing. I got a glimpse last night—in the shaking, the confession, the way he reached for me when the last wall dropped. That was enough. Whatever this is, I'm not walking away.
I pull out my phone before I reach the parking lot and type: This is the controlling asshole. Thursday. Don't build your case.
His reply comes back in under ten seconds: Too late. But the evidence is inadmissible. You obtained it under duress.
I grin at my phone in the parking lot of an anonymous sex club at seven in the morning. Yeah. This one's going to be fun.
***