Chapter 5
Five
Blair
The bass still pulses in my veins, but I don’t feel like dancing anymore.
Not that I was ever really dancing. More like aimlessly swaying while trying to pretend I’m not spiraling. Huge difference.
I slip into the warehouse bathroom, the flickering overhead bulb doing its best haunted-house impression. Shadows slice across the cracked tiles like something out of a horror movie. Appropriate. My boots squelch against the sticky floor—seriously, what even is that? Don’t answer.
The sink creaks under my weight as I lean over it, palms braced, breath fogging the busted mirror like I’m in some sad indie film. My mascara’s smudged just enough to make me look like I’ve been crying over a guy, which is laughable. I don’t cry over boys. I bury them.
I stare at myself. Hard. Like I’m trying to find her—the version of me that wasn’t neck-deep in neon chaos and bad decisions. The one with a future. A plan. A brain not short-circuiting over two guys who feel like they were genetically engineered to ruin me.
What the hell am I doing?
My hand lifts to my lips—muscle memory, maybe. And yeah. Still there.
The echo of his mouth on mine, burned in like a bruise you forget to cover.
That kind of kiss doesn’t fade. It brands. Marks you from the inside out, and I haven’t stopped tasting it since.
He won’t kiss you like I did.
His voice is still echoing between my ears, dark, smug and unfairly sexy. God, he’s infuriating.
Yeah. No shit.
I’ve kissed a lot of people. Girls, guys, a few regrettable blurs behind club dumpsters.
But none of them had that kind of bite. None of them kissed like Dagger—cocky, hot, sharp-tongued bastard.
He didn’t just kiss to feel something. He kissed like he was trying to burn me alive and leave his initials in the ash.
All heat and hard edges. Intensity dialed up to ruin-your-life, and the most messed up part?
I want more of it.
God, I hate that I want more of it.
I haven’t even kissed Noir, and still—I know. They’re both poison. Just brewed in different fucking batches.
Dagger’s the gasoline. Noir’s the cigarette, and me? I’m the idiot striking the match with a grin, like I won’t go up in flames.
Voices jolt me out of the spiral.
Two girls are crowded by the cracked mirror like it’s prom night and they’re fighting over who gets the last dab of glitter gloss. Crop tops, fake lashes, the whole drunken goddess aesthetic. One of them snaps her compact closed and throws venom like it’s confetti.
“See, Shay, I told you he was a lying little bitch.”
Shay—dark hair, angry eyeliner—scoffs, tugging her top down like it’s his fault it’s riding up. “Yeah, yeah, I know . Should’ve listened. I still can’t believe I caught him balls-deep in my roommate. She’s not even cute. Dickhead’s lucky I didn’t cut it off and feed it to him.”
Okay. Well. That escalated fast.
The other girl laughs, sharp and way too loud. “So what now? We just let him get away with it? You’re not gonna cry into your tequila again are you?”
Shay tilts her head, all smug satisfaction. “Already slipped something in his water bottle. Little gift. And with how he chases pills like candy, it won’t take much to push him over the edge.”
I blink. Hard.
I mean. Damn.
She says it like she just keyed his car, not plotted his demise. But her smile’s wide, eyes glittering. I should be horrified. Should be like oh no, someone stop her!
Instead? I smirk.
Well, shit. You go girl.
I give myself one last look in the mirror, smear some gloss back onto my mouth—because if I’m going to spiral, I might as well look hot doing it, and head for the door.
Only to slam straight into what feels like a brick fucking wall.
Noir.
Because of fucking course.
I step out of the bathroom, still mentally reeling from overhearing Shay plan a pharmaceutical revenge arc, and there he is—posted up across the hallway, one shoulder pressed to the graffiti-tagged wall, cigarette smoldering between two fingers.
Smoke coils around his face, catching the pulse of blue-and-purple light stuttering down from the ceiling.
He doesn’t say a word.
Just looks at me.
Really looks at me. Like he’s mapping out my faults. Like he already knows where to press to make me break.
“Jesus, do you guys just, like, teleport now? You’re fucking everywhere ,” I deadpan, one brow arched, voice dry enough to torch the pavement.
He doesn’t blink. “Dagger’s shit’s finally wearing off, huh.”
I pause, blinking slow. “Okay? And?”
A smirk curves the edge of his mouth, but his eyes stay locked—dark, gleaming, calculated. Like he’s not looking at me, but through me. Like he’s watching every fucked-up part of me flare to the surface and thinking, finally.
I shift to one hip, arms folding across my chest. Classic bitch stance. Defensive. But it’s armor made of tissue paper, and we both know it.
He drops the cigarette. Crushes it beneath his boot.
Then he moves.
Two steps. Maybe three. I don’t count them because I can already feel him—his heat, his pulse, the storm building behind his ribs.
My breath stalls. His hand wraps around my wrist. Rough.
Certain. No asking. No warning. Just the tug of inevitability as he yanks me down the hall and into a small utility room tucked beside the bathroom.
It smells like bleach and sweat and danger.
Then the door slams and I slam with it.
My back hits the wall so hard I gasp, but he’s already there, crashing into me like a fucking avalanche.
Mouth on mine. Hands pinning me in place.
His kiss isn’t sweet. It’s not even sane.
It’s violent in how much it wants. Tongue greedy.
Teeth dragging over my bottom lip like he wants to tear it open just to taste the blood.
I moan, fists fisting his hoodie. Not to push him off—never that. Just to hold on.
Because he’s overwhelming me. Consuming me.
His thigh slides between mine, pressing up as he grinds into me. I feel him—hard, pulsing against my hip. Every beat of his heart is in sync with mine. Every press of his tongue makes me want more.
He tears his mouth from mine only to drop it lower, nipping my jaw, my throat, the hollow of my collarbone.
My hands go to his shoulders, nails digging into the thick fabric before he peels his hoodie off and tossing it to the floor.
Leaving him in a sleeveless tee that clings to inked muscle.
His arms flex as he grabs my ass, lifts me.
I lock my legs around him instinctively, my back slamming against the wall again.
Then I feel it—his hand sliding down. Over the shimmer of my holographic panties, to the waistband.
He growls, low and guttural. “Are you wet for me, Blair?”
I whimper when his fingers press between my legs, right over the fabric. He rubs slow, torturous circles. Looking down at me as he watches my face.
“Answer me,” he snaps, voice low, rough.
“Yes,” I breathe, barely audible.
He looks his fingers under the edge of my panties and drags them aside. No ceremony, no fucking delay.
The cool air hits me like a slap, and then I feel his fingers—confident, practiced, sliding through my slick like he already knows every beat of my body. He groans deep in his throat, low and gravel-wrecked.
“Fuck, Blair,” he mutters, the sound of my name dragged like bass through his teeth. “So fucking wet. I could drown in this pussy.”
His hand slips between my thighs, rough and unrelenting and then his fingers are inside me. Thick. Deliberate. Curling like he’s trying to remix every nerve ending I have. One stroke.
Then another. He builds a rhythm, relentless and perfect, his palm grinding against my clit like it’s the drop in his next set—timed to ruin.
“Goddamn,” he groans, voice thick with heat and arrogance. “You feel that? How tight you are? So greedy. Like you’ve been begging for this beat.”
I moan, sharp and shameless. He chuckles, the sound filthy against my skin. “What? You thought being a DJ just made me good at spinning vinyl?” His thumb rolls over my clit, slow and devastating. “Baby, I’ve got tempo in my fucking fingertips.”
He tweaks the rhythm, adjusts like he’s cueing a new track—two fingers curling deep, thumb circling, pressing, fucking spinning like he’s scratching a live set straight into my body. My knees threaten to buckle, everything inside me stretching toward release like it’s chasing the drop.
“Say the word,” he murmurs against my neck, tongue tracing a beat that matches his hands. “And I’ll sample these moans. Let the whole fucking rave hear exactly how I remix you.”
I shake my head, barely holding it together but there’s no protest in me.
Not when I’m the track, and he’s the one making me drop.
Then he pulls back, fingers dripping. He sucks one into his mouth, slow and filthy, never breaking eye contact.
“You taste fucking criminal,” he says roughly.
He drags his jeans down just enough. His cock springs free—thick, flushed, already leaking. My eyes widen, and my thighs tremble around his waist.
“No condom,” I manage to gasp, voice wrecked.
“I’m clean,” he growls, hand wrapping around his cock. “And I’m pulling out.”
He fists himself once. Twice. Lines up, then slams into me in one brutal thrust.
I cry out—half-shock, half ecstasy. He’s so deep I swear I see stars.
“Fuck, you’re tight,” he grits through clenched teeth. “Like a fucking vice.”
My back arches off the wall. I can’t think. Can’t breathe. Can’t do anything but feel the stretch, the pressure, the unbearable perfection of being filled by him.
He pulls out halfway then drives back in. Hard. Again and again.
Each thrust is a punishment. Each grind of his hips says you want to play with fire? Burn.
My nails rake down his back. My teeth catch his shoulder. I bite him hard enough to bruise.
He snarls, grabs my hips, and fucks me harder. The crates shake. The walls tremble. My body’s pinned between him and the door, every inch of me stretched, used and claimed.