Chapter Five #2
By the time I reached the Veylor casino, I could feel everyone’s attitude had completely changed toward me. Every staff member greeted me with softer voices and stiff posture, which felt a little strange.
“Good evening, Madame.”
“Welcome, Madame Korven.”
“How may we assist you, Madame?”
I didn’t really understand the sudden change, but I didn’t want to question it. The new head of security must have been doing a remarkable job for everyone to fall in line this fast. For the first time in months, carrying the Korven name actually felt useful, because it commanded respect.
I nodded to all of them and conducted my walkthrough of the casino, finances, workflows, and staff discipline. Everything ran smoothly. I handled estate correspondence, approved casino transfers, reviewed shipments, verified reports, and signed documents.
At the end of the day, I told Valery to arrange a meeting with the woman tied to the old Veylor network who managed the escort house.
I needed to speak with her so my plan could start moving without any useless delay.
Valery understood immediately and made the call, and by the time I stepped out of the casino, the appointment was already confirmed.
Vixen arrived at the Korven estate later that evening. She was discreet and self-contained. I guided her into a private salon and closed the door behind us.
“You requested to see me personally,” she said as she sat gracefully, crossing her legs. “How can I serve you?”
I sat opposite her. “I need your services. Personally. And the services of your house.”
Her expression did not change outwardly, but something in her gaze sharpened.
“My establishment is for women who live lives far removed from yours. Women who do not carry the Korven name.”
“I know exactly what your establishment is. And that is precisely why I came to you.”
“Why?” she asked.
“I want pleasure,” I said plainly. “I want to know my body before I die. And I want it discreetly.”
Her eyes widened. “Madame Korven, surely you understand the risk. If anyone discovered—”
“No one will discover anything,” I interrupted. “All arrangements will take place at night. I will arrive through the back entrance, and I will wear a mask. Your escorts will wear masks as well. I want no real names. Only skill. And my husband is aware of this.”
Vixen stared at me for a long moment, searching my expression for even a hint of hesitation. She found none.
I opened my purse and handed her an envelope stuffed with cash. “You understand?”
She exhaled slowly, finally accepting my request. “What exactly do you want?”
“One escort every night. A different man each time. Masked. Bound to secrecy. Skilled enough to give me everything I have never been allowed to feel. I want you to choose for me, and I want the first one ready by tomorrow evening.”
“It seems I have no say in this.”
“You do not. What I want will happen. All you must do is prepare.”
Vixen nodded. “Then tomorrow evening, arrive before midnight. I will have the selected man ready for you.”
I thanked her, and she left with the same elegance she carried everywhere.
The next evening came fast.
When I reached Vixen’s back door, she led me through velvet-lined halls to the end of the corridor, where a private room waited behind a closed door.
“This is your chamber. He will enter when I send him.”
I nodded and stepped inside.
Moments later, the door opened again and a man walked in.
Heat prickled under my skin as I took him in—tall, broad, and sculpted in pure sin.
His hair was cropped short, and a black mask covered his eyes, but the green behind them was mesmerizing and caught me off guard.
Those eyes were striking. Looking over the rest of him, I noticed tattoos marking his chest, catching stray threads of light.
A voice-modulating collar gleamed against his warm russet-brown skin.
This man was insanely handsome, and my body knew it.
My hormones were going wild and my mouth was literally watering.
I drifted toward him, hips swaying just enough to spark his curiosity. Circling him, my fingers traced the lines of his biceps, the ridges of his abs, the sweep of ink across his chest. His skin radiated heat, and his muscles tensed right away under my touch.
“Name?” I asked, my voice low and seductive.
“Knox,” he answered, the device shaping his voice into something deep but rough and obedient. It was intoxicating.
I continued my slow circle, letting my nails graze lightly across the warm lines of his abdomen, drifting lower, just testing how much restraint lived under all that muscle. His breath caught inside the modulator the moment my fingertips hovered close.
I looked up at his mask and let a smile touch my lips.
“Knox,” I whispered. “Are you ready to give me the pleasure I deserve?”
His chest rose as if he were steadying himself before taking what he already knew would be his.
He grabbed my hand, drawing me into him, and my body collided with the hard, masculine lines of his frame.
Everything about him whispered what I’d begged from my husband for eleven silent months: strength, heat, hunger.
With that familiar build, dusky copper skin, and the tattoos carved across his chest, he reminded me far too much of the man I had secretly craved.
But they were still different. I’d never seen my husband naked. I didn’t know what his body really looked like. In my mind, I pictured him with even more ink—tattoos running down his arms, his neck, his hands. And his eyes were a deep, unreadable brown instead of this hypnotic green.
My imagination wanted to make Konflict and Knox the same, but even with the resemblance, I couldn’t ignore the differences.
Maybe that slight resemblance was why I let myself get lost in him so easily.
Or maybe it was something else entirely.
Something in the way his gaze held me, needy and unashamed of the desire burning inside of it.
I felt connected to that hunger. It was as if he had been waiting to possess me long before tonight; as if some part of me had always been waiting for him too.
His hand lifted, tracing along the exposed part of my face where the mask didn’t reach, and his thumb dragged over my lips with a slow, possessive touch that sent heat curling low in my belly.
I breathed against his fingers as he parted my mouth gently, already claiming me, and that movement made my pulse stutter.
“If ruining you all night is what you expect from me, then consider every inch of this body owned and taken,” he murmured a few inches away from my lips.
Then he lowered his head and pressed his mouth to mine, guiding me into a kiss so soft and tender my knees weakened. And God—no one had ever kissed me like that.