Chapter 8 #2
Violet emerged into the spotlight, her silhouette cutting against the bleeding crimson and royal purple lights that painted her edges in fire.
Her dark tresses trailed down her athletic frame, shiny and thick, before ending above her perfectly heart-shaped ass.
Her profile took my breath away. She looks fucking sinful.
The scent of expensive perfume and anticipation hung in the air, mingling with the sharp tang of alcohol and sweat.
My fingers tightened around the cold glass.
Do not fall off the pole.
She did not. By the eyes of every one of the gods, she did not.
Violet transformed on that pole. She wrapped her thighs around the cold metal, muscles tensing with the perfect control of someone who’d done it a thousand times.
The arch of her spine and sway of her body told stories her mouth never had.
Her chocolate hair whipped across her face as she inverted, the red streaks catching fire under the lights.
For each twist during her dance, the angles and distances and required leverages were executed with the fineness of someone who owned the stage with her presence.
Her fingers gripped and released with deliberate rhythm, her body suspended in defiance of gravity.
When she slid slowly and sensually down the pole, my cock hardened painfully against my jeans.
Andy made a noncommittal sound, “She does indeed do it well.”
I wanted to reply, but my mouth was arid as I struggled to breathe.
Her skin gleamed with sweat, highlighting the contrast between fragility and power, and I felt the undeniable urge to lick the sweat off her body.
The silver mesh of her outfit clung to curves, cutting through the oxygen in the room until breathing felt like theft.
Her legs, strong from years of training, scissored around the pole with a grace that belied their lethal potential, and my hips flexed involuntarily against the chair, wishing they were wrapped around mine.
I knew desire, had even rolled in its grasp when I allowed myself to. But this was a visceral need, a craving for a woman I had only seen as a brat until now. Violet, you are becoming less volchok and more volk.
When she hung suspended by just her thighs, her hands reaching towards the floor, the room collapsed into a singularity of want.
I watched her, my balls tight while I gripped the glass so hard I felt like it would shatter.
Every twist, every curve, every sharp inhale she made pulled me deeper.
And against my better judgement, I couldn’t look away.
I struggled against the bone-deep desire to touch her— an urge both beautiful and savage.
The crowd shifted, whispers slithering through shadows as Violet danced.
I caught the flash of sharp teeth, the low rumble of hungry voices, the subtle pulse of power from creatures I’d learned to fear long ago.
The vampyre twins nearby leaned closer, fingers brushing against each other while their eyes never left her.
A wolf’s growl vibrated from another in the corner, too dark to see except for his profile.
Even Andy, that siren bastard, watched with a face split between awe and hunger.
Danger saturated the air, but Violet moved as if she were the most dangerous thing in the room.
Don’t you fucking look at her, I wanted to snarl. Bare my teeth in a possessive instinct as every safeguard screamed at me to snatch her off that stage and vanish into the night.
Instead, I smiled, because for as much as they craved her, they would not break the safety that is their hidden world, and as much as I hated to admit it, there was a perverse pleasure in knowing she would walk out with me and not another.
She had chosen this path and—as reckless as it was—the fire in her had always burned beyond my control.
Beyond anyone’s control, really. Hers was a fire I had no right to extinguish.
I would walk out with her in my arms, burning just as Icarus had done.
I loosened my grip on my drink; every cell in my body wanted to break anyone who dared breathe in her direction.
Instead, I focused on her, burning into memory every flick of her wrist, every stretch of muscle, every subtle arch of her spine.
As the thin scraps of fabric fell away, my heart quickened just like everyone else’s.
Her body curved around the pole, sliding down with a controlled precision that I knew had to require a rock-hard core and steel-trap willpower.
Her nipple piercings caught the light, tiny glints of metal against flesh as her fingers reached for that last piece of her outfit. And then. . . she smiled.
Ah, gods above and below, she was desire made manifest.
When she completed that final spin, her body flowing down the pole in one liquid motion, an uncomfortable truth I’d buried beneath survival and cynicism began to take root.
I wondered what it would feel like to have her cunt wrapped around me—would she ride me with that same wild abandonment?
Would she smile the same way as her legs wrapped around my shoulders, forcing me to taste her?
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair and groaned into my glass.
There in Oubliette, surrounded by immortal predators with appetites both ancient and depraved, I knew with a bone-deep certainty I would sacrifice anything to shield her and to keep her safe.
Dangerous thoughts lingered in my mind, like a wound slowly beginning to fester, daring me to wish for something beyond what I had told myself was possible with my childhood friend.
Fuck.