Club Z #2
The pit howls behind me, but I push through the bodies, through the masks, through the women clawing at my sleeves.
With every step back up the stairs, I hear her name louder. Brooklyn. Brooklyn. Brooklyn.
I should’ve walked out, but Club Z doesn’t let go that easily.
I don’t even make it to the door before she’s there—blocking my path like she’s been waiting for me all along.
Tall. The red dress was painted on as if poured straight from a wineglass, and a slit ran high enough to reveal the black garter biting into her thigh. Lace hides half her face with a mask, but she painted her mouth blood red.
“Dean Walker,” she purrs, lips wrapping around the name like a lick. “I didn’t think you still came down here.”
I don’t answer. My silence is answer enough.
She presses closer, perfume thick with smoke and spice. Her nails trail down my chest, a razor-sharp promise through the fabric of my shirt.
“You used to own this floor,” she whispers, standing on tiptoe so her mouth grazes my ear. “The women still talk about you. The one who didn’t just fuck—who ruined. You could have any of us. Tonight. Now. No strings.”
Her hand drops lower, bold fingers skimming my belt.
And for a moment—just a split fucking second—I let myself imagine it.
Taking her against the wall.
Reminding myself what it feels like to devour without guilt, without consequence, without soft brown eyes watching me like I’m more than the monster I am.
But then her perfume fades under something phantom.
Brooklyn’s scent. Sweet, maddening.
Her voice in my head—What happens if I fall in love with you?
I grab the woman’s wrist before she can touch me again. Hard enough to make her gasp.
“Don’t,” I growl. My voice is rough, shredded by the war in my chest. “You’re not what I want.”
Her laugh is sharp, mocking. “Careful, Walker. Sounds like you’ve finally found your weakness.”
I shove past her, fury burning through me.
Because she’s right.
And if Elias saw, if anyone in this place saw, then they would know the truth.
Brooklyn isn’t just a weakness.
She’s the end of me.
I push through the doors into the night like the club’s about to collapse on my head. And maybe it already has.
All I can think of now is how fast I can get back to her.
The air outside is damp, heavy, laced with the stink of cigarettes and exhaust, but it’s still cleaner than the poison inside. I stand there for a long moment, knuckles flexing, jaw tight enough to crack teeth, waiting for the fury to bleed out of me. It doesn’t.
I should go home.
Straight back. Straight to bed. Straight into silence.
But the second the thought forms, I’m already moving.
Not home—her.
Brooklyn.
The city passes in a blur of neon and shadow, but when I kill the engine in the driveway, I don’t go in through the front. I can’t—not like this. Not with her scent already haunting me, clinging to the inside of my skull.
I circle the side of the house instead, footsteps slow, careful, a predator stalking his own territory. The lights are still on upstairs—Kate’s room, Brooklyn’s. My gaze drags upward, locking on the thin crack of curtain that isn’t quite shut.
And there she is.
Not naked this time. Not even dressed to taunt me. Just… her. Perched on the edge of the bed with a notebook in her lap, hair spilling over one shoulder, chewing absently at the end of her pen. A normal girl doing a normal thing.
And yet it wrecks me more than the sight of that woman in red bending herself into temptation.
I stay there in the shadows, hidden, watching her shift, stretch, tuck one leg under her body like she’s trying to fold herself into the page. She doesn’t even know I’m here, and still my blood runs hotter for her than anything Club Z could shove in my face.
My hand fists at my side. I tell myself to walk away, to get back in my car, to put distance between me and the disaster upstairs but then she laughs. Quiet, to herself, at something she’s written. And it’s not the sound of Kate’s friend. Not the sound of an employee.
It’s a sound meant to be devoured.
I grip the edge of the stone wall so hard the skin across my knuckles splits.
She has no fucking idea that every move she makes up there is a dare, and if I climb those stairs tonight, I won’t stop at watching.
Not again.
The night presses damp against my skin, the faint throb of bass from inside the club still pulsing in my veins, but here—out here—it’s quiet enough that I can hear her window creak when she shifts.
Brooklyn.
She’s still in that pool of lamplight, scribbling something across the page.
Her brows pinch when she writes, like every word costs her, then she bites her lip and erases it, only to write it again slower.
I shouldn’t know this about her. I shouldn’t know the tiny ways her mouth moves when she’s thinking or how often she tucks the hair behind her ear only for it to fall loose again.
But I do.
And it’s dangerous.
She leans back on her hands, stretching, spine arching, the hem of her shirt riding up just enough to tease a slice of bare stomach into view. I grit my teeth, drag my nails down the stone wall, feel grit embed under them just to stop myself from climbing up right now.
The curtains shift when she pushes them wider, maybe for air, maybe for the night itself, and the glow spills over her like she belongs to the moon. For one unsteady second, I think she sees me.
I freeze.
She doesn’t.
She yawns, tips her head back, and laughs softly, as if the night told her a secret.
I choke on the sound because I know the truth—she’s not laughing at the dark. She’s tempting it. Drawing it closer. Drawing me.
My chest is tight, every muscle wired, every thought poisoned by the same refrain: One step.
One climb. One night but then she moves again, curls forward, hugging her knees to her chest like the weight of the world lives there.
Her smile fades, and what’s left is raw.
Lonely. Something she wouldn’t let anyone else see.
And that’s when I know I’m not leaving.
I stay rooted to the shadows, starving at the sight of her, dragging every second out until it’s agony, because the longer I stay out here, the safer she is from me.
But my restraint is thin, a thread unravelling with each sigh she lets slip into the night.
The window stays open too long.
Her body stays soft too long.
And me? I stayed chained too long.
The thread snaps.
I scale the side of the house like I’ve done a hundred times before in worse places, boots silent, grip steady, heart pounding not from the climb but from what waits at the top.
Her.
The lamp casts her in gold, her knees drawn to her chest, chin tipped against them like she’s folded herself up small to keep the night out. She doesn’t hear me. She doesn’t feel the shift in the air when I step over the sill, landing inside her room.
But I feel her.
Every breath she exhales is a hit of something I can’t quit, and every inch of bare skin she shows me is a sin I’ll burn for.
I move slowly, not because I’m unsure but because I want to savour this—want to watch the exact moment the predator enters the prey’s den. My shadow stretches across the carpet until it brushes her toes.
That’s when she lifts her head.
Her eyes widen, her lips part, and a startled sound catches in her throat. But I’m already on her, my hand covering her mouth, my body pinning her against the mattress before she can speak her own name.
Her pulse thrashes against my palm, her chest arches up against mine, and her eyes—God, her eyes—they blaze with terror and recognition all at once.
“Shhh.” My voice is rough, low, the command vibrating against her lips under my hand. “You’ll wake your friend.”
Her lashes flutter. I feel the scream she swallows instead.
I lean closer, drag my mouth along the shell of her ear until she shivers, until she’s trembling for reasons she won’t admit.
“You left the window open for me.” My teeth graze her skin, sharp enough to sting. “You wanted this. Didn’t you, baby girl?”
Her nails claw at my arm, not to push me away but to hold on.
And just like that, it isn’t me breaking into her world.
It’s her pulling me in.