4. Viktor
VIKTOR
Dimitri’s waiting by the office door when I come back through, arms crossed, tablet now forgotten somewhere behind him.
“Before you say anything else tonight,” he says, “I need you to actually explain the wife situation.”
“I will. Tomorrow.” I rub the back of my neck, still catching up to my own decision. “Tonight, I need something from you.”
“More than a wedding?”
“Find out who she is.” I keep my voice low, business voice, the one that has nothing to do with the last ten minutes. “Full background. Work, finances, family, this custody case she mentioned. Everything you can get by tomorrow. She said her name was Harper Wilcox.”
Dimitri studies me for a second longer than is comfortable. “You’re marrying a woman you don’t know anything about.”
“That’s why I’m asking.”
“Fair enough. Give me a day.”
He’s true to his word.
I’m at the club early the next evening, going through invoices at my desk, when he lets himself into the office without knocking, a folder in one hand and a look on his face that tells me he already knows I’m not going to like the timing of any of this.
“That was fast,” I say.
“You said tomorrow.” He drops the folder on the desk in front of me and takes the chair across from it without being asked, which means this conversation isn’t over as quickly as he’d like me to think.
“Harper Wilcox. Twenty-eight. Front desk at the Ashcombe downtown, been there three years. No record, no debt beyond a car loan, rent’s current.
Parents deceased. One sister, also deceased, which is apparently where the custody case comes in. ”
I open the folder. The first page is exactly what he described: flat and clinical, a report that could apply to half the women in this city.
“Sister’s daughter,” Dimitri continues. “Six years old. The girl’s paternal grandparents, an older couple named Ivanov, filed for custody a few months back.
Harper’s fighting it. Nothing dramatic in the filings, just a standard dispute.
Money, stability, the usual arguments people make against a single guardian. ”
“Ivanov.” I turn the name over once, out loud, and nothing about it catches. Common enough surname, and nothing in the report ties it to anything I’d recognize. “You’re sure there’s nothing else there?”
“Grieving grandparents trying to keep their granddaughter. That’s the whole story, as far as I can find.” He shrugs. “I didn’t dig past the court filings. You said full background on her, not a file on people she’s suing.”
“Fine.” I flip through the rest of it while he watches, waiting for a reaction he isn’t getting. Bank statements, a copy of her lease, a printout of the guardianship paperwork with her signature at the bottom.
“You want me to keep pulling on it? The grandparents, I mean.” Dimitri leans back. “Given who we are, I’d rather over check than under check.”
“Not yet. This is enough for now.”
“That’s new. You usually want everything twice over before you sign your name to anything.”
“This isn’t a business deal.”
“No,” he says, standing, “it’s stranger than that, and you still haven’t told me why.”
I don’t answer, and he doesn’t push.
He leaves the folder on the desk and heads back out to the floor, and I hear the door click shut behind him, and then it’s just me and a stranger’s entire life sitting flat on my desk in a manila folder.
There’s nothing dramatic about them either. A few pulled from what must be a social media account that went quiet years ago, one from an old work event at the hotel, staff lined up in matching uniforms, and Harper somewhere near the end of the row, laughing at something outside the frame.
She looks different, lit up like that. Lighter. Nothing like the woman who walked up to me last night with her hands shaking and her voice completely steady.
There’s a picture near the bottom, just her at a coffee shop table, head tilted, mid-laugh, hair falling loose instead of pulled back the way it was in the hallway.
Another one shows her crouched next to a small girl on a swing set, one hand braced on the chain, both of them mid motion, blurred slightly at the edges.
I find myself looking at the line of her jaw in the first one longer than I mean to. The curve of her mouth caught mid-laugh.
The way her whole face changes when nothing in it is working to convince anyone of anything.
It’s a strange thing, wanting to know more about someone whose entire value to me was supposed to be how little she’d actually change my life. A signature. A photograph for the courthouse steps.
Nothing that should require this much of my attention, this many minutes spent on paper that was only ever meant to answer one simple question, whether she was safe to marry.
She is. That question’s been answered for an hour now.
I think about the hallway again. The quiet. The way she said her own name, waited for me to answer, extended her hand like the whole thing might fall apart if I refused to shake it.
I think about the shape of her standing there, arms crossed loosely, working up her nerve before she’d even opened her mouth, and the way her voice went steady the second she started talking business, like nerves were a luxury she couldn’t afford once the stakes were real.
None of that should be doing what it’s currently doing to me.
I close the folder, get up, and walk to the window that looks out over the parking lot. It does not help. I still cannot get her out of my head. The shake of her hand. The line of her throat when she swallowed hard enough to steady herself.
I have spent fifteen years training myself not to want things I have not earned the right to want.
What the fuck is wrong with you? I think. She came to you for help, not to be jerked off to like some pervert in your own office.
I clench my jaw and head downstairs instead. The club is already packed.
Heavy bass vibrates through the floor as colored lights sweep across the main stage.
On the pole, a tall brunette with long wavy hair and glitter-covered skin spins slowly upside down, her legs spread wide in a perfect split. She’s completely naked except for a tiny rhinestone thong that barely covers anything.
Every time she slides down the pole, the lights catch the shine between her thighs, clearly showing the outline of her pussy and the small strip of fabric pulled tight against her clit.
Men sit around the stage, some leaning forward with drinks in their hands, others throwing bills onto the platform. A few have their eyes glued to her body, while others talk loudly over the music.
I walk past them and sit in the back booth reserved for me. From here I can still see the stage clearly. I motion for one of the waitresses to send over Sasha, one of the best performers.
She comes over a minute later, smiling, wearing almost nothing. “Boss. You want a private dance tonight?”
I nod. “Private room. Now.”
We make our way to one of the VIP rooms. I sit on the couch while Sasha starts moving in front of me, slow and professional, grinding her hips, running her hands over her body. I watch her. I try to let it work. She’s beautiful. Skilled. Normally that would be enough.
But it’s suddenly not.
Every time she touches me or leans in close, something feels wrong.
Her perfume is too sweet. Her movements feel practiced and empty.
I imagine Harper’s steady voice instead of the heavy bass.
I imagine Harper’s nervous but determined eyes instead of Sasha’s smoky makeup.
My cock stays hard, but the feeling is hollow.
Sasha drops to her knees between my legs and reaches for my belt. “Want me to take care of you, boss?”
I grab her wrist before she can open it. “No.”
She looks surprised. I never turn this down. I pull out my wallet, hand her a thick stack of bills, and tell her, “We’re done. Keep it.”
I leave the VIP room without looking back. The walk upstairs to my office feels longer than it should. I lock the door behind me the second I am inside.
This is ridiculous. You’re better than this.
But the ache in my cock still doesn’t listen.
I sit down in my chair, lean back, and spread my legs. I open the folder again and keep the coffee shop photo right in front of me under the lamp.
My hand moves to my belt. I open it slowly, pull down the zipper, and push my pants and boxers low enough. I wrap my fingers around my cock.
I’m still hard, thick, and aching from nothing more than her picture and a handful of memories.
What the hell are you doing? I think. You had Sasha downstairs on her knees, ready to suck you off, and you turned her away. For this? For a woman you barely know?
The shame burns for a second, but it does nothing to soften my cock. If anything, the guilt makes me harder. I curse quietly and tighten my grip.
I start with slow strokes while I stare at her mouth in the photo. That curved smile. I remember the calm strength in her voice when she proposed to a stranger.
My grip tightens. The strokes grow longer, firmer. In my mind, I see her stepping closer in that hallway, close enough that I could smell her skin. I imagine her dropping to her knees right here between my spread legs, looking up at me with those same determined eyes.
My breathing stays controlled but deeper.
I stroke faster now, my fist moving smoothly over the full length of my cock.
I picture her lips parting, warm and soft, taking me into her mouth. The wet heat. The way her tongue would press against the underside while she works me deeper.
I imagine one hand in her hair, guiding her, while she looks up at me with that steady gaze.
Heat builds low in my stomach. My thighs tense. I lean forward slightly, elbow on the desk, eyes locked on the photo of her laughing face. In my head, she hollows her cheeks and sucks harder, taking almost all of me.
The fantasy feels so real that my hand speeds up, rougher now, chasing the growing pressure.
My whole body tightens. The muscles in my arm and shoulder burn.
I keep staring at her picture as the pleasure spikes sharp and sudden.
Thick ropes of cum spill over my fist and onto the tissues I grabbed at the last second.
The release hits hard, but I stay completely silent, jaw clenched, breath held until the last wave passes.
I sit there afterward with my eyes closed, chest rising and falling. My hand is still wrapped around myself, sticky and warm. The bass from the club continues to thump faintly through the walls, unchanged.
Afterward, the office is quiet except for the muffled thump of the bass through the wall, same as always, like the last twenty minutes happened in some separate room from the rest of my life.
I close the folder properly this time, slide it into the desk drawer instead of leaving it out where anyone could see it, and sit there for a minute doing absolutely nothing, which isn’t something I do often.
Fuck.