11. Cloe
CLOE
The bar didn’t glow. It bled.
Low amber lights smeared across polished bottles like the ghosts of every bad decision that had ever been made under them.
The floor was wet from something that hadn’t been cleaned properly—beer or bleach or the memory of both.
Every time my heel touched down, it stuck just enough to make me wince.
Just enough to remind me I shouldn’t be here.
But I stayed.
Because leaving meant going home. And going home meant facing silence. Not peaceful silence. Not solitude. No. The kind of silence that lives under your skin. The kind that sits beside you in the dark and whispers you did this to yourself .
My thighs were damp. Not from want—sweat and dread. I sat too long in this booth. I couldn’t remember when I ordered my last drink. I only knew the glass in front of me was empty and my fingertips were shaking as I reached for it again anyway.
The bartender looked at me once. Then stopped .
The man three seats down licked his lips when he thought I wasn’t looking.
He looked a little like Wolfe. And a little like he wanted to be him.
My phone sat face-down on the sticky table, its cracked screen glowing faint blue beneath the condensation of my drink.
One buzz.
Then silence.
Not a message. A battery warning.
10% left.
That felt appropriate.
I picked it up. Opened the thread I hadn’t touched since the last time he looked at me like I was something he was trying not to ruin.
Wolfe Lawlor.
No nickname. No emoji. Just the name. Just the weight.
My thumb hovered.
Typed:
I told Camille everything about you.
I think that’s why she kept you away from me. Especially after what happened all those years ago between us.
The memory of their house all those years ago rose inside me, dragging with it the same desperate hunger. I was just a kid and he was everything, I didn’t send the message.
I stared at it.
Then added:
I’m in her necklace. You said it didn’t belong on me.
So I’m selling it tonight.
You can stop me. Or not.
Nothing.
Not even a typing bubble.
I set the phone down .
And let the ache pool in my belly.
I slid out of the booth. My thighs peeled from the vinyl. My knees buckled for half a second before I straightened. I walked slow. Careful. Like someone might be watching. Like someone already was.
The bathroom was worse than the bar. It smelled like old soap and something that hadn’t been clean in years. I locked the door behind me even though the lock didn’t catch. Pressed both hands to the sink. Looked in the mirror.
Smeared lipstick.
Mascara beneath one eye.
Necklace tight around my throat.
I looked like I’d already fucked someone and tried to wash the guilt off after.
I didn’t cry.
I took a photo.
Didn’t send it.
Typed instead:
I look like your mistake.
Then I left the bathroom.
Back to the bar.
The music had dulled—less sound, more pulse. Nothing but the thump of bass fading beneath the thrum of my bloodstream.
I motioned for the bartender. Ordered something. Let the drink sit there when it came. The ice cubes bobbed. I didn’t care. I grabbed the glass and swallowed. Let it burn. Let it punish.
I didn’t mean to reach for the phone again. But I did. Because the ache didn’t settle—it multiplied. Because the silence felt like permission.
I tried again.
The font blurred. I blinked. Swallowed. Typed again.
I want to forget you.
I want to forget what it felt like to want you to break me.
I hit send this time. Each message was a match. Each word lit another corner of me on fire. I stared at the screen, pulse stuttering behind my teeth.
The messages stacked like sins. No read receipt. No reply.
Just silence.
Just him.
Just me.
I kept your lipstick in my purse.
I reapplied it tonight.
Just in case.
Then:
Do you think about it?
About what I looked like when I knelt?
And kept going:
Because I do.
Still no answer.
My hands shook.
I took a photo.
Just of my lips.
Smeared red.
Parted.
A stain of salt on the corner of my mouth.
I didn’t send it.
I added a line instead:
I could let him fuck me.
My thumb hovered. Shaking.
I could lie.
Close my eyes and pretend it's you.
Still nothing.
I pressed the heel of my hand to my chest.
Everything hurt there.
Everything.
My last message came slower.
Deliberate.
Like a crucifixion.
Ten minutes.
Or I give him my mouth and pretend it's yours.
I hit send.
Turned the phone face-down.
Closed my eyes.
And waited for the sound of the monster I prayed would come.
The man from the end of the bar waited.
He wasn’t ugly.
That would’ve made this easier. That would’ve let me recoil. Make a scene. Leave. Be saved from myself.
But he was handsome in the way expensive violence could be. Handsome in the way of cold watches and car keys held too tightly. And maybe that’s why I let him get close.
He wore a grey jacket with the collar popped and a watch he kept checking like he was late for something—or someone.
“Thought you were going to make me come to you,” he said. “Turns out you’ve got better taste than that.”
I smiled. The kind that didn’t reach anything real. “Do I?”
He slid into the booth beside me like he owned the seat, the air, and the story .
“You’re alone,” he said, voice low. “But you’re not here for drinks.”
I didn’t correct him.
He touched my wrist. His fingers were warm. A little rough. The kind of hand that had pressed too hard into too many things.
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m cold,” I whispered.
He leaned closer.
“Then let me warm you up.”
My phone buzzed.
One long vibration.
Then black.
Battery dead.
No answer.
No Wolfe.
So I let him lean in.
Let his hand travel from my wrist to the chain around my neck.
“You wear that for someone?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t have to.
He slid his thumb down the center of my chest, dragging the chain with it.
“You smell like memory,” he said. “Like you’ve got a past worth ruining.”
My lips parted.
And that’s when I felt it.
The shift.
The change in the room.
The drop in temperature without wind.
The sensation of being watched by something not human.
The man kept talking .
But I didn’t hear him.
Because I looked up.
And saw Wolfe.
Standing in the doorway of the bar.
Nothing in his stance moved.
Nothing in his eyes blinked.
But the air screamed .
He didn’t storm over.
Didn’t raise a hand.
He looked at the man beside me.
And the man went still.
“Problem?” the man asked, trying to reclaim the air between them.
Wolfe took one step forward.
That was all it took.
The man stood.
No apology. No challenge.
Just instinct.
He left.
Wolfe’s eyes didn’t follow him.
They were on me.
Only me.
Like a claim.
Like punishment.
Like possession so deep my lungs stuttered trying to remember how to breathe.
I stood.
My knees wobbled.
Wolfe said nothing.
He just held out his hand.
And when I gave him mine, he gripped it like the leash I’d offered.
“Let’ s go,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
It was a verdict.
And I walked out beside him like the sentence was holy.
His apartment was silent when the door shut behind us. Not the kind of silence that feels peaceful. The kind that presses in around your lungs like the beginning of a drowning.
I didn't realize how tightly I was clenching my fists until Wolfe reached for Camille’s necklace and unfastened it. His hands brushed the back of my neck—barely a touch—and still I flinched.
Not because he hurt me.
Because he didn’t.
He set the necklace down on the counter like it was a weapon. Like it was evidence. Like it was hers, and I’d worn it too long.
I stood there. Swaying slightly in heels I couldn’t feel anymore. My lips dry. My throat aching.
I was waiting for him to speak.
He didn’t.
He turned. Walked past me into the dark of the hallway. And when he returned, he held out a glass of water and a folded towel.
“Shower. Now.”
It wasn’t loud. Wasn’t cruel.
But I moved.
Because he told me to.
Because something in his voice made obedience feel holy.
Because I wanted to wash every trace of that bar off my skin before he decided I wasn’t worth saving.
I stepped into the steam. Let the water scorch my thighs. Scrubbed the lipstick from my mouth. The glitter from my eyelids. The scent of another man’s hand from my skin.
I stood there too long .
Long enough for the water to run cold.
When I stepped out, I toweled off in silence. Found the clothes folded on the bathroom counter. One of his shirts. Soft. Heavy. Black. No pants.
I slipped it on.
The hem hit mid-thigh.
I didn’t wear anything else.
Didn’t need to.
When I emerged, the apartment was darker. Just the warm light from a lamp in the living room, casting long shadows across the couch where Wolfe sat.
He looked at me.
Didn’t say a word.
His eyes dragged from my damp hair to my bare thighs.
To the edge of his shirt brushing the curve of my ass.
“Sit,” he said.
I stood still.
“Couch or bed?” he asked.
The breath caught in my throat. “What?”
He leaned back. Spread his knees. “You want to be owned, Cloe? Or just punished?”
My knees almost buckled.
I said, “Bed.”
He nodded once.
And I walked.
His eyes didn’t leave me.
Not when I walked. Not when I passed him. Not when I hesitated at the doorway to his room and looked back like I might ask for permission to enter a place I’d already been invited to bleed in.
But he didn’t move.
Didn’t follow.
Didn’t rescue .
This wasn’t that kind of story.
The bedroom was cold. The kind of cold that lived in places where grief lingered too long. No photographs. No clutter. Just the sharp scent of clean linen and something darker under it—like cologne and memory.
I stood in the center of the room, shaking.
The shirt clung to my thighs. My nipples pressed against the fabric, tight and aching from cold and want and shame.
I didn’t know what he wanted from me.
But I knew what I wanted from him.
I wanted to be seen.
I wanted to be named.
I wanted to be ruined in the only language he spoke.
I heard him before I saw him.
The slow tread of bare feet on hardwood.
The soft click of the door being pushed open.
The weight of his gaze pressing into my spine.
I didn’t turn.
“Take it off.”
His voice didn’t rise.
But it hollowed me.
I lifted the hem of his shirt with both hands. My fingers trembled. My throat closed.
He said nothing.
Didn’t help.
Didn’t move.
I pulled the shirt over my head.
And stood naked in the center of his room.
He exhaled behind me.
A sound like restraint.
A sound like worship.
I didn’t speak.
My breathing was too loud. My skin flushed. I felt exposed in a way I’d never felt before—not on camera, not in shame, not in regret. This was sacred.
This was his .
I heard the rustle of his clothes.
But he didn’t touch me.
“Lie down,” he said.
I climbed onto the bed like I was crawling toward a church altar.
The sheets were cold. They smelled like him. I lay on my back, hands by my sides, legs together, trembling.
“Open.”
My breath hitched.
He didn’t clarify.
Didn’t need to.
I spread my thighs.
The air hit me like a confession.
I closed my eyes.
And waited.
He stepped closer. I could feel it—like heat rolling across skin that wasn’t ready to be touched.
Then I felt it.
Not his hands.
His breath.
Hot.
Between my thighs.
Hovering.
Not a kiss. Not a touch.
A presence.
He knelt.
Wolfe Lawlor—king of ice and ruin—on his knees, between mine.
His eyes burned up the length of me, slow and deliberate, like he was mapping out a territory he already owned but wanted to rediscover with the reverence of a ritual. Like he was deciding which part of me he’d ruin first if he let himself give in.
I opened wider.
Because I didn’t know how to ask.
Because begging would have shattered the last of my pride, and I was still clinging to it like skin I hadn’t molted yet.
His breath touched me.
One exhale.
I gasped.
It wasn’t air.
It was permission .
His mouth hovered so close I could feel the drag of heat against slick, swollen skin. He didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Just existed there.
And my body betrayed me.
I pulsed.
Wetness spilled out of me like confession. Like offering.
“Look at you,” he said softly. “Ruined without a single touch.”
A sound escaped me. A whimper. Half-broken. Half-devoted.
He leaned closer. His nose brushed the inside of my thigh. I arched. Gasped. My hands clenched the sheets beside me so hard I thought the fibers might give way.
His lips were close enough to feel, not close enough to taste.
And then he breathed again.
A sharp exhale. Right against me.
I choked on a moan.
“Wolfe—”
“No.”
The word lashed across me like a belt .
“You don’t get to speak. Not until I take the words from your mouth myself.”
I trembled.
Every nerve ending lit up like holy fire.
He pressed one palm to my inner thigh. The heat of it. The claim of it. I sobbed without sound.
He didn’t go lower.
Didn’t touch the place that begged .
He held me open.
Made me feel the distance.
Made me live in the absence.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
I did.
He didn’t touch me.
But I felt him.
Every second he hovered above me, I imagined his mouth.
His tongue.
His fingers.
The growl I knew lived in his throat if he ever let himself go.
And just when I thought I couldn’t take any more?—
The weight shifted.
His warmth pulled away.
The bed creaked.
I opened my eyes.
He stood beside the bed, staring down at me like he’d just carved the world into something unrecognizable and wasn’t sure if he should burn it or kneel before it.
“You wanted to forget me?” he asked.
I nodded, breathless.
“Then you shouldn’t have invited me back inside you.”
I sobbed.
Not from pain .
From need .
From the ache that bloomed in my womb like a bruise. From the emptiness that curled around my ribs where he could have been.
He walked away.
I reached for him without thinking. One hand. Fingers outstretched like a girl trying to catch the hem of God’s coat as he passed.
He didn’t turn.
Didn’t look.
He reached the door. Paused.
Looked over his shoulder.
“You think this was punishment,” he said. “It wasn’t.”
Then he left.
The door stayed open.
But I didn’t move.
I stayed there.
Naked.
Wrecked.
Thighs still parted.
Heart still pounding.
Body still begging .
And when my phone lit up on the nightstand—somehow still alive, somehow still willing—I reached for it.
One message.
WOLFE:
You want to be wrecked?
Next time—I'll leave fingerprints where he was never allowed to look.
I cried.
Because I’d never be clean again.
Because now that I’d tasted him?—
I would never stop starving.