Chapter 12
Laurette Devereux
Brielle insisted I wear this dress. I didn’t argue.
The bouncer gives us a once-over before the door opens, probably clocking us as trouble. He’s not wrong.
Marissa grabs my hand, laughter bubbling as we step inside. Her boyfriend hates when we come here, which only adds to the appeal. Eden trails behind, eyes on her phone. Brielle moves ahead, confident and unapologetic, as always.
The club’s shadows engulf us. Music hits hard, a pulse beneath the skin. Lights flash. Heat clings. Bodies shift and sway, packed tight. It’s all sweat, smoke, and tension.
The air smells of liquor and citrus, cut with perfume and something sweeter rising from the bar. Blue strobes slice through the haze, and everything hums.
We weave through the crowd and land at the bar. The first round’s on me.
Four shots of tequila hit the counter. We clink glasses, and tip back.
Marissa chokes a little and laughs, fanning herself as if she’s survived a near-death experience. Eden sips, grimaces, and dabs her lips like she’s at afternoon tea. Brielle tips hers back with practiced ease, lips curling into something wicked.
It feels good to be out. No Jon David. No notes tucked in mailboxes. No silhouettes in the security footage. Just noise, heat, and bodies in motion.
The bass ripples through the space, shaking the floor beneath us. My hips move on instinct, swaying with a confidence I haven’t had in weeks.
“Dance with me?”
Marissa glances down at her shoes and scoffs. “These are wedges. I’m not twisting an ankle for you.”
Eden doesn’t even look up. “I don’t dance. You know this.”
Brielle’s gaze locks onto a guy across the room. “Go ahead; I’ll find you later.”
So, I’m dancing solo.
Great.
I knock back tequila number two and slip into the crush of bodies, the crowd swallowing me whole. I move, hips syncing with the pulse of the bass, eyes closed, and breath steady. For a beat, it’s just rhythm and heat.
Neon lights pulse, turning everyone into flashes of motion and chaos. Fingers brush my waist as another dancer slides past. I don’t flinch or stop moving. I came here to feel something, and I’m not leaving empty.
Then everything shifts, subtle as music bending a note. A presence behind me closes in without a sound. No words. Only heat and intent.
He doesn’t touch me again. Not quite. But he moves with me, hips aligned, breath close.
My pulse shifts under my ribs. My skin tightens, alert and alive.
He leans closer, his chest grazing my back, his hand ghosting over my waist. Then his voice slips into my ear, smooth as sin.
“You have my attention, Laurette.”
The words cut through everything, and the bass fades. All I hear is him, his breath at my neck, his presence pressing into the space between us.
It’s him.
“B.”
I turn, pulled by instinct, needing to see him. But his hand rises, fingers under my chin, stopping me.
“Not yet.”
My breath catches. He’s close. Too close. His touch is steady, his presence heavy, his scent clean and warm, threaded with something darker.
I don’t pull away; I don’t want to.
His mouth brushes my ear. “Did you mean what you said at Leviathan about wanting a man obsessed with you?”
“Yes.” No hesitation.
Raw. Honest.
My body moves without thinking, leaning back, needing more.
“You should be careful what you wish for, Laurette,” he says. “You’re waking something in me. Something that doesn’t let go.”
I still don’t pull away. Because I want more.
I tilt my head, voice steady even though my pulse is thumping in my ears. “You don’t get to choose this for me. I do. I don’t belong to anyone not of my choosing.”
His laughter fans my ear. “It doesn’t work that way. You asked, and the universe answered.”
Then a dark chuckle rumbles from him, quiet but edged with danger.
“Obsession isn’t polite, Laurette. It doesn’t wait for permission, and it doesn’t knock. It finds you, claims you, and doesn’t let go.”
I should recoil, push away. But I don’t. I lean into his presence behind me.
“If this obsession isn’t mine to control, how does it work when I can’t even see the man behind the hunger?”
He doesn’t speak. He just breathes as we move together.
I’m not afraid. I’m not stepping back. I’m leaning in, challenging him. Daring him.
His voice curls around me, laced with something dangerous.
“It starts when you don’t know I’m watching.
You’re alone and unaware. Your lips are parted, your skin is flushed, and your body aches for a touch you can’t name.
I’m there in the shadows, watching your back arch, watching your breath catch, owning every second you don’t know you’re giving away.
Every breath you take is already mine, and you haven’t realized it yet. ”
A throb grows low and insistent between my legs. My breath falters. I shift, painfully aware of the space between us and how badly I want it gone.
“I picture the sounds you’d make if I gave you exactly what you crave.”
He leans in, close enough to burn.
“I think about you naked and breathless, eyes wide at the moment right before you give in. You run, and I chase. And when I catch you…”
His voice drops, quieter, hungrier, rough with promise.
“I don’t let go.”
My chest thumps, and my throat tightens. The music pounds through my veins, but his words cut deeper than the bass.
“You won’t scream. Not at first. You’ll beg without knowing you’re begging. Deep down, you want it. You want to be broken open by the one man who sees what you really are.”
He leans closer. The thrum of bodies, rhythm, and strobing lights don’t mute him.
“I won’t rush. I’ll take you apart one breath at a time. Strip you down to the rawest parts of yourself until there’s nothing left but want. Until even your name doesn’t matter. Only mine does.”
His presence presses into my back, and heat slides between us. My hips tilt, betraying me, the muscles clenching before my brain can protest. A pull I don’t fight, a hunger I can’t speak.
“Is your pussy wet right now?” he asks, voice low and vicious. “Aching for my touch?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. My silence is all that’s left to hold onto, and I’m not giving it up.
His hand wraps around my waist, possessive and firm. Fingers splay across my stomach then slide lower, claiming without asking. A single knuckle drags upward, slow and unyielding, daring my body to disobey.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he says, voice dark as sin. “Your body’s already confessed.”
His breath drags across my ear, hot and deliberate, the sound of a promise sharpened into a threat. “I won’t harm you, Laurette. But I'll leave marks. I’ll pull pleasure out of pain until you forget where one ends, and the other begins.”
My pulse stutters. It isn’t fear tightening my throat. It’s need, thick and undeniable.
His mouth hovers closer, words sinking straight into my skin. “I’ll learn every sound you make—which ones you try to hide, which ones you can’t stop. I’ll take my time with you, slowly enough that you beg without realizing you are.”
His hand tightens at my waist. “I’ll ruin you for anyone else. You’ll crave the way I take you apart and the way I put you back together.”
His voice drops lower, rougher. “You asked for obsession. You asked to be seen. That means I don’t stop when it gets intense. I go harder.”
His lips brush the shell of my ear, barely there. “Are you ready to see what that means?”
The question isn’t a warning.
It’s an invitation.
My mouth parts, but no words come. My pulse answers for me with a yes while my mind stalls.
“How can I agree to something I don’t understand?”
His arm wraps around my waist, pulling me into his rhythm and the pressure of his body.
“I’ll help you understand.”
Every nerve in me screams that this is madness. Still, I don’t pull back.
His lips drag along the curve of my neck, breath hot and possessive. “You haven’t said no.”
The music swells, the bass pounding a warning I should hear. But I’m already too far gone.
“What’s your name?”
He chuckles, low and dangerous. “You’ll learn it when you earn the privilege of knowing it.”
“How do I do that?”
His hand tightens at my waist. “When you’re on your knees begging for more. When you can barely breathe because you need me so badly. That’s when I’ll give it to you so you can scream it while I ruin you.”
He exhales, voice low and edged with promise. “I’ll only ask one more time if you want to play this game with me. Not now, not tonight, but soon. Decide and be ready to give me your answer when I ask again.”
Then he slips away, gone, swallowed by the crowd, leaving me exposed, restless, and trembling in his absence.
I twist around and shove into the bodies, frantic, eyes scanning faces I don’t recognize. I’m not sure what I’m searching for. I just want the heat he left behind and the echo of his voice burned into my skin.
My heart pounds, trying to break free from my ribs. Lights strobe, blinding and violent, but I push forward, desperate to see him and know him.
But he’s gone.
Vanished.
As if he were never here at all.
When I stagger back to our table, Eden and Marissa jump up at once. Brielle, still propped on some poor soul, freezes mid-laughter. All three go silent when they see the look on my face.
“I… I just…” My voice cracks and my stomach knots.
Eden’s eyes go huge. “Laurette? What the hell happened?”
Marissa’s fingers grip my wrist. “Are you okay?”
I stare at them, breathing heavily, the tremble in my chest refusing to settle. “He was on the dance floor, right behind me, pressed up against me.” My voice drops to a whisper. “He spoke to me, his mouth right against my ear.”
I swallow, throat tight. “It was him. B.”
A shot lands in front of me, tequila with no lime, and I throw it back without pause. The burn cuts through the fog, sharp but fleeting. My pulse still races, wild and unevenly.
Eden reaches across the table and cups my face. “Jesus, Laurette. That’s one step away from a true-crime podcast. We need to get the fuck out of here.”
Marissa pushes back in her chair. “We should go. Now.”
Brielle leans in. “Fuck,” she says, a slow smile curving her lips. “That’s hot.”
Eden spins around to look at her. “Brielle!”
“What?” Brielle shrugs. “A mystery man dances up behind her in a club and gets her hot and wet? That’s not danger. That’s foreplay.”
Eden’s eyes narrow. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Brielle flicks her fingers, dismissing their concern. “He’s not just some creep. That was curated. Controlled. The man knows how to deliver temptation.” She shifts her gaze to me. “Tell me you didn’t feel the way he read your body. That wasn’t random. That was art.”
“He could be dangerous,” Marissa says.
“I think he is dangerous,” I whisper, eyes unfocused, skin still buzzing where he touched me.
Brielle leans closer, voice low and smug. “Your body didn’t exactly say no.”
Silence settles over the table because she’s right, and we all know it.
Heat blooms across my cheeks. “He touched me as though he already owned me.” And I allowed him to.
My fingers brush the side of my neck, tracing the memory of his mouth on my skin.
Marissa glances at Eden, then back at me. “What did he say?”
His words wrapped around me like dark silk, spoken straight to the parts I keep locked away.
Those words were meant only for me, and I’m not ready to share them.
I look back toward the floor, lights strobing, music thundering around us, but it’s hollow now. “He asked if I wanted to play his game,” I say, voice low. “Obsession.”
And I didn’t say no.
“I asked for this. Not directly, but I said the words. And he heard me.”
Marissa’s expression tightens. “No. Don’t twist this into something it’s not. You aren’t responsible for some psycho who overheard you joking around and decided it was an invitation.”
Eden shakes her head. “Marissa’s right. You didn’t ask for this.”
But I did.
I gave it life. I put the fantasy into existence by speaking it aloud, lighting a match in a dark room.
And he was there to see the flame.
On the dance floor, my body said yes before my mind could weigh in. Before fear ever opened its mouth. And when he vanished into the crowd, I didn’t want him to go.
But I say none of that. Not here. Not to them.
Eden grabs her purse with a finality that leaves no room for argument. “We’re leaving. Now.”
The lights blaze brighter, and the bass pounds through my chest. We push toward the exit, bodies pressing past us. I pause long enough to glance back at the crowd. Dark silhouettes shift in a blur of shadow and light, and I realize I don’t know how close he still is.
Is he still watching?
Something deep in my gut says he is.
Brielle slips her arm around my shoulders. “Hey, don’t listen to them. You deserve someone who can match fire with fire.”
Match fire with fire.
Is that what this is? A blaze I won’t walk away from unburned? Or something deeper, something that scorches from the inside out?
I don’t answer her. I just keep walking, heart still hammering.
Marissa’s gaze sweeps the sidewalk, sharp and anxious. “Brett and I will drive you home. After tonight, I’m not letting you take a rideshare.”
I nod, throat tight. “Thanks.”
The car is too quiet. Streetlights smear across the windshield, the city blurring past in streaks of red and gold. My pulse still pounds, but it’s quieter now. Duller. The edge of something sharp has softened but hasn’t disappeared.
I lean my forehead against the cold glass, eyes fixed on the dark.
He’s real. His hands were on me. His voice was in my ear, whispering things that rewired my pulse. Words that shouldn’t make sense but did.
And I let him.
No, I leaned into it. Welcomed it. My body wanted every dark promise he offered.
I don’t know when he’ll come again, but this is no game for amateurs.
He set the terms and as terrifying as they are…
I think I’m ready to play.