Chapter Two: VIP Room

Chapter 2 – VIP Room

**Kael’s POV**

The scent hit me like a blade between the ribs.

One second I was walking through the club with my beta at my shoulder, already irritated by the noise, the smell of cheap alcohol, and the pointless meeting I had agreed to take here. The next second, everything in me stopped.

Mine.

My wolf exploded against the inside of my skin so violently I tasted blood where my fangs had cut into my own mouth. Every muscle locked. The bass from the speakers became distant, useless noise. All I could see was the girl on the stage.

She wasn’t naked. That almost made it worse. The black crop top clung to full, heavy breasts that moved with every shift of her body.

The high-waisted shorts framed the thick flare of her hips and the soft, perfect curve of her ass. Long legs. Smooth skin that glowed under the red neon like it had been made for my mouth. A waist I could already feel spanning under my hands.

And she was on a fucking stage.

Men were staring at her. Openly. One bastard in the front row had his legs spread and his hand resting close to his belt, eyes glued to her thighs as she moved. Another leaned over to his friend and said something that made them both laugh while they watched her.

Rage flooded me so fast my vision sharpened into predator focus.

My mate.

My mate was under these lights while other males looked at what belonged to me.

I wanted to tear the room apart. I wanted to drag every man who had put his eyes on her into the alley and make sure they never looked at anything again. My claws pressed against the inside of my fingers, aching to split free.

“Alpha?” my beta murmured. “You good?”

“Clear the front tables,” I said. My voice came out low, cold, and barely human. “Now.”

I didn’t wait for him to move. I cut through the crowd myself. People stepped aside without understanding why. The air around me had changed, and even humans could sense it.

She was still dancing. Still gripping that pole. Still letting them watch.

First time. I could smell the nerves on her, the faint edge of desperation. She didn’t belong here. She belonged under me. In my territory. In my bed. Where no one else could see the way her body moved while I fucked her senseless.

I stopped at the edge of the stage and looked up at her.

The second her eyes met mine, something in my chest snarled in vicious satisfaction. She faltered. Just slightly. Just enough.

Good.

I raised two fingers. The manager appeared so fast it was almost amusing.

“Every dance she has left tonight,” I said, never taking my eyes off her. “Buy them. All of them. Private. And if another man tries to approach her, remove him. If he touches her—” I finally looked at the manager, letting him see the gold bleeding into my irises, “—I will take his hands.”

The man swallowed hard. “Y-yes, Mr. Voss.”

On stage, she finished the set. Her heart was beating fast. I could hear it even over the music. She was flustered. Aware of me. Her scent spiked with something warmer than fear.

She stepped off the stage. I watched the curtain swallow her and felt my wolf snarl at the loss of visual contact.

A few minutes later the manager returned, looking like he would rather be anywhere else.

“She… said she’s flattered,” he began carefully. “But if you think buying her time means you get to touch her, you’ll be disappointed. She said she bites.”

A slow, dark smile cut across my face.

“Good,” I said quietly. “Tell her I bite harder.”

I turned my gaze back to the empty stage, already counting the seconds until she was brought to me.

Tonight, my mate had danced for strangers.

It would be the last time.

From this moment on, every look, every breath, every inch of that body belonged to me.

And I was going to make sure she understood exactly what that meant.

Avery's Pov

The hallway felt longer than it should have.

Every step I took toward the VIP room made the music from the main floor fade a little more, replaced by the sound of my own pulse thudding in my ears.

The manager walked ahead of me without speaking, like he already knew this wasn’t the kind of client you made small talk about. When he pushed the door open and gestured for me to go inside, I almost turned around.

Almost.

The room was dim and red, the kind of lighting that made everything look more expensive and more dangerous at the same time. A long black leather couch sat in the center.

A polished pole stood in the corner on a small raised platform. One mirrored wall reflected the entire space back at me, which felt like a special kind of psychological warfare.

Kael Voss was already there.

He sat in the middle of the couch with his legs spread and his arms stretched along the backrest, taking up space like it had been designed around him.

Up close, he was worse than he’d been from the stage. Broader. Darker. His black shirt was rolled at the sleeves, showing thick forearms that looked like they could pin someone down without effort. Those gold-flecked eyes locked onto me the second I stepped inside and didn’t let go.

The door shut behind me.

I hated how final it sounded.

“You’re late,” he said.

His voice was low and rough, like it had been scraped over gravel.

I forced my shoulders back. “You bought the dances five minutes ago. Forgive me for not teleporting.”

Something that wasn’t quite a smile touched his mouth. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“Dance.”

No please. No explanation. Just an order.

I walked toward him on legs that felt less stable than they had on stage. My body was still warm from performing, skin slightly damp under the crop top, shorts clinging in places I was very aware of now that I was alone with him. I stopped between his knees and looked down.

“Any particular way you want this?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light. “Or should I just assume you want the standard experience?”

His gaze dropped, slow and deliberate, dragging over my breasts, my waist, the curve of my hips, the bare skin of my thighs.

“I want you to move,” he said. “Until I tell you to stop.”

Right.

I started with what I knew. With what nyx taught Hands resting lightly on his shoulders for balance, hips swaying to the low music already playing in the room.

I turned slowly, letting my back face him, bending my knees just enough to create a line from my waist down to my ass. I wasn’t the most experienced dancer in the building, but I knew how to use what I had. I rolled my body, rose again, and turned back to face him before climbing onto his lap.

Knees on either side of his thighs. weight carefully distributed. Hands on his chest.

Even through the shirt, he was solid. Hot. The kind of muscle that didn’t come from casual gym visits. I moved my hips once, a slow test grind, and that was when I felt it.

Thick. Hard. Heavy.

The bulge in his slacks pressed right against the thin material of my shorts, and the size of it made my stomach dip. I froze for half a second, eyes widening before I could stop the reaction.

Kael noticed.

Of course he did.

“Keep going,” he said quietly.

I should have stopped. I should have gotten off him and ended the dance. Instead, I forced myself to move again, and the drag of that hard length against me sent a shameful spark of heat low in my belly. Every controlled roll of my hips created friction. Every time I leaned forward, my chest brushed his chest. The air between us felt too warm.

I tried to focus on technique. On the money. On Maya. But my body was starting to respond in ways I didn’t want it to, and Kael’s eyes never left my face. He wasn’t watching me like the men outside watched. He was studying me. Breathing me in.

Then he inhaled deeply, and something in his expression shifted. His eyes flashed brighter. His jaw tightened.

“You’re a virgin.”

The words were calm. Certain. Like he’d just read a fact written on my skin.

My rhythm broke. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t insult me by lying.” His hands finally left the back of the couch and settled on my waist, large and hot. “I can feel it. No man has ever been inside you. You’re untouched and inexperienced”

Heat flooded my face so fast it was almost dizzying. I tried to pull back, but his grip held me firmly in place on his lap.

“I’ve never done private dances before tonight,” I said, the words coming out sharper than I intended. “And I’ve never done… the rest of it either. Happy?”

Kael’s mouth curved into something darkly amused.

“A virgin grinding on a stranger’s cock for money,” he murmured. “How desperate did you have to be to end up here?”

The mockery in his tone landed clean. I bristled, pushing against his chest. “I’m working. There’s a difference. And you can keep your judgment to yourself.”

“You’re wet,” he said simply. “I can smell that too.”

Mortification crashed through me. I tried to climb off him, but his hands tightened, keeping me exactly where I was.

“I said keep going.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I didn’t ask.”

Before I could argue, one of his hands slid from my waist down to my thigh, then higher, slipping under the edge of my shorts. His fingers brushed the damp fabric of my thong. I jerked at the contact.

“Don’t—”

He pulled the thong to the side like it was an inconvenience and dragged two thick fingers through my folds.

The sound that left me was helpless. I was wetter than I had any right to be, and his fingers glided through the slickness with humiliating ease. He rubbed slowly, spreading me open, circling my clit once before dipping lower and pressing just barely inside.

“Sensitive,” he observed, voice almost clinical. “Figures. Virgins usually are.”

“Stop,” I whispered, but my hips twitched toward his hand instead of away.

He pushed one finger into me.

The stretch punched a gasp out of my lungs. My hands clamped down on his shoulders. He didn’t pause. He worked the finger deeper, then added a second, filling me with a slow, relentless pressure that made my thighs tremble around his. The intrusion burned in a way that wasn’t entirely pain, and the heat building under my skin only made it worse.

“Kael—wait—”

“You don’t give orders in this room.” His thumb found my clit and pressed down, rubbing firm circles while his fingers curled inside me. “You take what you’re given.”

I tried to twist away. He held me down without effort, fucking his fingers up into me in deep, steady strokes. The wet sound of it was obscene in the quiet room. My forehead dropped against his shoulder as pleasure started climbing despite every part of my brain screaming that this had gone too far.

“You’re clenching,” he growled near my ear. “Little virgin cunt gripping my fingers like it wants more. You hate how much your body likes this.”

“I don’t—” My voice cracked when he scissored his fingers inside me. "Ah—fuck—”

“Language,” he mocked softly. “And here I thought you were inexperienced.”

He kept going. Stretching me. Pressing against a spot that made my vision flicker white at the edges. My hips were moving on their own now, grinding down to meet his hand while the hard, thick bulge of his cock rubbed against my inner thigh. I was shaking. Close. The pleasure was winding so tight it almost hurt.

Then he stopped.

Completely.

His fingers stayed buried inside me, but they no longer moved. His thumb lifted away from my clit. The sudden absence made a broken, needy sound tear out of my throat.

“What—why did you—”

“You don’t get to come,” he said, calm as anything. “Not until I allow it.”

I was panting against his neck, empty and aching and furious, my body still fluttering around his fingers. “You’re a bastard.”

“Yes.” He pulled his fingers out of me slowly. They shone in the red light, slick with me. He lifted them between us and painted the wetness across my bottom lip. “Open.”

When I kept my mouth shut, he pressed harder. I opened. He slid his fingers onto my tongue.

“Suck.”

Humiliation burned through me as I tasted myself. He watched every second of it, eyes dark with satisfaction, until he decided I’d had enough and pulled free.

His hand gripped my chin and forced my eyes up to his.

“You’re leaving with me tonight,” he said. Not a question. A statement of fact. “Your sister’s surgery. The debt. All of it. I’ll pay it. In exchange, you belong to me for thirty days.”

My mind staggered. “You can’t just buy people.”

“I can. And I am.” His thumb brushed the corner of my mouth, smearing the last of my own wetness there. “You’re my mate, Avery. My wolf recognized you the moment you stepped onto that stage. No other man will put his eyes on you again. No other man will touch you. You’re done dancing for strangers.I will take you to my world."

I stared at him, chest heaving, thighs slick, the ghost of his fingers still stretched inside me.I was completely confused about what he had just said.Wolf?? That's crazy

“You’re insane,” I whispered.

Kael’s smile was slow and sharp and utterly without mercy.

“Get used to it.” He leaned in until his mouth brushed my ear, voice dropping into something dark and final. “Now be a good girl and say yes… or I’ll put you on your back on this couch and finish what I started without ever letting you come.”

My pulse slammed against my throat.

Somewhere between the anger, the fear, and the throbbing emptiness he had left between my legs, one terrifying truth settled in my chest.

Part of me already wanted to say yes.