Chapter 2: One Night of Forgetting

"I don't usually dance with strangers."

"Tonight can be different." He held out his hand.

Marcus's face flashed through my mind, the way he'd looked at me over Sophie's shoulder, guilty and caught and somehow still expecting me to understand. I took the stranger's hand.

The heat coming off him was immediate. Overwhelming. Wolves run hot, I'd forgotten that. Or maybe I'd been trying to forget it along with everything else.

"What's your name?" His breath ghosted against my ear.

"Does it matter?"

"Maybe not." Something in his laugh made my stomach flip.

We danced through three songs. Four, maybe. I lost count. He moved like we'd been doing this for years instead of minutes, and my wolf, Goddess, my wolf who'd been silent and sulking for months, practically purred.

"You're tense." His thumb traced circles against my lower back. "What happened?"

The vodka made me honest. "Caught my boyfriend in bed with my best friend. Few hours ago."

He went still. I felt the growl more than heard it, a vibration in his chest that woke something up in me.

"Then he's an idiot."

"I want to forget." The words tumbled out before I could stop them. "Just for tonight. I want to forget everything."

His eyes darkened, pupils blown wide. When his grip tightened on my waist, possessive and sure, I didn't pull away.

"You sure about this?"

"No." I laughed, and it came out broken. "But I'm doing it anyway. I'm so tired of being the good girl who does everything right and still gets fucked over."

He kissed me before I could second-guess myself. It wasn't gentle or sweet—it was desperate and hungry and exactly what I needed.

When we broke apart, both breathing hard, he gave me one more out. "Last chance."

I kissed him instead of answering.

He lifted me easily, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he carried me to the leather couch. Both our masks stayed on. Two strangers in the dark. Maybe that was better. Safer.

His hands found my zipper. "Tell me to stop."

"Don't." I pulled him closer. "Don't stop."

Clothes hit the floor. His jacket, my dress, his shirt. The mask stayed on, and I was grateful. This wasn't about knowing each other—it was about forgetting.

"You're beautiful," he murmured against my collarbone, and I almost believed him.

My mask came loose at some point. I felt it slip, heard it hit the cushions.

He froze.

When he pulled back to look at me, really look at me, his eyes had gone wide. For just a second, they flashed gold. Wolf eyes.

"Mate."

The word came out barely above a whisper, rough and wondering, but I was too drunk to process it. The room tilted, and deep inside, my wolf stirred with something like recognition. But the vodka had dulled everything, blurred the edges of instinct I might have listened to sober.

"What?"

"Nothing." He kissed me again before I could ask, but something had changed. His hands were gentler now, reverent. Like I was something precious instead of a stranger he'd picked up at his own club.

Afterwards, wrapped in his arms with his jacket draped over me, I heard him whisper, "Stay."

But I was already gone, dragged under by exhaustion and alcohol and the overwhelming need to stop thinking.

---

I woke to a pounding headache and a mouth like sandpaper.

It took a few seconds to remember where I was. The private room. The club. The stranger with silver eyes who I'd—

Oh God.

I sat up too fast. The room spun. His jacket slid off my bare shoulders. He was still asleep beside me, mask still firmly in place, and the sight of him, of us, naked on this couch like I was the kind of person who did this—my stomach twisted.

What had I done?

I needed to leave. Now. Before he woke up and I had to face this sober.

I moved carefully, extracting myself without waking him. Found my dress crumpled on the floor, my shoes kicked off near the door. My mask—I grabbed it, shoved it into my purse.

He looked peaceful sleeping there. Part of me felt guilty for running. But the bigger part, the part currently drowning in shame and confusion, just needed out.

The hallway was empty, silent in that dead-of-night way. The club had that post-party feeling, chairs stacked on tables, lights up, magic gone.

Outside, the predawn air bit at my bare arms. My car was still in the back lot where I'd left it a lifetime ago.

I couldn't stop seeing his eyes. Couldn't stop feeling his hands on my skin, couldn't stop hearing that word: mate.

What did that even mean?

Baker Street was deserted at this hour. I parked behind the building and stared up at the painted window: "Della's Sweet Dreams" in cheerful yellow letters that suddenly seemed naive.

Mom's dream. My inheritance. My anchor for five years.

She'd built this bakery from nothing after Dad left, worked herself to exhaustion to make it succeed. When the cancer came, fast and brutal, she'd made me promise to keep it going. I'd promised, and then I'd run—from the pack, from expectations, from myself—straight into flour and sugar and the comforting predictability of rising dough.

I let myself in through the side entrance, climbed the stairs to my apartment, locked the door behind me.

"What have I done?" My voice echoed in the empty space.

I didn't even know what he looked like under that mask.

The shower couldn't wash away the feeling of his hands, his mouth, the way my wolf had recognized something in him that I couldn't name. I dressed in my usual work clothes, jeans, a soft t-shirt, hair pulled back, trying to find normal again.

But as I stood in my kitchen drinking coffee and watching the sun come up, I couldn't stop thinking about him. Couldn't stop remembering how safe I'd felt in his arms, how right it had been in a way nothing had felt right in years.

And I couldn't shake the feeling that my wolf knew something I didn't. Something important.

Something I'd probably just run away from.