Chapter 7

The air in the VVIP room was thick with the scent of expensive cigar smoke, expensive perfume, and pure, undiluted lust. I had seen a lot working at Lust & Lace, but this… this was a different stratosphere.

On the central stage, two women who were completely naked, moved with a primal grace around polished chrome poles. They weren’t just dancing; it was a raw display of flesh and fantasy, a transaction of temptation happening right before my eyes. 

One arched her back, offering her breasts to the hazy air, while the other slowly trailed her fingers down her own stomach, her eyes locked on the men who watched.

And they watched, mesmerized. Two of Dominic’s associates had already vanished into the shadowy recesses of the club with their chosen companions and the remaining three were deep in a low, rumbling conversation with the man whose lap I was trapped on.

I was barely processing the words, the laughter, the clink of crystal glasses. My entire universe had narrowed to a single, devastating point of contact: Dominic’s hand.

It had slipped under the hem of my dress as casually as if he were checking his watch, his palm a brand of heat against my thigh. His fingers traced lazy, maddening circles on my sensitive skin, inching higher with each second. 

I squirmed, a tiny, involuntary movement. A desperate attempt to either escape the sensation or lean into it—I truly didn’t know which. 

His grip tightened instantly, his fingers digging in just enough to still me. He didn’t so much as falter, as he continued talking to the men in a calm, composed manner, as if he weren’t at the same time setting my body on fire with every lazy stroke of his hand.

I clenched my thighs, wishing I could turn into steel, wishing I could make him stop without giving him the satisfaction of knowing just how effective he was. 

"Keep moving like that," he whispered in a low voice, his warm breath fanning my ear, "and I will bend you over this table and fuck you right here while everyone watches. You don’t want that, do you?"

A shudder of equal parts fear and want wracked my body. How could I be still when every nerve ending was screaming for more of his touch? 

And how the hell had I gone from wanting to kill him to aching for him in a way that physically hurt?

Maybe it was just because I hadn’t been laid in like forever. That had to be it. My body reacting to his touch didn’t mean I liked him any more than I hated him. It was biology; plain and simple. Like a reflex. The kind that makes you laugh when someone tickles you, even when you want to punch them for it.

I had to do something. He was clearly in a good mood and maybe I could dig some information out of him and figure out my next move.

He leaned back to take a sip of his drink, his hand pausing its ascent, though his thumb continued its gentle, torturous stroking of my inner thigh. I seized the moment. "What is this place?" I managed to ask, my eyes fixed on a dancer who was now rolling her hips in a slow, mesmerizing circle for one of the stone-faced men.

He turned his head, those icy grey eyes pinning me in place. "It is where I conduct my most discreet business meetings," he said, his tone matter-of-fact, as if discussing a corporate boardroom. He swirled the liquor in his glass. "And it is where you will be working soon." His gaze dropped to my lips, then back to my eyes, a predatory gleam in them. "Right after I have disvirgined your virgin cunt."

I hadn’t expected a real answer. I expected a deflection, a command to be quiet.

"Did you disvirgin the other girls too?" I asked, forcing the question out like it was nothing more than small talk. I prayed the tightening in my chest was curiosity and not jealousy.

He sniffed, amused. "Do I smell jealousy, Maleeshka?"

Me? Jealous? Please. I’d rather floss with barbed wire

than admit being jealous because Dominic fucking Sokolov had fucked other women. As if.

He shrugged. "I don’t fuck my strippers," he said. When the silence told him I wasn’t buying it, he added with that same slow, poisonous precision, "Except when said stripper is untouched, has a body to die for and so fucking responsive to my touch." His eyes locked on mine, and the laugh in them had teeth. "The others?" He waved a hand dismissively. "They exist to entertain my guests. You…" He let the word linger, "…will be the only one lucky enough to be fucked by me."

His words set my skin on fire and for one filthy, stupid second I felt…relieved. Not because I wanted him; God, no, but because being the one he singled out opened a door I hadn’t dared hope for. If he wanted me, exclusively, that meant private time, proximity, the angle I’d been starving for.

Judging by what I'd seen, this place wasn’t just a strip joint, it was a private fucking menagerie. The girls here ‘entertained’ upstairs, auctions, whatever nasty rituals the rich assholes paid for. I could bet my tits on it.

Maybe if I worked here, I could watch him secretly, learn the nuance that would let me pull a trigger and mean it. If he’d had Haley neutralized, it meant she’d found something that could actually gut him, something that could topple his little throne if it ever got out. Whatever it was, it was worth blood. If I could dig that up, I could sell it to his enemies, or leak it so hard his empire splintered. And then I'd kill him when he'd lost everything. 

Right now my odds of killing him head-on were slim; too many guns, too many eyes. I needed time and a plan B.

And as much as I hated to admit it, I was physically attracted to him. My body answered him the way it never answered anyone else, and I hated it. Hated that some muscle memory or chemical wiring in me would betray everything I’d trained for. It was sick and twisted to be turned on by the man who’d murdered my sister, but my traitorous body didn't care about vows or vengeance.

I had tried to stop it. But desire and rage folded together until I couldn’t tell which one was doing the leading. It made me want to puke and purr at the same time.

So I stopped fighting the feeling and decided to weaponize it. If my body was going to lie, then let it be the lie that killed him later. Let it close the distance he wanted so I could learn the angles, the reach, the exact moment his guard slipped. And then I would strike. 

So I let him touch me.

His hand began to move again, but this time, his fingers crept higher, sliding beneath the lace edge of my panties. I gasped, my head falling back against his shoulder as his blunt fingertips grazed through my panties. Oh, God. The room, the dancers, the foreign voices, it all blurred into a distant hum. The only reality was the rough pad of his finger tracing my slit, discovering the wet heat I couldn’t hide.

The shithead was still talking business in that calm, collected voice while his fingers were definitely not where they should’ve been.

A soft, broken moan escaped my lips before I could stop it. I bit down on my lower lip, trying to stifle the sound.

One of the men glanced over, a knowing smirk playing on his lips before he turned back to the stage. Humiliation burned my cheeks, but it was utterly consumed by a wave of even more intense pleasure. They could see. They knew. And I didn’t know what to feel about that.

"They are wondering," Dominic whispered, his finger beginning a slow, relentless rhythm against my damp panties. "If your cunt tastes as sweet as you look. But I think I will keep that answer for myself."

"Wait…" I whimpered, my own voice sounding foreign to me, choked with need. "We can't...there are people here."

"Shhh," he soothed, even as his fingers moved against me with a slow, deep fucking motion that made my inner muscles clench. "Let them see you come for me."

Was he insane? There was no way in hell I was letting him touch me like that with a whole audience just a few feet away. And yet—God help me—the very wrongness of it, the danger of being seen, the sheer forbidden edge of his hand on me made my thighs press together, made the wet heat between them throb hotter. 

"Please, let's go somewhere else." 

His finger pushed inside me, just the tip, a slow, shocking invasion. My inner muscles clenched around him, a swift, involuntary spasm of pleasure that made me bite down on my lower lip to stop a moan. He chuckled softly and finally withdrew his hand, bringing his finger to his mouth. He never broke eye contact as he sucked my taste from his skin.

"Ochen' vkusno(very tasty)," he mumbled his voice dropping into a low, intimate rumble meant only for me.

"The negotiations are concluded," he announced to the room, his voice regaining its commanding edge. He shifted beneath me, and I felt the hard, thick ridge of his erection press against my hip. "Enjoy the rest of your night, gentlemen."

With a final nod from the men, their attention already drifting back to the stage, Dominic stood, effortlessly taking me with him. My legs were jelly, so he simply swept an arm under my knees, cradling me against his chest. He carried me past the stage, through a concealed door lined in black velvet, and into a private hallway.

He didn’t take me to a room. He pressed me against the cool, textured wall, his body a cage of heat around me. The sound of bass from the club was a muffled throb here.

"Now, where were we?"