“Consent”

*Harper*

My throat burned.

The drink. The warmth inside me had gone from comforting to suffocating. Like someone had wrapped cotton around my thoughts, muffling them just enough to slow my reaction time.

I swallowed against the rising nausea. “You drugged me.”

He didn’t deny it.

“Why?” My voice wasn’t loud, but it cut.

He raised a brow, still calm. “You don’t belong in a place like this. It’s dangerous. Men see a girl like you walk in alone and think… she’s looking for something.”

“I wasn’t alone,” I snapped. “You know that.”

He stepped closer. Too close.

“You’re not the only one with a past,” he murmured. “You think I don’t remember watching you at the front of those lectures, pretending not to exist? I saw you. I thought maybe you’d come here for a reason. To try something new.”

I took another step back.

Lance’s hand reached out, just a slight movement, maybe to steady me, maybe not. I didn’t care and I slapped it away.

“Touch me again and you’ll regret it.”

For a moment, he said nothing. He just looked at me, like I had disappointed him.

“You don’t get it,” he said softly. “Nobody’s going to hear you up here.”

My stomach flipped but I didn’t run. I didn’t scream.

Instead, I looked him dead in the eye. “You’re not the first man who thought I was easy to corner.”

Something flickered in his face then. Annoyance. Maybe worse.

And then… A voice.

Low. Dangerous.

“Lance.”

He froze.

We both turned.

At the end of the hallway, a man stood in the shadows.

Tall. Dark. Expensive black suit molded to a lean, powerful frame. He stepped forward once, slowly.

Lance instantly straightened. “Rowan… I didn’t see you…”

“I didn’t ask if you did,” the man said, his tone cold. “What are you doing with her?”

Her. Me.

His eyes flicked to me, and I felt it, not the leer of other men, not even interest. This was something colder, measured.

Lance took a step closer to me. “She felt unwell. I was helping her. Mind your own business, Rowan.”

He looked down at the glass still in my hand.

“You gave her that?” he asked. Quiet. Like a whisper laced with threat.

Lance hesitated. “It’s a club tradition, she said it was her birthday, so I…”

“Did she ask for it?” The man cut him off. “Did she consent to it?”

The air thickened and Lance frowned. “Rowan, I brought her here to celebrate…”

In my head, I was screaming. He had the nerve to lie so blatantly. 

There was a long silence. I could hear my heart beat. Then, the man looked at me again, not with softness, not with pity, but with something harder.

“Interesting,” he said to Lance as he walked to me until he was next to me, and rested a hand on my back. “Because she came with me to the club, and now I find out you brought her here of all places…”

My heart started to beat faster, if even possible.

Lance almost flinched, and then he gave a step back, running his hand on the back of his head. “Fuck…” he then pretended to smile. “Well damn, there goes my luck,” he chuckled awkwardly and all I wanted to do was to slap his face hard.

The man didn’t respond, he turned to me and locked his eyes with mine. “I got you,” he whispered, and then leaned in to kiss my lips.

Time froze. I gasped, and I felt myself burn under this kiss. Who was this stranger?

He kissed me like he owned me. And worse? For a split second, some dark, traitorous part of me didn’t mind. His grip on me was firm, his lips claiming. I never imagined a simple kiss could be so earth-shattering.

When he pulled apart, he stared at Lance again. “You are still here? Leave.”

Lance cursed under his breath once more, then bolted. I honestly did not care about him anymore, between the dizziness and nausea, the confusion and the heat from… him. Rowan… I repeated his name again and again in my head.

He turned back to me. “Can you walk?”

I nodded, barely making sense of what had just happened. He held out a hand, not demanding. Not coaxing. Just… waiting, and I stared at it, then placed mine in his.

It was the first time I’d touched someone and felt the danger, not behind them, but inside them.

He didn’t smile, he only said, “You’re not going to remember this place the same way again.”

And we walked.