As if on cue, Damir glanced over and caught Kirill’s attention, making a subtle gesture toward the booth. The universal sign: Come here.
What happened next was a blur of movement and bad decisions. Kirill stood, straightened his atrocious hoodie, and made his way over with the kind of confidence that came from not giving a shit what anyone thought. He was already talking to Barbara, pulling her toward the dance floor before she could protest. Hailey lingered by the bar, still chatting with Damir.
Which left me and Cassandra on an island of silence in the middle of chaos.
She didn’t look at me. Kept her eyes fixed on her margarita like it held the secrets of the universe, like if she looked away for even a second, something fundamental would crack inside her.
I knew the feeling. I had spent the last three hours trying to convince myself that what had happened in my office was nothing—just chemistry, just proximity, just two people in the same space releasing tension that had built up over weeks of careful distance and calculated indifference.
It was a lie. A necessary one, but a lie all the same.
“Dance with me,” I said, the words coming out before I could stop them.
Cassandra’s jaw tightened. She took a long, deliberate sip of her drink and didn’t respond.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” she replied, eyes still on the glass. “My answer is no.”
I leaned back in the booth and studied her, noting the way her fingers gripped the stem of her glass a little too tightly, the way her breathing had changed the moment I’d spoken. She wasn’t indifferent. Not even close.
“You dare me the way I dare you, Cassandra.” I kept my voice low, meant only for her ears. “But you don’t take the dare.”
That got her attention. Her eyes flickered up to meet mine for just a second, enough for me to see the fire simmering under her controlled exterior before she looked away again.
“I’m not dancing with you in front of everyone.”
“Why?”
“Because it means something.”
The words hung between us, heavy with all the things we weren’t saying. About what happened in my office. About what we both felt building in the space between our bodies. About the fact that we couldn’t afford to mean anything to each other.
“Last chance,” I said, and stood up, extending my hand. I held it there, patient and still, waiting to see if she’d take it.
For a long moment, nothing. Then, like she was pulling herself out of water, Cassandra set down her glass and placed her hand in mine.
Her palm was warm, slightly damp. Her fingers were trembling just enough that only I would notice, and the knowledge that I made her shake sent something feral racing through my veins.
The dance floor was a tangle of bodies moving in sync with the bass line. The music had shifted again, something darker and more sensual, something that made movement feel like foreplay. Lights swept across skin and fabric, and the crowd pressed close on all sides, intimate and anonymous all at once.
Cassandra moved like she was carved from sharp edges, all control and calculation, until I pulled her closer. Then something shifted in her posture. The armor cracked, and I caught a glimpse of what she looked like when she stopped trying so hard—when she let herself just be with me in this moment.
We weren’t really dancing. It was more like organized chaos, our bodies finding a rhythm that had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the friction between us. My hands found her waist, fingers spreading wide against the fabric of her shirt. She turned in my hold, pressing her back against my chest, and I almost lost it right there on the fucking dance floor.
Her neck was exposed. Vulnerable. I wanted to mark her, claim her, leave evidence of exactly what she did to me written in bruises that everyone would see.
“Drew.” My name was a whisper against the roar of music, and when I leaned down, she turned to face me.
The kiss was inevitable. Necessary. Like breathing or the beat of my own heart. It wasn’t gentle like the first one had been rough—it was primal, claiming. Her arms wrapped around my neck, fingers threading through my hair, pulling me closer. She bit my lip again—same place she’d bitten before—and the pain mixed with pleasure until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
“Don’t you fucking pull back,” she said against my mouth, her voice carrying a threat that made my cock hard enough to hurt. “I swear to God, Drew, if you walk away from me this time, I will kill you.”
“I won’t,” I promised, and meant it with every cell in my body.
We didn’t make it to my apartment slowly. We crashed through the door like a storm. I had her pinned against it before it even latched, my mouth devouring hers. My keys hit thehardwood floor, a sharp metallic clatter swallowed by the slam as I kicked the door shut behind us.
“Fuck,” I growled against her lips, my hands buried in her hair.
