Next the dress.
A slip of fabric the colour of spilled ink. It clings like a promise, sliding over my skin with sinful intention. Slit to the hip. Low in the back. A neckline that whisperstouch me.
Knee-high black boots. Leather hugging my calves like a lover.
Then the mask.
God.
The mask is everything.
Hand-painted obsidian with silver filigree curling across the cheeks and forehead like vines. Feathers fanning behind each ear, soft as whispers. Crystals catching the light in small, dangerous sparks. It covers half my face enough to protect me. Enough to reveal me.
My lips. My eyes.
The parts Blake always misunderstood.
I look… unrecognisable. Powerful. A little wicked.
Like a woman who could ruin a man with one kiss.
Maybe I am.
My phone buzzes.
Dane.
Again.
Another message:
Penn? Please. Just…message me back. I don’t want to lose you.
My heart caves in. I close the screen with trembling fingers because if I answer him now, I’ll shatter.
I grab a bottle of red wine from the bench and take a long swallow straight from the neck. It burns. Good.
I grab my coat. My clutch. My courage.
And I walk out the door, down the street toward the bar that used to be mine and Blake’s but now feels like a graveyard.
The city is alive tonight. Warm bodies. Perfume thick as honey. Sweat and cologne and spilled drinks. Music vibrating through the pavement. Laughter ricocheting off brick walls. The kind of night where anything feels possible. The kind of night where lies look like glitter.
The closer I get, the louder everything becomes. Bass thumping through my bones. Lights pulsing like a heartbeat. Voices rising in messy, drunken joy. I slip through the doors into the dark, into the heat, into the sin-soaked glowas Pandora.
And somewhere in this room, Blake is waiting for a stranger.
The bar hits me like a wicked, hungry wave the moment I step inside.
Bass pounding. Lights strobing. Bodies glistening under a low, hell-red haze that makes everything look sinful enough to eat.Sweat. Perfume. Spilled beer. Citrus. Musk. Temptation with a pulse. I breathe it in. Let it coat my tongue like a drug. Because tonight… I need to forget.
Forget Dane’s message. Forget Blake’s hold. Forget the girl I shrank into under someone else’s shadow.
The music wraps around me, sinking teeth into my skin as I weave through the crowd. Leather boots on sticky wooden floors. Heat pressing. Laughter tangling with bass. My fingers clutch my clutch, my heartbeat a drum I’m trying to outrun.
Everywhere I look, masks hide truth. But tonight, so do I.
I climb the stairs to the raised booth overlooking the dance floor. The mask hugs my cheekbones, breath warm and shaky behind it. The satin of my dress clings to my hips as I cross my legs, the heel of my boot dragging across the seat, slow and deliberate. I order a drink. My drink.
