For half a heartbeat, I almost manage it.
But then the music shifts, slows, something sultry and dangerous. The stranger leans in, lips ghosting the edge of my jaw. The scent of him hits and it’s not right. It’s not Alaric.
I open my eyes.
He’s looking at me like he expects something. Maybe permission, an invitation, both. I force a smile, brush a thumb over his jaw, and feel absolutely nothing.
“Buy you another?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say.
We head back to the bar. We trade names—his is Eli—and an exchange of nothing sentences that are just code foryes, I see you; yes, you can come closer.The lights flicker, blue and red over his skin. I down another drink because I can’t stop the ache that keeps circling back. Every laugh I fake feels louder. Every hand that touches me feels wrong. The more I drink, the less I can forget.
“Want some air?” Eli asks, nodding toward the hallway by the bathrooms.
I should say no. I want to say no. I say “Yeah.”
We slip down the narrow corridor where the music thins to a pulse. The bathroom door swings open, spills warmth and laughter and mirror-light; a couple squeezes out, grinning. Eli looks at me like a question he’s tired of repeating. I answer by catching his belt loop and tugging him inside with me.
The door swings shut on the noise. The bathroom is a slick box of tile and chrome, air sweet with soap and something more human. A single sink. A mirror. Two stalls. The fan hums like a secret. I lean back against the counter and Eli steps into my space like he’s been invited all his life.
He kisses me like he has nowhere else to be—steady, warm, mouth confident without being greedy. No teeth, no bite. He tastes like juniper and something clean. I let my eyes fall shut and allow the lie to hold for a second: that any mouth is an answer. Heat unwinds in my chest; not the wildfire I’m used to with Alaric, but a hearth I could sit beside and pretend.
Eli’s fingers find the back of my neck, thumb stroking absently, and the gentleness knocks me sideways. I kiss him again, harder, searching for the edge. He meets me there, not backing off, not pushing past. We find a rhythm. A small sound escapes me, shameful in its relief.
The bathroom door opens, laughter spills in, dies. Someone glances, decides they don’t care, disappears into a stall. We ignore it. Eli’s hands slide to my hips, steady, present. I realize I’ve barely been touched like this—without the armor of challenge, without the dare. It makes me both softer and meaner inside.
He pushes me into the free stall, pinning me against the creaking plastic walls. I can feel his hard cock pressing against my hip. The music thrums behind the walls. My head is swimming from the alcohol.
His mouth doesn’t feel right. It’s too hard. It doesn’t listen to me.
Eli yanks my shirt off, and I let him. He’s kissing my neck, his hand passing over the bulge in my jeans. And it almost feels like Alaric.
Except Alaric would never grab me. He wouldn’t touch me with starved hands and greedy kisses.
Eli gets on his knees before me, unzipping my pants.
“Wait.” I pull him up by his arms.
Eli laughs, his brown eyes glinting. “Oh, you want to skip to the good part?”
“No. No.” I grab my shirt from the floor, pulling it on. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”
“What?”
But I’m already out the stall, out the club, walking the cold streets of Frost Haven.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, groaning. “Fuck, I’m such an idiot.”
How did I think I could just forget him? Like he isn’t woven in my skin. Like the taste of him isn’t my favorite flavor.
Like I wouldn’t do anything for him if he would just let me have him.
Alaric.
13
Magnus
