The man before me didn’t speak for a long moment.
His head tilted, just slightly. He blinked once. Then twice. The faintest twitch flickered at the corner of his mouth, like he was fighting the urge to laugh—but not from amusement, more like disbelief.
“You really believe that?”
I didn’t answer. I dropped my gaze to the ground, trying not to fold in on myself.
A low humph slipped from his throat. “Come on. You can’t convince me that you have no idea what you look like on that stage.”
I glanced up, humiliation burning my cheeks. I did know. I knew exactly how to make men want me when I was seducing them with my moves. But there was no way I could admit that to him. He already had me so off-kilter.
He moved in closer, until his chest brushed up against the new coat he’d given me.
“You know how difficult it was to hack into The Sacrifice’s camera feeds just to watch you?” he murmured. “How disgusting it is to listen to those drunk bastards scream your name like you’re a goddamn altar they want to die on?”
My stomach tightened.
“You’re not just a performer, Lyla. You’re the most beautiful fantasy. Every night you climb that rigging barefoot, every time you swing on that pole with it between your thighs, you hold every man’s dick in your hands—and you never even touch them.”
My face went hot again. And suddenly, the chill in the air was gone, replaced by a pulse of heat that rushed straight to my core.
He’d watched me intentionally—not stumbled across footage of me on social media, but actually hacked into the club’s cameras just to see me. My heart gave a traitorous little lurch.
I should’ve felt violated. I should’ve screamed at him, shoved him, called him every name I knew. But the only thing I could do was stand there, drowning in his words. I was stunned at the way my body was responding to him. He’d said I was themost beautiful fantasy.
Of course I knew the men at the club leered at me. I heard their catcalls, and I tolerated them because I needed the money they threw at the stage more than my pride. But hearing it from him—a man who scared the hell out of me, a man who could snap necks without hesitation? Knowing I had affectedhim?
It sent an electric current straight between my thighs.
“You don’t have to get naked to sell desire,” he went on, his voice rough and hot like a shot of vodka. “You do it with every roll of your hips, every fucking arch of your spine. You walk out under those lights and wrap every man in the room around your little finger, and they’ll line up to buy you, sunshine. Every last one of them.”
I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood, clenching my hands at my sides.
A part of me disliked that he’d watched me perform, but the other part wondered what he would do if I put on a private show just for him.
I didn’t want to feel this way about a man like him, but Idid, and it was getting harder to lie to myself about it.
He saw something in me I kept buried. Something primal. Something I thought I could only ever let play out in my darkest daydreams.
And worst of all, I liked that he did.
I shook my head. “Stop—”
“No,” he said firmly. “You need to hear this.”
“I’m not like that,” I said quickly. “I—I wouldn’t let it happen. I can quit. I could walk away tomorrow. He wouldn’t— Delgado wouldn’t—” My voice faltered. “I don’t think I’m his type to…to sell. He makes a lot of money off my act. I’m like—like a curiosity. Nobody buys the circus girl.”
His stare was unflinching. “You think a man like Delgado lets an asset walk just because she decides she’s done?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
He leaned in, close enough that his lips touched the shell of my ear.
“Hard-headed little thing, aren’t you?”
My body began to betray me then. My breathing turned shallow, and I shivered—more from his nearness than the cold air.
“I’ve always liked women with some fight in them,” he murmured. “Makes it more satisfying when they finally break.” His gaze dipped to my rapidly rising and falling chest, and he grinned as though he was accepting some kind of challenge. “Not all the way. Just enough to ruin them for any other man. To teach them what obedience tastes like—with rules, with discipline, with pain.”
