I braced my palms behind me and pushed myself up onto the counter, the cold stone biting through the thin fabric of Luka’s T-shirt. “Are you bucking for round two, cowboy?” I aimed for insolence, but the hopeful edge in my voice gave me away.
“You’re not ready for that.”
My hackles rose. “That’s pretty presump?—”
He snatched up an apple wedge and shoved it between my teeth. I had to bite down or risk juice running down my chin.
“I said you’re not ready,” Luka repeated, voice pitched low, every syllable iron. He let the moment hang, then dragged his thumb across my jaw, smearing a trace of sticky sweetnessunder my lip. “I’d like to fuck you again,” he said. “But I’m not an animal.” He tipped my chin up and considered me, as if weighing the next move on a chessboard. “Eat. Drink. Recover.” A beat. “Trust me, it will be worth it.”
chapter
ten
“Ican’t believe you’re still making me sit in the backseat.”
Luka glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “It’s safer.”
I bundled deeper into the puffer jacket he’d bought me—bulky but surprisingly light, an effective shield against the chilled night air. My work clothes felt wrong on my body again. The day felt distant, like I’d lived three lifetimes since I’d left the office that afternoon.
Luka drove, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the gearshift. He stole glances at me in the mirror but let the silence sit.
Exhaustion finally caught up—my body sated, my mind running on backup power, the hum of the engine lulling me toward sleep.
I shook off the fog and cleared my throat, still tasting apple. “That club you mentioned. The…not-dance one. Is that a real thing?”
“Yes.”
“Those actually exist? Here in London?”
His smile ticked sideways. “They do,” he said, precise and unhurried, as if the question barely touched him.
“Sorry, I just—” I tried to picture it. “I thought…sex clubs”—I forced the words—“only existed in movies. And dark romance books. I’m from Atlanta, Georgia—the American Deep South. If we have them, nobody admits it.”
He barked a laugh, sharp and unexpected. “The US is the largest producer of pornography in the world and still so sexually repressed,” he said. “A remarkable contradiction.”
“I didn’t say I was repressed. Just…uninitiated.” The word felt like a dare, so I let it hang. “What’s it actually like? The club, I mean.”
“They’re all different.”
“The one you go to.”
He took a slow turn, city lights ghosting over his hands on the wheel. “Private,” he said finally. “Invitation only. No phones. No real names. Masks mandatory. Collars if you belong to someone for the night. Waivers at the door. You consent to the risk before you walk in.”
“That’s…intense.”
“It’s not for everyone.”
“But you like it.”
He narrowed his eyes, brows pinched together. “Yes. Because it’s honest. No pretense, no lies, no bullshit games.”
“Would you take me?” The question slipped out before I could swallow it down. I picked at a cuticle—anything to avoid looking at him—as heat bloomed in my cheeks.
He didn’t answer right away—just drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Why?”
“Because you said it’s honest,” I said. “And maybe I want to see what that actually looks like.” I gave a weak laugh. “Worst case, I’ll have something to talk about in therapy.”
“Do you want to go,mila, or are you just trying to provoke me?”