Chapter 3: Claiming the Beast
The damp towel crumpled in her fist, a stark contrast to the velvet air. Damian gave a curt nod, his eyes lingering on her with an unreadable mix of appraisal and something like protection, then he slipped through the curtain, leaving her alone with Leo. The silence he left behind was dense, charged with the weight of the confession hanging between them.
Clara looked at Leo, really looked. The man she knew from boardroom lunches and her husband’s dry anecdotes was gone. In his place was this creature of shadow and corded muscle, his icy blue eyes watching her with a possessiveness that made her skin flush. The knowledge of his double life—the respectability and this raw dominion—should have felt like a threat. It felt like a key turning in a lock she hadn’t known was there.
Without a word, she dropped the towel.
She moved toward him, her steps unsteady but deliberate. He was sitting on the edge of the leather bench, forearms resting on his knees, a king on a battered throne. She didn’t stop until she stood between his spread legs. The scent of him, of them, of sex and salt, filled her nostrils.
“Years?” she asked, her voice low.
“At least four,” he said, not looking away. “Since the charity auction for the new wing. You wore emerald green. You argued with the caterer about the canapés. Your neck was flushed. I wanted to bite it.”
Her hand came up, fingertips tracing the line of his jaw, the faint stubble rough against her skin. The memory surfaced, clear and bright: a moment of frustration, a heat creeping up her chest. He had been across the room, talking to her husband. He had glanced over. She’d thought nothing of it.
“You watched.”
“I catalogued,” he corrected, his head tilting into her touch. “Every stifled yawn at a dinner party. Every time your eyes glazed over when Thomas talked about stock derivatives. The way you’d twist your wedding ring when you were bored. You were a masterpiece gathering dust in a climate-controlled room. It was a fucking tragedy.”
His words weren’t sweet. They were vandalism, shattering the glass case she’d lived in. They thrilled her.
A new fire, hot and possessive, surged up from the hollows he and Damian had filled. It wasn’t just hunger now. It was claim.
With a sudden push, she planted her hands on his broad shoulders and shoved him backward onto the bench. He let her, a flicker of surprise and dark amusement in his eyes as his back hit the leather. In one fluid motion, she straddled his lap, her knees pinning his hips, her bare, wet cunt hovering just above the hard, thick length of him that had already begun to stiffen again against her thigh.
She captured his mouth, not with tentative exploration, but with a consuming greed. Her tongue pushed past his lips, tasting champagne, sweat, and the faint, metallic hint of her own blood from where she’d bitten him. It was a kiss of ownership, of reciprocated danger. He groaned into her mouth, his hands flying to her waist, but she broke the kiss, breathing hard.
“I want to feel you again,” she whispered against his lips, her voice husky and raw. “But slower. I want to taste every fucking inch of you, Leo.”
She slid down his body, her nails scraping lightly over the hard planes of his chest and abdomen. She felt the muscles there jump under her touch. When she reached his cock, it stood fully erect, a thick, veined column of flesh, the head swollen and glistening with a drop of moisture. She didn’t hesitate. She took him into her mouth.
She started slowly, swirling her tongue around the broad crown, licking away the salty bead of pre-cum. A guttural sound tore from his throat. His hand fisted in her honey-blonde hair, not forcing, but anchoring. She took more, her lips stretching as she descended the thick shaft, her tongue pressing flat against the sensitive underside. She hollowed her cheeks, sucking hard as she pulled back up to the tip, then plunged down again, deeper this time.
“Christ, Clara,” he breathed, his hips giving an involuntary jerk.
She took it, relaxing her throat, letting him push deeper until her nose was buried in the coarse dark hair at his base. The feeling of him hitting the back of her throat, the faint, musky scent of his skin, the utterly obscene wet sounds—it dismantled her last shred of propriety. She was a wife from the suburbs on her knees, sucking her husband’s business partner’s cock in a sex club, and the truth of it was more potent than the champagne.
She worked him with devoted intensity, one hand wrapping around the base he couldn’t reach, stroking in time with her bobbing head. Her other hand cupped his heavy balls, rolling them gently. She looked up, meeting his gaze. His icy blue eyes were locked on her, blazing with a feral heat, his jaw clenched tight.
“Look at you,” he gritted out. “Such a perfect, filthy mouth for a perfect, filthy girl.”
The praise coiled tight in her belly. She sucked him harder, faster, until his breaths came in sharp pants and the hand in her hair tightened, guiding her pace. Just when she felt the tension in his thighs begin to ratchet toward release, she pulled off with a wet, popping sound.
She climbed back up his body, her own need a throbbing, desperate pulse between her legs. She positioned herself above him, reaching down to guide his slick crown to her entrance. She sank onto him slowly, so slowly, feeling every inch of his relentless stretch as he filled the empty, aching void.
A long, shuddering sigh escaped her, part relief, part conquest. She was full of him again, but this was different. This was deliberate. This was hers.
She began to move, a slow, deep roll of her hips, grinding herself down onto him, letting him brush against a spot deep inside that made her vision blur. He let her set the pace, his hands settling on her ass, fingers digging into the soft flesh, feeling the muscles work as she rode him.
“That’s it,” he murmured, his voice thick. “Take what you need. Use my cock. It’s yours.”
She leaned forward, capturing his mouth again as she moved. Their kiss was messy, open-mouthed, sharing breath and low moans. She could feel the tension building again, a coiling spring in her core, tighter and hotter than before. The slow, deep friction was exquisite torture. She broke the kiss, forehead resting against his, their panting breaths mingling.
“I’ve thought about this,” she admitted, the words torn from her. “In my pristine kitchen. Watching you shake my husband’s hand.”
“What did you think about?” he asked, his hands sliding up her back, pulling her closer.
“This,” she gasped, driving down onto him harder. “Your hands on me. Your cock in me. The sound you’d make.”
He made that sound now, a raw, ragged groan as she clenched around him. “You have no idea what you’ve done. You have no idea what you’re inviting in.”
“Show me,” she demanded, her rhythm becoming more urgent, less controlled. “Show me what I’ve invited.”
His control shattered. With a growl, he gripped her hips and took over, thrusting up into her with a powerful, driving force that stole her breath. The slow burn erupted into a wildfire. She cried out, her nails scoring his shoulders as he pistoned into her, the slap of skin on skin echoing in the small alcove. The bench creaked in protest.
“You want to be ruined?” he grunted, his gaze boring into hers. “This is ruin. This is forgetting your own name. This is knowing you’ll never feel anything this real in that cold bed of yours again.”
His words were a prophecy she welcomed. The climax gathered and broke over her with catastrophic force, a silent scream tearing through her as her body convulsed, clamping down on him with wave after wave of brutal pleasure. She collapsed against his chest, shuddering.
Her violent clenching pulled his own release from him. He held her hips down, burying himself to the hilt as he came, a hot, endless pulse deep inside her that seemed to go on forever. He uttered a single, choked word against her sweat-slicked neck—her name—not “Clara” but something lower, more guttural, a sound of pure, surrendered need.
For a long time, they stayed like that, fused together, breathing in ragged unison. The candles guttered. The distant thrum of the club was a world away.
Eventually, he softened inside her, and she shifted, wincing at the sweet ache between her legs as she slid off to sit beside him. His arm came around her shoulders, pulling her against his side. It was an unexpectedly tender gesture in the aftermath of such raw consumption.
He reached for the bottle of vintage champagne on a low shelf, its label smudged. He popped the cork with a practiced twist and took a long swig before handing it to her. She drank, the bubbles sharp and clean on her tongue, washing away the taste of him and her own salt.
“Thomas has a board meeting in Frankfurt next Thursday,” Leo said casually, staring at the velvet wall. “It’s an overnight.”
Clara took another drink, the cold liquid a contrast to the heat in her veins. She understood the offering. The invitation. The dangerous, glittering path ahead.
“I have a charity committee meeting that night,” she said, her voice calm. A lie, already formed. “It might run late.”
He turned his head, looking at her. The predator was still there, but there was something else now—a recognition, a partnership in deceit. He nodded once.
The curtain rustled, not pulled back with force, but parted quietly. Sasha stood in the opening, her silver-streaked hair a nimbus in the corridor’s low light. Her enigmatic gaze took in the scene: the empty bottle, the tangled bodies, the heavy air of spent passion and new conspiracy.
“The dawn is coming,” she said, her voice like smoke. “The outside world makes its demands.” Her eyes settled on Clara. “You’ve had your first taste of the feast. The question is, little warrior, are you hungry for the war?”
Clara met Sasha’s gaze, then looked at Leo’s profile, sharp and satisfied in the gloom. She felt the sticky evidence of the night drying on her thighs, the deep, claimed ache in her muscles, the thrilling emptiness of the lie she would now have to live.
She handed the champagne bottle back to Leo, her fingers steady.
“Starving,” she said.