Chapter 13 Interest
BASTIAN'S POV
Kaden Winters, twenty-five....
Works six nights a week at Orphic, sometimes seven when someone inevitably flakes out. He lives in a rented house about thirty five minutes from the club. Month-to-month lease. He shares it with Josie Desir....a social media influencer with almost half a million followers.
He moved here at nineteen. Dropped out of a marketing program after a year because the debt didn’t make sense for someone who hated classrooms. Three years behind that bar. Good with people. Good memory. Faster hands than most trained bartenders.
Too quick with his mouth....Too proud for his own good. And until a month ago, he was dating a man named Aaron....thirty-one, commitment issues disguised as artistic temperament.
Male....
I like that detail, it simplifies things.
He’s single, he’s struggling, and he’s currently the only thing capable of making me lose my composure in public.
The elevator climbs silently toward the penthouse. I stare at my reflection in the mirrored wall. The whiskey is a cold, sticky brand against my chest. The stain on my shirt has darkened as it dried. The whiskey left a smell that lingers....sweet, sour, clinging.
It makes my skin crawl. The doors open, I step out and head straight for the bedroom. Every light in the apartment is on. Every single one. The living room lamps, the kitchen pendants, the hallway sconces, the recessed lighting in the study. Even the small reading lamp beside the sofa that I never actually use. Light fills every corner.
I hate the dark.
It’s a vacuum that invites the past to fill it, a playground for ghosts that have no business in my present. The club was intolerable, the dim lighting there pressed in on the edges of my vision like fog. It blurred things. Hid things.
I don’t like hidden things.
Which is why I didn’t stay. Not even for the satisfaction of watching Kaden Winters unravel a little more.
I strip the moment I reach the bathroom. The shirt comes off first, peeled away from my skin with something close to disgust.
Contaminated.
I drop the clothes straight into the washer and start the cycle before I can think about it too much. A towel wraps around my waist. In the shower, steam rises quickly, fogging the glass. When the water hits my skin, my shoulders finally loosen a fraction.
Warmth runs down my chest, over the faint redness where I scrubbed earlier with napkins like that would erase the feeling. I close my eyes and make a mental note not to scrub too hard. Last time I did that, the skin split. Tiny lines along my ribs where the brush had dragged back and forth until red beads surfaced through the foam.
Control requires discipline.
Discipline requires restraint.
Water runs down my arms as I press my palm against the tile. The apartment hums quietly beyond the bathroom walls. Washer spinning. Air circulation whispering through vents. Predictable sounds. Good sounds.
I breathe out slowly.
But even here, under perfectly controlled temperature and lighting, something else lingers in the back of my mind. A pair of hazel eyes across a bar. A mouth that runs too fast for its own safety. The way Kaden Winters froze when I leaned close enough for him to hear me. The way his pupils blew wide, swallowing the hazel until they were as dark as the rooms I detest.
The moment his body betrayed him....I noticed.
Water slides down my chest, the image of him lingers like a fingerprint I can’t quite wash away. I brace one hand against the cool tile and let the water run down the back of my neck.
I recall the way he moved behind that bar. The fluid, practiced grace of a man who thinks he’s in control. I watched him walk away from me....no, it wasn't a walk. It was a retreat. A frantic scramble for safety. He ran to hide, and the realization thrills me in a way a closed merger never could.
He’s a high-risk, high-reward venture. The challenge doesn't just interest me.... it’s the only thing making my blood feel like it’s actually moving through my veins.
I close my eyes and wrap my hand around my cock, my grip tight and demanding. I begin to stroke, a slow, punishing rhythm that matches the thud of my heart. I think of him pinned against that bar. I think of the way his breath hitched when I told him exactly how I’d take him. I imagine the sound he’d make if I stopped talking and actually did it....the shattered, melodic gasp of that voice losing all its composure.
Most people don’t run from me, they orbit. They linger too long, hoping proximity will buy them something. Approval. Favor. Opportunity.
Kaden Winters does the opposite, he bolts. Like a small company trying to stay independent after realizing a larger firm has taken an interest. But resistance only makes things more interesting. And hostile takeovers have always been my favorite.
He reacts every time I get close.
Not just the words, not just the attention.
Proximity.
I saw it in the way his breathing changed. The way his shoulders tightened when I leaned across the bar. The flicker in his eyes when my voice dropped low enough that it brushed across his skin. He can deny it all he wants, but bodies don’t lie well. And I’m very good at reading them. Even over the music, even through the dim lighting I despise, I felt it.
Interest.
Reluctant and unwanted, but very real. And once I notice something like that, once a pattern reveals itself, I don’t stop until I understand exactly how far it goes.
The water runs hotter, my hand tightens slightly against the tile. The pace of my strokes quickens, a ruthless, driving motion. I’m thinking about the way his lips would feel crushed under mine, the way his sharp tongue would go silent the moment I claim it.
I see him pinned, his pride finally shattering beneath the weight of me. My muscles coil, my breath hitching in my chest as the tension reaches its breaking point. I drive my hand faster, more desperate, until the world narrows down to the blinding white light and the sudden, violent release that leaves me shaking against the wall.
I stay there for a long moment.... I'm spent, but not satisfied. Satisfaction will only come when the prize is in my bed. I want to break that pride. I want to see the moment he stops fighting.
Steam still clings faintly to my skin as I step out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. I sit on the edge of the bed, reaching for my phone. The screen lights up immediately with a new message from Angela....I open it.
‘Kaden Winters just emailed. He wants to pull out of the contract. How should I proceed?’
There's an attached screenshot with his formal apology. For a moment I just stare at the message, picturing him pacing somewhere, convincing himself that backing out will fix the situation. Then I unlock the keyboard and type a response to Angela. I hit send, set the phone back on the nightstand, and lean back against the headboard, the faintest trace of a smile lingering on my lips.
He thinks he’s hiding in the dark, but I’m going to pull him into the light until there’s nowhere left for him to go but down on his knees for me.