The music pounded like a heartbeat, loud, primal, and relentless. Bodies swayed under the strobe lights, slick with sweat and cheap perfume. The dance floor was a writhing sea of strangers pressed too close, all chasing the same thing; forgetfulness, thrill, skin.
Odette stood by the bar, sipping her second tequila shot, her lips sticky with lime and salt. The alcohol burned her throat, warm and comforting, like fingers dragging down her spine. Miriam leaned beside her, elegant even when slightly slouched. Her voice, smooth velvet, low and posh, curled around Odette's ear.
"This place smells like desperation," she drawled, eyes scanning the crowd like a cat in a room full of canaries.
Odette smirked. "So do we."
Miriam laughed, flipping her now lose curls with the ease of someone who had once known luxury. Even when broke, she carried herself like royalty—just one who'd lost her kingdom. She turned back to the bartender and ordered another round without asking.
Odette, meanwhile, wasn't interested in alcohol anymore. Her veins buzzed with enough liquid courage. What she wanted was darker. Rougher. Flesh and forgetfulness.
Men orbited them like moths to flame, some bold, some shy, some already picturing them naked. Odette noticed the glances. She always did. Her body drew them in: a perfect balance of softness and danger, every curve sculpted for sin. Getting men had never been a problem. It was keeping them that proved boring.
Her fingers toyed with the rim of her glass as her thoughts drifted to the one man who'd never looked at her like the rest did.
Professor Lachlan.
He had taught her literary theory in her third year. Older. Distinguished. Regal in a way no twenty-something could fake. His jaw was always clean-shaven, his accent perfectly British and annoyingly restrained. He wore expensive suits like second skin. Spoke in a calm, deep voice that could lull or command.
She had been obsessed.
And not in a cute, schoolgirl crush sort of way. No, this was the kind of obsession that kept her awake at night, hand buried between her thighs, imagining him bending her over his mahogany desk while calling her filthy names. She had spent more lectures picturing his hands around her throat than actually taking notes. Her fantasies were laced with humiliation, heat, and the desperate hope that one day he might look at her, not as a student, but as a woman he wanted to ruin.
But he never had.
He barely noticed her beyond academic politeness. She had been too young, too invisible, too... beneath him. The thought still made her stomach turn.
Pathetic, really.
She tossed back the rest of her shot and blinked out of the memory. No point fantasizing about ghosts. Tonight, she needed someone real. Someone she could use to silence that maddening ache. She scanned the room again.
Blonde guy by the DJ was too cocky. Balding banker near the booth probably called his mom every Sunday. College boys in tight jeans…she could smell their insecurity from here. Her attention flicked through them like pages of a dull book, until—
There.
He stood near the edge of the crowd, half-shadowed in the dim lighting, his gaze fixed directly on her. He was older, maybe late thirties, maybe more. Black button-up, sleeves rolled up his forearms, collar undone just enough to hint at a chest she wouldn't mind sinking her nails into. His face was sharp, not conventionally pretty, no, he was masculine, dark, and weathered, He looked like a statue made of bitterness and bourbon.
And that aura…fuck. He looked like he hated the world and wanted someone to hate it with.
Perfect.
His eyes held hers, unreadable but intense. There was no smirk, no cocky little nod, just a silent, potent challenge. She exhaled slowly, set down her empty glass, and moved toward him.
She didn't say a word and neither did he. He didn't ask her name; she didn't offer it. There was no pointless exchange of pleasantries. No "what do you do," no "what's your major," none of the empty rituals of flirtation. They just stared for a moment, like wolves sniffing out the threat, or the promise.
She tilted her head slightly. An unspoken question. You in?
His eyes dropped to her lips, then her neck, then her hips. Answer received.
They slipped out through the back exit, unnoticed by most—except for Miriam, who offered Odette a single lifted brow and a knowing sip of her drink. The rain had stopped, but the air was still damp and heavy. They didn't touch as they walked, but the heat between them was undeniable.
It was a silent, shared walk. The kind that said everything. His stride was calm, patient, like he had all night—but the way he kept glancing at her legs beneath the coat told a different story.
They climbed the stairs of her building without a word, past flickering hallway lights and peeling wallpaper. Her door stuck slightly; she shoved it open with her shoulder, tossing her keys onto the table without looking back.
He stepped inside. She didn't offer a drink. He didn't expect one.
Her coat fell first; crumpling to the floor. Then his fingers were on her waist, dragging her forward. Their mouths met, clumsy and hungry, her hands already pulling at his shirt, his belt, her dress. Clothes came off in between groans and slammed walls. Her back hit the mattress and it squealed beneath them. There were no sweet nothings. No awkward laughter. No slow build.
This was not about love; it was not about kindness. This was about two broken people chasing silence in each other's skin.
He was hard, heavy in her hand, and thick enough to make her breath hitch when he pressed against her entrance. She was soaked, tight, slick, and aching for anything that wasn't silence. He didn't tease. Didn't ask. He just pushed in, a growl catching in his throat as she gasped, her body stretching to take him.
The rhythm was brutal but honest. Skin slapped against skin, her cries muffled by his mouth, his chest, her palm. Her nails carved lines down his back. His fingers gripped her hips like he needed to leave something behind; marks, proof, punishment. She met him thrust for thrust, desperate to feel full enough to forget. She moaned into his shoulder, her voice raw, trembling. Wet sounds filled the room, shameless and steady, as if their bodies had always known this kind of violence.
He fucked her like he was unraveling. And maybe he was. She took him like she wanted to disappear. She cursed, clawed, begged, not for him, but for the end of it. For release. For something to snap and let her drift away.
When it was over, they lay tangled, breathless. The sheets twisted beneath them, sticky with sweat and sex. Neither spoke. He stood up after a moment of catching his breath, dressed without a word. She didn't stop him as he paused at the door, his silhouette framed in the hallway's yellow light. Then he was gone.
She stared at the cracked ceiling, chest rising and falling. The room smelled like sweat, smoke, and strangers. Her thighs throbbed. Her body pulsed with dull aches. And for a few quiet minutes, she felt like nothing at all. She didn't feel better. But she didn't feel worse either. And that was enough.