Time seemed to slow inside the club, narrowing down to the man pretending to be prey and the woman convinced she was the predator.
She gave Kael a confident, unhurried smile, then gestured to the bartender for the same drink he had. Only after that did she slide onto the seat beside him, close enough to ignore the space strangers usually kept.
Kael looked at her through alcohol-blurred eyes. Her closeness, the casual invasion of his space, the way she behaved as if familiarity had already been established, drew a faint pause from him.
She either didn't notice or chose not to. She leaned closer, her breasts pressing against him with deliberate softness, her body speaking before her words ever could. Her lips hovered near his ear, her voice playful, low, intimate.
"I'm not eating you here with everyone watching… so relax~."
She drew back just enough to see his face, though her body remained close, her delicate yet enticing scent lingering around him, clinging and refusing to fade. Their eyes met.
"I'm just here to drink. Two sad souls, drinking together. Beats drinking alone… right?"
Sad soul? You?
The lie was obvious, and she knew it. So the way she grouped herself with him wasn't meant to convince him. It was meant to establish footing.
Kael said nothing. He didn't call out her calculated performance, not after she had clearly seen him drive away the woman who approached before her.
Unlike the first one, whose words had been clumsy and spontaneous, this woman spoke with elegance, each line refined and placed with care. She carried the quiet confidence of someone certain she wouldn't be turned away.
She was different.
She was the long-awaited target he had been waiting for.
He still didn't fuck her, and she didn't open her legs for him either. The outcome wasn't secured yet, but it was only a matter of time. So, with his mind settling into a calmer rhythm, Kael broke eye contact, turned back to his glass, and finally spoke.
"Sure."
The woman caught his response, and the corner of her lips curved into something beautiful and dangerous. Under the faint light of the club, it went unnoticed by everyone but him.
She leaned back into her seat, still close enough that their shoulders touched, yet just far enough to signal restraint.
Silence returned to the quiet corner. Not the silence of solitude, but the heavier kind, where two people shared the same space and pretended nothing was happening. Two identical drinks sat between them.
Is she really here just to drink?
Maybe.
Kael didn't bother questioning it. Time was running, and he didn't care. Her manners were immaculate, polished to match the version of himself he was playing tonight, the proud rich man with fractures hidden beneath the surface.
But he saw through her easily. The glances held half a second too long. The slight turns of her body. The quiet adjustments meant to keep his attention. Things most people missed.
She was an opportunist.
And that was fine.
He hadn't come here looking for something real. He came to find a beautiful woman willing to throw herself at him so he could fuck her.
For that purpose, she was enough.
Minutes slipped by. The sharp scent of whisky no longer stood alone, now tangled with the delicate, alluring smell of the unnamed woman beside him, persistent and close.
Eventually, she spoke. Light flirting at first, casual and practiced, her words probing carefully for his situation, peeling for information without making it obvious.
Kael brushed her off with short, evasive answers. He gave her a pitiful smile and mentioned a bad situation, which was true enough. After all, he had just been kicked out of Axon.
He didn't go deeper. But, maybe that faint, miserable smile seemed to tug at something in her? Because she shifted from probing to comforting, and then began talking about herself instead.
Whether what she said was true or not, he didn't know. He didn't care to remember either. Not in his current drunken state, where even holding onto his act without slipping was starting to take effort.
Still, he forced himself to stay alert. So when she suddenly said, "This place really feels like everyone's pretending to be someone else," his slowed thoughts stalled for a moment.
And you're not pretending?
The thought came easily. Confidently. There was no way she had caught on to him.
Kael regained his composure almost instantly. He didn't care whether that line was another probe or just drunken honesty. After all, he wasn't deceiving her by pretending to be something he wasn't.
Despite the small rises and falls, the quiet battle of wits between them continued. The conversation dragged on, growing looser, more disorganized as the alcohol took hold.
By then, the woman was leaning fully into him, her body practically glued to his side. She was clearly drunk, already wasted, and to Kael, she looked ready to be eaten.
He had no doubt that if he stood up to leave, she would follow without hesitation. As if that was how this was always meant to end.
But should he take the initiative?
Wouldn't that go against the rule of the game he had set for himself?
In this contest of patience, where he was already at a disadvantage, Kael hesitated for the first time.
He was a heavy drinker himself, but he had already reached his limit. And the woman, despite looking just as drunk, wasn't. Not really. She was pretending.
Shaking his head slightly, breathing out through his nose, Kael decided not to go back on his words.
Still, doing nothing felt anticlimactic. Boring.
So he made a different move.
His left hand slid from the bar and drifted onto her thigh.
Not taking the initiative didn't mean he couldn't take advantage of the situation.
She flinched at his touch, surprised, but only for a moment. In the end, even as his hand began to caress the firm, warm flesh of her thigh, she said nothing.
Seeing that, Kael seemed to forget where he was entirely. His hand moved with slow confidence, dancing over her thigh as if no one else existed around them.
When his fingers brushed the fabric and lifted instead of slipping beneath it, she tensed, a brief flash of panic crossing her face.
And when his touch finally reached the thin layer of fabric that marked the last line between teasing and intent, she pressed closer to him and suddenly spoke.
"I think you're already too drunk and should stop drinking~."
Her voice was soft, amused.
"If you're still looking for a way to forget your troubles, I can think of several that are much more fun, and taste much better, than that scotch."
She tilted her head slightly, lips close to his ear.
"So… should we take our leave. Together?"