The night was a whore dressed in neon, and Jack stood at the window of a five-star room that cost more per night than what most people in this rotting city earned in a month. Money didn't mean a goddamn thing anymore—not when he could crack any system on the planet with a thought, his mind a blade slicing through firewalls like warm butter. He hadn't bothered robbing some poor bastard who needed the cash; no, he'd found the accounts of scumbags, drug-runners, supe-sympathizer fucks who had blood on their hands, and he'd bled them dry without a second thought.
Their money, my playground, he thought inwardly. He was already changed into a soft t-shirt and pants, the fabric soft against his skin, a luxury he hadn't allowed himself since he'd woken up in this body with someone else's grief burning a hole in his chest. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, his spine straight as a flagpole, and he stared at his own reflection in the dark glass and let the words crawl out like something alive, something that had been living in his throat for a month and was only now, finally, finding its way out.
"In just one fucking day. One goddamn day I crawl out of my normal life and land in this shit-stained excuse for a world. Gain Thor's powers and then kill one of those so-called supes in the ground. I put my fist through his face. I watched the light go out in his eyes, and I didn't feel a thing. Not guilt. Not shame. Not the thing that's supposed to come after you take a life. Just... nothing. And then more nothing. And then the nothing started to feel like something, and that something was hungry, and that something wanted more. Although one remains before this fucking hatred completely disappears. One more cunt in a cape who needs to learn what it feels like to burn. But that's tomorrow's fucking problem." He let out a laugh, a dry, hollow sound that echoed off the walls of the empty room, that bounced off the expensive furniture and the expensive sheets and the expensive silence that money bought. "Tonight? Tonight I'm gonna find something warm and willing, because what the hell is the point of coming back from the dead if you don't get your dick wet?
He turned from the window, grabbed his mobile off the nightstand, and walked out without looking back. The door clicked shut like a period at the end of a sentence.
…
The club squatted at the corner of two streets that had given up on decency long ago. Jack pushed through the entrance and the sound hit him like a fist—bass so deep it rattled his ribs, a woman's voice wailing over electronic beats that promised nothing but the sweat of strangers. The light was dim, the kind of dim that let people pretend they weren't doing what they were doing. His eyes adjusted fast, scanning the room with the casual cruelty of a man who knew he could level the whole place with a flick of his wrist.
Then he saw her.
A girl, naked as a peeled fruit, straddling a laptop on some old man's table. She was grinding like the machine was giving her pleasure, her head thrown back, her mouth open, her eyes closed, her whole body moving in a rhythm that had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the old bastard who was just sitting there, drink in hand, watching her with the dead eyes of a man who'd seen too much and forgotten how to feel.
Jack's blood heated. Goddamn, he thought, this shithole knows how to put on a show. He watched her for a moment longer, watched the way her thighs gripped the edges of the table, watched the way her fingers dug into her own skin, watched the way she moved like she was alone, like no one was watching, like the whole world had shrunk down to the space between her legs and the machine that was giving her what she needed. He made his way to the bar, grabbed a glass—he didn't need the drink, he didn't want the drink, he just needed something in his hand, something to do with his hands, something to keep them from reaching out and taking what they wanted—and leaned against the counter, his gaze already hunting. The universe, if there was one, must have been listening to the ugly little prayer in his head, because that's when his eyes snagged on two women tangled together in a booth near the back.
They were kissing. Not the polite, let's-see-where-this-goes kind of kiss. No. They were devouring each other, mouths open, tongues working like they were trying to taste each other's souls. One had short dark hair and a silver chain around her neck; the other was blonde with a smile that looked like a promise and a threat all at once. Their hands moved slow, fingers tracing collarbones, dipping just low enough to make a man forget his own name.
Jack let out a low whistle under his breath and set the glass down. "Lesbians," he said to the bartender who'd just appeared, wiping a towel over the sticky counter. "My fucking favorite."
The bartender—a thick-necked guy with a scar running through his eyebrow—gave him a flat look. "They're not a show, buddy."
"Everything's a show in this city," Jack said, and he smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "You see the way they're going at it? That's not two friends practicing for a play. That's hunger. And I'm a hungry man myself."
The bartender shook his head and moved away, his towel slung over his shoulder, his back already turned, his attention already elsewhere. He had seen a thousand Jacks. He had heard a thousand lines. He knew that some of them would get what they came for and some of them wouldn't, and none of it mattered to him either way.But Jack was already gone, his mind fixed on those two. His pulse kicked up a notch, a heat coiling low in his belly. These two. Right here. Tonight. He didn't give a shit if they came as a package deal—hell, that only made it better. He'd had enough of playing nice in his other life. Now? Now he was a god walking through a world of filth, and what did gods do? They took what they wanted.
He straightened his t-shirt, rolled his shoulders, and started weaving through the crowd toward that booth, already thinking about what he'd say—something blunt, something that cut through the bullshit. Ladies, he'd say, you look like you're having a good time. Mind if I make it better? Or maybe he'd just sit down and wait for one of them to notice him. Either way, the night was young, and Jack wasn't about to let it slip through his fingers.
He'd killed a supe with his bare hands and the power of a god. Finding two women who knew what they wanted? That was the easy part.
He was three steps from the booth when the blonde pulled back from the kiss, laughing, and her eyes—blue, sharp, the color of the sky just before a storm—swept past her companion and landed right on Jack. She didn't look startled and offended. She looked at him like she was reading a menu, her tongue running slow across her lower lip, and then she turned back to the dark-haired one and whispered something that made them both giggle.
He didn't hesitate, hesitation meant standing at the edge of something and watching it slip away while you stood there with your hands in your pockets, wondering what might have happened if you had just taken a step.So,jack walked. Without invitation, without waiting for permission, without giving them a chance to say no, he slid into the booth across from them, arms spread along the backrest, legs wide, taking up space like he was claiming territory, like the booth was his, like the club was his, like the whole goddamn city was his and he was just waiting for it to realize it.
The blonde watched him with those ice-blue eyes, her lips still wet from the kiss, her chest still rising and falling with the breath she hadn't quite caught yet. The dark-haired one—silver chain glinting under the club lights, her skin pale against the dark leather of the booth—leaned back, one hand resting on the blonde's thigh, her expression a mix of amusement and boredom, the expression of a woman who had seen a hundred men try the same thing and was waiting to see if this one was going to be any different.
Neither of them spoke first. They let him sit there, let the bass throb in the silence between them. Jack liked that. He liked that they didn't flinch.
"You two look like you know what you want," he said, voice low, almost casual. "I respect that.Most people in this place come here because they don't know what they want, or they're too scared to go after it, or they're hoping someone will tell them what to want. You're the ones doing the eating. You're the ones who walked in here and picked a table and decided that tonight, you were going to have exactly what you came for.I like that."
The blonde tilted her head. "You been watching us long, or are you just naturally creepy?"
"Been watching since I walked in," Jack admitted, not a trace of shame. "Hard not to. You've got the best table in the house."
The dark-haired one snorted. "We paid for this table. Two hundred bucks and a blowjob to the manager."
"Sounds like a fair trade," Jack said. "But I'm guessing you two aren't here for the cocktails."
The blonde traced a finger along the rim of her glass. The movement was slow, hypnotic. "We're here to get fucked up and fuck each other. What's it to you?"
Jack let the words hang. He didn't answer right away. He let them sit in the space between them, let them do the work of telling him what kind of women they were, let them show him that they weren't going to be easy, that they weren't going to be bought with a pretty face and a line, that they were the kind of women who made men work for what they wanted. He pulled out his phone—the one he'd stripped from a supe-sympathizer's account, the one that held more money than most people saw in a lifetime, the one that was a weapon in its own right—tapped a few times, and slid it across the table. The screen glowed with a banking app, a balance that made both women's eyebrows rise.
"That's…" The dark-haired one leaned forward, silver chain swinging. "That's a lot of zeros."
"That's the appetizer," Jack said. He reached out and turned the phone off, pocketed it again. "Here's the main course. Tonight, I'm not looking for love. I'm looking for two women who know what they're doing and don't need to pretend they're shy about it. You give me one night—my room, my rules, no fucking drama—and that number becomes yours. Split it however you want."
The blonde's lips curved into a smile that was half predator, half businesswoman. "My rules in bed, though. I don't care how much money you wave around. You don't get to tell me how to move."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Jack said. "I just want to watch. And participate. In that order."
The dark-haired one laughed—a sharp,dirty sound. "You want to watch two lesbians fuck, and then you want to join in. That about right?You want to sit in a chair with your cock in your hand while we put on a show for you, and then you want to come in at the end and be the hero? That about what you're thinking, pretty boy?"
"That about right," Jack said, matching her grin. "But I'm not some fucking tourist. I'm not here to jerk off in the corner and cry about it. I know how to make a woman's legs shake whether she likes men or not. You let me in the room, I'll prove it."
The blonde exchanged a glance with her companion—a whole conversation in half a second. Then she looked back at Jack, her gaze traveling down his body, slow and deliberate, like she was appraising livestock.
"You're an arrogant son of a bitch," she said.
"Dead right," Jack said. "And I'm an arrogant son of a bitch who'll have that money wired before you can say 'sucker.'"
The dark-haired one picked up her drink, finished it in one swallow, and set the glass down with a thunk. "Fuck it. I've done worse for less. You got a room nearby?"
"A pretty good room," Jack said. He let his eyes move from the dark-haired one to the blonde, from the blonde to the silver chain, from the silver chain to the hands that were resting on thighs, to the mouths that were still wet from the kiss. "Enough privacy to make as much noise as we want."
She looked at the blonde. "Babe?"
The blonde shrugged, that icy smile still playing on her lips. "He's got the money, and he's got a pretty face. I say we take him for everything he's got."
Jack stood up, smooth as oil on water. He offered a hand to each of them, not as a gentleman, but as a man who'd already won. "Then let's not waste the night."
The blonde took his hand, her grip firm, her skin warm. The dark-haired one followed, rising from the booth with a fluid grace that made Jack's gut tighten.
"One condition," the blonde said, pulling close enough that her breath brushed his ear. "You talk too much, I'm putting that silver chain around your neck and pulling until you shut up."
Jack's laugh was low, genuine, almost warm. "Sweetheart," he said, "I'm counting on it."
They walked out together, the three of them cutting through the crowd like a blade through flesh, and the door of the club swung shut behind them with a sound like a mouth closing on a secret.
.....