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H eart pounding in my ears, the frantic thuds echo in my skull, a dull roar that seems to muffle everything around me. Every muscle coils tight as scorching breaths scald the nape of my neck. His low, rumbling voice drips with dark promise, searing across my senses.

“We clear on that, dura?ka?”

An involuntary whimper slips out, muffled by the calloused palm clamped over my mouth. I squirm futilely against his implacable restraint, hyper-aware of every point where our bodies merge. His rigid length lodged deep inside me radiates searing brands of pleasure and discomfort, the intrusion feeling like it’s splitting me apart.

Yet despite the invasive agony lancing through me, some innate part of my psyche rebels at the notion of surrender. That same defiant spirit that kept me scrapping for survival now screams in outrage at the prospect of capitulation. There’s power in not giving sick fucks like him the satisfaction of seeing you squirm and cry. I’m not fucking helpless, and I’ll be damned if any man makes me feel that way.

Jaw clenched, I force my muscles to uncoil through sheer will. Though the subtle shifts send electric jolts up my spine from where his pierced cock nudges against my cervix, I refuse to give him the satisfaction of any reaction beyond a muffled whimper.

Tasting iron, I swallow and somehow hold perfectly still despite the exquisite torture of that wicked shaft impaling me. Every laboured breath carries the overwhelming musk of his arousal mixed with my own slick essence.

His gravelly tone slithers near my ear once more. “Good girl.”

Those words act like a lit fuse, every muscle abruptly going rigid in knee-jerk defiance. An instinctive reaction surges through me, recalcitrant to the core at such demeaning condescension.

Suddenly, Arius’ hand is no longer clamped over my mouth. His calloused fingers trail down my throat in a lingering caress as the arm pinning me loosens fractionally. Perhaps sensing my imminent rebellion, perhaps indulging his own twisted whims—either way, it’s the opening I need.

Releasing a feral snarl, I explode into motion. Spine arcing, my head whips back to connect with his jaw. Both hands shoot down to clamp around his wrist, struggling to dislodge that brutal cock from its invasion.

Before I can fully execute the attacks, that steel band of an arm constricts around my midriff. My wild bucking only grinds that obscenely thick cock deeper, the curved barbells rasping against my front wall in gut-punching ecstasy.

A choked gasp punches from my lungs as Arius rides out my frenzied onslaught. When the feeble waves of resistance ebb, he retaliates in a blur.

One hand seizes my chin in an uncompromising vice, jerking my face around to the merciless intensity blazing in those molten depths. “Naughty, defiant little suka,” he intones, each word dripping caustic menace.

My breath catches, stolen by the ferocious intensity searing from his hooded gaze. Arius’ stare alone paralyses me more effectively than any restraint. His thumb digs into the soft flesh beneath my lip with bruising pressure.

“Don’t test me,” he growls, “unless you crave having that pert ass striped bloody while I fuck every shred of defiance out of you right here on this table.”

“Arius—”

“Shut the fuck up!”

A violent shudder rips through me at the menace layered in each guttural syllable thrown at one of the men across the table. There’s no ambiguity regarding the brutality he’s capable of unleashing. Every nerve ending thrums with primal awareness, anticipating the first lash of torment.

Yet despite the danger bleeding from him, some reckless impulse compels me to provoke the beast. Moistening my parched lips, I allow them to quirk into a brazen smirk that doesn’t reach my eyes.

“Funny how you assume my disobedience stems from defying your authority,” I rasp out with derisive scorn, “when I simply crave experiencing the full unbridled force you’re restraining.”

There. My gauntlet has been thrown with that openly insolent dare. The only question is how he’ll retaliate against such blatant provocation. Or will it trip him up enough to loosen his hold?

A resounding silence swallows the booth, the air vibrating with Arius’ tightly leashed fury. Even Jace and Hayes have gone mute, wary trepidation flickering across their angular features. The suspense stretches out in excruciating increments.

Arius’ phone buzzes where it was unceremoniously discarded onto the booth, the vibration echoing through the leather louder than necessary. Nobody moves to pick it up. The distraction is enough to have my gaze wavering down to the screen where its lit up, a message flashing in a quick blur before the screen goes dark.

Brooks: ‘Stop fucking around and get it done, Whitlocke.’

Before I can process the context behind that message, Arius’ hand lances out to seize a fistful of my hair to pull my gaze back up. Not with brutal force, but exaggerated slowness, each movement telegraphed as though committing it to memory.

Chest heaving, I can only watch in petrified fascination as he deliberately winds my mane around his fist. The casual dominance behind such an unassuming action proving infinitely more disquieting than any frenzied violence. Once gathered into an iron grip, he tugs fractionally—not enough to inflict genuine pain, yet adequate to arch my spine and expose my throat in silent ultimatum.

Our bodies are meshed together, every inch smelting into seamless, scorching lines. His pierced cock remains impaled balls-deep, those steel adornments rasping and grinding against every tingling nerve ending in relentless torment. The angle shifts, dragging the bulbous crown along my front wall and causing the frenum piercings to massage that throbbing bundle of nerves with each subtle shift.

All of which should be sending me into an irate fit, clawing to get away. But this exquisite torment of dangling on the razor-sharp edge between rapture and subjugation? It’s shattering the last remnants of my composure.

Goosebumps erupt along my skin as Arius leans in, warm breath fanning across my neck in wicked contradiction to the glacial menace in his voice.

“So bold when backed into a corner, aren’t you? Always ready to lash out like a cornered viper when threatened.” There’s an undercurrent of gruff admiration beneath the scathing derision.

“The sad reality is that no matter how ferociously you bare your fangs in a bid to strike fear, any experienced hand can simply overpower and exploit that spirited nature. It’s tragically predictable, drahu?ka.”

Ragged gasps rip from between my clenched teeth as his hand clamps over my inner thigh with bruising force. Fingertips dig ruthlessly into the tender chimaera brand emblazoned there, the intricate markings yet to fully heal. Each burn throbs with agony any time friction grazes it.

The punishing grip wrenches my legs wider, decimating my feeble attempt to squeeze them closed. An involuntary mewl trembles past my lips as his thick shaft shifts, the piercing grinding against my cervix.

“Keep those thighs spread,” he snarls, each syllable reverberating through my marrow. “Or I’ll start fucking that dripping cunt over this table where anyone can watch me take you. They won’t say a word, won’t even contemplate intervening. Because unlike you, dura?ka, they know where they stand.”

A shudder wracks my frame at the lewd promise darkening those quicksilver irises. I don’t understand what he calls me half the time, not even sure what language it is. Sounds Russian, but something tells me it’s not.

Already, slick arousal seeps from my throbbing core to mingle with the lingering sweat pooling where my thighs meet hips. The thought of him claiming me so brutally in public ignites a maelstrom of conflicting sensations.

Molten lust and humiliated shame wage war, the dual compulsions leaving me adrift in primitive desire and visceral revulsion. Before the warring impulses can manifest into action, Arius shifts with leonine grace.

The sinewy muscles of his abdomen ripple as his torso arches over my hips. One palm flattens against the small of my back, the other arm curling to enfold my waist in a vice-like embrace. The cage of his powerful frame cants forward, trapping me flush to the tabletop as he leans over my yielding form.

A shudder wracks my tensed muscles when a soothing caress trails up my spine in stark contrast to his previous brutality. Arius’ low timbre brushes the nape of my neck in a silken purr that belies its underlying menace. “Shhhh… There’s a good girl. Just give in to me, drahu?ka.”

Those molten words drip wicked sin, coating my senses in pure, undiluted desire. Every tendon goes rigid in reflexive defiance even as my cunt clenches with yearning around his impaling length. The aching vacancy inside me screams to surrender, ravenous for the dark rapture his body promises if I simply… comply.

Amidst such scorching madness, Jace’s acerbic drawl cuts through the lust-fogged haze. “For fuck’s sake, Arius. Couldn’t you have waited until we got back to the Cluster? Some of us want to keep what remains of our reputations.”

The contemptuous statement draws my wandering focus back to our surroundings. To the leather booth bracketing our sordid display, the plush upholstery and polished table upon which Arius has me pinned like a hapless doe before a predator.

Christ, they’re lounging across the seating while observing our every lewd act with nonchalance. As if bearing witness to Arius defiling some random chit by ramming his cock home in the middle of a club is just another Tuesday for these twisted sadists.

I feel the tips of my ears blaze with mortification even as molten arousal trickles down my thighs, the paradoxical sensations threatening to fracture what remains of my sanity.

Arius’ only response to Jace’s remark is a terse scoff muffled against my shoulder blade, his lower abdomen tensing. With each rhythmic flex, that pierced monstrosity wedged inside me throbs to more obscene proportions, the steel barbells grinding against my front wall with every subtle shift.

Biting the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood, I blink furiously against the stinging haze clouding my vision. This can’t go on. I have to regain some control before their depraved games completely obliterate any last vestiges of my self-possession.

Trying to focus past the rising tide of anguished ecstasy and shame leaves my head spinning. Maybe I could improvise some leverage against them? Force this encounter to transpire on my own terms rather than playing the powerless victim?

With renewed vigour coursing through my limbs, I tense my core muscles and grind my hips backward in a serpentine undulation. The subtle friction causes his cockhead to nudge that deepest, most deliriously sensitive part of my pussy, instantly sparking white-hot rapture to rocket up my nerves.