THE ALPHA'S DEADLY ADDICTION

Chapter 4: The Dance

Angel’s pov

For a second, I just stood there, frozen in the doorway like an i***t.

Then my brain kicked back into gear.

Pull it together. He probably doesn't know it's you. He can't know it's you.

The mask covered half my face. My hair was different—styled in loose curls instead of the messy, frizzy bun I wore on campus. The makeup was heavier, darker. And this outfit... there was no way he'd connect the scholarship student who'd glared at him this morning with the stripper standing in front of him now.

He'd requested me, sure. But that was just coincidence. Bad luck. Maybe he comes here frequently and I never knew. Maybe he'd seen me on stage before and didn't realize who I was. Maybe—

"Are you going to stand there all night, or are you going to dance for me?"

His voice cut through my spiral, low and smooth and nothing like the friendly tone he'd used in the car earlier.

I lifted my chin, slipping back into my persona like armor.

"Impatient, are we?" I purred, letting my hips sway as I moved further into the space. "Good things come to those who wait."

"I've been waiting all day."

Something in the way he said it made my stomach flip, but I shoved the feeling down and focused on the pole in the center of the booth.

Just another client. Just another dance. You've done this a thousand times.

The music thrummed through the walls—something slow and heavy with a bassline that I could feel in my bones. I wrapped one hand around the pole and let the rhythm take over, my body moving on autopilot.

Arch. Spin. Extend.

I'd done this routine so many times I could do it in my sleep. Every movement calculated to tease, to tantalize, to make them want more without ever giving them everything.

But when I glanced at Jason, all my carefully practiced professionalism wavered.

He wasn't watching me like the other clients did—with detached appreciation or barely concealed lust that felt transactional and cold.

He was watching me like a predator watched prey.

Gone was the boyish smile. Gone was the golden retriever energy that had half the campus eating out of his hand. This version of Jason was sharp edges and dark hunger, his blue eyes tracking every movement I made with an intensity that made my skin prickle.

The cute, harmless mask he wore on campus had peeled away entirely, revealing something far more dangerous underneath.

And God help me, it was so much worse than I'd imagined.

The aura radiating off him was darker than Sasha on his worst business day. Darker than the Konstantins enforcers who sometimes came through to collect. This was pure, undiluted power wrapped in expensive clothes and a face that could make angels sin.

It had never occurred to me that he'd show up here. Yes, he was entitled, spoiled, used to getting whatever he wanted. But this district was for the lowest of the low, the most depraved, the kind of people polite society pretended didn't exist.

Him and his crew of old-money elites would rather roll in garbage than be caught dead in the Scarlet District.

Which meant he was just like all the other vermin who crawled through here looking for something to satisfy their darker appetites.

He had no right to judge me.

And I had no right to judge him.

The thought should have made me feel better. Instead, it twisted something hot and sharp in my chest.

I spun around the pole, letting my legs extend, my back arching in a way that I knew showcased every curve. When I glanced at him again, his gaze was locked on my hips, following the roll of my body like he was memorizing every second.

"Eyes up here," I said, my voice coming out breathier than I intended.

His gaze snapped to mine, and the heat in those blue eyes nearly knocked me off the pole.

"I'm looking exactly where I want to be looking," he said, his voice dropping an octave.

My thighs clenched involuntarily.

Professional. Stay professional.

But it was getting harder by the second—literally and figuratively, if the growing bulge in his pants was any indication.

I slid down the pole slowly, my body undulating in waves, and when my feet touched the ground, I turned to face him fully.

He was leaning back on the couch now, his legs spread in a way that was absolutely obscene, one arm draped over the back of the leather cushions. Relaxed. Confident. Completely in control.

Except his eyes.

His eyes were wild.

"Come here," he said, and it wasn't a request.

I should have said no. Should have stayed by the pole, kept the distance, maintained the professional boundary I'd spent two years perfecting.

Instead, I found myself moving toward him.

"Closer," he murmured when I stopped a few feet away.

I took another step.

"Closer."

My heart was hammering so hard I was sure he could hear it. The space between us crackled with tension so thick I could barely breathe.

This wasn't the polite, concerned boy who'd driven me through the rain and put his number in my phone "just in case." This was something else entirely. Something that made every self-preservation instinct I had scream at me to run.

But I didn't run.

I crawled.

Hands and knees on the plush carpet, slow and deliberate, my eyes locked on his the entire time. I watched his jaw tighten, watched his knuckles go white where he gripped the edge of the couch.

When I reached him, I sat back on my heels between his spread legs and looked up at him through my lashes.

"Better?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Not even close."

His hand came up to cup my jaw, his thumb brushing across my lower lip, and I forgot how to breathe.

"Tell me what you want," I managed, even though every cell in my body already knew.

"I want you to stop pretending you don't know who I am."

My blood went cold.

"I don't—"

"Angel." My name on his lips was a command and a plea all at once. "I'd know you anywhere. The mask doesn't change that."

Fuck.

"Then why—" I started, but he cut me off.

"Why am I here?" His thumb traced my jawline, his touch gentle despite the darkness in his eyes. "Because I needed to see you. Because I've been going insane thinking about you all day. Because when you told me you worked in the Scarlet District, I knew exactly what that meant, and I couldn't stay away."

"You shouldn't be here," I whispered. "This place—these people—you have no idea what you're walking into."

"Don't I?" His other hand came up to tangle in my hair, tilting my head back so I had no choice but to look at him. "You think I don't know exactly where I am? You think I don't know whose territory this is?"

"Then you're insane—"

"Maybe." His grip tightened, and I felt the sting of it all the way down to my toes. "Maybe I'm a little insane when it comes to you."

The professional part of me, the part that had survived two years in this hellhole by keeping everyone at arm's length, screamed at me to stop this. To push him away. To run.

But the other part of me, the part that had been fighting the urge to think about him all goddamn day, had already won.

"Show me," he said, his voice rough. "Show me what you do for all those other men who pay to watch you."

“I just dance.”

“Then show me what you do for your favourites.”

“I have no favourites. You’re all the same to me.”

His eyes lit up at this, a satisfied grin appearing on his lips. “Show me what it’s like to be your favourite, Angel.”

"You’re not—"

"Liar." His eyes bored into mine. "You feel this too. Don't pretend you don't."

I couldn't pretend. Not when my entire body was on fire. Not when I could feel how wet I was, how desperately I wanted him to touch me, to close the distance between us, to—

Fuck it.

I pushed up on my knees and straddled his lap in one fluid motion, my thighs bracketing his hips, my center pressing directly against the hard bulge straining against his pants.

We both made a sound—half gasp, half groan—and his hands immediately went to my waist, gripping hard enough to bruise.

"Angel," he breathed, and it sounded like a prayer.

"Don't talk," I said, rolling my hips against him experimentally.

His eyes nearly rolled back. "Fuck."

I did it again, slower this time, grinding down until I could feel every inch of him through the thin fabric separating us. The friction was perfect and terrible and not nearly enough.

His hands slid from my waist to my hips, guiding my movements, and when I looked down at him, the expression on his face nearly undid me completely.

Raw. Desperate. Hungry.

"Tell me what you want," I whispered against his lips, so close I could taste the mint on his breath.

"I want you to keep doing exactly what you're doing." His voice was gravel and heat. "I want to watch you fall apart on top of me. I want—" His hips bucked up, grinding against me, and I gasped. "I want everything."

I moved faster, chasing the pressure, the heat, the overwhelming sensation of being this close to him. My hands tangled in his hair, pulling hard enough to jerk his chin up, his fingers dug into my hips, and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I'd crossed a line I could never uncross.

But I didn't care.

Not when he looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.

Not when his hands felt like they were made to hold me exactly like this.

Not when every roll of my hips sent sparks of pleasure shooting through my entire body.

"You're so wet," he murmured, burying his face into my neck and I realized he could feel it through his pants—the evidence of exactly how much I wanted this. Wanted him. "God, Angel, you're soaked."

I should have been embarrassed. Should have pulled away, maintained some semblance of my dignity.

Instead, I ground down harder, more desperately, my breath coming in short gasps, my entire body wound so tight I thought I might shatter.

"Jason—" His name fell from my lips before I could stop it.

His eyes flashed, and suddenly his arms were around me, pulling me flush against his chest, one hand fisted in my hair and the other splayed possessively across my lower back.

"Say it again," he demanded, his lips brushing the shell of my ear.

"Jason," I breathed, and he growled.

The sound reverberated straight between my legs.

We were chest to chest now, my most sensitive center pressed directly against the bulge in his pants, our breaths mingling in the small space between our mouths. His arms held me like he had no intention of ever letting go, possessive and claiming and exactly what some broken part of me had been craving without knowing it.

His eyes held mine captive, fierce and dark and burning with an intensity that made my heart stutter.

This wasn't a dance anymore.

This was something else entirely.

Something dangerous.

Something inevitable.

And as I sat there in his lap, trembling and aching and more turned on than I'd ever been in my life, I realized exactly how far I'd gone.

How far we'd both gone.

And how there was no going back from this.