The music pulsed like a second heartbeat—low, primal, insistent—vibrating up through the floor and into Ariella Monroe's bones. Lights flashed red and violet above, casting everything in dizzying shadows as she tilted her head back and swallowed another shot. The burn hit her throat, her chest, and spread like fire—but it was the other kind of burn she couldn't extinguish.
Her friends whooped and laughed around her, their faces blurring together in a haze of glitter, lipstick, and sweat. But Ariella felt miles away, drifting in a sea of bodies and noise, untethered from the joy that danced around her.
Graduation was supposed to be her fresh start. Her launchpad. But that morning had brought a different kind of milestone—rejection. Another one. The email was polite, clinical, soul-crushing. The prestigious internship she'd pinned all her dreams on, sacrificed sleep and sanity for, had gone to someone else. Again.
It wasn't just a job. It was her plan. Her next step. Her rent.
Now she stood in the middle of a rooftop nightclub in a too-tight dress and heels that hurt, watching her future crumble beneath the beat of house music and strobe lights.
"Let's dance!" someone shouted—Jasmine, maybe. Or Tori. A manicured hand wrapped around hers and tugged her toward the dance floor.
Ariella followed blindly, her mouth curving into a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. She let her hips sway with the crowd, her hair clinging to her dewy skin, the bass swallowing her heartbeat.
But inside, she was unraveling.
Everyone else seemed so alive, so full of momentum and dreams still intact. Ariella felt like shattered crystal—sharp around the edges, dangerous to touch, and slowly leaking every drop of hope she had left.
One more rejection. One more reminder she wasn't enough.
By midnight, her limbs were loose and her thoughts even looser. Her laugh had a ragged edge, like a warning signal no one noticed.
"I need… a room," she slurred, words tumbling out between hiccups of laughter and glassy-eyed tears. The club tilted sideways. She gripped Jasmine's arm—or maybe it was Layla's.
"Crap," someone muttered. "She's gone."
"She didn't eat," another voice added, worried now. "She never eats when she's stressed."
A flurry of motion followed—flashing phones, hurried words with the bouncer, and a kind hotel staffer from upstairs who offered to help.
A borrowed keycard. Slurred thank-yous. Warm arms supporting her into an elevator that smelled of too much perfume and spilled champagne.
The hallway upstairs was quieter, cloaked in golden light and hush. The carpet muted their footsteps as the girls half-carried, half-guided her to a door near the end of the hall.
No one noticed the number glowing faintly on the panel: 1206, not 1205.
"Sleep it off, babe," someone whispered against her damp temple, voice thick with concern and exhaustion. They assist her before she enters the room.
A kiss to her forehead. A soft warning: "Lock the door."
But Ariella didn't hear. The plush carpet muffled the sound as she staggered into the suite. She barely registered the luxury—marble countertops, dim golden lighting, the faint scent of whiskey and leather.
Then footsteps faded down the hall, and the door clicked shut behind them.
Ariella lay there, the room swaying gently around her, the music still echoing in her skull.
She didn't move. Didn't cry. Just stared at the ceiling, heart heavy, body floating.
She didn't know it yet, but her night was far from over.
A man stood near the minibar, the soft clink of glass the only sound in the room. His shirt was half-unbuttoned, revealing a sculpted chest and the faint trace of a tattoo disappearing beneath the fabric. A loosened tie hung around his neck like an afterthought, and the warm amber of bourbon glistened in the glass he held lazily in one hand.
He turned as the door clicked shut behind her, his dark eyes locking onto hers. Confusion flickered across his face, but it was quickly eclipsed by something heavier—heat, curiosity, recognition of a moment neither of them could quite name.
"You're early," he said, voice gravelly and low, touched by alcohol and something even more intoxicating.
Ariella froze, her heart thudding erratically in her chest. Her gaze swept over him—tall, broad shoulders, chiseled jaw shadowed with stubble. His presence was magnetic, raw. Unfiltered.
She blinked, trying to find her voice. "You're… tall."
That rough laugh broke from him, unguarded and unexpected. "And you're stunning."
He set his drink down, taking a slow, measured step toward her. His presence wrapped around her like smoke—heady, dangerous, and impossible to resist.
She stayed rooted to the spot, part of her still lost in a drunken haze, the other desperately trying to come up for air. "Do I… know you?"
"Not yet," he said, closing the distance between them with a look that could set silk on fire. "But maybe we should fix that."
His fingers brushed a loose strand of hair from her face, the touch featherlight but charged. Her skin tingled, her breath hitched. Every instinct screamed at her to take a step back. To leave. To remember who she was and what she'd sworn she'd never do again.
This was dangerous.
Reckless.
Stupid.
But as his hand hovered near her jaw and their eyes held a question neither dared ask out loud, Ariella didn't move.
Because maybe stupid was exactly what she needed tonight.
She didn't even know his name. Didn't know where she was or how she'd ended up in a stranger's suite. But her body… her body had made a different decision the moment their eyes met. She was drawn to him like gravity—helpless, breathless, and burning.
One step. Then another.
And then they collided.
Their mouths found each other like they'd been searching all night—lips crashing together, hot and unrelenting. It was a kiss that devoured, desperate and starved, tasting of whiskey and sin.
His hands gripped her waist with reverent urgency, thumbs pressing into her hips as if trying to memorize the shape of her. Fingers fumbled at the zipper of her dress while she clawed at the buttons of his shirt, trembling with want. Clothes hit the floor in a trail of reckless surrender.
He spun her toward the wall, pinning her gently as his mouth trailed along her jawline, then down the column of her throat. She gasped when he bit lightly at the sensitive spot below her ear, her knees going weak.
"You're unreal," he growled, voice low and thick with need. "Like a dream I won't remember."
"You shouldn't say that," she whispered, fingers in his hair, back arching into him.
"Then stop me."
But she didn't. She couldn't.
She moaned softly as he lifted her effortlessly, her legs wrapping around his waist like instinct. He carried her to the bed and laid her down with surprising tenderness, like she was something precious and breakable—then climbed over her like a man undone.
"You're driving me insane," he murmured against her skin as he kissed the curve of her shoulder.
"I don't even know your name," she panted, her voice caught between fear and fire.
"Don't need it tonight."
Their bodies came together with aching hunger, tangled in heat and shadows. Sheets twisted beneath them, silky and damp. His hands roamed her like he was mapping her soul. Every thrust, every gasp, every whispered curse turned the night into something unhinged.
She arched beneath him, nails scoring his back, lost in the rhythm of bodies meeting like they were meant to. His name might have been unknown, but her body recognized him—as if it had waited for this.
Their bodies met with a hunger that bordered on madness—neither slow nor hesitant. The heat between them was molten, messy, real. Every touch was urgent, every breath shallow and trembling.
He kissed her like a man who had been starving, like her lips were the only salvation left in a crumbling world. His mouth devoured her, then softened, lingering over the corner of her lips, the curve of her jaw, the tender hollow at her throat.
Sheets twisted beneath them, clinging to damp skin and reckless movements. The air around them was heavy with heat and longing, their silhouettes flickering in the dim light like something out of a fever dream.
His hands explored her like a map he'd never seen but always known—tracing every dip and swell, learning the language of her body with reverent curiosity. She trembled beneath his touch, her back arching as he found places she hadn't known were hungry.
She gasped his name—or what might have been his name. Truthfully, she didn't know. Didn't need to. Because in this moment, he wasn't a stranger. He was the flame to her matchstick, the spark to her dry soul.
Her fingers dug into his back, clawing with every motion he made inside her. Deep. Rhythmic. Building toward something unspoken. He moved with power and precision, but it wasn't just physical—it was emotional, raw, like something inside him was breaking open just to reach her.
"Don't stop," she whispered, voice shaking.
"I couldn't if I tried."
Time blurred. Thought evaporated. There was only sensation—the slick slide of skin against skin, the echo of gasps and low curses, the slow burn of tension rising with each thrust and kiss and cry.
She clung to him, wrapped around him, breathing him in like oxygen. His pace shifted—slow and deep, then wild and desperate—pushing her higher, closer to something electric. Her moans grew louder, his voice a growl against her neck, teeth grazing tender skin.
It was chaos.
It was poetry.
It was something dangerous and devastating and utterly addictive.
There were no declarations, no illusions of love.
Only escape.
Only fire.
Only chaos.
Only this wild, breathless moment where nothing else mattered.
She shattered with a sound that wasn't quite a scream, more like surrender. And he followed—head buried in the crook of her neck, a groan torn from deep in his chest, trembling as he spilled into her like it was the first time he'd ever truly let go.
Silence fell in the aftermath, but it wasn't empty. It pulsed. It breathed.
He didn't pull away. Just held her—skin slick, hearts racing, breath mingling—until the weight of reality slowly began to creep in.
She still didn't know his name.
But her body…
Her body would never forget him.
It was a night she was never meant to remember.
But one her life would never let her forget.
Silence.
Morning crept in slowly, unkind in its brightness.
Ariella stirred, wincing as the sunlight pierced through the curtains and burned behind her eyelids. Her head pulsed with a dull, rhythmic ache—half hangover, half aftermath. Everything felt too loud. Too sharp. Too real.
She shifted, the satin sheets rustling beneath her as she sat up. Her body protested, sore in places that made her breath catch. The cool air kissed her bare skin, and the scent of last night still clung to it—musk, sweat, and something darker, something she couldn't name.
The space beside her was empty.
No trace of him. Not a whisper of clothing, not a scrawled note, not even an imprint on the pillow.
Just the echo of rough hands and ragged moans, the memory of lips that branded her like fire and a voice that curled around her name like a promise… or a curse.
Ariella exhaled shakily, drawing the sheets tighter around her naked form. Her legs shifted, and the dull ache between her thighs sparked vivid flashes—hands gripping her hips, teeth at her throat, her own cries swallowed by the night.
She didn't know his name.
Didn't know how it had started, or why she had let it happen. But her body remembered. It burned with the ghost of him.
Her fingers pressed against her temple as the silence pressed in, too loud, too intimate.
The hotel room was immaculate—almost sterile now. No music, no low laughter, no growled endearments against her skin. Only the hum of the city beyond the windows and the quiet pounding of regret in her chest.
She swallowed hard and looked around as if answers might be written on the walls.
But there was only stillness.
Only emptiness.
Ariella drew in a trembling breath and let the truth settle over her like smoke.
"What the hell did I do?" she whispered, her voice cracking into the quiet.
There was no reply—only the sound of her own heartbeat, wild and unsure, echoing through a room that now felt far too large for one.