Violet's POV
It was a different world back here.
The noise from the main floor fell to a low pulse, like a heartbeat heard through a wall. The lighting was amber and low - the kind of light that made everything look like a secret.
The space opened up into something that felt curated: dark velvet booths, a bar running along one side, bottles backlit in deep gold and burgundy. Intimate.
And almost entirely empty.
I stopped in the entrance and breathed it in.
Oh. I pressed a hand to my chest. Oh, I love it here.
I made my way to the bar, sliding onto a stool with the satisfaction of someone who had found exactly what she needed, and I leaned forward.
The bartender was already looking at me.
He was wearing a mask too - black, fitted, the kind that covered the upper half of his face - and he had the build of someone who did not need to announce himself. Dark shirt, sleeves rolled. He was mixing drinks like a pro.
He did not look like a man who would be happy to see me.
"Hi," I said warmly.
"This section is closed to guests." His voice was low. Direct.
I looked around. At the empty booths. The glowing bottles. The perfectly good stools.
"Closed," I repeated.
"Private."
"It doesn't look private."
"It is."
I considered this. Tilted my head. "Is there a sign?"
A muscle moved in his jaw. "You need to go back to the main floor."
"I will," I said pleasantly, "after a drink. Just one. Something with…" I squinted at the bottles behind him… "whatever that purple one is."
"I'm not serving you."
"That seems rude."
"The exit is behind you."
I leaned further over the bar, craning toward the shelves. There was a bottle near the back - dark glass, something that caught the light in a very appealing way - and I reached, because it was right there…
He moved faster than I'd tracked.
Around the bar, and his hand closed around my wrist. He was steering me toward the exit before I'd fully processed that I was being removed.
"Hey…" I dug my heels in, which was somewhat ineffective in heels. "Hey! You cannot just… I have rights…"
"You have a perfectly good main bar."
"I don't want the main bar. I want this one…"
"Miss…"
"Don't miss me…"
"Let her go."
The voice came from somewhere behind me.
Low. Calm. The particular calm of someone who didn't need volume to have weight.
The bartender stopped.
His grip loosened.
I spun around.
And then I stood very still.
There was a man in the entrance of an inner room.
He was wearing a black mask - similar to the bartender's, but there was something about the way he wore it, or maybe it was the way he stood, like the space around him had quietly reorganized itself. Dark clothing. He wasn't particularly doing anything. He was just there, in a way that makes everyone else in a room seem like background detail.
He looked at the bartender.
The bartender, inexplicably, stepped back.
I looked at the bartender. Then back at the man.
Right, I thought dimly. So that's how it is.
And then - because I am a woman of instinct and the bartender had manhandled me and I had alcohol in my system and it had been a very bad day - I launched myself at the bartender.
My long nails, going for his face. About to scratch his eyes out to draw blood.
I made it approximately nowhere, because two arms came around me from behind and lifted me away from my target like I was an inconvenient houseplant.
"Hey…"
"Excuse us," the man said, to the bartender, pleasantly.
The bartender left the room quietly. I watched him go with deep regrets for not getting my revenge.
And then I was being carried - carried, my feet briefly leaving the floor - to a velvet sofa in the corner of the room, and dropped with a bounce.
Like a sack of flour.
I stared up at him.
"Did you just…" I looked down at the sofa, then up at him. "Did you just deposit me?"
He straightened up. Said nothing. In the amber light, even behind the mask, he was…
Oh.
Oh.
An unwanted hiccup escaped me.
I stared at him. The line of his jaw. The way the light caught the edge of the mask. The mouth - that mouth, which was doing absolutely nothing and somehow still managing to be a problem. He had the kind of face that made you believe in things like fate and very bad decisions.
"Are you..." I squinted. "Are you from Earth?"
He blinked. "Sorry?"
I stood up.
He looked prepared to intercept me again but I wasn't going anywhere - I grabbed the lapel of his jacket instead, both hands, holding on with the grip of a woman who had recently lost her job and her dignity and was not losing this too.
"Take me with you," I said, very sincerely. "Wherever you're from. Take me. Earth is…" hiccup… "Earth is awful to me. Specifically. And I have looked around tonight and I think I've found the exit, and it's you, so…"
Something happened to his mouth.
Not quite a smile. The beginning of a smile. The suggestion of one, like a door opening just a crack, letting out the light.
And I felt it. Felt it in my chest and somewhere down there too.
"I'll do anything," I added, "whatever you want. I'm very serious. I have no standards left."
He looked down at my hands, still gripping his jacket. Then up at my face.
"Anything?" he said.
His voice, up close, was… damn.
I tightened my grip. "Anything."
He was quiet for a moment. The amber light breathed between us. The bass from the main floor pulsed, distant and low.
Then he said it.
"Sleep with me."
The words landed in the air and just sat there, unhurried, entirely comfortable with themselves.
I stared at him.
He stared back.
Neither of us moved.
And then… "Okay."