I’ve felt it, too. The wanting. The desire to move on from what you’ve left behind, but having it pull you back.

I used my father’s money to help build this place. I never knew him. I used the money to try to find the woman I was searching for. But it just didn’t work.

I kept coming back here, though. I never knew I didn’t need it.

That was the secret on her face. That was the code I needed to crack. It was the secret I wanted to break into.

She is running away from something she can’t shake loose. And it wasn’t just the fucked up piece of shit men who went into that place to use her and toss her aside.

Fuck, one of them was me. I went there looking for something. I just didn’t know it was her.

But I didn’t want her because she was there. I didn’t need her because she was there. I needed her because she didn’t belong there.

And that’s what I was looking for. That’s what I needed to love.

Her. She didn’t belong there because she belonged with me.

How do I know? Because now that she’s with me, I don’t feel like I’m looking for anything. For the first time in my life, I am not searching.

All I care about is making her feel happy. Cracking her code. Discovering all of her secrets. Owning all of her skin.

She wasn’t for sale.

Her freedom is etched on my heart.

Her name is painted in my mind.

Sweet Avery.

After finishing our drinks, the club is really beginning to get to the place where it fulfills the reputation that precedes it. And even though there are masks, I know some of the men here. It’s the powerful men, the rich men, the men who are suspicious of women and only give a fuck about their money. Those are the men who come here to pay for what they want.

I can see their eyes in their masks. The sick bastards who don’t have anywhere else to be at the holidays. They, too, need what I found.

Maybe they want to dominate. Maybe they want to be dominated. I don’t judge, and it doesn’t fucking matter. All that matters is me and her now. She is all I was looking for, and now I have her.

“I’m going to get the car to come around,” I say, putting a kiss atop her head. She smiles up at me, her eyes wide and clear and confident. I can see her curves behind the table where we’re sitting, and her hair is falling around her face in luscious waves. I’ve already tugged on that long brown hair, and there’s nothing sweeter in the world than how her pussy tenses up when she feels it.

I begin to get up. My cock strains when I look back at her a final time, in my club.

As I start to weave through the crowd, I spot someone I know. I can’t place him, though. His eyes make my insides lurch, but I don’t let it show. I don’t know where he’s from. But I know I know him.

I push my way through the crowd, the drunken revelers beginning to dance and sway with each other, beautiful, anonymous bodies in the candlelit ballroom.

But I keep my eyes on him. My heart tenses up, slamming around inside my body.

He crushes through the crowd, finding an opening, and makes his way over to my Avery.

I won’t make a scene. I won’t fucking jeopardize my position here, because I want to bring Avery here again and again. But if this fucker knows anything, he will know to stay the fuck away from her.

I trail him with my eyes, and then my feet begin to move. Even over the thumping bass and the laughter of the party, I can feel my heart slamming inside my ears and my feet pounding on the floor. I’m not running, but my body feels like it is moving so fast as I shoulder my way past the final group, getting to our table.

My eyes narrow onto him. His hand is around her wrist. She is pulling it away from him.

Her eyes snap to mine. He looks over his shoulder and sees me standing behind him.

It’s the fucker from the massage parlor. The one who tried to buy Avery. The one who thought he was entitled to her.

I clench my fists out of habit. I steady my jaw out of necessity.

“Get your hands off of her.”

He must think I’ve lost my fucking mind. The way he lets go of her delicate wrist speaks the words he cannot find. His eyes meet mine and he puts his hands up like he’s a child caught sneaking a cookie out of the cookie jar.

“I know you,” he says, stepping toward me, putting his index finger into my chest. He puffs himself up.

Prick.

“You should know me,” I say, “because I am the man you will have to get past if you want to touch her again. And that is not. Going. To. Happen.”

“You had your turn,” he grimaces. “Now it’s my turn to have some fun.”

He turns away from me and starts back to Avery.

“I told you don’t touch her,” I growl. My composure is melting by the moment.

He begins to reach for Avery again. I could call security, but I won’t. I can’t allow him to put even a fucking finger on her again. By the time security gets here, he’d have violated her - just a touch on the delicate skin on her arm would be a grave violation in my eyes.

I ball up both of my hands under his chin, grabbing him by the collar, jerking him quickly away from her.

He knows I’m not fucking around, but he is an animal and doesn’t know what to do. He’s like a fucking rabid dog that’s escaped from its cage. He has all the stupid fucking energy in the world and no brain to regulate it.

“I saw her first,” he shouts as I push him toward the wall next to the table and pin him against it.

I deftly dodge a swing he makes for my jaw, ducking in time for his fist to miss my face.

“She isn’t for sale,” I say, shoving him hard against the wall.

“So you’ve bought her for the whole evening?” he taunts, noxious energy seeping from his body.

I glance over at Avery. With wide eyes, tousled hair and smeared eye makeup, she looks scared. Deep inside my gut I wonder if he touched her before I spotted him with his hand wrapped around her wrist.

Possessiveness crushes through me as I take a swing at the man. My fist connects with the left side of his lip and he collapses at the waist, bending down and sputtering and coughing.

And I look to Avery again. I’ve never hit a man before. Her lips are parted in an expression of shock.

I am not proud of what I’ve done.

But it was necessary.

Because this fucking asshole was not taking no for an answer.

Bright red drops of blood splatter across the floor as he coughs, putting his hand to his busted lip as he staggers back against the wall again.

“Don’t ever let me see you here again,” I growl at him, getting close to him. We are eye to eye, face to face, and his expression is blank.

He pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and presses it to the cut in his lip.

“You’ll heal,” I say to him, “but if I see you here again, you might not be so fucking lucky.”

“Fuck you,” he whines. “You hit me. I did nothing wrong.”

“Yeah? Well I own this place, and I make the rules. Now get out before I call the cops. Harassment, intimidation, attempting to solicit. And what else were you planning on, asshole?”

He passes a glance over me, and then takes a final look at Avery.

My Avery.

She stands up slowly, moving past the table, and starts toward me. She turns around, looking at the crowd, thick with silence. The band’s stopped playing. Her heels click as she comes up next to me. Her fingers play at the edge of her corset top.

I want to shield her eyes. Protect her from seeing this disgusting fuck who wanted to hurt her.

Who wanted to buy her.

But her lips part slowly, and I feel the crowd behind us begin to thin. People begin to disperse and the band starts to play a few notes again, and the air is filled with something other than its thick, dark silence.

Avery’s lips close, and she remains silent for one more moment. Another faint click of her heel against the marble floor competes with the music as she takes one step past me, toward the stranger in front of us.

“I am not for sale.”

The man’s eyes widen with shock at her words, and then he glances past us, to either side of us, as two security guards pass us and take him by the arms and muscle toward the exits.

“Avery,” I breathe, taking her into my arms. My heart aches. “I love you.”

“That’s...that’s just insane.”

She throws her arms around my neck and kisses me, standing on her tiptoes and pressing her warm body into me.

I am drunk on her. Her taste, her fire, the way she makes me feel settled and excited all at the same fucking time. Her softness, her heart, the way she broke free of those bars and followed me into my limo like the good girl I knew she was.

My good girl.

“Baby, let’s go home,” I say.

She takes her mask off. It’s strictly forbidden, but I don’t stop her. Because that’s all I wanted - to see behind the perfect facade she’d erected over the surface of her skin.

Now I can see all of it.

I feel like I am gasping for breath, and my cock is roaring. I want to mark her here and take what’s mine. Again and again.

“Let’s go home,” she agrees.

I take her by the hand and we start toward the exit.

And we grab our coats, make our way toward the snow-dusted street, and I know where we are both going.