I never get the chance to answer. The floor shifts—just a little, just enough for the edges of the room to peel away like a glitch. The music drags the walls sideways without warning my body it’s coming, and my knees go soft while my vision fuzzes at the corners. Luca tightens his grip instinctively, almost gentle.
“I think I drank too much,” I purr, the words slurring into silk, flirty on pure reflex.
“You think?” Luca raises a brow. “You’re looking at me like I’m your next fix.”
“Aren’t you?” I grin, fingers dragging along his chest until my nails hook into his collar. “Dark hair, dangerous mouth, terrifying when pissed—sounds like my type.”
Luca snorts, but whatever comeback he has gets lost because he’s already spinning me—graceful, quick, probably to show off or just to make me giggle. My body doesn’t catch up. I twist, stumble, and fall—straight into someone’s arms.
Strong. Warm. Familiar.
I blink up, head swimming, lashes sticking together. “Rafe?” I murmur.
But the mouth that answers isn’t his. The breath is wrong, the scent is wrong, the body too narrow. “Nope,” the voice says.
I giggle. “You shaved.”
The arms tighten. “Still not Rafe.”
“Hmm.” I smile and press closer, lips brushing a collarbone that feels too high, too sharp. “I missed you anyway.”
The voice laughs softly. “Okay, sweetheart. Let’s sit you down.”
I don’t move. I just cling. My legs are soup, my brain cotton, my eyes unable to track anymore—everyone’s blurring, the lights stretching, the room tilting toward some truth I never agreed to sign up for. A hand touches my cheek, soft.
“Fuck, I love when you touch me there,” I whisper.
“Julian…”
“I’ll be good,” I murmur, and then I’m twisting again—someone else grabbing my hand, spinning me back into a different chest.
“You’re mine, baby” I whisper before I even look up.
It’s Finn.
“What the fuck?” Finn chokes out, face flaming red, but he doesn’t pull away. He’s laughing—sort of. “Did you just call me baby?”
I tilt my head. “Don’t be shy, Daddy.”
The entire room explodes into howls.
Luca collapses into Kai’s chest with a scream. “OH MY FUCKING GOD—RAFE, COME GET YOUR WHORE!”
Kai just blinks. “I’m not paid enough.”
Misha’s already howling. Bishop’s on the floor. Even Vlad is grinning like a man watching the earth spin off its axis.
I try to speak again—something about Rafe’s hands, about the rough edge of his voice, about how fucking hot it gets when he growls my name—but the words tangle into static before they can leave my mouth. My knees buckle again, this time harder, and I fall.
Voices blur into a distant hum. Lights melt and smear. Someone’s calling my name—sharp, urgent—but it sounds more like a scream warped into a song. Breathing gets harder. The air thickens, turns syrupy, like someone melted oxygen into molasses and poured it straight into my lungs just to watch how slowly I’d drown. My head fogs over, brain swimming in heat that coils tight around the base of my skull and squeezes with every throb of the music. The lights stretch and bleed. The walls seem to breathe. The room spins in wide, drunken circles—not the glitter-dizzy kind, not the fun kind. This is wrong.
My chest rises too fast, ribs shaking. My mouth won’t close properly. My hands feel stupid—heavy, disconnected, like they’ve forgotten they belong to me. “Rafe?” I try to say it normal, sharp, with that bratty little lilt he pretends to hate. Instead it comes out a whimper—weak, wet, wrecked. “Rafe…”
My knees slam into the floor. Hard.
The impact clangs through my bones, but the pain stays distant, far away, like it happened to someone else. Like someone else is collapsing under too many drinks, too many shots, too many hands and laughs and slow, sticky breaths. Everything sounds underwater now, like the world sank when I wasn’t looking.
Then I hear him.
