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The city stretched out before you like a dark, humming animal — cobblestone streets slick with night rain, gas lamps throwing smudged halos, the moon no more than a pale scar behind the clouds.
Your heels clicked sharp and sure against the pavement. You didn’t flinch at the echo of your own footsteps, or the hiss of alley cats darting under stoops. You belonged to the night as much as anything in it.
A little blade was tucked into your garter, just in case. You liked the feel of it there, cold and close to skin. Not that you needed it, not tonight.
Tonight, you were dressed to unwind. To let loose.
Silk stockings, the faintest shimmer catching in the lamplight. A black dress, satin, cut daringly low at the back, clinging to hips with the kind of promise you didn’t have to speak aloud. A string of pearls kissed your collarbone. Dark lips, darker eyes, a little curl tucked just so behind one ear.
You were a vision and you knew it.
Maybe you’d find a rich man tonight, let him buy you champagne you didn’t need, let him press against you on the dance floor and imagine you were someone he could keep.
But halfway down the block, you felt it.
A shift in the air.
Like the street was holding its breath, like something was watching.
You didn’t show it. You kept walking, chin high, fingers brushing the little knife in its place — just once, a reassurance.
At the corner, the old jewelry store waited. Faulkner & Sons, its letters faded gold, windows dark since Prohibition hit hard and the front became a memory.
Except you knew better.The door gave under your hand, unlocked, just like it always was.
Inside, the smell of dust and cold stone gave way to something warmer, a low throb of music beneath the floorboards, laughter behind the walls. You’d been here a dozen times, slipping through the empty storefront to the world below.
You didn’t hesitate.
You stepped into the dark, ready to fall.
The speakeasy breathed beneath the city. Like a heart beating under stone and bone.
You stepped into velvet shadows, into a room dripping with candlelight and gold. Smoke curled like lazy ghosts through the air, wrapping around laughter, clinking glasses, the sweet brass moan of jazz from the corner stage.
You slid up to the bar, gloves brushing polished wood.
“Whiskey, neat.”
The bartender gave a nod, already pouring. You took the glass in gloved fingers, feeling the burn before it touched your lips, eyes sweeping the room.
It was the usual crowd. Men with pocket watches and shining shoes, women draped in sequins and silk, the scent of money and desperation slicking the walls.
You moved into the crowd, drink in hand, letting the music pull you. The bass thrummed under your skin, the trumpet cut sharp through the haze, the piano fluttered like something on the edge of laughter.
A man found you — handsome enough, drunk enough. He pulled you into a spin, grinning, hand at your waist. For a moment, you let yourself go: skirt flaring, heels flashing, the world narrowing to the heat of movement.
But he left — they always left — off to chase a bigger thrill.
And you stayed.
You stayed, and you danced.
Alone now, eyes half-closed, the music wrapping around you like silk, the pulse of the room sliding under your skin. Your body moved with it — hips swaying, head tilted back, lips parted just enough.
That’s when you felt it.
The watching.
Like a hand sliding up your spine, not touching but claiming.
You turned, slow, deliberate, as if you’d known this was coming all along. You looked over your shoulder.
And you saw him.
Across the room, standing by the far wall where the light hit in slashes of gold and red, he watched you. Still. Intent.
A tall man, sharply dressed in black three-piece suit, dark waistcoat, gold chain glinting at his collarbone. His hair was dark, short, and his eyes...
They were what pinned you.
Something old. Something deep and dark, burning at the edges.
His face was too beautiful, too still. Like a painting someone had tried to bring to life, but it hadn’t quite worked — the smile too sharp, the gaze too knowing, the hunger too carefully leashed.
The room moved between you, dancers laughing, spinning, cutting through your line of sight.
And then he was gone.
No-
Behind you.
His hands slid to your hips, sure and possessive, fingers curling as if he’d always been meant to hold you there. You felt him lean in, the brush of his mouth at your ear, cold breath shivering over skin.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
His voice was low, accented, something lilting and strange, a thread of old worlds woven through.
You turned slow.
And you looked into the face of the man who, somewhere deep inside, you already knew would ruin you.
His hand slid into yours like it was always meant to fit there.
He pulled you into him, into the dark crush of music and bodies, and the world narrowed to silk and heat and the press of his chest against yours, the drag of his breath along your throat, the way his fingers claimed your waist like they were remembering you.
The band was swinging now, a hot, wicked jazz that poured through the floorboards and rattled in your bones.
You moved together, close. Closer.
His thigh between yours, his palm at the small of your back. You arched without meaning to, head falling back, breath catching on a gasp that was half-laughter, half-moan. His mouth was at your neck, not kissing, just hovering so close you could feel the coolness of him, the tremble in his restraint. You breathed him in, his smell of cedarwood and graveyard dirt.
Every sway of your hips dragged you across him, and you felt it: the ache, the tension, the fireworks blooming low and hot between your thighs.
“God,” you breathed, half-drunk on him, “I… I know you.”
That made him grin, slow, sharp, delighted.
“Aye, mo ghrá,” he murmured against your skin, voice thick with centuries. My love .
You shivered. A flush rushed up your neck, blooming across your cheeks, heat pooling low and deep.
He leaned back just enough to look at you, dark eyes burning like a fever dream.
“What’s your name?” you asked, breathless, fingers curling in his lapel.
His grin widened to all teeth now, white and too sharp, a flash of hunger barely leashed.
“Remmick.”
The name slid through you like silk over a blade. You didn’t know how you knew it. Only that it rang through your chest, cracking something open.
His hand tightened at your waist. His mouth brushed your ear again, breath cool, voice a velvet rasp:
“Come with me, mo chroí.” My heart .
And you were already moving, his hand locked around yours, pulling you through the crowd like the tide pulling you under.
Up the stairs, past the velvet curtain, toward the red room you somehow knew was waiting.
And you — heart hammering, skin flushed, legs trembling with want — you never once looked back.
The stairs creaked under your feet. They were narrow, velvet-lined, spiraling up into shadow.
His hand was wrapped around yours, cold fingers laced tight, tugging you behind him with a hunger you could feel in your bones. You could barely keep up. Your breath shallow, pulse hammering in your throat, legs unsteady from the dance, from the drink, from him.
The music dimmed behind you, muffled now, a heartbeat buried under the weight of what was about to happen.
At the top of the stairs, a door waited. Deep red, carved with something delicate and curling, worn smooth where countless hands had reached for it.
He pushed it open, pulled you through.
The door clicked shut.
Silence, thick and waiting.
The room glowed low with gaslight flickering over crimson wallpaper, a dark wood bed piled with silk and shadow, a mirror catching slivers of you both.
Remmick turned. His jacket slid from his shoulders, tossed carelessly aside, his eyes never leaving you.
“Sit.”
You obeyed before you thought to resist. The bed sighed under you, the cool press of silk against the backs of your thighs.
And then he knelt.
Remmick.
On his knees before you, hands slipping under the hem of your skirt, palms rough, slow, dragging up the length of your calf. His fingers wrapped around your ankle, lifting, extending your leg just so, his mouth an inch from your skin, his eyes flicking up to hold yours.
You forgot how to breathe.
He eased your heel off, thumb stroking the delicate arch of your foot, then the other was slow, unhurried, like this was a ritual, a worship.
His hand slid up again, pushing your skirt higher.
Stockings rolled down, inch by inch.
He paused.
The little blade, tucked into its garter.
He pulled it free, holding it in his palm, thumb brushing the edge. A flicker of a grin at the corner of his mouth, wicked and reverent all at once.
He set the stockings aside, then leaned in.
His face was close now, so close, his breath cool against your lips, his dark eyes locked on yours like you were the only thing left in the world.
Without a word, he raised the knife.
Slow. Careful.
The blade slipped under the fabric at your shoulder, a whisper of steel. You felt the tremble, the threat, the thrill. The sound as the satin split was louder than your heartbeat or maybe it was your heartbeat, pounding in your ears as the dress fell away, a slow peel of silk and skin, leaving you bare in the golden glow, under his gaze.
He set the knife aside, reverent. His fingers reached for the pin in your hair, sliding it free, curls tumbling down around your shoulders, soft and wild, just like his hunger.
You stood, trembling, hands finding his waistcoat, slipping it from his shoulders.
The suspenders.
The buttons at his chest, one by one, slow, your fingers brushing the cool lines of muscle underneath, feeling him shiver, watching his jaw tighten as he let you touch, let you unwrap him.
He stood there with his shirt open, skin pale as bone, scars like old poetry down his chest, eyes fixed on yours like he was trying to memorize the shape of you before he ruined you completely.
His hand slid up the nape of your neck, fingers threading through your hair, firm but trembling, pulling you in and when his mouth found yours, it was the end of the world.
It wasn’t a kiss.
It was a memory.
It was centuries of wanting, lifetimes of loss, a hunger that was more soul than body. His lips moved slow at first, tasting, aching, as though he feared you might vanish if he kissed you too hard but then the dam broke, and his mouth claimed yours, deep and rough, teeth grazing, tongue sweeping yours like he was drinking you in.
You gasped against him, your hands in his hair, holding him there, pulling him closer, both of you starving in the same, ancient way.
When he eased you back onto the bed, the silk was cool under your skin, but he was not. He was fire and ice, tremoring between restraint and ruin. He hovered over you, chest rising and falling unevenly, the dark spill of his hair brushing your cheek as his lips hovered just above yours. Golden chain dangling between you.
“I’m going to make love to you,” he rasped, voice raw and low, barely human. “To make up for every lost year… mo chuisle.” My pulse. My darling .
You nodded, your breath shallow, your body arching toward him, desperate, aching.
His hands fumbled at the buttons of his trousers not out of clumsiness, but from the sheer, ragged edge of wanting. And then he was there, between your thighs, pressing forward, slow, thick, the stretch of him searing through you like a flame licking up dry paper.
You let out a sound that part sob, part moan as he buried himself inside, inch by steady inch, eyes locked to yours, watching the exact moment you shattered for him.
His mouth parted, breath catching sharp, his forehead pressed to yours.
And when he was fully, deeply seated, you felt the tremor run through him, the way his body tensed like a bowstring stretched too tight.
“Cailleach… mo ghrá… mo chroí…”
The words poured from his lips, muffled and desperate, Gaelic prayers or curses or confessions, his voice cracking on each one as he dropped his head to your chest, mouth grazing the soft skin above your heart.
Then he moved.
A hard thrust, deep and claiming, that wrung a cry from your throat. His hands gripped your hips, his pace a raw, steady drive, the wet slap of skin and the gasping stutter of breath filling the crimson room.
You could feel his teeth graze your chest now, scraping lightly, a warning or a promise, his mouth open against your skin as he moaned something else in that ancient, broken tongue, a sound of worship, of ache, of bone-deep need.
And through it all, you held him.
Arms wrapped around his shoulders, nails dragging down his back, breath mingling, bodies tangled, souls unspooling, time bending and breaking between you.
Because somehow, even if you didn’t understand how, you had always been his.
He never lost his rhythm.
Each thrust was slow and measured but every time, it hit deeper, harder, like he was pushing himself further inside you, like he was driving into something more than just your body, like he was splitting you open to fit himself inside.
You clung to him with nails digging into his arms, your breath tangled with his as his head dropped back, mouth parted on ragged gasps. His hands gripped your hips, holding you where he wanted you, dragging you down to meet each rolling thrust.
“Mo chroí… mo rún… mo ghrá…”
The Gaelic poured from him, wet and broken, thick with centuries of ache. My heart. My secret. My love.
And his fangs were out now, gleaming, sharp, a predator’s mouth above you. But you weren’t afraid.
You knew him.
Even if you didn’t know how, your soul remembered.
He looked at you then, his eyes glowing molten red burning through black, pinning you under him like a spell. You reached up, breathless, trembling, and caught one of his hands, pulling it to your face.
He cupped your jaw so tenderly you nearly sobbed.
And still, he moved.
Steady, unrelenting, dragging you over the edge with every deep, slow stroke, your body coiling tighter, your pulse roaring in your ears.
“Come with me,” he whispered, voice wrecked, forehead pressing to yours, his thumb brushing your cheek.
His other hand slipped between your thighs, fingers finding your clit, circling, teasing, sending a sharp, electric rush through your belly, through your spine, through your whole trembling body.
You arched, mouth falling open on a gasp, nails biting into his skin.
“Remmick—”
But you couldn’t finish.
Because his mouth was at your throat.
You felt the delicate, reverent drag of his teeth and then the sharp, searing pierce as his fangs sank in, breaking skin, breaking you wide open.
And the moment he drank, you shattered.
Your body seized under him, waves crashing hard and hot, your climax tearing through you like a storm, stars exploding behind your eyes as his name spilled from your lips, as your blood spilled into his mouth.
He groaned, low and guttural, hips driving deep, deeper, spilling himself inside you as you came together in a spiral of pain and pleasure, of life and death, of two souls clawing their way back to the place they had always belonged.
In that moment, you were his.
And he was finally yours.