Chapter 1
📖 Forbidden Fling: Chapter 1
The bass vibrated through the soles of her heels as Candice moved across the stage, hips rolling, hair cascading over bare shoulders like a dark silk curtain. Neon lights painted her skin in purple and blue, masking the sharp edge of fear that lived just beneath the surface.
Up here, under the lights, she wasn’t Aurora. Aurora was weak, terrified, broken by the man who once swore he loved her. Candice was untouchable. Desired. Powerful.
Men lined the rail, clutching drinks and lust, but she didn’t see them. She never really saw them. Not until she saw him.
He was leaning back in a dark corner booth, a glass of something expensive between long fingers, watching her like he owned her already. Dark suit, darker eyes. His gaze didn’t roam over her body like the others; it pinned her in place, sliding over her like a promise she didn’t know she wanted.
Candice flipped her hair, turning away to hide the chill crawling up her spine. She hated that look, how it made her stomach tighten and her breath catch.
When her set ended, she stepped off the stage, past the eager hands, toward the dressing room. The manager caught her arm.
“Private dance. Table seven.” His voice was flat, uninterested, just business.
She sighed, fixing her barely-there top and pulling her shoulders back before walking over. The man was still watching her, his dark eyes glinting beneath the low lights. Up close, he was even more dangerous. Sharp jawline, a slight smirk, the kind of man who didn’t take no for an answer.
“Candice,” he greeted, as if they were old friends. His voice was smooth, rich, tinged with command.
She forced a smile. “Private dance, right?”
He nodded, gesturing for her to sit on his lap, and she obeyed, letting the music drown out the part of her that was screaming.
His hands didn’t wander. They gripped her hips, guiding her movements with subtle, unyielding pressure. His eyes stayed locked on hers, dark and unreadable.
“You’re beautiful,” he said softly, close enough for his breath to tickle her ear.
She forced a laugh, the one she gave all the men, but something in the way he held her made it die on her lips.
The song ended, but he didn’t let go.
“How much for the night?” he asked.
She blinked, confusion breaking through Candice’s practiced mask. “Excuse me?”
His smirk was slow, deliberate. “I’ll pay you two thousand. To sleep with me tonight.”
She froze, inhaling sharply, the scent of his cologne flooding her senses. Two thousand was more than she made in a week, dancing and doing what she had to do in the back rooms to keep her bills paid.
She opened her mouth, closed it, her mind spinning.
“Relax,” he murmured, fingers tightening on her waist. “I have a proposition for you. You can keep dancing for others, but you only sleep with me. Two thousand every night we’re together.”
Panic flickered in her chest. This was exactly the kind of control she swore she’d never let a man have again.
“He can’t hurt me anymore. I am safe.”
The words she repeated to herself every day did nothing against the memory of Liam’s fists, Liam’s rage, Liam’s threats.
But two thousand was survival.
She nodded slowly. “Fine. Only in the club. Outside of here, the rules don’t apply.”
His eyes glinted. “Deal.”
His hands slid down to her thighs, gripping them possessively, and she let him, even as Aurora screamed from somewhere deep inside.
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That night, she didn’t go home as Aurora. She stayed as Candice, letting him take her in the dim glow of the private room, letting herself lose control for just a moment, reminding herself it was just another job.
But the way he touched her—like he owned her, like he worshipped her, like he knew her—wasn’t something she could shut off, no matter how hard she tried.
And in the corner of her mind, Liam’s ghost waited, reminding her that no matter how far she ran, she was never truly free.
