Beneath His Grip

I didn’t ask for this.

I didn’t ask to be shoved into a sticky vinyl booth at three in the morning, nursing a ginger ale I didn’t want, watching a man across the room casually decide whether or not someone was going to walk out of this bar on their own two feet.

The bass thrummed through the floorboards, up through the soles of my cheap sneakers. The air smelled like whiskey, expensive perfume, and something metallic I was trying very hard not to identify. My roommate Lily had dragged me here. *It’ll be fun, Xia Xian. You never go out. You need to live a little.*

I should have stayed home and finished my shift at the campus library. At least the only danger there was paper cuts and Karen from circulation giving me side-eye for eating crackers at the desk.

“Relax,” Lily hissed in my ear, her nails digging into my forearm. “You’re making that face again.”

“What face?”

“The ‘I’m mentally calculating how much it would cost to Uber home and whether it’s worth my last forty dollars’ face.”

It was worth it. It was absolutely worth it. But I didn’t have forty dollars.

The man across the room moved. Not fast. He didn’t need to. He stood up from the leather booth like he owned the entire building, which he probably did. I’d heard the rumors. Everyone at Westbrook University had heard the rumors. The Whitmore family didn’t just have money. They had *reach*. They had people who owed them favors. They had a last name that made other last names quiet down.

He was tall. Too tall. Broad shoulders that made the custom-cut suit look like a second skin. Dark hair, cut clean and sharp. A jaw that could cut glass. And eyes that didn’t look at you so much as through you.

I’d seen him once before, on campus. A black SUV idling outside the humanities building. A door opening. A woman sliding out, then another. He hadn’t even looked at them. They were just. Done.

Now he was looking at someone else. A man. Some guy in a cheap blazer who had made the mistake of laughing too loud, gesturing too wide, bumping into the wrong person’s table.

The tall man’s head tilted. Just slightly. A signal I didn’t understand.

Two men appeared from nowhere. They didn’t run. They walked. Calm. Professional. They flanked the loud guy, one on each side, and the loud guy’s laugh died in his throat like someone had cut a string.

He went pale. He tried to say something. One of the men put a hand on his shoulder and the words stopped.

They led him out the back door.

The tall man didn’t watch them go. He was already looking at someone else. Scanning the room like a predator checking his territory.

His eyes landed on me.

I looked away. Fast. Too fast. My heart slammed against my ribs.

“Oh my god,” Lily breathed. “He’s coming over here.”

“No he’s not.”

“He totally is.”

I grabbed my ginger ale and took a long drink, staring at the sticky tabletop like it held the secrets of the universe. Maybe if I didn’t look up, he’d lose interest. Maybe he’d find someone else to terrify.

His shoes appeared in my peripheral vision. Italian leather. Polished to a mirror shine.

“You’re new.”

His voice was low. Flat. Like he wasn’t asking a question, just stating a fact he’d already decided on.

I looked up. Big mistake. Up close, he was even more intimidating. The kind of handsome that felt dangerous. The kind of presence that made the air in the room shift, like gravity had just changed its mind about who it was pulling toward.

“I’m not new,” I said. “I’ve been sitting here for an hour.”

Lily kicked me under the table. Hard.

His mouth did something that wasn’t quite a smile. “New here. In my city.”

*His* city. Like he owned it. Like he owned me just by standing here.

“I’m just a student,” I said. “Westbrook. I’m not looking for trouble.”

“Trouble finds people whether they look for it or not.”

He sat down. Not across from me. Next to me. In the booth. So close I could smell his cologne, something dark and woodsy and expensive. His thigh pressed against mine through the denim of my jeans and I felt it like a brand.

I tried to shift away. The booth armrest stopped me.

“I’m Alexander,” he said. Like the name should mean something to me.

It did. It meant everything. Alexander Whitmore. The man whose family owned half the state. The man whose name came up in whispers and warnings. The man you did not make eye contact with in a bar at three in the morning.

“I didn’t ask,” I said.

Lily made a sound like a dying animal. She was already sliding out of the booth, mumbling something about needing air, about finding her phone, about *I’ll be right back, Xia Xian, don’t do anything stupid*.

Traitor.

Alexander’s hand landed on my knee. Heavy. Warm. His fingers spread wide, covering the bone, squeezing just enough to let me know he could.

“What’s your name, baby?”

The endearment slid over me like oil. Wrong. Unearned. But his voice didn’t leave room for refusal.

“Xia Xian,” I said. “But people call me Xian.”

“Xian.” He tested it. Rolled it around in his mouth like he was tasting it. “Chinese?”

“Obviously.”

That almost-smile again. “Feisty. I like that.”

“I wasn’t trying to be feisty. I was stating a fact.”

His hand moved up my thigh. Just an inch. My breath caught.

“You’re scared of me,” he said.

“I’m cautious. There’s a difference.”

“No, baby. You’re scared. I can feel it.” He squeezed again. “Your leg is shaking.”

It was. I hadn’t noticed. My body was betraying me, broadcasting fear I was trying to hide behind bravado.

I put my hand over his. Stopped him. His eyes flicked down to where our skin touched, then back up to my face.

“I’m not interested,” I said. “In whatever this is. I’m just trying to finish my degree and go home.”

“Home where? China?”

“None of your business.”

His other hand came up. Caught my chin. Turned my face toward his. His thumb brushed across my lower lip, slow, deliberate.

“Everything in this city is my business,” he said. “Including you.”

I should have been terrified. I *was* terrified. But underneath the fear, something else flickered. Heat. Annoyance. A stubborn, stupid refusal to let this man win.

I bit his thumb.

Not hard. Just enough to make him pause.

He stared at me. One beat. Two. Then he laughed. A real laugh, low and rough, like he hadn’t expected it.

“You’ve got teeth,” he said.

“I’ve got a lot more than that.”

“Good.” He pulled his hand back, but his eyes stayed on me. Hungry. “I like a challenge.”

“I’m not a challenge. I’m a person who wants to be left alone.”

“Too late for that, baby.” He stood up. Towered over me. “You’re in my city. You’re in my bar. You’re sitting in my booth.” He leaned down, his mouth close to my ear. “You’re mine now. You just don’t know it yet.”

He walked away.

I sat there, heart pounding, thighs pressed together, hands shaking in my lap.

Lily came back thirty seconds later, eyes wide. “What did he say? Are you okay? Do we need to leave?”

I looked at the door he’d disappeared through. The one the loud guy had been dragged out of.

“We need to leave,” I said. “We need to leave and never come back.”

But even as I said it, I knew.

It was already too late.