Page 3 of Claimed By the Masked BRATVA
“I’m a botanist,” I explain, then immediately feel silly for blurting it out. Who admits their profession at a party like this? “I don’t usually attend events like this.”
“I imagine not.” His voice lowers. “A woman of science in a room full of men accustomed to taking what they want and women accustomed to giving it. How…dangerous.”
The words send a prickle down my spine. Before I can ask what he means, a younger man appears, urgent, and the gentleman excuses himself with a polite bow.
I’m left with his words echoing in my ears.
Menaccustomedto taking what they want. Womenaccustomedto giving it.
I glance around the room with new eyes. The masks look less like playful disguises and more like shields. The laughter is sharper. The touches linger longer. The air hums with something primal.
And then I feel it.
The unmistakable weight of a stare. Not casual. Not polite. Heavy. Hungry.
My skin prickles. My breath catches. Every nerve ending sparks to life.
I try to ignore it, try to rationalize the sensation as nerves, but my body knows better. This isn’t paranoia. This is recognition. Instinct.
Slowly, I turn.
Across the ballroom, half-hidden by the glittering crowd, he stands. His mask is black leather, simple against the sparkle of the others, but it only makes him more dangerous. His gaze pins me like a butterfly to a board. Dark, unyielding, devouring.
My body answers before my brain does. My nipples harden against silk. Heat blooms between my thighs. My lips part on a breath I can’t catch.
He doesn’t look at me the way other men have tonight. They’ve devoured me like dessert, eager but shallow. He looks at me like prey he’s already claimed. Like the hunt is over, and the taking has begun.
I should look away. I should break the connection before it consumes me.
I don’t.
Something reckless anchors me in place. Behind this mask, I can be someone else. Someone brave enough to meet the gaze of a man like him.
Our eyes lock, and the rest of the world falls away. The music, the laughter, the glitter and shine, all of it dissolves into nothing but the searing line between us.
I don’t know his name. I don’t know what kind of man he is.
But I know, with terrifying certainty, that nothing about my life will be the same after tonight.
Sebastian
The second her eyes meet mine, the noise of the ballroom becomes nothing but static.
For a moment, I wonder if I’ve imagined her. Maybe she’s a trick of the light, some mirage conjured by too much champagne and too many years of boredom. But no. She’s real. Too real.
The silk clings to her body like it was cut for her and no one else. Midnight blue, simple in design but devastating in effect. The neckline dips to reveal soft curves, her hips sway when she walks, and yet none of it feels intentional. She doesn’t move like the other women here, the ones who practice seduction like a second language. She moves like she hasn’t learned the steps at all.
And that’s what makes her dangerous.
My body reacts first. My cock hardens at the thought of dragging her into the nearest dark corner, pinning her soft frame against marble, and seeing how quickly that nervous composure crumbles. But beneath the arousal, there’s something sharper, hungrier, that I haven’t felt in years.
She isn’t performing. She isn’t pretending. Every nervous flick of her hand to her mask, every wide-eyed glance at the chandeliers, every step that isn’t quite steady, it’s all uncalculated. Authentic.
And I’ll be damned if I let that authenticity slip through my fingers tonight.
I set my glass down on a tray without breaking eye contact. The crowd parts without me asking, instinctively sensing what I’ve become. A focused hunter.
Women who’ve been angling for my attention all night step back with tight smiles. Men nod respectfully and find reasons to be elsewhere. They know this look in my eyes, and none of them are stupid enough to get in the way.
