Klaus, your current date, was a massive, raging douchebag.

You drained your water, hoping it would alleviate the dryness in your throat. All it did was send you into a small coughing fit when it went down the wrong pipe.

"I assume the whispered sweet nothings and goodnight kiss are off the table."

Your skin grew hot at the familiar drawl behind you.

Cool, calm, collected.

You waited for your lungs to fill with air before you responded.

"Once is a coincidence, twice is a pattern." You turned your head. "What's three times, Mr. Harper?"

First, the car ride home. Second, the Delamonte dinner. You didn't count your lobby run-in earlier that night since you lived in the same building, but overall, you’d bumped into Christian a suspicious number of times over the past two weeks.

"Fate." He slid onto the stool next to yours and nodded at the bartender, who greeted him with a deferential nod of his own and returned less than a minute later with a glass of rich amber liquid. "Or that D.C. is a small city and we have overlapping social circles."

"You might be able to convince me you believe in coincidence, but you'll never convince me you believe in fate."

It was a notion for romantics and dreamers. Christian was neither. Romantics didn't look at someone like they wanted to devour them until there was nothing left except ashes and ecstasy. Darkness and submission. Something hot and unfamiliar coiled in your stomach before the bells above the front door jangled and broke the spell.