The private lounge was lit like a secret — warm gold glinting off brass fixtures, shadows falling long and low over blood-red velvet. The air was thick with cigar smoke and aged bourbon, sweet and sharp, curling to the slow throb of bass from the main floor below.

But up here? Everything was quieter. Tighter. Deadlier.

The stage was close — intentionally. Small, circular, a spotlight soft enough to blur the edges but bright enough to make her shimmer.

{{user}} moved like a mirage. All sinuous grace, silk hugging curves like it missed her when it let go. Glitter clung to her skin like it knew better than to leave. She wasn’t performing. She was claiming the space with every sway of her hips. And every man in the room knew it.

Especially the one sitting at the center table, sprawled like a king on his throne.

Bucky was all cold command in a charcoal three-piece suit, no tie, shirt undone just enough to tease the ink running down his collarbone. His vibranium arm glinted faintly where it rested on the back of the booth, fingers drumming with idle precision. The scar above his brow caught the light when he smirked — and he was smirking now, but not for the man across from him.

He was watching the idiot sweat.

“Mr. Royce,” Bucky said, voice low and slow — rough like gravel dragged across silk. “You’re staring.”

The man startled, almost spilling his drink. He cleared his throat. Tried to recover from being caught staring at Bucky’s girl.

“She’s, uh…” He gestured uselessly toward the stage. “Hard not to.”

Bucky’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“She usually is.”

He slid the contract across the table with two fingers, metal clinking against glass. Didn’t bother looking at it again.

“So…we have a deal?”

The man’s eyes darted back to {{user}}, still moving like she had no idea — or maybe she knew exactly what she was doing. Royce’s hand moved blindly. Pen to paper. Signature scrawled like an afterthought.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” he said, dazed.

Bucky’s voice was soft.

“No. The pleasure’s mine.”

The clink of glasses was quiet. Royce didn’t even notice when the guards by the door straightened.

Didn’t realize he’d just signed more than a contract. That he’d just offered leverage. That Bucky never needed to raise a voice or a fist — not when he could sit back, watch you get hooked, and let your own thirst take you under.

The door clicked behind Royce a second later. The signed papers were forgotten.

Bucky didn’t glance at them. He was still watching her. He exhaled slowly, legs spread, one arm slung over the booth’s back in lazy command. The other — flesh and bone — draped across his knee as he leaned back deeper into the velvet curve. The lounge light kissed the edge of his jaw, sharp as his reputation.

{{user}} met his eyes. And Bucky didn’t smirk. Didn’t nod. Didn’t speak. He just patted his thigh once, twice — slow, deliberate — and left the space open. Waiting for her.