The floor stuck faintly beneath the weight of your heels every time you shifted, though at this point most of your weight had been leaned on the sink in front of you. 

Manhattan clubs always felt vaguely unreal after midnight, way too loud, too hot, and wholly too full of people pretending they were having the best night of their lives while actively trying to destroy themselves in increasingly creative ways. 

You fit in beautifully. 

"Jesus Christ," the guy behind you laughed breathlessly against your ear, fingers fumbling greedily beneath the hem of your dress. "You this impatient with everybody?"

"Yes," you snapped immediately, leaning harder against the filthy sink. "Hurry up."

The finance bro, all expensive watch and cocaine confidence and a button-down shirt worth more than most people's rent, grinned like he thought your attitude was sexy rather than deeply concerning. 

His hands slid clumsily higher up your thighs while you stared at yourself through the spotted mirror with growing irritation. 

God, you looked like a mess. Your lipstick smeared across your lips, mascara darker beneath you eyes from the humidity of the night club, hair tangled from dancing too hard beneath the flashing lights, and your black dress hiked up where this idiot kept tugging at it like he'd never touched a woman before. 

You looked exactly like the kind of girl men dragged into club bathrooms like this and bragged to their friends later about. The thought should havve disgusted you more than it did. 

"You hear me?" he asked, dragging his mouth sloppily against your neck. "Asked if you're always this needy?"

You almost laughed. 

Needy. That was one word for it. Though, the truth sat uglier than that. 

Desperate, maybe was a better word for it. Desperate to feel something besides watched. 

Because for the last several weeks your life had become aan endless exercise in surveillance. Every classroom, every coffee shop, every party. Every stupid sorority brunch where girls whispered behind their hands while openly staring at the massive ex-military bodyguard shadowing you across Columbia's campus like you were on some hit list. 

Frank Castle had been your father latest solution. To you he was just another one of your father's cronies that he'd rather throw at you than have a real conversation with you. 

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Franked turned out to be significantly harder to break than the others. 

The previous security details eventually cracked beneath enough pressure. Some embarrassed easily. Some even flirted back. Most quit outright after you made their lives difficult enough. 

You understood men and how to manipulate them. How to make them uncomfortable, how to make them want things from you. It was the one form of control you trusted completely because it was the only one that had ever consistently worked. 

Frank, unfortunately, behaved like a man carved from stone and was somehow impervious to you. 

Nothing got through. 

Not the tiny dresses or the wandering hands. Not the deliberately inappropriate comments whispered from the passenger seat while he drove you home from parties and definitely not the night you sat half drunk in his lap just to see if he'd finally crack. 

He had simply lifted you by the waist, placed you firmly back into your own seat, and continued cleaning his gun without a visible change in expression. Like you weighed nothing and affected him even less. 

It was humiliating. 

Which is exactly how you ended up here tonight. 

Bent over a disgusting nightclub sink while some random Wall Street asshole shoved his hand beneath your dress because at least he reacted to you. At least he looked at you like he wanted something. At least he gave you the illusion of power, however temporary and hollow it actually was. 

And maybe, some deeply ugly part of you, wanted Frank to find you. 

No, not maybe. Definitely. 

You'd seen him outside almost twenty minutes ago, broad shoulders cutting through the crowd near the entrance while he argued with the bouncer in that low rough voice of his that always seemed half a cecond away from becoming dangerous. 

The second you'd spotted him, adrenaline shot hot through your bloodstream. You should have run, maybe you could get to that bar you saw down the street on your way in. Get one last hurrah in before you were inevitably taken back to your ivory tower. 

Instead you grabbed the nearest attractive stranger and dragged him towards the bathrooms because if Frank Castle wasn't going to touch you, then maybe you could force him to watch someone else do it. 

"Fuck," the finance bro muttered suddenly, fingers moving faster between your legs. "There she it."

You stared blankly at your reflection. 

There she was. 

The senator's disaster daughter. 

America's favorite train wreck. 

You breath hitched slightly despite yourself when his fingers finally brushed something halfway correct, but even that irritation remained sharper than pleasure because this man wouldn't know where a g-spot was even if you drew him a fucking map and handed him instructions. 

Still, you forced yourself to react. Make more noise, move more, preform more. Because the horrible realization had already begun clawing its way up your throat and you refused to look dirrectly at it. 

This wasn't working. 

You were getting exactly what you wanted. Sex, attention, rebellion, control. A man willing to touch you without hesitation and somehow the entire thing still felt empty in the worst possible way. 

Because it wasn't him and that thought landed hard enough to make your stomach twist. Worse, you couldn't stop comparing them.

So naturally you doubled down immediately. "Faster," you demanded harshly, gripping the edge of the sink harder. "Jesus Christ, are all finance guys this fucking useless?"

The guy laughed breathlessly behind you, clearly mistaking your irritation for enthusiasm. "Yeah? That what you need, baby?"

The pet name made you scowl even more, if possible. And all it did was remind of you Frank. He'd never called you baby. Princess, sure, in that low and rough voice that told you he was clearly annoyed with you. Honey too, if you were behaving. 

Your jaw tightened. "Thought you rich girls were supposed to be high maintenance," he continused smugly, dragging his free hand up your waist. "Knew you'd loosen up eventually."

You stared at yourself again in the mirror while he touched you. And despite the steady move of his fingers and the grind of his hips against yours, you did not look like a woman having the time of her life. 

You looked angry, lonely and honestly, a little pathetic. 

The realization made panic flare sharp beneath your ribs. So, you got louder. "Keep going," you ordered, "don't fucking stop."

It might have been cruel to lead him on like that, to pretend that you were enjoying yourself but in this moment, you didn't really care about his feelings. He grinned against your throat, "yeah, you gettin' close?"

Close to abandoning this stupid endeavor, maybe, but close enough to orgasm? The insinuation made you almost laugh. 

Then the bathroom door slammed open hard enough to shake the walls. The finance bro jerked violently in surprise. You didn't. 

"Little busy here bro. Find somewhere else to take a piss," the finance bro mumbled.

You scoffed and slowly lifted your eyes to match Frank's in the mirror. Frank filled the doorway like something out of a nightmare, broad shoulders stretched tight beneath a dark jacket dampened slightly by rain outisde while neon light from the club painted violent flashes of pink and red across the sharp angles of his face. 

Your surpised Mr. Wall Street even had to confidence to say something to him, an insult, nonetheless.

Fury radiated off Frank so intensely it almost changed the temperature of the room. For one suspended moment nobody moved. You simply stared at Frank through the mirror before deliberately pushing your hips back into the guy. "Don't stop," you whined. 

Frank's jaw flexed once. 

“Hands off her.” Frank’s voice cut through the room low and lethal enough to make the other man physically flinch.

You should have felt victorious.

Instead something hot and strange twisted low in your stomach at the sight of him standing there furious over you.

The finance bro laughed nervously, glan between the two of you. "Jesus Christ," he muttered. "You could’ve told me this was some weird relationship shit.”

Frank did not correct him.

You noticed immediately.

So did the finance bro apparently because his expression shifted from nervous to deeply uncomfortable in under a second.

“Yeah, okay,” he muttered quickly. “I’m gonna go.”

Frank stepped aside without taking his eyes off you once. The second the bathroom door shut behind the guy, silence crashed down hard.

You straightened slowly from the sink, adjusting your dress with trembling fingers while trying desperately to recover some semblance of emotional control.

“You’re being dramatic,” you said first.

Frank laughed once.

“Oh my God, don’t start.” You rolled your eyes aggressively despite the way your pulse hammered unevenly beneath your skin. “I was fine.”

“Fine.”

“Yes.”

“You call this fine?”

“It was consensual.”

“That ain’t the point.”

“Then what is the point, Frank?” you snapped finally, anger flaring hotter now because underneath it something dangerously close to shame had started curling through your chest. “You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do with my own fucking body.”

Frank’s gaze dropped then. Not to your face but lower. Your stomach twisted instantly. In the haze of adrenaline and anger and humiliation, you’d almost forgotten.

Your underwear still hung around your knees. Heat flooded your face so violently it almost hurt. For one terrible second, neither of you moved.

Then Frank crouched. Your breath caught hard enough to sting.

He didn’t look at you while he did it. And he didn’t linger either. Didn’t touch more than necessary. His expression stayed locked into that same exhausted fury while large rough hands hooked briefly into the fabric and pulled it back up your legs in one efficient motion.

His knuckles had brushed your thigh for less than a second and your entire body betrayed you immediately, pulse jumping violently beneath your skin while humiliation and anger and something infinitely more dangerous tangled together so tightly you could barely breathe around it.

Frank stood again immediately, jaw tight enough to crack.

You hated him.

You hated yourself even more.

“We’re leaving,” he said flatly.

“Oh, absolutely fuck off—”

He was already grabbing your upper arm and dragging you toward the door. You stumbled behind him in a fury, nearly slipping against the wet bathroom tiles before Frank's girp tightened automatically to steady you. 

The touch shot hot straight through your blood stream in ways that felt deeply inappropriate considering the circumstances. 

Unfortunately that only made you angrier.

People stared openly as Frank hauled you through the crowded club floor, his hand still locked around your arm while neon lights flashed violently overhead. Somewhere behind you, somebody wolf-whistled. Another person laughed drunkenly. 

Humiliation burned hot beneath your skin.

You yanked hard against Frank’s grip. “What?” you snapped viciously over the music. “You upset I found someone easier than you?”

Frank ignored you completely.

You hated that.

“You should’ve just let him fuck me and saved yourself the trouble.”

That made him stop. 

The sudden halt nearly sent you crashing into his chest as thunder cracked somewhere outside the club, rain now falling steadily beyond the entrance in silver sheets beneath the city lights. 

Frank turned toward you slowly, grip still firm around your arm while something genuinely furious flickered behind his eyes for the first time since you met him.

Your pulse stuttered hard.

Rain soaked instantly through the thin fabric of your dress the second he dragged you outside onto the sidewalk, cold droplets streaking down your bare legs while the city blurred wet and neon-bright around you.

Frank stepped into your space suddenly, one large hand gripping your jaw hard enough to force your attention upward.

The shock of it silenced you instantly. “You wanna be in control so bad, honey?” he said lowly. Your breath caught. “Mmh,” his thumb pressed harder against your jaw. “Show me you fucking deserve it.”

The words hit like a slap.

Because deep down beneath all the rage and recklessness and humiliation, you knew he was right and you hated him for it.

Silence stretched between you, rain sliding down both your faces while Frank’s hand remained locked around your jaw, his breathing heavier now than before. Then something inside you snapped.

Maybe it was your pride, or your self perservation. Maybe whatever small broken part of you still needed to win. 

You surged upward suddenly and smashed your mouth against his. The kiss was ugy immediately. All teeth and spit and fury and weeks of pent up sexual frustration detonating at once while Frank's grip tightened instinctively against your jaw hard enough to make your pulse jump. 

You kissed him like a punishment. Like if you pushed hard enough maybe you could finally force him to lose control too. And for one dizzying second, he kissed you back. 

Then Frank physcally tore your mouth off his with a rough curse, breathing hard enough now that you hear it over the rain. 

"Exactly what I'm fucking talking about," he snapped. 

Your chest heaved. 

Frank started at you one long furious second before stepping backward abruptly and jerking his head toward the black SUV waiting across the street. "Get in the fucking car!"