Ava fought the urge to argue further, recognizing the futility of negotiating with a man who had already seized all the power. Luckily, she hadn't met such men in the courtroom and she hoped it stayed that way. Most of the men in her firm were intimidated by her anyway.

The challenge in Noah's gaze was an acknowledgment that let her know he intended to do more fuck her.

The door clicked shut behind her, plunging them into a deep, heavy darkness, broken only by the faint light coming from the small lamp.

The apartment was immediately, eerily quiet. There was no trace of the frantic energy that had rattled her wall just an hour ago, no lingering scent of perfume, only the clean, masculine scent of Noah.

She blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. She found herself standing in a large, open space.

The apartment was sparsely furnished. There was a low, heavy sofa, dark and minimalist, and little else in the main room. The walls were bare. It looked less like a home and more like a high-end, temporary staging area. Everything about the space screamed no permanence, no attachments.

Hadn't he been here for years, though? Ava began to wonder.

She pulled off her coat and hung it on the rack.

Her Winnie the Pooh PJs were now on full display. But she didn't feel any less of herself. She loved Winnie, and that was that.

Noah didn't move toward her. He simply watched her, his presence a heavy, commanding weight.

She took another deep, shaky breath, trying to anchor herself.

"Protection," she managed to say, clinging to her last verbal boundary. "I have my own, if you don't, and I rush to my apartment to get it."

He gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. He then turned, his back to her, and walked toward the far side of the apartment. His steps were silent on the dark wood floor.

He reached a door she hadn't noticed before, tucked into a wall that seemed to line up exactly with where the shared wall was between their apartments. The door was darker than the wall, unadorned, and solid.

Noah paused at the door, glancing back over his shoulder. He didn't speak. He didn't gesture. He simply held her gaze, his expression unchanging, a silent command hanging in the air between them.

Follow me.

Ava didn't hesitate this time. Her professionalism was gone. Her anxieties were dissolving into liquid lust. She walked toward the center of the room, toward the mysterious door, and toward the man who had promised her everything with a single, silent gesture.

As she reached the door, Noah pulled it open. Beyond was an even deeper pocket of blackness, and from the direction of the opening, Ava felt a noticeable drop in the temperature of the air. It felt vast, cold, and utterly removed from the relative warmth of his living space.

She paused, her hand hovering near the doorframe, a sliver of primal fear returning. She glanced at the wall and realized that this room, whatever it was, was located directly adjacent to her bedroom, the room where she had spent months listening to the sounds of his passion.

This is the source.

Noah stepped fully through the threshold, vanishing into the darkness of the inner room.

"Come in," his voice instructed, the words muffled slightly by the strange acoustics of the room, sounding low, utterly irresistible, and infinitely far away. The sound wrapped around her, pulling her forward.

She stepped across the threshold, past the silent, watchful sentry of Noah's body, and into the absolute blackness of the hidden room.

The door swung shut behind her with a heavy, final clunk.

The door swung shut behind Ava with a heavy, final clunk.

She was sealed in absolute blackness. The air was cold, thick, and smelled faintly of leather and metal, a scent immediately distinct from the clean air and sweat of Noah's living room.

"Come in," his voice had instructed, the words barely audible, pulling her deeper into the void.

Noah did not speak again. The silence was unnerving, far worse than the noise she'd heard for months.

Then, with a soundless snap, the darkness was violently banished.

The lights came on.

Ava gasped, a sharp, choked sound that died in the sudden, jarring illumination. She froze instantly, every lawyerly instinct screaming danger, halt, withdraw.

The room was large, with no windows, and designed with a ruthless aesthetic. The walls were painted a deep, lustrous black, and thick, plush carpets covered the floor in the same color. However, every piece of equipment, every accent, every shadow was cast in a dominant, aggressive red.

This was not a bedroom. It wasn't even a sex room.

It was a performance space. A dedicated chamber.

She had just walked straight into the place where months of moans had been born against her shared wall.

Her stomach fluttered violently.

All that time, she thought she was listening to sex. Turns out she'd been listening to various women being flogged, gagged, and possibly electrocuted. And they seemed to like it.

Her eyes moved slowly, drinking every detail she wished she wasn't impressed by.

In the center stood a heavy Andrew Cross, a large, upright wooden frame in the shape of an 'X,' stained black and detailed with heavy silver rings. Nearby, chains hung from the ceiling, thick lengths of cold metal that glittered under the powerful overhead lights.

To the side, there was a simple, sturdy table covered in black leather, mounted with various straps and cuffs.

Her eyes snagged on a separate wall rack: thick whips and canes, polished and ready. Next to them, a collection of wires, clamps, and cables...she shuddered, thinking of her earlier internal joke: flogged, gagged, possibly electrocuted. The jumper wires were terrifyingly real.

She was standing in a dungeon.

Ava spun around, seeking Noah, finding him standing casually next to the leather table, his legs crossed at the ankle and his arms folded across his vast, bare chest. He was utterly impassive, watching her reaction with skilled detachment.

His hair was bright under the warm light, high cheekbones cut like marble, mouth set in a straight, unreadable line. He was broader in this room than he'd seemed outside of it, something about the stark lines and hard edges gave him a gravitational pull that tugged her forward.

She hated how her knees felt untrustworthy.

He didn't move, didn't speak, didn't blink.

He just watched her. The same way he had watched her at the door.

She tried to speak, but the words stuck in her dry throat. Her mind raced from the logical (violation of lease agreement? safety standards?) to the primal (run).

Of course, he's into BDSM. The thought was so absurd it nearly made her laugh hysterically. The sex god next door wasn't just loud; he was a literal master. And she, a woman who hadn't managed to get a man's penis fully inside her, was standing in his playground.

Could she handle this? Did she even want him to still fuck her?

Her confidence, the fragile thing that had powered her across the hall, began to rebuild itself, fueled by a renewed sense of defiance. She had overcome a decade of shame. She wouldn't be intimidated by furniture.

She took a deliberate step forward, planting her feet. Using her most professional, courtroom voice, firm, steady, and utterly devoid of emotion, she asked him, "What is this?"

Noah simply quirked a brow, the only movement he allowed himself. The silence stretched long and accusatory.

Then, he slowly unfolded his arms, straightened from his casual stance, and walked behind the leather table. He placed his palms flat on the surface, leaning forward slightly, his gaze fixed on Ava, void of any discernible emotion.

"You're not blind, Ava." His voice, that rough, accented rumble, was colder here, detached, fitting the metallic atmosphere of the room. He didn't raise his volume, yet every syllable was a command.

Ava's pulse thudded at the base of her neck.

Her instinct was to joke, to say something irreverent, something snarky, something that would drag her sanity back by the hair.

Instead, her mouth muttered, "Jesus Christ."

Noah's expression didn't change. "He's not in here."

Gosh.

Of course, he would say something like that.

Her eyes narrowed, even though her pulse was sprinting. "You know, most people give a house tour before dumping someone into... this."

Still, nothing came from Noah. No smile, not even arrogance. Just cool detachment. He was like ice and fire at the same time.

She tried speaking again. "So what is the purpose of this room?"

Noah merely answered her in a bored tone. "Pleasure."

"Pleasure?" Ava asked, her gaze warily scanning an object that looked like a well-done caricature of a chainsaw. If someone who wasn't experienced walked into this room, they'd think this was a slaughterhouse.

Ava shuddered. It seems her neighbor was into stuff she'd never considered.

"Just what kind of pleasure would you be giving a woman in this room?" she muttered to herself.

"I don't fuck women, but I can bring them pleasure. I can fuck you, as you've requested, but with other... means." Noah answered her question.

Ava was stunned. Incensed. She looked wildly around the room, trying to make sense of his words. For months, she'd heard the ecstatic screams and moans. And all this time, the women weren't being penetrated?

They were being tortured by devices. Flogged, clamped, and possibly electrocuted?

No. Absolutely no. She was here for a cock attached to a body. She had dealt with devices her whole life!

What difference did any of this expensive metal and leather make compared to a quality silicone toy?

And what did he mean, "I don't fuck women"?

Was he gay? The thought hit her with surprising force, flooding her cheeks with heat.

Now, the entire puzzle clicked into place. The relentless parade of women, the non-stop sessions, the intense noise, it wasn't about penetration; it was about performance and pleasure delivered in a way that didn't require him to engage sexually.

He was a service provider, alright, one who bypassed the conventional. It's the first time she's heard of something so bizarre. She couldn't wait to tell Jenna and Mari and laugh over it.

Feeling foolish for her blunder but suddenly sympathetic to the hidden struggle of her mysterious neighbor, she inhaled a long breath. She offered him a soft, genuinely apologetic smile.

"Oh, I guess I was mistaken then. I... I sincerely apologize for disturbing you so late in the night. I didn't know gay men offered such services. Nonetheless, it's impressive of you, but that's not what I'm looking for." Ava stated, eyeing the St. Andrew Cross with a distinct grimace.

She thought Noah hadn't heard the word 'gay' over the silence. But his eyes, those terrifying emerald eyes, blazed instantly, morphing into something violent and malicious.

Before she could blink, he was in front of her. He had crossed the wide floor in two massive strides, eating up the distance between them. His large fingers curled hard around her neck, not quite choking her, but certainly delivering a stunning, inescapable pressure.

Her eyes widened with fright, but she didn't try to fight him off. She was mesmerized by the sudden, terrifying shift in his demeanor.

Noah scoffed, the sound rough and low in his throat. "I am not gay. My reasons for not fucking women are none of your business. You walked inside here with a request, and I'm not the kind of person to turn one down."

His grip remained firm, controlling her movement, forcing her to look up at him. "Now, are you in or out?"

Ava may not know who her neighbor was, but one thing was certain after these few minutes she'd spent in his apartment.

He was a man of few words but very straightforward. And there was nothing teenagerly about him.

This was a man who sought control as much as she did. But, where she was willing to lose control for the first time, Noah didn't seem like the person to ever give it up. Ava wondered what storm hid underneath Noah's carefully controlled calm.

She briefly wondered if he's ever let himself go wild in bed. If he wasn't gay then why did he not fuck women? Was he scared of hurting them? Did he really have a defect down there as Mari had guessed? Or was he too big?

The last thought made Ava squeeze her thighs together.

Noah's eyes scanned her face, dropping briefly, possessively, to her lips before settling back on her gaze.

Ava swallowed hard, the movement painful against his fingers. Her brain screamed contradictory thoughts. He just choked me! Leave! But another, deeper part whispered: He didn't refuse your offer. He still gave you a choice.

She had come here to break the rules, to smash her routine, to find that chaos Jenna had joked about. For too long, she had been the go-getter, the rational one, the lawyer who never put a toe out of line.

What harm would it do if I just did something out of character for once?

Noah, her spicy, hot, terrifying neighbor, was the embodiment of the recklessness she craved.

"I want it. I'm in," she said, the words barely a rasp.

At the same instant, Noah released her neck. The pressure vanished, leaving a stinging warmth and the sharp, visceral understanding of his power.

It would be just for tonight. One night of giving in. One night of chaos. And she would go back to her normal life with an experience worth savoring until the New Year.

Noah released Ava's neck and stepped back, restoring the distance between them. The pressure vanished, leaving a stinging warmth and the sharp, visceral understanding of his power. His eyes, now possessing a cold, dangerous gleam, swept over her body.

"Good girl," he murmured, the first hint of satisfaction she'd seen on his face. He pointed toward the center of the room, past the terrifying equipment. "Take off your clothes."