Knot Club: Stranger

The masks are the point. Nobody knows. Nobody sees. You walk in, you get through your heat, you walk out. That’s the deal.

I’ve been white-knuckling my heats alone for years — suppressants, locked doors, teeth marks on my own arm. But the suppressants stopped working, and I’m out of options. So I lied to my brother, drove across town, and walked into Knot Club.

The alpha who finds me on the floor is everything I need and nothing I’d choose. His scent hits me like a blade through static. His hands know exactly where to hold me. His voice cracks something open in my chest that I’ve spent twenty-two years sealing shut.

He calls me perfect. He makes me beg. He holds me while I fall apart on his knot and I let him because he’s a stranger and strangers don’t count.

Except he’s not a stranger. He knows exactly who I am. He’s known since I walked through the door.

And every perfect thing he did? He knew it would work.