The black Guipure lace mini dress is more a thin caress of crafted lace slapped over my curvy frame. With my studded red bra and matching thong, it’s more indecent to stay covered than not.
Eyes turn my way, widening with alarm and surprise as they realize what I’m wearing but also who I am. Who has decided to grace this club tonight, and the cameras are already being pulled out.
Resident party-girl back after a much-gossiped wedding and a brief reprieve and the crowd is buzzing with palpable excitement. People whisper, some openly gawk. This is what I wanted. This is why I came here.
I need the attention, the distraction, I need to be so outrageous that Alessio is completely done with me.
Danica winks, noticing the same heads turning, but whereas I’m enjoying the buzz along my nerves, her look is downright ravenous.
“You look incredible,” she murmurs, holding our joined hand above our heads. Gold bangles jingle, swallowed up by the roar of the crowd and the solid beats of drifting music from inside the warehouse club.
When she brings our hands back down, she sees the wedding band on my ring finger.
She makes a disgusted face at the physical evidence of my marriage. “Eck. You should really get rid of that.”
I take back my hand, strangely protective of it. It’s the first piece of jewelry given to me that was for me. Not a piece to be flaunted by my father. “I will. When I divorce him.”
I don’t mention how the weight is a safety blanket, a comfort even now while I’m furious at him for his cold dismissal. How lonely I felt when he didn’t stay the night.
I hate how dependent I’m becoming of him. I’m sure this is just his plan to make me stay, to be his, by way of missing him.
Danica’s glossy lips screw up into a grimace. “Here, I’ll make it easy for you. Watch.”
She grabs the ring, twisting it down. A sharp stinging jabs me on three sides, pain erupting across my digit. I shout, looking to my hand. “Ow! No, wait. Jesus, what was that?”
We both scan my hand, turning our backs to the crowd waiting to enter the club so as to hide. Three deep red lines are cut deep into my finger, tiny needles stopping the ring for moving past my first knuckle.
“Fucking bastard,” I growl, pushing the ring back down. Thankfully it goes without pain, the tiny knives retracting. It’ll go down but not up. Clever.
Danica whistles loudly. “That boy isn’t playing games with you.”
“You could have not pulled it.” My poor finger looks like it lost a battle with a wood chipper. Blood is dripping off my nail, blending in with the nail polish, splattering on the cement.
“How was I to know he was a sick fuck who boobytrapped a wedding ring?”
Glaring at her, she tucks a red curl behind my shoulder to comfort. “Come on, dear. Let’s get inside and get you a napkin. And a few drinks. That’ll take care of the pain.”
The club itself is more of an open warehouse, with the far end wall gone and facing the water. I can smell the salt, thankful that the air is turning warmer every day. Soon summer will be here, and the harbor will be an unpleasant mix of old seaweed and expensive wines with a hint of charred ashes in the air.
Right now, it smells like various liquors and the competing scents of a dozen different colognes. And sweat. A lot of sweat.
The lights overhead are dimmed to nothing more than a shadow and the bodies pressed together are making perspiration break out under my heavy curtain of red curls. I don’t have to dance, and I’ll be drenched just from the amount of people in here.
Danica orders for us over the heavy techno music. A lemon drop shot first, followed by pink cosmos. Because why not?
I grab a few napkins, wrapping my finger, putting pressure right on the cuts. The napkins are soaked right away.
“So how’s married life?”
“Not at all what I expected.” I sigh, gesturing for another shot to the bartender, changing out the makeshift bandage. The throbbing pain is radiating over my finger, and I’ll need more alcohol to dull this. “It’s hard.”
“Hard?” Her blue eyes glint with interest. “Well, if marriage was easy, we’d all do it. Hell, I can barely keep a man longer than three months. Then things get messy.”
I snort, taking the shot without a face. “Right. Because you’re not messy.”
“Oh, I am. Just only one of us is allowed to be messy and since I hold that title, I refuse to share. He usually doesn’t feel the same.” She shrugs, looking over the dance floor.
The music changes, and I can feel the beat in my chest, body rocking subconsciously.
“Getting along with the new in-laws?”
I shrug. “Sort of. They’re nice, but we don’t really sit down to talk.”
I’m not exactly sure what he’ll do now that I’ve actively gone against his order. Lex is unpredictable and dangerous. A normal man would be running away from me at this point in the relationship—but not Lex. He’s enjoying my fight and that throws me off.
I have to play my next steps carefully if I want to end this arrangement.
“Sounds like bliss.” She sighs, tugging the powder blue wrap dress down lower, exposing her small cleavage. “Don’t have to talk to the in-laws, don’t have to listen to their criticism. Other than a death ring, you’re in marriage heaven.”
Rolling my eyes, I take a third shot, not bothering to correct her. It’d be pointless to try.
Danica doesn’t understand why this is my nightmare. I want the conversations, the cousins in my business, the bonding moments. I never had that with Pops, and I’ve always felt left out.
“Have you two fucked?”
My eyes glance to her and away quickly. “No.”
“Not even on your wedding night?” She licks her pink lips, eyes raking over my chest and hips like a lover’s caress.
Or it’d feel that way. If I was into it.
And right now, I’m not.
“Not even on our wedding night.”
“You poor thing,” she pouts, chipped nail skimming my exposed arm. “I know you, Sloane. Asking you to go without sex for this long is close to torture.”
She didn’t know the half of it. I’m a sexual person, I enjoy my body. Being denied so many times is messing with my head.
“I can help,” she says, grin bright and tempting. As if she can see the desperation on my face and is ready to pounce.
It’s tempting because she’ll certainly get me off. We’ve always known the others’ hot spots.
But it’s not what I want. She isn’t what I want.
“Let’s talk about that later. Right now, I need to figure out a way to provoke a divorce.” I take a fourth shot, sipping from the sweet cocktail to chase the burn.
Danica always likes her stuff sweet. I prefer a glass of whiskey or red wine. This stuff gives me a toothache.
“So what are you going to do?” She takes her third shot of the night, chasing it with the rest of her Cosmo. The liquor is starting to go to my head, muddling my thoughts and giving me that delicious buzz that I’ve missed.
But it doesn’t hit just right anymore. Doesn’t scratch the usual itch.
“I’m going to cause chaos, like I do best, and hope it’s enough to piss off my husband and make him end things.” I raise my empty glass and Danica cheers me.
“That’s certainly a plan. Here, here!” Her mood evaporates into something devious.
It’s certainly the idea of a plan. I just don’t know how to do it yet.
So far, Lex has taken all my tantrums, my fight, and embraced it. Normal people would have left me at the bus stop at this point, not try to bring out more in me. Pops certainly tried. How can I upset someone like that, who wants me to stay that badly?
Lex’s control is iron strong. He doesn’t give into his impulses; he knows his boundaries. He wouldn’t even sleep next to me last night because he might be tempted to give me what I wanted. If it wasn’t on his terms, he wouldn’t do it.
Danica’s hips start to sway, the music changing tempo again.
There’s only one thing that seems to get under Lex’s skin.
My refusal to admit that I was his, or that I was staying. And my relationship with Danica.
He doesn’t like to share, and he sees Danica as a viable threat. Could I use my friend to bring about a divorce with my husband? It’s not like she and I haven’t been together before. But I’d be putting her in the middle of this.
In true Sloane fashion, with the booze in my system, I don’t really care. I need this to work more than I care about her safety.
“Danica,” I say slowly, tasting the liquor on my red lips. “Dance with me.”
I pull her to the floor, feeling eyes on my back. I’m not tipsy enough not to be aware of my surroundings. They might not be the tabloids, but they get their pictures from the public. And right now, I’m going to give them a show.
If I play this right, the pictures will hit first thing in the morning, and I’ll be a divorced woman by noon.
Then, I can choose to do whatever I want. I won’t have to think about Lex or his demands. I won’t have to be confused by his hot and cold demeanor or why I want to drop to my knees for him even though everything in me rebels at the idea. Or why I feel so comfortable in his home even though it’s not my home—it’s his.
It’s not long before Danica is kissing me, picking up on my need, throwing me roughly against the stone wall. Tongues clash, hands fumble with need and longing. My body hums to life, the fire Lex started having never fully extinguished.
This is exactly what I need to get under Lex’s skin.
It’s hard to ignore how her kiss doesn’t bring the same heat as Lex’s, or how it doesn’t make me yearn with crippling need. The intimacy, the way he seems to be able to play my body as if it was made for him is lacking from her light, gentle touches. Lex is power—
I shake my head. No. I can’t think about him.
She reaches for my hair, pushing me further against the dark corner, holding me still. She rolls her hips, and I can’t fight the small moan. The attention, the touch, it’s building within me though nowhere near the fire from the night before.
I mentally shake myself, willing myself to only focus on the woman in front of me. She’s willing, pliable.
Slowly, I lose myself into the tangle of our tongues, going through with the mechanics, finding the rhythm in the way her bony hips push against me, the pumping of the bass in my ears and the hum of energy around us.
Strong, violent hands yank me away, feet tripping over the uneven floor as my eyes flutter open.
Angry copper eyes glare down at me though the rest of his face is oddly calm. But I see the rage, simmering coals ready to burn me alive.
“I gave you one order, menace.” His words are clipped short, yet soft. “One order and you couldn’t follow it. What am I supposed to do now?”
Panting, I push the hair out of my face. “How did you—?”
“Did you really think I would let my wife who was intent on running, who has told me she plans on leaving, be alone all day, if I didn’t have a way of finding her?” Dark brows rise incredulously.
I glance down to my ring, and the pink napkin wrapped under it, dotted with blood. It clicks almost immediately. “You put a tracker in the ring.”
He holds up my hand as one of his men comes to either side of us. “Ah, so you found my little trick.” At my sputtering words, he chuckles. “Did it hurt?”
“This is fucking assault.”
“Is it?” He blinks once innocently, finally looking to Danica. Two men stand on either side of her, holding her arms at her side. “Give me your phone.”
“Fuck you,” Danica spits out, but one man just digs the phone out of her hand without a word, almost breaking her wrist in the process.
I open my mouth to protest, but Lex silences me with a glare. He inspects it carefully turning the screen up then down, before he throws it into the wall beside my head with a sudden savagery that causes me to jump.
Pieces rain down onto the cement floor, and I hunker into myself to avoid a stray shard cutting me. For good measure, Lex smashes his heel into the glass, grinding the smallest bits into a fine dust.
“I realize you could buy a new phone, upload your information and dial her, or perhaps you’ve memorized her number. But this is to prove a point.” His face lowers into her vision, tugging his jacket straight and holds her gaze. That fury in his eyes is ragged, untamed. “Don’t contact my wife again. Don’t even fucking think about her. You are nothing but a waste of space, a parasite, and you do not deserve to breathe the same air as her. If you do?” He glances to the phone and smiles. “Well, you get the picture.”
He looks to one bald man and nods. “Get rid of her.”
I surge forward, ready to block their attempts when Lex grabs me around the middle and lifts me over his shoulder.
I am not a small woman. I have curves and extra pounds, but he lifts me as if I’m simply a piece of clothing he has to hang. One hand clamps down over my swinging legs, and the other picks up my fallen bag.
“We need to talk, Sloane. And I’d prefer not to do it in front of our audience.”
