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Would ‘your pussy’ be an acceptable answer to this question? Probably not.

“Water.” It’s the only drink she has in her fridge.

“Um, what should I wear?” Nothing. That’s what I want to say, but instead, I tell her jeans and a top.

Sienna is one of those women who would make a fucking burlap sack look good. Which was a problem for me, because she’d stick out like a fucking lightbulb in the place I was taking her to. A literal flame for the fucking moths. I just prayed they kept their hands tothemselves, or else they would find themselves shopping for prosthetics in the near future.

Thoughts of other men even touching Sienna make the slumbering green monster in me unfurl while my eyes find the picture of her late husband on the side table.

His face was everywhere. The two of them always smiling at each other. The one in the passage of them on their wedding day irritated me the most. The love in Sienna's eyes shone through, captured by the camera with one button click.

It gnawed at me that someone else had earned that. Someone else got to have that before me.

What had it taken? I didn’t have a pleasant personality or a loving demeanor. I didn’t look like I mowed the lawn on weekends or helped old ladies cross the road. James looked like that. Like a fucking boy scout.

It’s probably a blessing he is dead. If I had met her when she was with him, there's no telling what I would have done. Just as well. She would have ended up hating me.

Competing with a dead man was a new experience for me. I wonder, and not for the first goddamn time, if Sienna still loves him. The thought makes me jealous, and I laugh out loud. The situation is absurd, but the feeling is no less real than if he were alive.

Restlessness gnawed at me, and the need to see her pulled my feet down the hallway toward her room—the one at the end, with the four-poster bed and floral bedspread.

I already had four pieces of perfectly measured rope, long enough to comfortably tie her arms and legs to the corners. Just the thought of her sprawled out, unable to move, squirming while I ravage her, has my dick twitching.

The problem was that as much as I had plans to ruin her, a naggingvoice in the back of my mind was telling me something else. Whispering that I was a fool. That she would destroy me. And fuck if I wasn’t looking forward to that.

Chapter 4

Light

This is fine, right? He is a regular at the gym, so this should be okay. And he knows Big Mike, I justify, as I have the quickest shower ever.

After letting him in and getting him settled in the lounge area with a bottle of water, for lack of anything else to drink, I practically ran off. And then it dawned on me when I was alone that I left a stranger unattended in my house while I mucked about in the bathroom.

I pull on some jeans and a black top, the dress code given to me by the same man who has occupied my thoughts incessantly for the last couple of hours.

It's been a couple of months, actually, since I started at the gym. From the first moment I saw him, I was a bit obsessed. And now he is here. In my house. With me. All alone.

I thought he might be the man from the club, but when I mentioned it earlier, he didn’t fess up, so I think they are not the same person. Which is a pity. I wish they were.

But at least now I have two men in my repertoire of fantasies.Menwho would remain just that, I think gruffly, eyeing myself in the mirror. They belonged with tall, slender, elegant women, not frumpy, quirky, clumsy bookworms.

After pulling my hair into a high ponytail, I venture out of my bedroom, walking smack-bang into a hard chest. Déjà vu of the man at the club assaults me, and I step back, looking into dark brown eyes, so rich they remind me of my favorite dark chocolate.

His gaze travels my face and lands on my ponytail. His mouth twitches, and I touch my hair, wondering if the style is inappropriate for waitressing. I thought it was practical. But what would I know? I last worked as a waitress at university, fifteen years ago. Also, what kind of a club had waitresses? Usually, there’s just a bar from which you order.

Doubt starts settling in. Was I too old to be doing this?

“What's wrong?” His brow furrows as his eyes roam my face. Geezus, how astute was this guy? It’s like he can read my mind.

“Nothing,” I say, laughing. “I was just wondering if I’m too old to work at a club.”

“You’re only thirty-five. And you look closer to twenty-five. You will be fine.”

He turns around and walks towards the front door.

My heart blooms at the compliment he cast my way so frivolously. It’s like hearing a song verse that sticks in your head for days. You wake up humming it. You go to sleep singing it. Until you are sick to death of it and googling ways to forget. This would be one of those situations.

As I repeat the words in my head again, it dawns on me.