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Eden

If you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t have accepted his damn challenge.

Shut up, brain.

She’d fallen neatly into his trap, and she couldn’t get out of it without basically admitting she cared, whether or not she said the words.

So, now she was going to go through with it just to show she could scene with him and shake it off immediately afterward. The way someone who didn’t care could.

It was just attraction.

It didn’t help that the whole week she’d been unable to keep memories of past scenes from playing out in her head like the world’s most taunting movie reel.

But memories weren’t always truthful. Chances were, things hadn’t been as hot as she remembered them.

Her brain romanticized it because once they were deeper into their marriage, once things started falling apart, it wasn’t like that anymore.

So, her brain romanticized the earlier relationship, telling her the sex had been hotter than it had been to help her justify why she’d stayed with him for so long.

That made sense, right? So, once she had sex with him again, she would know that it wasn’t as good as her brain was trying to make her believe. It was just sex. Then she’d be able to walk away with her heart intact.

Are we having sex? He said scene, not sex… maybe he doesn’t plan to have sex…

Shit.

Right back to the mental circles she kept running around all week because her brain kept interpreting ‘scene’ as ‘sex’ and there was a part of her that really, really, really still wanted to have sex with him.

That part was her slutty vagina, which didn’t care that he’d broken her heart all those years ago.

Looking down at her crotch, Eden scowled.

“Stop being so selfish,” she scolded the part in question. “You can’t just run things from your own agenda.”

Since her vagina didn’t have ears, it couldn’t exactly listen.

The alarm on her phone went off, letting her know it was time to head to the Outlands.

Taking a deep breath, she grabbed her purse and headed to the front door, pausing to take one last look in the entryway’s mirror.

It hadn’t been easy to find an outfit that combined “I don’t care about you” with “Eat your heart out because you made a mistake when you lost me,” but she thought she’d done pretty well.

No babygirl stuff here—she was wearing a sexy pink dress that clung to her body and matched her hair, which she was wearing down.

The dress wasn’t fetish wear, but it was hot as hell, sexy, and made her feel damn good.

With the bright color, low cut top, and tight skirt with a slit up both thighs, it was the kind of dress Marcus would have had a shit fit over if she’d tried to wear it out anywhere.

Which was exactly why she’d chosen it.

Even if it didn’t bother him now, it was a reminder to both of them that—at one point—it would have. Memories were better armor than any clothing she could put on, and she had a feeling she was going to need every advantage she could get.

Or you could just cancel.

Shut up, brain.

That would be admitting defeat. Then she would have to face the reality that she’d be disappointed at not getting the chance to see what things were like now. Besides, how was she supposed to wash away the romanticized memories with reality if she didn’t do the reality?

She’d always be left wondering if it was really as good as she remembered and wishing she’d taken the opportunity to find out. Plus, he’d agreed to leave her alone after they scened. Well… as long as it was clear she didn’t have any feelings left for him.

And it would be clear.

Right?

Shut up, brain.

Shaking her head to clear it, she yanked the door open and headed out.

The Outlands kink club wasn’t far from her in downtown Pittsburgh.

It used to be a restaurant that turned into a dance club at night on the top floor and a BDSM club in the basement, but last year it had undergone some renovations.

Now it was just a BDSM club. There had been an increase in membership fees to use all the amenities, but Eden had felt it was more than worth it.

The new club had two floors, all dedicated to kink.

The top floor still had a bar and a dance floor, but now there were private rooms, stations for sceneing along the walls of the main floor, and a large space balcony where they could look down on what was happening below them.

The lower floor was still where most of the sceneing equipment was out in the open and there were more private rooms down there as well.

Eden wasn’t surprised to find Rita, Andres, Owen, and Bree already there at one of the bar tables with Marcus when she arrived.

Marcus was always early for everything, and she didn’t think any of their friends were going to want to miss whatever happened between them.

The moment they spotted her, all of them straightened up.

Rita didn’t bother to hide her excitement, her blue eyes sparkling as if she was about to watch a movie she’d been looking forward to.

Lifting her hand, Eden sent her bestie a one-finger salute, which made her and Bree laugh. Marcus shook his head before he caught himself.

Uh huh.

Some old habits died hard. Just seeing that little head shake was enough to help clear her head.

Part of the reason she’d focused on Rita was because of the visceral reaction she had to seeing Marcus waiting for her, his gaze running over her body like he was mentally undressing her.

He hadn’t looked at her like that before now.

Not even when he’d made the challenge. The heat in his eyes flustered her, made her want to avoid his gaze, made her want to turn and run out the door… so she responded by antagonizing her friend and doing something that would have pissed him off in the past.

It didn’t help that he looked damn good, wearing leather pants and a vest that proved he was in fantastic shape.

Even better shape than he had been before when he was working at the office all the time.

Granted, she’d sort of known that, but she hadn’t seen him in full-on Dom gear or with his shirt off before now.

She’d seen the way his shoulders and biceps had filled out his clothes, but who knew those Flower Power t-shirts were also covering up pecs and abs?

Well, she knew now, and so did everyone else.

Eden pressed her lips together, lifting her chin up and sauntering over to the table.

If Marcus wanted to undress her with his eyes, that was fine.

It didn’t bother her because she didn’t have feelings for him.

She recognized he was an attractive man and enjoyed his appreciation of the effort she’d put into her appearance for tonight without it meaning anything more.

“Did someone send out a memo to get here early?” she asked when she reached the table.

“Nope, just wanted to make sure we didn’t miss anything,” Rita said, still grinning unrepentantly. Bree shot her a look.

“She means we wanted to be here in case you needed anything.”

“I said what I said.”

The laughter helped break the tension, and Eden could breathe a little easier. God, she loved her friends. They were going to have her back no matter what, and they knew what she needed. She was acutely aware of Marcus watching the interaction, like he was studying them. Studying her.

She couldn’t help but wonder what he saw.

She’d never been like this with any of her friends while they were married.

Not once he started becoming more concerned with appearances.

A lot of her friendships from before their marriage had fallen by the wayside, other than the co-workers she was friendly with, but she hadn’t really been friends with them, either.

Her social life had been consumed by Marcus’ needs.

She’d known to behave ‘properly’ around their joint friends…

because they all worked with Marcus. The ones who didn’t actually work with him were either married to or romantically involved with someone who did.

This kind of behavior would never have been acceptable.

She sure as hell wasn’t going back, though.

Not that she’d need to. Marcus wasn’t at that job anymore.

He’d seen who she was now, how she interacted with her friends.

If he was still interested, he needed to take her as she was currently.

She wasn’t going to change for him or making herself smaller for a man ever again.

He apologized for that, remember? He knows.

A really heartfelt apology. Which just made him more dangerous to her.

Deep down, she knew she wouldn’t have agreed to tonight without that apology having already happened.

He’d offered it up before she’d asked for it, and by the time he challenged her to a night together, it had gotten under her skin and was motivating her to make stupid choices.

“Would you like a drink?” Marcus asked. “Or would you like to jump right in?”

“Jump right in.”

She didn’t need a drink. She needed to get this over with, so she could figure out what happened next.