Page 19

The usual music blared through the club speakers while I found myself cornered there, locked in a conversation with one of the dancers. I leaned in slightly, my forearm against the wall behind her so I could hear her better.

She had been working in the club for quite a while if I remembered correctly, and while I couldn’t remember her name, I thought I might as well lend her my ear for a moment.

Standing there talking about work wasn’t exactly what I wanted to be doing, but I didn’t have it in me to hurry her up just yet.

While she was pleasant enough to speak with, she was also like the others—somehow finding a way to get my attention through other means, like using the conversation as an excuse to at least flirt a little. And she knew about how things ran around that place more than I appreciated.

She leaned into me while she spoke, green eyes locked with mine. “Something must’ve been wrong with the bankroll this week…my pay didn’t match up with my hours.”

Taking in the issue, I tried to ignore the way her hand lingered against my bicep through the unnecessary contact. Focusing, I murmured, “That’s not exactly my department. If you have a problem, take it up with your manager. I’m sure he can get in touch with Damien and figure out what went wrong.”

She sucked her teeth in a faint sound of disappointment. “I tried that already…you know how useless Ian can be.”

Sighing, I knew she wasn’t wrong. Regardless of how many warnings we gave him, he always seemed to find a way to spend more time indulging than actually managing the girls like he was supposed to.

“Yeah, I know….”

The way she looked at me, and the way her fingers crept higher up the sleeve of my shirt, told me everything I needed to know. She wasn’t the first to assume she could have unbridled access to me just because of her job, and the fact that I was even still there.

She was easy on the eyes and hardly wearing anything at all, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t interested.

I didn’t take kindly to anyone who thought they could get whatever they wanted by batting their eyelashes at me and showing enough skin to make a nun cry.

Her problem was not my problem, but her hand snaking up my arm was about to create one. I was seconds away from knocking her hand away.

“You sure we can’t talk about it…elsewhere?” she asked, using that endlessly flirty tone with me.

I inwardly rolled my eyes. “Can’t, sorry.”

“You sure?” she went on, just bordering the edge of pestering. “I’m sure I could make it worth your while.”

“Listen,” I finally muttered, too annoyed to keep up the image of politeness by that point. “You don’t need to be coy. I know what you want, but I’m not interested. If you have an actual problem, find a way to reach Damien, not me. Otherwise, get back to it—you’re on the clock.”

Despite the flicker of disappointment that moved through her eyes, it quickly disappeared when she realized I wasn’t playing. She swallowed hard and nodded, looking vaguely embarrassed. “Right. I apologize.”

Giving me a well-practiced smile, she ducked and slid away, disappearing into the crowd again.

Finally.

Forcing out a breath and shaking off the residual irritation, I turned, prepared to finally go get that drink I wanted before heading out.

But when I looked over, I didn’t miss that figure sitting there already.

I knew the back of that head…the slight curve of her spine and that effortlessly wavy, sandy-blonde hair.

I had been staring at the back of that head in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep for weeks, watching the way her body moved with every breath while I kept my hands perfectly to myself despite how agonizing it was.

Aria was in the club. I didn’t know why or what she was doing there, but it also didn’t escape me how she seemed to be leaning into the bar.

In front of her, the bartender was distracted, giving her a big white smile while they talked. He seemed almost enraptured by whatever she had to say.

Taking a few steps closer, I caught the flirtatious tilt of her head, the big smile she returned to him, almost like she was interested.

I should’ve known. I should’ve known it would be impossible to keep the situation between us detached and professional, even if it was the best thing for the business.

Every time they laughed, speaking far too comfortably between themselves while everything else went on around them, and every time I caught the way his eyes darted down to her chest, I could feel myself getting closer to exploding completely.

I did not doubt that Aria knew what she was working with, knew the kind of power she wielded with her looks and that smooth tongue of hers. She could have anyone she wanted wrapped around her finger in the span of only a few minutes.

Surely, she wasn’t interested in him—no, she was toying with him. Playing some kind of game, but what exactly, I didn’t know.

But it didn’t matter.

She was flirting with the goddamn bartender, of all people.

With blistering fury beneath my skin, my feet were moving before I could stop them. Fists tight and jaw clamped shut, I swore I cleared that space in record time, unable to let go of the raw possessiveness that slid through my veins.

It was heavy, and I hated the way it directed my movements without giving my rational mind the chance to catch up.

I was there in seconds, grabbing at his collar and pulling him against the bar. The moment his eyes met my flaming ones, the recognition drained his skin of all color.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I snapped at him, watching the way his eyes grew with panic, struggling to string a coherent thought together.

Not giving him the chance to babble, my fist cracked against his jaw, forcing him back against the rear counter. His arms splayed out to catch himself before immediately putting a hand against his face.

The shock in his features satisfied the faintest part of me, but I wasn’t done yet.

Turning on her, I found her expression looking the same as the bartender’s right before I hit him. Maybe she wondered if I was about to do the same to her. Maybe she was just questioning how deep in shit she really was.

Worst of all, that look told me she knew she was caught. It had been an act all along.

“You,” I uttered, eyes not leaving her while I ignored the bartender. “Get up. Right now.”

Aria was frozen at first, as if questioning whether or not that was a good idea. But before she could decide, I already grabbed her wrist and took her away from the bar.

I scarcely gave her the time or courtesy to let her catch her breath or watch her step. Instead, she had to navigate the club behind me on those short heels of hers, eventually reaching the darker back hallway.

Wordlessly, I pulled her into one of the back rooms, closing the door behind us and locking it while she stumbled in.

The moment my eyes were on her, concern and what I could only assume was veiled regret shook through her.

“And what the fuck were you doing?” I demanded, not bothering to keep my volume down. The back rooms were soundproof, after all. “And don’t play dumb with me…I saw you touching him, flirting with the fucking bartender.”

A haughty combination of things moved through her eyes then, but Aria swept some hair from her face and huffed out a breath. “And if I did?”

Despite the few steps between us, I could practically feel the way her pulse raced to match mine—both rapidly pounding with raw anger. Along with it, red-hot jealousy flared in me.

“What was your plan then, huh?” I demanded, closing that space with a few heated steps until I was right in front of her. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice, or was that what you were hoping for? Did you assume I’d let some man look at you like that—touch you?”

Despite her anger that tried to match mine, I could see the surprise in her gaze, as if she didn’t expect me to be quite so heated about it, like she didn’t think I’d let those words come out.

It took everything in me to maintain even a semblance of control. “I know you aren’t an idiot, regardless of how criminally stupid that was. You know better. You know full well that I wouldn’t sit by like a blubbering jackass while you put your hands on him, yet you did it anyway. You’re embarrassing me and you’re embarrassing yourself. In case you forgot, you’re my wife.”

I caught the slight hitch of her breath the moment I leaned a bit closer, crowding her space. Yet, she didn’t move away while she considered her next words. “And what about that dancer? It’s fine for you to let your employees touch you like they’re just that familiar with you?”

So that was why…that was why she decided to poke the bear in the worst way possible.

My jaw set tightly while I forced the words out. “She’s irrelevant. She’s not mine, and she’ll never even have a piece of me. She’s not the one who needs to be reminded where her place is…”

Tension thickened in that small room the moment those words settled between us—the crackling attraction neither of us could shake regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the charged anger.

Remembering the fact that we were legally married and bound by that pact, thinking of the time we spent in the car the first time I had her, when I was the first to explore her untouched body, knowing how badly I craved her ever since despite my insistence to resist her…

Regardless of that slip-up, I tried so hard to keep things clean. To prevent muddying the waters and getting any kind of emotion involved. I didn’t want to sabotage the plan or forget what my true goal had been.

I didn’t want unbridled lust to fog my head and distract me from what needed to be done.

But in that moment, seeing the lingering defiance alongside her own unshakable need in her eyes, I couldn’t remember what my plan was. I couldn’t remember what all that self-restraint had even been for.

I spent night after night, week after week, agonizing over how badly I needed to have her again. How badly I wanted to cross that line and show my wife exactly why she didn’t need any other man.

That was especially true now.

Regardless of the slight gleam of excitement that crossed her features, Aria leaned a bit closer, letting her words ghost against my lips.

“You want to put me in my place…you want me to submit,” she murmured, just above a whisper. “Try it, then.”

The underlying heat in her taunt caught me off-guard, but with that seductive tone of hers, I couldn’t take it.

Reaching for her waist, I pulled Aria against me with a dizzying urgency, immediately stealing the breath from her.

Our mouths collided in a nearly bruising kiss, lips far too eagerly melding against hers with unparalleled heat. It was rough and unyielding, but I didn’t care.

Not while my fingers were moving through her hair, tangling in the strands at the back of her head while Aria kissed me back, matching my raw desire with her own. She gripped the nape of my neck and pulled me even closer, almost like she couldn’t get enough. Like she never would.

That crackling tension roared into a blaze of nearly blinding need, and I knew I’d never be fully satisfied. I certainly wouldn’t be sated enough to leave that room until I completely devoured her.

Through the scorching haze unleashed between us, we stumbled backward in search of any kind of surface while our hands pulled and tore impatiently.

I didn’t care about that stupid plan anymore. I didn’t care about whatever games we’d been playing, and I certainly didn’t give a damn about resisting her. Not while I needed to feel her skin against mine more than anything else.

Consequences be damned, I needed her.

The moment Aria nearly fell back onto the dark sectional, lips still chasing mine, I grabbed her hips and maneuvered her to straddle me.

The comfortable, warm weight of her against me sparked a savage lust in me that was unlike anything I had ever felt before.

My fingers squeezed at her curves, already toying and pulling blindly at the waistband of her panties. Groaning into the kiss, I couldn’t get enough.

Regardless of everything else, Aria was mine and mine alone.

And I wasn’t going to stop until that point was abundantly clear.