Well, princess, top dog is my position. I won’t surrender that to anyone.
“You look like you were having fun.” My gaze strays to the bar where Lavender’s most recent dance partner is throwing back a beer.
“You don’t mind, do you?” She blinks as I hook my finger around a curl stuck to her glistening cheek.
“Mind you dancing? Why would I?” Why the fuck would I mind my wife dancing with another man—on my wedding night ofallnights? I guess the more pertinent question is, why am I pretending it doesn’t piss me off?
Because of this endless game of one-upmanship.
“I wouldn’t want you to feel threatened,” she says, sounding like the opposite would be a delight.
“Princess,” I murmur disparagingly as I reach out and turn my glass ninety degrees.
“You don’t think he’s a match for you?” She casually glances over her shoulder. The asshole at the bar spots her, then smiles and waves.
“I don’t feel threatened by a man whose facial hair hasn’t yet come in.”
“Mean,” she says before setting her lips around the straw, though it sounds more like approval.
I watch as Scooby Doo’s sidekick says something to his friend. They laugh, and something ugly bubbles inside me.
“You should’ve picked someone else if your intention was to make me jealous.”
“Why would I want to make you jealous?” Her tone is breezy as she sets her glass down. She leans back in the booth, shoulders back, tits out.
Yeah, why would you do that, princess?
For the same reason I find myself wanting to choke some fucker out, I expect. Because there’s something between us. Something inexplicable yet real. She’s not even my type—and I’m sure as shit not hers, I decide as my attention returns to the bar and the beer bros. But here we find ourselves, desire dancing between us like iron filings on a magnet.
How in the name of God did I find myself here? Was it when I kissed her mouth? Her pussy? Or was it the satisfaction that washed through me when the registrar announced us as man and wife?
As powerful as that felt, I think I can trace this need, this demand, to way before then. Back in the Chelsea house as I’d pulled her body against mine, her dress moving between us like a bedsheet, her tiny gasp sounding in my ear.
My intention had been to unsettle her, to knock her from her uppity perch.
My actions should’ve frightened her, not encouraged her.
But her body molded to mine like she was built for that purpose. As she’d lifted the glass from my hand, I think I was done for. Yep, it was then.
Lavender Whittington-Deveraux, what the fuck have you done to me?
“Yes! God, I love this song!” she says, jumping up, only stopping as I curl my hand around her wrist. She glances down, her lashes fluttering rapidly.
The moment passes in several long, loaded beats.
“Don’t be long.” My fingers unfurl as I let her go.
11
RAIF
“You wantme to go make him take a walk?”
I almost smile as I glance up into Antonio’s face, his expression carefully neutral. Antonio has a strange turn of phrase at times. Like he’s watched one too manyGodfathermovies.
“Make him sleep with the fishes?”
“No, but I can take him to the ocean if you prefer.”
