Page 78 of My Wedding Night Massacre

It's not a nice smile. There’s nothing nice about that smile.

It's the kind of smile that promises trouble, the kind that says he knows exactly what I'm thinking and he's thinking it too. My pulse hammers so hard I can feel it in my throat, my wrists, between my legs where I'm so wet I'm surprised it's not running down my thighs.

I take another step.

Then someone grabs his arm—a man in a dark suit, urgent, saying something I can't hear over the music. The silver-haired man's expression changes completely, becomes something colder, harder. He glances at me one more time, and I see it in his eyes:

Not now. Not yet.

How do I know this? Even if I ask myself. I don’t freaking know. The margarita must be getting to me.

He turns, follows the other man back toward the VIP section, and just like that, the moment shatters.

I stand there on the edge of the dance floor, dress clinging to my suddenly cold skin, nipples still hard, underwear still soaked, watching him disappear into a private room. The door closes. He doesn't look back.

"What the hell was that?" Chloe appears at my elbow.

"I have no idea."

But I'm shaking. Actually shaking, like my body can't process what just happened—or didn't happen. It's been five minutes. Less. We didn't even speak. But I feel like something fundamental just shifted in my universe, and I don't know if I'm terrified or exhilarated.

Maybe both.

"Come on," Tiana says gently, taking my arm. "Let's get out of here."

I let them lead me toward the exit, but I can't stop looking back at that closed door. Can't stop wondering who he is, why he looked at me like that, if I'll ever see him again. Can't stop feeling the wetness between my legs, the proof that my body knows something my brain hasn't caught up to yet.

I'm not broken.

I just needed the right man to prove it.

The night air hits me when we step outside, cool and sharp after the heat of the club. My Uber's already pulling up. Chloe hugs me tight, whispers, "Best night ever," and even though nothing actually happened, I can't disagree.

In the car, I pull out my phone. Stare at the bucket list again.

Number seven's still unchecked.

But for the first time in four years, I think I might actually know what kind of man I'm looking for.

The kind who looks at me like I'm the only person in the room worth looking at.

The kind who can make me wet with just a glance.

Axel

Focus, Axel.

Viktor's hand is on my arm, pulling me away from the main floor, and I want to break his fingers. Seven years. Seven years I kept Viktor alive, kept him fed with orders from my cell, and now he's interrupting the first interesting thing that's happened since I got out.

The girl's still standing there. Dark hair, dark eyes, curves in a red dress that should be illegal. Watching me walk away like I just broke a promise I didn't know I made.

Just forget her.

"Boss, we got a situation." Viktor steers me toward the private room, his voice low enough that the music swallows it. "Dmitri's crew hit one of our shipments at the docks. Small stuff, but they're testing us."

I let him lead us into the back room, but part of me is still out there. Still feeling those eyes on me like a brand. Twenty-four years old, maybe twenty-five at most. Young. Too young for a man who just spent seven years in a cage.

Too young for a man who's forty-three and has more blood on his hands than he can wash off.