I navigated my driveway, forcing myself to fix my eyes straight. Or risk blowing a fuse that’d end up splattered across every local paper. Not to mention social media, under the ever-growing hashtag I shared with Dallas.
I was unable to reconcile the fact that my nineteenth-century estate, which once housed a prominent Union general, had been reduced to the witching grounds of a spoiled Georgian heiress.
People spilled out of my grand entry. Someone body-checked my Bentley, sloshing beer onto the windshield. I didn’t recognize a single one of them.
My blood, which usually ran as cold as my dormant heart, sizzled hot with anger and the urgent need to inflict pain on someone. A certain lovely someone.
I’d never felt more alive in my life.
Or as psychotic.
Eighteen different cars occupied my sixteen-car garage. It took me eight minutes to locate a parking space on my own property.
I stomped my way inside, shouldering past a panicked Vernon, who tried to run back outside.
A flushed Hettie met me at the door, both hands raised. “She said a small gathering of friends. I swear, Rom.”
Shortbread’s idea of a small gathering, apparently, consisted of an entire country club. Who were these people, anyway? She’d been in Potomac for less than two months.
I recognized my friends, the personal shopper at Hermès, two three-Michelin-starred chefs whose restaurants Dallas frequented, and remarkably, what appeared to be the vast majority of people I’d saved on the black-book spreadsheet in my home office.
The do-not-engage-with crowd.
People I systematically avoided at all costs.
Somehow, she’d found them and invited each and every one of them to my house. Incredible.
If I weren’t so furious, I’d be deeply impressed.
“Out of my way.”
Hettie hung her head, stepping aside.
I shoved past the mass of bodies. Most hadn’t bothered to dress up, enjoying the majority of the fine liquor from my wine cellar—the bottles I saved for special occasions—in Ferragamo leather slides and Bally tracksuits.
A full catering spread stretched across every counter, courtesy of Nibbles, a local boutique service that charged $1800 per head for parties.
People laughed, ate, mingled, and helped themselves to tours of my home. Which, by the way, was loud. Unbearably so.
My soul, if I indeed possessed one, itched to burst out of my skin like a bullet and run for its life.
I bumped into a shoulder on my quest toward the stairway. The person turned.
Oliver.
The first thing I did was punch him square in the face.
Not hard enough to break a nose, but certainly with enough rage to show what I thought of his recent behavior.
For reasons pertaining to my shitty upbringing, I possessed an overdeveloped fight instinct. My first instinct in any situation, really.
For decades, I’d reigned it in. Already, Shortbread had unleashed it on many unsuspecting victims.
“Aw.” Oliver rubbed his cheek. “What was that for?”
“Saying sexist things about my wife, offering her sexual favors to my face, and frankly, because your face is annoying.”
He sighed. “Fair enough. For the record—I am no longer interested in joking about bedding your wife. I figured it would hinder any future attempts to get with her sister.”
Is anyone in my life over the mental age of thirteen?
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
He took a swig of Belgian beer they didn’t even sell in the States. Jesus. How much money had this curse of mine spent during our brief marriage?
Oliver’s brows pulled together. “Regarding what?”
I lost patience. “What on earth inspired you to RSVP to her party?”
“Oh. There was no RVSP.” He twirled his finger. “This little shindig was all spur-of-the-moment. She pulled it together last minute. Incredible, right? She could do this for a living.”
The idea of Shortbread possessing a job—or reporting to anyone other than her irresponsible self—was both laughable and inconceivable.
This conversation chipped away the remainder of my patience.
Oliver lifted the mouth of his beer bottle to his lips. I held the base in place, forcing him to finish every last drop or risk getting waterboarded by the pilsner.
“Oliver. Why are you here?”
When I released the glass, he recovered with a grin, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “Well, the fact that she throws bomb-ass parties. She said there would be special catering, international alcohol, and fire theater. And so far, Derbyshire hasn’t let me down.”
Fire theater? In my house?
I fisted his shirt, losing all traces of the control I was so fond of. “Where is she?”
Oliver shrugged—or tried to beneath my fists. “Last I saw her, she was trying on some chick’s cocktail dress, and that chick was trying on her dress.”
“She was naked in front of other people?”
I was going to have a coronary.
At thirty-one.
“I can see why you’re weathering the storm, bro. She’s sex on legs. How’s she maintaining that ass? Five hundred squats a day?”
Try two sleeves of Oreos and a McFlurry.
I wrestled my way through dozens of people until I reached Dallas’s room. Locked. Of course.
I busted the door down with a kick. I wasn’t usually fond of damaging my five-thousand-a-pop rustica doors, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
Speaking of desperate, my wife was perched on the edge of her bed, wearing a gaudy, vibrant-green cocktail dress that didn’t belong to her.
Madison kneeled before her, actively weeping into her lap. The man boasted two black eyes from the DIY nose job I’d given him in Paris.
And still, he was idiotic enough to tread into my territory without an entire army by his side.
Dallas looked bored and in character.
It was obvious she’d spent a considerable amount of time waiting for me to make my grand entrance. She wanted my attention—and she would now be at the unfortunate receiving end of it.
Madison scrambled to his feet while Dallas took her time rising, a hint of satisfaction on her luscious, plump lips. She’d won this round, and she knew it. I’d cut my day short to be here.
I circled him now, predatorial. My eyes never wavered from his frame. “Tell me, Licht. Were you absent on the day God handed out brain cells?”
“You can’t lay a hand on me in public.” Madison revealed his cards in our poker game. “And we are, for all intents and purposes, in a public place. There are almost one hundred people here.”
He was right.
Some of them milled outside the room as we spoke, wondering why the door was currently pancaked to the floor and the three of us looked so tense. It seemed apparent at least one of us would leave in a body bag.
“You’re giving me undeserved credit.” I cracked my knuckles, feeling dangerously close to dropping my calm and collected façade. “I may very well kill you right here and right now if you don’t explain to me what I just walked into.”
Shortbread pouted. “We were having a closure conversation.”
I read between the lines. She’d chosen to become a player in this mess. And it worked. This marked the moment she ceased to be collateral.
“Or a make-up conversation,” Madison countered. “Depends on how you look at it, really.”
His attempt at goading me into a mistake was so obvious, he’d be better off taking out a Times Square billboard.
And still, for the first time in my life, I traipsed right into his trap. Stopped circling him. Aimed my fist to his throat.
I almost cut off his oxygen supply, but someone grabbed my elbow.
“Jesus, Rom. What are you doing?” Zach hissed in my ear from behind, pulling me away from Madison.
If it were only Zach, I could probably shake him off. We were similar in size, but I had experience in this field and an extra fifty pounds of rage inside me right now.
Unfortunately, Oliver held my other arm. “I knew he was going to ruin all the fun. Next time, don’t invite him, Daly City.”
Dallas ignored him.
Madison chuckled. “This is all very middle-school playground, Costa. Can’t control your emotions?”
“My emotions are fine. In fact, it felt extra nice to fuck your former fiancée with my tongue five minutes after I broke your nose in Paris.”
A chorus of gasps ricocheted behind my shoulder.
Most people viewed me as an unsympathetic and efficient businessman, who never colored outside the lines or did anything to garner gossip. Positive, negative, or otherwise.
That image crumbled to ruins.
Because of Shortbread.
She’d officially stolen my second scandal, too.
Madison narrowed his eyes, reminding me why shampoo bottles came with instructions. “I should sue you for what you did to me.”
“You should. That way, I can sue you for what you did to me.”
He and I both knew exactly what I’d referred to.
His smile disappeared. He edged himself further from Dallas, who had checked out of this conversation minutes ago and was now examining her cuticles.
Her downturned lips reeked of dissatisfaction. Good thing she’d invited her nail technician, too.
“All right, buddy. Time to get out of here before I, myself, mess your face up further.” With a cheerful grin, Oliver grabbed Madison by the ear like a nineteenth-century principal, dragging him out for all to see. “And I hate to say this, but from the bottom of my heart, you cannot afford more damage to your already average face.”
People spat out nervous laughter. I noticed no phones aimed at us. Shortbread must have confiscated them upon her guests’ arrival.
Smart girl.
Dead girl, too, but smart nonetheless.
With Madison kicking, screaming, and threatening legal action while Oliver literally dragged him from the premises, I addressed the real culprit of my life’s undoing.
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Not much.” She pouted. “You seem to be doing all the talking for the both of us. Really, Rom? Telling the world about what happened in the hotel room?”
Not my finest moment, I’d give her that.
Not that I was in a mood to admit it.
“It was our honeymoon. Not one soul under this roof thought we were playing cards and discussing Dante poems in our suite. Now are you ready to be grounded?”
“Are we role-playing right now? Is this where you spank me, Daddy?”
Much to my horror, my dick stirred.
Meanwhile, Zach hovered in the periphery, probably afraid I’d do something he thought I’d regret. Like kick Dallas out of my home and toss her Henry Plotkin books into the Potomac.
“Are you aware that Hettie is responsible for every misstep you make?”
That got to her.
Shortbread straightened, meeting me in fast strides. “This isn’t her fault. I promised her just a small get-together. But I never expected so many people to show up at your house. I thought they’d all avoid you like the plague.”
“And I’m supposed to believe inviting every single person I’ve ever blacklisted within a hundred-mile radius is a simple innocent mistake?”
She pouted. “I thought it was your friends list. Surprise?” At my flat, unamused expression, she rocked on her feet. “How was I supposed to know what that list was? It’s not like you tell me anything. I don’t know a single thing about you. What city you were born in. The name of your first pet. Your mother’s maiden name. Your favorite food as a child.”
“You learn things by asking, Dallas. Not by throwing ragers that can be heard from the International Space Station.”
“I do ask. You never answer me.”
“Potomac. No pets. Serra. Anything with calories. See how easy that was?”
“Rom.” That came from Zach, who approached my flank.
I ignored him. “Anything else you’d like to know?”
“The make and model of your first car?”
“A Porsche Cayenne.”
“Rom.”
I rounded on Zach. “What?”
“Do these questions ring any bells? From, oh, I don’t know… The security questions to a bank account, perhaps?”
Dallas launched a fierce glare at him. “So, you can enjoy my party, but you can’t help fund it? Are you going to foot the bill if he cuts my credit card? At least stay out of my way while I hustle.”
From the hallway, Oliver cackled. “I love her, Rom. I just do.”
I hadn’t even realized he’d returned.
“Out.” I pointed to the door, followed by my two friends. “Both of you. Out. And you…” I turned to Dallas. “You’re coming with me.”
“Why should I?” She flipped her hair.
It took everything in me not to grab her by the waist and fuck the sass out of her in front of a full audience. The only thing stopping me was the fact that, sadly, it was probably part of her master plan.
“Because I said so.”
She gasped theatrically. “Oh, why didn’t you say so? In that case, start walking. I’ll surely follow.”
I smiled. “Because Henry Plotkin’s entire series is going to look lovely with dancing flames around it when your fire theater starts.”
That wiped the satisfied pout from her face. “Lead the way.”
The journey to my bedroom passed in utter silence. Between us, at least. The house itself gushed out more noise than a BTS concert.
I closed the door, locking it for good measure. Now that we were alone, uncertainty clouded her delicate features. I got in her face, losing the remainder of my composure.
Her back flattened against my window. “Are you having a heart attack?” But the bite had fled her voice, replaced by timidness. “Seeing as you’re a neat freak and there’s a trillion people partying here.”
“Whose dress is this?” I grabbed the fabric of her garment between us, twisting it until it stretched along her smooth skin.
“Morgan’s.” She stared me down, chin tipped up. “She’s here.”
I didn’t even miss one beat. “Fat chance.”
“How do you know?”
“Because after I finished with her, I exiled her to Norway. She hasn’t set foot in the States for the past six years. She would take her own life before willingly seeking me out.”
Cold words. Delivered without an ounce of sympathy.
And still, more than what Morgan deserved.
Shortbread looked horrified. “Lord, what did you do to that poor woman?”
“Only what she deserved. Now answer my question. Whose dress is this?”
“Abby Calgman.”
Abby Calgman. One of Madison’s more prominent hookups. He often paraded her around our circles.
In fact, I suspected he genuinely liked her. I’d bet the remains of my estate and the feral wife who’d ruined it that they were still seeing each other.
“I should probably give it back to her…” Dallas swallowed. Embarrassment painted her cheeks pink, probably from the fresh memory of showing the entire party her tits and ass. “I should go.”
She tried to duck under my arm, but I crowded her more, a vicious smile playing on my face. “Why, Mrs. Costa, I’m afraid I cannot allow you to leave without a proper farewell.”
“What do you mea—”
In one smooth movement, I tore the dress from cleavage to bottom, leaving it in a two-piece mess on the hardwood planks. Dallas now wore a black strapless bra and a matching lace thong.
Her mouth hung open. “You’re insane.”
I began unbuckling my belt. If I had to waste half a work day, something good needed to come out of it.
As soon as I released my cock, heavy and engorged, all protests and venom abandoned Dallas.
She licked her lips.
“Where do you want it?” I demanded.
Her gaze traveled up, meeting mine. “Inside me.”
“Where? Specify. You have many holes, and all of them are begging to be fucked right now.”
In a rare lucid moment, it occurred to me that Shortbread would see this as a reward not a punishment, and that might come with the unintended side effect of incentivizing her poor behavior.
But it also occurred to me that, if my intractable wife did not touch my dick in the next few minutes, said dick might actually combust.
Dallas pursed her lips, refusing to play along. The woman harbored too much pride for her own good.
“Here?” I fisted my cock, running it along her slit through her panties.
She shuddered all over.
In the back of my head, I remembered her ass against the window. That some of our guests in the garden below were privy to what was happening between us.
But I couldn’t care less. I’d come to the depressing conclusion that my out-of-control young wife brought out traits in me I’d never known existed.
She tilted her chin up but didn’t answer.
“Or maybe…here?”
I grabbed her by the waist and swiveled her around, shoving her against the glass. I slid my finger into the strap of her thong and moved it aside, letting it slap against her skin.
Then I ran the crown of my cock along her ass. A moan escaped her. She arched her back to accommodate half an inch between her ass cheeks.
Still, no words.
My mouth found the shell of her ear.
I twisted my hand around her, tugging her nipple. “Perhaps you’re finally ready to return the favor for all the times I’ve eaten you out.”
Shortbread gripped the windowsill, bending halfway and pushing into me. My cock slipped through her wet cunt, making me hiss with unabashed pleasure before I pulled out.
I wanted to ram into her like my life depended on it, and she knew it.
“Foul play.” I pinched her nipple.
She gasped, the inside of her thighs still becoming wetter with her desire. “You started it.”
“Ever wonder what I taste like, Shortbread?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re about to find out.”
I turned her around again, slithering my hand between her thighs. She was soaking through her thong, rubbing against me with excitement.
Her panting made her tits bounce against my chest. I considered that she’d done all of this on purpose. With this exact reaction in mind.
And still, I couldn’t bring myself to stop.
“On your knees, Shortbread.”
“In your dreams, asshole.”
No point in telling her she played a leading role in my nightmares. To my dismay, my cock did not share the sentiment and pulsated between us.
She looked down, licking her lips. “Fine. But I’m doing it for him, not for you.”
Dallas dropped to her knees, her hazel eyes avoiding my grays. She wrapped her hand around my cock, and I swear I almost came on her face right there and then.
The confidence she displayed, despite her sheer inexperience, did me in.
Another woman—basically any other girl of religious breeding and zero flight hours with sex—would ask for directions or apologize in advance for what might be a lackluster performance.
Not my wife.
No. She existed in her own little universe. A universe in which I, and every other man she captivated, orbited around her.
Shortbread studied my cock inch by inch, not a care in the world that there was an angry, impatient man attached to it, before swirling her hot, wet tongue over the crown.
I tipped my head back, suppressing a grunt.
“A bit salty,” she commented, then proceeded to, astonishingly, nibble on my cock.
Her lips moved along the shaft, half kissing, half licking, as she grabbed it by its root. It was so erotic, so authentic, all I could do was stare in wonder.
“You smell good,” she observed, seemingly to my cock, not me, pulling back to look at it again.
Then, just when I was about to fall to my knees and beg her to suck me off, she opened her tight mouth, covered my shaft, and gave it a long, greedy suck.
Fuck.
Fuck, shit, goddamn, fuck.
All my good manners flew out the door as Dallas serviced me in front of my window. I planted one hand on the glass and laced the other in her lush chestnut hair as she tried to take more and more of me.
She made happy noises throughout, driving me over the edge, to the point where I knew, disconcertingly, that my knees would buck and I’d come like a preteen after ten seconds if she didn’t stop.
I yanked her back by the hair, refusing to lose face. “On my bed.”
On my bed?
What in the ever-loving fuck was I asking her? No woman had entered my bed since Morgan—and not by coincidence.
Sensing this as a once-in-a-lifetime invitation, Shortbread scrambled to her feet and bolted to my mattress. That train had left the station, and it had no brakes to speak of.
I shoved her down so she flattened against my duvet, head propped up on two of my pillows. Climbing on the bed, I bracketed her with my thighs, grabbed onto the headboard, and positioned my cock in front of her mouth.
She stared up at me with pure exhilaration. I was trying to punish her, and she was legitimately going to ask for seconds.
Unbelievable.
“I’m going to fuck that smart mouth of yours now, Shortbread.”
Any other woman would at least pause to think about it. Eight inches long on a six-inch girth wasn’t child’s play.
But Shortbread just opened her mouth wide. “Okay!”
I slammed into her, hitting the back of her throat. She made a choking sound. Her eyes watered.
I studied her for a second, unmoving, waiting for her to push me away. In a signature Shortbread move, she clutched my ass, drawing me closer to her.
Once she grew accustomed to the size in her mouth, she peered up at me beneath a dark curtain of lashes. Excitement leaped from her eyes.
My heart beat so fast, I thought it’d rip itself from its arteries and fall into oblivion.
I pulled out, then slammed into her mouth again.
Then again.
And again.
And again.
Soon, I was fucking her mouth without mercy.
Without a care for our surroundings.
Without a care for the fact that, in doing so, I gave her everything she wanted.
The springs of the mattress squeaked. Dallas moaned, peppered by my grunts. Noise cloaked every surface. Yet, I wasn’t half as triggered as I normally would be.
Each time my cock met the back of her throat, my balls tightened and I was sure I’d bust my load.
Dallas suckled and licked, each movement hungry, taking every inch of me like it was her favorite meal. If this was the way I reacted to her mouth, what would happen if I ever took her cunt?
“I’m going to come in your mouth, and you’re going to keep it, open your mouth nice and big, gurgle, taste, and then—and only then—swallow it. Am I understood?”
For all her disobedient ways, when it came to the bedroom, she was surprisingly good at following directions. She nodded enthusiastically.
I thrust into her mouth faster, harder, and deeper. Tears ran down her face. It gave me pause that I didn’t like seeing her cry, even when I knew it was not from sadness.
My orgasm was a thing of beauty. It had been far too long since I’d climaxed in a woman’s mouth—in a woman, period.
The amount of cum I ejaculated into her was astonishing. Enough to fill a damn Venti. Cum leaked from the corners of her lips down to her lovely throat and full tits.
I pulled back, watching her stare at me expectantly. “Open your mouth.”
She did.
More cum poured out of it. White and thick.
I swiped my index finger along the corner of her lips, taking a few drops and rubbing them against her strained nipple. The rest of the cum I gently tucked back into her mouth.
“Gurgle on it, sweetheart.”
She gurgled.
“Do you like it?”
She nodded, her cheeks tear-stained, her skin flushed.
“Let’s see if you’re telling the truth.”
I brought my hand between her legs and slid it past her thong, sinking my finger into her tight pussy. She was so wet, I could shove a hammer into her and she wouldn’t even feel it.
My dick had already hardened again, and it hadn’t even been a minute.
A smirk found my lips. “You’d let me do anything I want to you. Wouldn’t you, Shortbread?”
She shrugged, her mouth still full of my cum.
“Can I fuck you in the ass?”
A nod.
“Can I fuck your cunt and finger you at the same time?”
An eager nod.
I wasn’t going to, but it was nice to know.
I lifted a brow. “Can my friends join us?”
This was a trick question, because there was only one answer—hell to the goddamn no.
But Dallas nodded, still, a smile spreading across her face, making more of my cum drip down her chin.
I fingered the curve of her jaw, closing her mouth. “Wrong answer. Now swallow everything nice and good, and open your mouth when it’s clean.”
She swallowed a few times. Opened her mouth. Her tongue was pink. Squeaky clean.
As I admired the view, all I could think was that she’d answered yes to fucking Oliver and Zach.
I ripped myself off her, tucking my dick back into my briefs and buckling up. “Congratulations. If you wanted my attention, you got it. I’ll move back into the house, if only to make sure it remains standing and survives you.”
“All I heard was that you missed me,” she cooed, spreading her limbs on my bed lazily.
“You need to get your ears checked.”
“You need to get your heart healed.”
“I like it just the way it is.” I opened the door to my bedroom, signaling the end of our conversation. “Covered in ice and beating only for one purpose—my revenge.”
I stepped past the threshold. And what did you know? Abby waited outside. In fact, she had eavesdropped, falling to my feet in a heap of limbs.
She righted herself in a bout of panic and embarrassment, still wearing Dallas’s pink chiffon dress.
“Um, hi, Rom. It’s been a while.”
“That’s because I actively avoid you.”
Abby pouted, glaring at me through false eyelashes. “I’m here to collect my dress.”
“Did you think it was going to pour into your ear through my bedroom door?”
She blushed, huffed, and parked a hand on her waist. “Am I getting my dress back or not?”
“Not before you give me my wife’s dress back.”
Said wife remained behind my shoulder, tucked in my bed beneath my covers, cringing at the way I handled the entire situation.
Served her right. I refused to touch the fact that I had a woman in my bed for the first time since Morgan with a ten-foot pole. Too much to unpack.
With a growl, Abby began stripping from the pink number. She hadn’t worn a bra, thus her tits now dangled dangerously close to my chest.
I resisted the urge to vomit on them.
“There.” She flung her arms sideways. The dress pooled around her well-heeled ankles. “Happy now?”
“Not in the slightest. Wait here.” I turned, retrieved the two pieces of ruined dress from the floor by my window, and hurled them her way. “Send my regards to Licht.”
She shrieked. “Wait, the dress is torn.”
“So quick-witted.”
Abby stomped. “You bastard.”
I slammed the door in her face.
