Chapter 2
Ranger
Abroom falls as I press Denver against the wall of the custodial closet and get to my knees. She grins and wiggles her hips to pull up her dress, the figure-hugging material making it too fucking difficult to get to her.
I growl impatiently. “I’m ripping it.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” she says. “This cost more than your watch.”
I grip her hips. “Are you joking?”
“Ranger, your choice is to either complain about the price of the dress or eat my pussy. Pick wisely.”
A good point. She finally hitches the dress above her hips, and I groan. “No underwear.”
“It’s almost like I knew this would happen.”
I drape her leg over my shoulder, my cock straining against my zipper at the sight before me—she’s pink, flushed, wet.
When I run my tongue across her, Denver lets out a breathy sigh, and that noise alone could be my undoing.
I flatten my tongue against her, devouring her taste, the feel of her, the knowledge that she’s fucking mine.
She whispers my name, the sound becoming a soft moan as I circle her entrance with my tongue before sucking softly on her clit. I slide two fingers inside, her tightness gripping my knuckles, her arousal coating my fingers.
“You’re soaked, my love,” I say. She rolls her hips, grinding against my hand as I move slowly in and out of her wet heat. “Good girl. Ride my fingers.”
She moans at the praise, and I suck and lick her clit, circling, nibbling, until her movements become erratic, her orgasm close.
“Are you going to spill over my hand, little bird?”
Her responding “yes” is tangled in soft groans and sighs, and when I glance up at her, the strap of her dress is down and she’s massaging her breast, rolling her nipple between her fingers.
I love her like this. She’s only weak for me, only broken apart for me. Deluxe in pieces for me.
“Ranger—” Her orgasm hits her hard, my knuckles squeezed with every pulse, and she repeats my name like a prayer, her breathing choppy.
I remove her leg from my shoulder and stand. She slumps against the wall, her smile dreamy, her eyes closed as I unbuckle my belt. And as desperate as I am to fuck her, I take a second to admire her.
The flush of her cheeks. The plump lips I’ve kissed a thousand times.
She opens her eyes, the gray a darkened steel in the dimness of the room. She knows the look I’m giving her, knows what I’m feeling, and reaches out to grip my jacket.
I’ve shared moments with her countless times, but ones like this are few.
The first was outside a coffee shop four years ago, when she’d made me laugh, and the love I’d always had for her had doubled.
The second was our wedding day, when I’d danced with her and told her I wouldn’t fuck this up.
And the third is now—far less romantic, but just as meaningful.
I brush her hair back, my heart warming as she presses her cheek into my palm. I say, “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
But do you still need me?
“Fuck me before someone realizes we’re gone,” she says, tugging me closer, and I push the thought aside before it ruins the moment.
I lift her, and the moment my cock is buried inside her tightness, I forget the doubt.
I let her warmth be my focus as I fuck her against the wall, my hand over her mouth as pleasure darkens my true emotions.
She moans against my palm, eyes wide as I fuck her hard and rough, each meeting of our bodies familiar and fucking perfect.
I devour every second of us like this, because she’s at my mercy, under my control, and this is how it always should be.
Her back slams into the wall with every thrust, and I can tell by her breathing that she’s close. Her moans increase, her eyes roll back, and I bury my face into her neck, overwhelmed by coconut shampoo and the perfume I bought her—
“Fuck,” I groan into her neck as she comes and squeezes my cock, my orgasm following, my body taut against hers, my breath halting as flashes of pleasure erupt across and through me.
My muscles relax, my breathing returns, and Denver sighs softly.
“Better than an award.”
I smile into the crook of her neck, kissing her, basking in this feeling. A feeling I fought for and killed to have. “I should fucking think so.”
“I have napkins in my purse,” she says as I slide out of her. I’m on my knees, cleaning her up, and she grins at me.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m just … I like where we are.”
I arch a brow. “A closet?”
“No. This.” She gestures between us, and I stand. She readjusts her dress. “We’re good, aren’t we? We’re happy?”
I brush her hair back, wishing I could remove the pins and tangle my fingers in the red locks, breathe her in and take her home. I have more wishes, too, but I keep them locked away.
“We’re perfect.”
We return to the ballroom, and when Denver is dragged away from me by eager guests, I go to the bar and watch as people flutter around her.
The first few months of our marriage seemed too good to be true.
When I came home from a day of hell, she was there, awake and ready to listen, or sleepy and there for me to hold.
Her day-to-day became our debrief over dinner.
She’d tell me her worries over the decisions she was making, her concerns that she wasn’t doing enough or that she was doing everything wrong.
We talked. We shared. We became the kind of couple that depended on each other. We’d still rage, and fight, and the past wasn’t far behind us, but the knowledge that we shared a bed and a life made all that worth it.
She was the wife I needed, wanted. Her businesses were doing well. Her success was reaching peaks that made me proud. When her name was brought up at poker tables and drinks, it was to praise my wife, and I was right there with them.
My wife. My little bird. My partner.
And then things changed.
One run-in with Dorian Eddards and she became … more. More than just Mrs. Luxe with the lucrative businesses and a growing presence in the city. She was a woman who’d stepped up, a woman unwilling to be crossed, regardless of who was doing the crossing. And people took notice.
No one likes the Eddardses. And even my morals aren’t that fucking skewed that I’d associate myself with people like them. But they are a powerful family, their name associated with the moving and selling of people across the country.
And then Denver went and cut off Spider’s son’s finger.
A fluke, and she became a name.
Our dinners are no longer her asking for my help. She isn’t warming the bed for me when I come home. She doesn’t share her concerns, her failures, or her doubts.
I find out about her wins from other men.
It was one thing to know she was gaining traction through whispers; it was another when I discovered she’d met Samuel Lok Shun Lau and rumors of them opening a casino together were circulating.
The Triads don’t do deals with Luxes. Samuel doesn’t like me, and neither does his father, but it never bothered me because I have my own way of making money.
But Samuel met with Denver. Samuel likes Denver. And they’ve spent the last six months putting together a deal for a casino that will make them both millions.
And I had to hear about it over dinner with men I don’t even like.
When I confronted Denver about it, she’d been apologetic but excited. She said she wanted to make absolutely sure it was going ahead before she told me because she wanted to make me proud.
It didn’t feel that way. I felt ambushed by her success.
But I faked it. I told her I was proud. And when she came home exhausted from negotiations and land searching, I was there for her. I listened, though she never asked for advice. I comforted, though she clearly didn’t need it.
And every day it ate me alive.
I asked for this, though. I’d told her not to stand in my shadow.
I just never expected to be living in hers.
So when the opportunity arose for me to stop the casino from happening, I took it.
The mayor is only where he is because of my money, so when we’d had obligatory drinks to discuss my cash infusion for the next election, he’d made an offhand comment about environmentalists and Denver’s land sale.
It was all clear, he’d said, and nothing to worry about.
“No problems at all,” he’d added confidently.
So, I created a problem.
I told him to tank it. He did. And now the thing she’s put her heart and soul into is over, and it’s my fault. I regretted it—for two days. Until Denver had come home close to tears. She curled up in my lap and asked me where she’d gone wrong, what she could have done differently.
She needed me again.
So, I let the deal fall to pieces, and I held her, and I said there would be other opportunities.
And now I don’t regret it at all.
“Hell of a woman.”
My gaze slides to the man at the end of the bar. The one who had been flirting with Denver earlier. I hadn’t taken much notice of him before, but now that I do, a strange sense of familiarity settles over me.
“Yes, she is,” I say, picking up my drink. “You’d do well to remember her surname before flirting with her again.”
He chuckles, and I wonder if he’s cocky or just doesn’t know who I am.
“A woman like that seems pretty capable of deciding for herself who she goes home with,” he says. “Far be it from me to deny her if she decides it’s me.”
Now I laugh. Denver might be flying high, but she’d never be unfaithful.
“I would love for you to try,” I say, sipping my whiskey and returning my attention to Denver. She’s talking to the state’s attorney, who nods so enthusiastically his head might drop off at any point.
“Did she kill her husband?”
My slow turn to the man should have him recoiling, but he simply waits for my answer.
“Are you a journalist?” I ask.
“Nope.”
“Cop?”
He grimaces. “I’m offended by that.”
I place my drink down and face him fully. “No, she did not kill her husband.” I rest my elbow on the bar, tilting my head and waiting a beat before adding, “I did.”
A grin spreads across his face. “Bullshit.”
“You think I’d lie?”
“Yes,” he says. “I think Denver killed him, but you take the flack to protect her. I’m not judging. Some of the most powerful men in the world are under the thumb of their wives.”
A current of irritation sparks across my knuckles, and the urge to beat this man to death is almost suffocating. Had it not been for the general wear and tear of the evening, I’d be able to hide it, but I’m deep in my resentment enough that it’s written all over my fucking face.
“Ooh,” he says, grinning. “Did I strike a nerve?”
I’m about to stride toward this man, smash my glass into his face and use the shards to cut him up, when Denver calls my name. Heat consumes me, anger and rage and everything dark swelling to dangerous levels in my heart and mind.
The man lifts his drink and tilts it in the direction of Denver.
“You’re being summoned, Mr. Luxe. I wouldn’t keep her waiting.
Kill me another time.” He winks and resumes drinking, and if it weren’t for the presence of so many people, police chief included, I’d sate my rage by soaking my shirt in this man’s blood.