read my mind,” I tell him.
Luka pulls me up out of my chair and spins me so fast, my hair goes flying out behind me. As we practically bolt for the door, I don’t bother looking over my shoulder to see if Monica’s watching us, if she realizes she lost, that I’m about to go fuck the man she’s lusting after. To my satisfaction, Luka seems to have completely forgotten about her, too.
Was I seriously worried about the two of them? It’s obvious by the way he’s been looking at me all night that he only has eyes for me. He’s hardly spared Monica a second glance.
We hurry to the room, Luka pushing me against the wall of the foyer the second we’re inside so he can capture my lips. It’s a soul-deep kiss that I feel all the way down to my toes. I’m panting by the time he pulls away, exhilarated by how much I want him.
Luka kisses me again, and we stumble our way to the bedroom. But when we get there and start kicking off our shoes, he says, “Just give me five minutes to shower. I didn’t have a chance earlier since you monopolized the bathroom.” He shrugs out of his jacket, kisses me some more, and then tosses it on the bed. “Five minutes,” he repeats.
I let out a groan. “Fine,” I say.
He grins and playfully pushes me onto the bed. “Relax. I’ll be out soon.”
As he disappears into the bathroom, I roll onto my side with a huff. I’m horny. Maybe I should just join him in there. Hopping up, I grab his jacket to hang it up. But as I’m shaking it out on the hanger, something silky falls out of one of the pockets. A pocket square, maybe.
I bend down to grab it and freeze, my entire body going cold. In my hand is a pair of very small thong panties. And they aren’t mine.
The dinner conversation starts replaying in my mind, and suddenly my chest goes so tight, it’s hard to breathe. Lingerie. Thong. Monica.
A few minutes later Luka gets out of the shower, his torso glistening as he comes toward me with a towel hanging low around his hips. I don’t give him a chance to say anything.
“You’re sleeping on the couch.”
Before he can respond, I push him out of the bedroom along with his suitcase and slam the door.
Luka
Chapter 13
I have no idea what the hell just happened. One minute, I’m getting ready to spend all night worshipping my wife’s body and feeding her strawberries, and the next, she’s kicking me out of the bedroom without so much as an explanation.
“Brooklyn! Open the door, please.” I wait a minute and try knocking again.
Nothing.
And still nothing when I call, text, and speak firmly but politely through the door.
After about fifteen minutes of this, I’m all out of patience and done being ignored. I get dressed, head down to the lobby, and hit up the first bar I find on the casino floor. Now I’m sitting at a high-top table by myself, trying to figure out what I did wrong this time.
I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. Every time I think Brooklyn and I are back on track, something happens that derails us again. Is it me? Is it her? Maybe we’re just not compatible and we’re incapable of coexisting peacefully in the long run.
No. That doesn’t feel right even as I think it. Something must have happened. Something triggered her while I was in the shower. I’d be a fool to ignore the fact that she probably resented being forced to have dinner with Monica, but I pulled out all the stops to focus my attention on my wife, not her nemesis. And every time Monica crossed the line, I firmly but gently rejected her advances. Maybe I wasn’t firm enough for Brooklyn’s liking, but after all, Monica is DRM’s biggest model. I’m trying to support her while maintaining a neutral but pleasant working relationship. Apparently that isn’t good enough for my wife.
But what does she expect me to do? Fire Monica? Lose the agency the biggest campaign it’s ever seen, alienating Maxilene in the process? Stefan would shit a brick.
Fuck it.
I take a slug of my drink—a double whiskey neat—and survey the crowd. The bar is packed, but no one is paying attention to me. Good. Every woman in the room is wearing a skintight dress, yet all I can think of is