But the rest of his features were clouded with lust. A type of lust that hinted of possession. His shoulders were rising and falling, adding a note of ferocity to his robust form. The image he created was a staggering one. An enlightening one.
Nico could be a dangerous man. Threatening.
Not toward me, I didn’t think.
Putting all the pieces together—the way he’d handled his gun, the skill he’d wielded when fighting that brigadier, this reaction—I determined that Nico had a dark side. There were some sharp edges to him.
Deadly sharp, perhaps?
He certainly looked capable of lethal force.
Something about that blatant show of desire on his rugged face drew me in. I felt pulled toward him. Whatever it was—the alcohol, the environment, the potent appeal of his masculinity—my feet began to move in his direction. Throwing me even more off balance, his chin actually dipped. He was nodding in approval, encouraging me to come to him.
This time, I wasn’t being beckoned.
This time, I wanted to go to this man. What would happen once I got there was still a mystery.
But I wanted to find out.
Two hands suddenly grabbed my hips from behind and hauled me up against a hard chest. A male voice muttered heavily-accented English in my ear. What words I could make out over the music were nothing short of suggestive.
My gaze instinctively sought out Nico as I grappled with uncertainty. People had moved in front of me, so I briefly lost him in the crowd.
But then… Oh, I found him.
Even from that distance, I could see him grinding his teeth together as he watched this man dance up on me.
Then he gave the slightest shake of his head in warning.
Was it out of jealousy? Did he mistakenly assume that this marriage meant anything? Or that he had the right to tell me who I could and could not dance with?
We’ll just see about that.
Maintaining that stranglehold eye contact from before, I leaned back into the man. Not too close, but close enough to get plenty of contact while dodging the growing bulge in his trousers. With every punch of the man’s hips against my backside and with every ass jiggle I responded with—
Nico stewed.
With every second that passed, he grew more and more enraged. His shoulders grew tenser, his face turned blacker, his hands balled tighter.
Why that pleased me immensely, I had no idea. I shouldn’t have been challenging him this way. There was a niggling sense in the back of my mind that I didn’t fully understand the game I was playing.
Or who I was playing with.
I wasn’t prepared for the man behind me to band his arm around my waist and forcefully grind against me. I felt all of him.
My eyes shot wide before I could mask my reaction.
But with Nico watching me so intently, he saw it.
The last sight I had of him before more people stepped between us and blocked my vision was of him charging toward us.
With intent to kill written all over his face.
That’s right. Come here, baby.
Christ, my wife was sexy.
Goddammit, why did I keep referring to Lexi in that term? She wasn’t my actual wife. Yet my dick clearly hadn’t gotten that message. He was standing tall and proud in my pants, readying to stake his claim on the ravishing woman shaking her ass in what might as well have been a striptease for how hard it was getting him.
I couldn’t believe she was even doing it.
I’d expected her to take one look at me, toss me the finger, and stomp off in the other direction.
Instead, her eyes had gone half-lidded when they’d stopped on me. Her tongue had snaked over the rim of her glass, giving me the briefest glimpse of the pretty pink tint to it. Her head had rolled on her neck, showcasing just how long and slender it was. Her creamy skin stood in stark contrast to the black of her clothes, making my mouth water to get it on every inch of her.
I’d leave no stone unturned.
No area unlicked.
When she turned around to show me the eye-fuck that was her back, I nearly roared out a mating call in the middle of this club and went after her, with my dick leading the charge. I wanted nothing more than to rip those criss-crossing ties clean off her body and pound the fuck out of her in front of everyone.