The Bride (The Boss 3)

“Nice to meet you two, as well.” I slid from the booth, my feet aching in my too-tall heels. When we were a few steps from the table, I asked, “Who is it I’m going to meet?”

Neil’s arm snaked around my back and his hand closed over my hip. “No one. It was all an excuse to get you alone.”

He steered me toward the men’s room, and I stopped on my heels. “Whoa there, cowboy.”

“You wouldn’t deny a man on his birthday, would you?” he asked, close to my ear.

There wasn’t a day I could deny him. And now we were both drunk. And when was I going to get to have sex at this particular club again? When was I ever going to be in this club again?

He left me beside the men’s room door, then went inside. A guy in his twenties—I thought I’d seen him on SNL—walked out and said, “Excuse me,” then Neil opened the door and ushered me in. There was a bathroom attendant, a slim young man in all black, stationed near the bank of sinks, and Neil reached for his wallet. He tossed a stack of hundred dollar bills on the counter and gave the man a meaningful look.

Without missing a beat, the man scooped up the bills, said, “And a happy birthday to you, Mr. Elwood,” and whistled a little tune on his way out, hitting the door lock behind him.

I backed up slowly, bracing my hands on the edge of the counter. “Do you have any idea how intimidating it is, knowing that my boyfriend can basically get whatever he wants?”

He stepped up close, looming over me, and slipped a finger under my chin to lift my face. “Do you know how terrifying it is fo

r me, knowing that you’re the only thing in the world that I want?”

I was used to intensity from him, but that took my breath away. I didn’t know what to say, but I wouldn’t have had time before he kissed me, his hands splayed against my back, drawing me closer. His mouth tasted like alcohol, but so did mine, so I didn’t care. I grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him closer. Or maybe I pulled myself closer, climbing my way up his body with an urgency so sudden, it frightened me. I was a different person with Neil, far different from the person I’d been before he’d come back into my life.

I’d never bought the idea that a person had a “better half.” Neil had called me his other half when he’d proposed, as though without me, he lacked some vital component. It was a sweet notion, but I found a much simpler explanation as to why people shape you and change you. People are darkened rooms, and each person they choose to include in their lives is a beam of light, uncovering some new, previously hidden part of them. If I’d never met Neil, I would have been the same Sophie I always was. Others would have uncovered the bits of me that Neil’s presence had illuminated, but that’s what made our love seem so magical when I considered it. We didn’t need each other to be whole. We were already whole, and we chose to love each other, to be more.

There was no other man on Earth I wanted, so I understood what he meant by “terrifying.” A moment ago, I’d been questioning the wisdom of having sex in a public restroom during a party where our absence would most likely be noticed, the next I was clawing at his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders, hanging on to his shirt so tight I was sure my nails would go through it. His open mouth slid down my jaw, to my throat, in a careless, wet path. He pushed me back and lifted me onto the counter, my hands groping for his fly between us.

He reached for the little basket the bathroom attendant had left behind and rummaged through it one-handed for a condom. The whole thing spilled onto the floor with a clatter, mouthwash and cologne rolling over the black tiles.

“Get your legs open,” he growled, forcing my knees wide apart. I heard his zipper, felt him fumbling with the condom between us, then he pushed aside my panties, slicked the tip of his cock over my slit, and plunged deep.

“Oh!” I had to hold onto his shoulders to keep from falling back on the sink. I wrapped one leg around his waist, the other he caught beneath the knee and lifted to perch my heel on the counter. It contorted my body, exposed me, made me utterly vulnerable to him. My cunt gripped him, waves of muscle contractions rolling up and down his length as my body tried to decide whether I should lock him in or push him out. His hand cupped the back of my skull, fingers threading through my hair, and he tugged my head back, forcing me to meet his gaze.

“The party is wonderful, but there is really no place on Earth that I would rather be than right—” he slid his hand between us, his middle and ring fingers bracketing his cock, digging in to my labia stretched around him. His knuckles brushed over my clit. I gasped, and he swallowed it up with a kiss, whispering, “—here,” against my mouth.

He moved his hand to rub my clit with the tips of his fingers, and I came hard, lifting my hips with what little, constrained motion I could manage.

He clamped his free hand over my mouth to cover my wail of relief. I don’t suppose it could have been heard over the music outside, but better safe than sorry. He grinned down at me, grinding deeper, and when the last blissful tremor had passed, he gently withdrew.

“Aren’t… you?” I panted, dropping my leg and balancing myself with my hands on the counter.

He rolled the condom off and wadded it up in some paper towel before he dropped it into the trash hole in the counter. “I fear I am far too drunk for that. It’s a miracle I got hard.”

“Well, I certainly had a religious experience.” I hopped down and turned to check my makeup. My lipstick was smudged, and I corrected the situation by wiping it off entirely. I wasn’t going to fool anybody; I looked thoroughly fucked.

Neil stepped up behind me, kneading my breast through my dress as he met my gaze in the mirror. “Thank you, darling. This really is a fantastic birthday.”

I went out ahead of Neil—he wanted to stay behind to pick up the toiletries he’d spilled—trying to keep the I-just-had-sex swagger out of my walk. I’d just stepped into the hall when a very confused-looking man stopped in his tracks and looked from the men’s’ room to the ladies’ as though he were trying to solve a differential equation in his head.

“Excuse me.” I dipped my head as I passed him and tucked some hair behind my ear.

When he went inside, he’d get it.

* * * *

The automatic blinds on the windows were set on a timer, to roll gently up every weekday morning at eight o’clock.

Fuck those stupid blinds.

I rolled out of bed, still in my silver sequined dress. There was something sticky in my hair. It was probably puke. It might not have been my own.