“Just a tad.” I catch the scent of him—the whiskey on his breath, the deep, spicy musk of his arousal—and it works upon me like the most potent of aphrodisiacs. In addition to my sparkly black top, I am decked out in a black leather miniskirt, thigh-high stockings, a tiny red thong, and very high, very fuckable heels. I take one step away from the wall and lift myself on those heels, gripping Damien’s shoulders for balance. “I’m still trying to decide if I should thank you for this,” I whisper. “Or if I should figure out a way to get revenge.”

“While I’m very intrigued by the possibility of being at your mercy,” he says, “we both know that you’re as turned on as I am.” He slides an arm around my waist and pulls me toward him. Our hips meet, and I can feel his erection pressing hard against my belly.

“I am,” I admit, sliding my hand down between our bodies to stroke his cock through his jeans. The corner is dark and secluded, but I think I would have stroked him even if we were on the dance floor. I am intoxicated by lust, emboldened by passion. And since Damien isn’t shifting my hand away, I know that he is, too.

“I’m hot and horny and desperately wet,” I murmur, moving my hand in time with my words. I feel him grow even harder and I smile with the knowledge of my own power. “Do you know what I wanted in the limo, Damien? I wanted you on your knees in front of me. I wanted your hands on my thighs spreading me wide, and I wanted your tongue on my clit.”

He is close enough that I can feel the quickening of his pulse and his quick shallow breaths. “I wanted to feel my nipples tighten when you tugged on this chain, and my body tense around this plug when you made me come, so hard and so fast that you’d have to carry me into this club.”

“Holy fuck,” he whispers, his voice so soft I can barely hear it.

“So yes,” I continue, as if I hadn’t even heard him. “I am turned on.” I stroke his cock slowly, because at least for this one moment, I have turned the tables on Damien Stark. “But what I wanted I didn’t get. And that, Mr. Stark, is why I want revenge.”

“You make a very sound argument, Ms. Fairchild.”

“I pride myself on my sharp business skills.”

He steps back from me, his eyes gleaming mischievously, then holds out his hand. “Come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“Come with me and find out.”

He leads me through the crowded club full of beautiful people who are much more interested in each other than us. I’m relieved. We do not look like the Nikki and Damien who have been in the German news. I’m in my Girl Goes Clubbing outfit and Damien is casual in jeans and a light jacket over a T-shirt, not to mention a day’s worth of beard stubble. That’s not to say that I haven’t seen a few heads turn when we pass, but I think that is more a product of Damien’s astounding good looks than his status as either a celebrity billionaire or as a man who narrowly escaped a murder charge.

As far as I can tell, the club has two main rooms, both filled with bright colors and shiny surfaces. The DJs spin an eclectic mix, but the theme seems to be techno-club, and while the music isn’t anything I recognize, it is deliciously danceable.

At the moment, however, dancing is not on the agenda. Instead, Damien leads me to the terrace, and we step outside. I pause a moment to take it all in—the candles that illuminate the patrons in a surreal glow. The plush leather sofas and love seats that dot the terrace. Some are in clusters near colored lights and provide a place for energetic dancers to have a drink and get a second wind. Others are secluded, tucked away in dark corners for lovers to curl up together and soak in the atmosphere.

The bouncers downstairs made it clear that no one gets into this bar if they look shabby, and here under the starlight, that policy is obvious. Everything glows, including Damien and me. There is a polish to everything that I see, but I know better than anyone how tarnished something shiny can be underneath, and I can’t help but imagine this place come morning. The sofas stained with spilled drinks. Cigarette butts stamped out on the stone floor. The ethereal candles revealed as nothing more than globby clumps of wax.

Nothing is as it appears. Not this club nor its patrons nor Damien. And certainly not me.

We weave among the other patrons to one of the love seats tucked in a darkened corner. Damien sits, and I start to sit beside him. “No,” he says, then pulls me into his lap so that I am straddling his leg, the hard muscles of his thigh pressing enticingly against the hard knot in my ass as I face him.

I exhale, making a little ah sound as shimmers of awareness crash through me.

“Trouble, Ms. Fairchild?”

I lift a brow and rock my hips, grinding my rear against him and making this hedonistic tempest crackle and pop inside of me. And—if his face is any indication—my lap dance is driving Damien a little crazy, too.

“No trouble, Mr. Stark,” I say, as primly as I can manage despite my body being on fire.

“Christ, Nikki . . . ”

He tugs me forward so that I am still straddling him, but now I can feel his denim-clad erection against the bare skin of my thigh above my stocking. I meet his eyes, my heart pounding wildly, then moan when his mouth crushes against mine. One of his hands is around my waist, holding me in place at the small of my back. The other slides under my skirt, his fingers finding the thin strip of silk that makes up the thong, then begin to move in slow, easy circles calculated to drive me crazy.

“Damien,” I whisper. “Someone might see.”

“I want you. Right now. I want to watch you explode in my arms.”

“But—” I look around. There doesn’t seem to be anyone paying attention, and in the dark it’s not obvious where his hand is hidden.

His fingers curve inside me, and whatever protests I might have raised die right then. His thumb presses against my pubic bone as if my body is a handle, and I gasp as he roughly pulls me closer. “Now,” he repeats. “I want you coming in my arms.”

“Yes,” I say, because I am too wrecked, too wanton, to say anything else. Right then I think I’d let him lay me out on the dance floor and fuck me with the crowd cheering us on. He wouldn’t, though, and deep inside, under this haze of passion and lust, I know that. We’re still in our bubble, hidden in the dark, buried in the corner.

But Damien needs this. This man who once told me he doesn’t do public sex. Because that’s not what this is about. Instead, he needs proof that I am really here. That I didn’t leave after talking with Maynard. That the demons of his childhood haven’t pushed me away.

He needs me to get lost in his arms as much as I need to lose myself to him. To know that he is back—and that he is still mine.

“Yes,” I repeat, because it is the only word I can manage through my jumble of thoughts and emotions. “Oh, God, Damien, please, yes.”

“Good girl,” he says, sliding his hand off my back. I’m vaguely aware that he has thrust it into his pocket, but that is not the hand that interests me. Instead, all of my thoughts are centered on the fingers that are teasing me under my skirt, playing with my clit, making me bite my lip so that I don’t rock back and forth with these building sensations. I’m just a girl sitting in her boyfriend’s lap, after all. Not like a woman about to come like she has never come before from the intimate way that said boyfriend is fingerfucking her.