Chapter 213
Raven
It was subtle—just a tiny backward jerk—but I caught it. And from the way Chandler's eyes narrowed, he'd caught it too.
The second woman tried to settle into Nash's lap. He actually raised a hand—instinctively, defensively—and for one horrifying second I thought he was about to use a combat technique to physically throw her across the room.
His germophobia. His pathological aversion to being touched.
All the progress we'd made last night, all the boundaries he'd crossed—none of it had prepared him for this. For having four drugged strangers pawing at him in front of an audience.
"Anthony?" Chandler's voice had lost its jovial warmth. "You alright there, buddy? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Around the room, I felt the mood shift again. The guards' hands drifting back toward their weapons.
"Last time I saw you in Vegas," Chandler continued, smile turning sharp, "you had three girls hanging off you. Now you're acting like a goddamn Puritan. What changed? Or has Marianne here finally broken you in?"
He laughed, but it didn't reach his eyes.
Nash was sweating. I could see the sheen on his forehead, the white-knuckle grip on the armrests. He was maybe ten seconds from either blowing his cover or pulling a gun and turning this yacht into a bloodbath.
Fuck it.
I grabbed my champagne glass and slammed it onto the table.
Crystal exploded. Expensive wine sprayed across white linen.
Every head in the room snapped toward me.
I stood up so fast my chair scraped backward, reached out, and shoved the blonde trying to climb onto Nash's lap. Hard. She yelped and stumbled backward, catching herself on the edge of the table.
"Chandler!" I snarled, letting Marianne's prissy Russian accent go full Slavic fury. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"
Dead silence.
"You giving my husband cheap whores?" I jabbed a finger at the stunned women. "In front of me? You think I can't satisfy him myself?!"
"Damn, Marianne!" Someone—I think it was Dmitri Volkov—whistled low. "Didn't know you had that much fire in you!"
"Fire?" Chen Wei chuckled. "More like jealousy. Look at Anthony's face—man looks terrified!"
"Can you blame him?" Maria Santos added with a sly grin. "I've heard that when women get possessive, they get... creative in the bedroom. Poor Anthony probably can't walk straight!"
I whirled on Nash, who sat frozen in his chair, eyes wide.
Without hesitation, I straddled his lap.
Grabbed his face with both hands.
And kissed him like I was staking a claim to disputed territory.
He made a small sound—surprise? relief?—and then his hands found my waist, pulling me closer. The kiss was hard, possessive, probably far more explicit than Marianne Goodman would normally allow in public.
I didn't care.
When I finally pulled back, I kept my face inches from his, voice low and dangerous.
"Tell them, darling." I traced his jaw with one finger. "Tell them how many times you begged for mercy last night. Tell them if you have any energy left for these plastic dolls."
Nash blinked at me.
Then—thank God—he caught on.
His whole body went slack, slumping back in the chair like a defeated soldier. He let out a long, exaggerated groan.
"Chandler," he wheezed, voice taking on a tone of masculine suffering I'd never heard from him before, "you have no idea what I've been through. This woman—" He gestured helplessly at me. "—she's gone feral. I don't know if it's hormones or a midlife crisis or what, but she's trying to kill me!"
I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
"Last night?" Nash continued, really selling it now. "Last night she had me—Christ, I can't even describe it. Let's just say I think I pulled something. Multiple things. Things I didn't even know could be pulled."
He patted my ass—casually, naturally—and shook his head with theatrical despair.
"And she's not kidding about the threats. She told me if I even looked at another woman, she'd cut off my balls and feed them to her cousin's Rottweiler. You know she's crazy enough to actually do it."
The room erupted.
Chandler threw his head back and roared with laughter. "Oh my God! The mighty Anthony Goodman, brought to his knees by his own wife! This is priceless!"
"I told you," Dmitri chuckled, raising his glass. "Happy wife, happy life. Although in Anthony's case, it sounds more like 'horny wife, destroyed spine!'"
Even the guards were grinning.
Maria Santos stood up, walking over to clink her glass against mine. "Mrs. Goodman, I severely underestimated you. Respect."
I stayed on Nash's lap, running my fingers through his hair with exaggerated possessiveness. "What can I say? I believe in taking care of what's mine."
Chandler wiped tears from his eyes. "Alright, alright. Take your sex-starved tigress upstairs, Anthony, before she marks you like a fire hydrant. The Surgeon's expecting you."
He gestured toward the elevator at the far end of the room.