Bull's Eye (Share Me Book 2)

by Evelyn Vox

  “If you keep looking at me like that, Alexandra,” Derek warned, “I won’t be able to stop myself.”

  “Mmm,” I teased. “Maybe that’s what I want.”

  “I need to know,” he said, emotion leaking into his deep voice. “Are you leaving Brian?”

  I didn’t hesitate.

  “Yes.”

  He released a breath, his hands tightening around my shoulders. I told him everything. All about Vanessa, what I’d seen at the club, and what I’d realized after. He was quiet for a moment when I finished. Like he couldn’t quite believe it.

  “My sister,” Derek said, shaking his head, “shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I’m glad she did. It helped me see things more clearly.”

  I frowned, realizing I’d have to talk to Brian soon. There was a lot we’d have to work out.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was clinging to my obligation to Brian, as his wife, without realizing how wrong we were for each other at the end of the day. We’ve been growing apart for a while now. There never would have been room for you to enter my life if the distance between us hadn’t already been there.”

  He held me tight, like he was afraid to let me go. We laid like that for a little while.

  “I should have realized what he was when he told me I was getting fat.”

  “What?” Derek hissed, sitting up on an elbow.

  “Yeah,” I laughed, bitterly, “he told me I was letting myself go, can you believe that?”

  “I’m sorry I only got to punch him once.”

  “Brian wants a trophy wife. He wants a sexy, mindless piece of eye candy to show off. And it wasn’t the infidelity or the intimacy with you that upset him, really, it was the fact that I wanted to go to school and work.”

  “And I put that in your head. So he thought if I was gone, you’d stop wanting to go to school?”

  “Yes,” I said, “whether he realizes it or not, he didn’t give a shit that I was with another man. He only cared when that man encouraged me to be something more than a pretty face.”

  “So what will you do now?”

  “Well, I need to talk to him. Then figure out where I’m going to stay.”

  Derek didn’t hesitate. “Here.”

  I blinked. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t seem to realize what a big deal that was. We’d only just said the L-word, and now we were going to be living together?

  “Isn’t that…moving too fast?”

  He waggled dark eyebrows at me. His lustful gaze dragged across my body before he replied.

  “Have we ever moved slowly?”

  I laughed. “No, I suppose not.”

  Derek scratched a lazy pattern against the bare skin of my back. I closed my eyes and enjoyed it. Lord, I loved it when he did that.

  “And when do you have to apply for school?”

  I opened my eyes to see his perfectly serious face.

  “What? Derek,” I sat up to gape at him. “I can’t go to school. Not for a while, anyways.”

  “Why not?”

  Seriously? I searched his face for any sign of joking, but he was dead serious and looking at me with a quizzical expression.

  “I’m unemployed! I haven’t had a job in years. I need to be able to get a loan before I can even think about going to school.”

  “I’ll loan you the money.”

  I looked around at his small bungalow and cringed. “No. That’s way too much.”

  “Alexandra,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me. “Just because I live simply doesn’t mean I’m not disgustingly rich.”

  I didn’t know what to say. But my mind flashed to all the luxurious gifts he’d gotten me this year. Why hadn’t I made the connection?

  “You know how much I charge for my services,” he chuckled. “Not to mention, Vanessa set up a trust in my name the moment she made her first few million.”

  Oh. Wow.

  “And that was years ago. It’s been growing since.”

  “I just never thought,” I said, trying to explain. “You don’t act like…”

  “Like what?”

  “A rich asshole?” I ventured.

  “Just a regular one,” he grinned, wickedly, before he rolled on top of me again. “I’m not offering to pay for your school. It’s a loan. I’d expect you to pay me back once you’re on your feet.”

  I chewed it over. Which wasn’t easy, considering the flesh that began to harden between us. I snaked a hand down to grip it, making him hiss.

  “I’ll think about it,” I whispered into his mouth, “but for now, I have other things on my mind.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  LEXIE

  I steeled myself as I entered the apartment. It had been a fight to come here alone. In fact, Derek insisted on coming with me. I somehow managed to convince him it would actually be worse if he was there while I talked to Brian.

  So, he parked his car downstairs and was waiting in a bar around the block for me. After what he witnessed last time, I didn’t blame him, but it felt unnecessary. I didn’t think Brian would ever forgive himself for the way he acted that night.

  He was sitting at the dining table. Dark circles lived under his eyes. He looked like shit.

  “Lexie,” he said, not moving from where he sat. “Where have you been?”

  “The Hamptons.”

  “Ah,” he laughed, and I wondered if he was drunk. “I should have known.”

  “It’s time to talk, Brian.” I pulled up the chair across from him and sat.

  “You said I was free to explore at the Club.”

  So, we were getting right into it, then. Okay.

  “I also asked you to communicate with me,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Never once did you communicate that you were seeing Saskia exclusively or getting pegged by her on a regular basis.”

  “I—well,” he blanched. “I didn’t know how to talk about it.”

  “More like you knew I’d have a few questions and objections.”

  “I didn’t see how it was different to what you had with Derek,” he said, sounding like a teenager trying to get out of trouble with his mom.

  I sighed. “Brian, you know what shocked me the most when I saw it?”

  He shook his head, mouth grim.

  “I didn’t care. I just didn’t care at all. I was happy for you, that you seemed to have found someone who could give you what you needed. Because that’s not something I can give to you.”

  It was true. I didn’t judge him for enjoying pegging, but it wasn’t something I was interested in doing to him. Not in the slightest. It just didn’t rev my engines, so to speak.

  “So…I can keep seeing her?” His eyes were hopeful.

  “You can do whatever you want. Because we’re getting a divorce.”

  I watched that hope crash and burn and turn into shock as he processed my words.

  “What! You just said you didn’t care.”

  “I don’t—that’s a huge part of the problem.” Didn’t he understand it was a bad thing that I felt nothing when I saw him with Saskia?

  “I do care when you lie to me, though,” I continued, “and when you’d rather be with your Mistress than at home to take care of me. Christ, Brian, I’ve been a mess for weeks, and you just disappeared.”

  He put her first, which was something I never did with Derek. Hell, I’d broken up with Derek for Brian, even though it wrecked me. And he couldn’t even come home to hold me at night. No, now I knew, he’d been with her all these weeks.

  “Sorry, I didn’t want to take care of you while you got over Derek,” he scathed, the despondent teenager back again.

  “But that’s just it,” I said, “it was never about Derek, was it? It was about school. About me wanting more than to be your little housewife.”

  He gaped at me, those brown eyes growing wide.

  “I thought I made my expectations very clear when we got married.”

&n
bsp; “No you didn’t!” I threw my hands up in the air. “All you said was you’d make sure I never wanted for anything again.”

  “It wasn’t enough, though, was it?” he asked, softly.

  “No,” I said, sadly, “it wasn’t. I need more. I think I’ve needed more for a while. And so have you.”

  I reached a hand across the table to rest over his.

  “I’m not what you need, Brian. You’re not what I need. And not just sexually.”

  “You’re right,” he said, “this has been happening for years, hasn’t it?”

  I sniffed, trying to hold back the tears. “Yes.”

  “I shouldn’t have lost my temper with you. When you wanted to go to school.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m sorry I scared you. I didn’t know I was capable of that. It’s just…with trying to make partner and everything else that’s happened, the stress has been crushing.”

  “I had no idea it was so bad.”

  “I—Club Midnight is the only respite I have from all this. My only escape.”

  “If you feel like you need to escape our life together,” I said, “then I hope you can see why I want a divorce.”

  I used to think we could patch things up. That we could go to therapy and all would be well. But seeing him at Club Midnight changed everything. We both deserved to be happy, and I knew with perfect clarity in that moment, that we just couldn’t make each other happy. Not anymore.

  “Yes. You’re right.”

  I sighed with relief when Brian agreed.

  “You know that night at the Club, when we were all on stage?” he asked, his eyes full of shame. “I—I wasn’t just mad at Derek. I was pissed because Saskia was watching us. And I…fuck, Lexie, I wanted to leave that stage and go be with her. It was your birthday, your special time, and I was just a prop. It felt like a huge fucking waste of time when I could have been with her.”

  He buried his head in his hands and began to weep. I sat and soaked it all in.

  “So you were more annoyed that you couldn’t be with her than you were by the fact that Derek was using me all for himself?”

  “Yes,” he sobbed.

  I waited for the jealousy, the anger, but it didn’t come. I just didn’t care. The lack of emotion only reinforced the decision I’d come to. It was time for us to end this.

  “Brian,” I said, making my voice soothing. “It’s okay.”

  “How can you say that?” he sniffled, not looking at me.

  “You obviously care for her a great deal. I’m happy for you. Really, I am.”

  “I shouldn’t have gotten between you and Derek. I’ve known for a while now, that he is better for you than I am.”

  “We’ve both changed, Brian. You can’t be so hard on yourself. People outgrow one another all the time.”

  He sniffled again and dabbed at his nose with the sleeve of his shirt.

  “I don’t want anything,” I told him. “Just the dogs and my possessions.”

  I didn’t want this to be messy. I hoped to make things as civil as possible.

  “And the Hamptons house,” he added.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I want you to have it. It was your and Derek’s lovechild, really. You know I didn’t even want to get a house out there.”

  He’d lost his mind.

  “I—you can’t just give it to me.”

  “Lexie,” he squeezed my hand, “I want you to have it. Please. I don’t need it. I got word last night that I made partner.”

  “Oh, wow. Congratulations!”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to wait until I sign their deal before we make our divorce public. That way the bastards can’t hold it against me.”

  “Of course.” I gulped down the marble in my throat. “That’ll give you some time to reconsider the sanity of your offer. I’m not asking you to give me that house, Brian. I hope it will not be in the paperwork your lawyer sends over.”

  “Lexie,” Brian laughed, tears brimming in his eyes, “it will be there.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  DEREK

  “Is that the last of it?” I asked, plopping another box into the bed of my truck.

  I had to give Brian credit. He didn’t put up a fight when Alexandra broke it off. He had the power to make this divorce messy and drawn out. Instead, in the month since Alexandra came knocking at my door, the papers had been signed and she was collecting the last of her things from their penthouse.

  “That’s it,” she said.

  I leaned against the truck to catch my breath. She had a lot of crap.

  “Excellent.”

  I went to pull her in for a kiss when Brian stepped out of the apartment building, headed right for us. I braced myself. I knew his complacency was too good to be true. If he wanted a fight, he could bring it. Hell, I hoped he swung the first punch just so I’d have an excuse to deck his ass.

  “You forgot this,” he said, handing Alexandra’s phone to her.

  “Oh! Thanks,” she said.

  Brian turned towards me, looked me up and down, and then his whole body seemed to shrink.

  “I owe you an apology,” he said, “I am sorry. For everything. I just want you two to be happy.”

  I questioned the value of telling him to fuck off. But Lexie had a surprised, pleased expression on her face. As satisfying as it would be to hate this wimp for all eternity, I knew it was better for her if things remained peaceful. So I stuck out my hand and offered it to him.

  “No hard feelings.”

  He took my hand and gave it a firm shake.

  “Maybe I’ll see you around the Club,” Brian offered as he let go.

  “We’ll see,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to bring Alexandra to Club Midnight anymore. Maybe we’d keep it as an option if we needed to spice things up, but as I watched her hug Brian good bye, I had a feeling spicing things up wasn’t going to be a problem for us.

  I got in the drivers seat to give them some privacy. I listened to the classic rock station, and soon she was opening the door. She climbed in and wiped a tear away from the corner of her eye.

  “Everything okay?” I asked, concern spiking for her.

  “Yes,” she sniffled and turned to me with a big smile. “It’s a little bittersweet, but I’m happy.”

  “What’s that you have?”

  I was referring to the folder of papers he’d given her.

  “It’s the deed to the house in the Hamptons. In my name.”

  “So he gave it to you after all.”

  “Yes,” she breathed. “I don’t quite know what to do with it.”

  I merged into traffic and started the drive back home. To our home. I smiled at the thought. Alexandra living with me the last month had been a relatively smooth transition. Not that we didn’t get into a million little fights every day about housework and cleanliness. But when we fought, it wasn’t like other couples. It only served to add lighter fuel to the fire between us.

  It’d been a non-stop fuck fest all month.

  I wasn’t about to complain about that.

  “I’ve never wanted to live in a mansion,” I said. “But I must admit I do have a soft spot for that foyer.”

  Alexandra giggled, no doubt remembering our first night of passion, barricaded in the foyer during a hurricane.

  “I could always rent it out, make some money off of it,” she said.

  “You could sell it and pay for school. Hell, you could pay for a lot more than school with the money you’d get from that house.”

  “What, no longer offering me a loan, Mr.Drake?”

  Her hand rested on my thigh and gave me a playful pinch.

  “Oh, Princess, how you love to taunt me,” I said, casting her a quick, blazing look. “You know the offer still stands. I just thought you were a strong, independent woman who didn’t want to take my money.”

  “Touché,” she laughed. “There’s a lot of possibilities.”

>   “Well,” I said, rubbing her thigh, “good thing we have plenty of time to figure it out.”

  LEXIE

  “Please, Sir,” I begged.

  Naked, I bent over the bed, hands splayed out on the sheets. My knees brushed the soft carpet and my bare ass was high in the air. My heart raced, eager and ready for the next blow to land.

  “Please, what, Princess?”

  I shivered as that dominant, dark voice filled my senses. Derek stood behind me. How close, I couldn’t say, because he wouldn’t allow me to turn my head. He knew how much I liked to watch. Knew what it did to me when he forbade me from looking at him. The anticipation spiked, making the arousal all the more sweet, a move he’d no doubt calculated.

  But, I knew what drove him crazy too, and he loved it when I begged for pain.

  “Please, spank me. “

  He sucked in a breath from somewhere behind me. Air whooshed, followed by the sharp sting of his palm on my flesh. I moaned. Derek crooked a finger through the D-ring of my collar and pulled my back against his torso. I gasped when I felt the hard, huge length now pressed against my ass. Another hand moved to cup my breast before it traced down and grabbed me between the legs possessively.

  “You belong to me, Alexandra,” he growled in my ear.

  Little shivers spread from my ear down my shoulder and pooled in my core. I rested my head on his shoulder and turned to look up at him, my breath hitching as he began to strum my sensitive little bud

  “I belong to you, Derek.”

  He grinned devilishly and bent his head to bite that spot on my neck. The special spot that made my insides melt. As he did so, he also swirled fast and deliberate around my clit.

  “Come for me, Princess.”

  I convulsed around him, bucking against his talented, wicked fingers. I cried out his name.

  “Good girl,” he groaned into my neck. “You’re so beautiful when you come, Alexandra.”

  I glowed, practically purring at the compliment. His mouth lowered on mine and our tongues entwined. I moaned into him as he rubbed my still throbbing clit. He bit my lip when he pulled away. Those gray eyes sparked like flint, and I all but combusted in his hands.