Day

by Jessica Florence

My black biker boots kicked the cage, catching the attention of the small group of men that were chatting at the bar. They were not paying enough attention to me, and right now I wanted all the eyes I could get.

  One man, however, did not turn toward me. He just drank away his memories from a tall glass. He was large, and fit.

  Challenge accepted. I owned every other man in this room, and no longer cared if they were looking right at me. All I wanted was his gaze on me. I wanted to see the man that would choose the bottle over the curves of a beautiful woman he didn’t know he couldn’t have.

  I writhed, and my hips pulsed to the sides with the beat. I stared at him and no one else, knowing by the tensing of his back he could feel my gaze on him.

  Slowly, he turned around and leveled me with a look of anger.

  I laughed at his scowl and continued to dance for him only. It was the same man that was in the club about a week ago. He had looked me over, and wanted me like everyone else. But then he left.

  Now, his eyes took in my purple halter top and leather pants with indifference. That just would not do.

  I never left my cage for a man.

  But this one was trying my patience.

  My fingers gripped the handle on the inside of the cage and I was out of my self-imposed prison in seconds. Our gazes were locked onto each other.

  I had no clue what I was going to do when I got to him, but I was more of a fly by the crotch of my pants girl than a plotter. Every other person in the club was watching me walk toward the man at the bar, like I was a tiger loose from her prison. They wanted to see what I was going to do.

  Pounce, baby. I was going to pounce.

  Something in those angry, brown eyes made me want to erase his pain. I’d known anger like what was running through him right now. And I knew just the thing that would make it all better.

  He didn’t stop me as I hopped right into his lap and grabbed his drink.

  In fact, he was looking at me like I was crazy. What did he think I was going to do? Kiss him?

  Laughable.

  The glass was cold against my lips, and the burn of the alcohol stung as it ran down my throat. I was not much of a drinker anymore, but occasionally it was nice to lose myself in something strong. Like the sexy man beneath my leather-clad ass.

  “What the fuck, lady?” He finally found his words, and what a mouth he had. His voice was strong, just like his body.

  “My mouth was parched. I needed a drink.” I stayed sitting in his lap, and my hand lifted up his glass higher as I finished off the rest of the liquid inside it.

  “You’re paying for that,” he snapped, rolling his eyes and glancing around the room. People were staring. But once I turned my head to look at them, they all suddenly became interested in the partners they had brought to the floor instead of me.

  “So.” I turned my attention back to him and purred.

  “What deep and dark secrets trouble you tonight?” I asked. He scoffed and ordered himself another drink. Something stronger than the one before.

  “Oh, a mysterious dancer that drank all my shit. My little red wagon broke this morning; I’m pretty distraught about it. Now I’m going to sulk in my pain with my friend Jack here.” He held out his new full glass and took a sip. He was feisty. I liked that. I was quite the feisty woman, too.

  When a small drop of his drink started falling from his lips as he pulled away from the glass, I leaned over and licked the bead from this chin.

  I smiled wide and wiggled on his lap. Despite his inclination to think me crazy, the erection growing in his jeans told me he still liked it.

  “Come on, strange and mysteriously sexy man who has now denied me of your attention twice. Spill what troubles you to a total stranger. I’m good at keeping secrets.” I rubbed my hands up his chest then back down. He was all hard muscle and rippling bumps beneath his shirt.

  “Well, since you put it that way,” He drank more and then surprised me. Which rarely happened.

  He started telling me the truth.

  “My best friend, who I paralyzed back in high school, isn’t a candidate for a surgery that could have helped him get feeling back in his legs. So once again, I’m drowning my guilt and anguish away until I have to feel it all over again tomorrow.”

  His words were real and completely raw.

  “Well, then. To getting all black and blue then coming back fighting the next day.” I wrapped my hand around his and took a sip of his new drink. He didn’t even stop me. He actually smiled then enjoyed his own sip after mine.

  He was good through and through. I could read people, and he was something special. It was hidden beneath the anger and resentment that created the sexy exterior before me.

  We shared that glass until there was nothing left, and not once did he ask if I had herpes.

  A special man indeed.

  Chapter Four

  Lilith

  “It’s so crazy how It’s only ten. I could have sworn it was so much later.” Leon, as I found out his name after a short introduction, was all grins now, and I had yet to leave his side. He was like warm hands rubbing lotion all over my body. He soothed the crazy that echoed in my head, and I felt like nothing else mattered but keeping him from jumping off a bridge. He was important. I never focused on the hows or whys, but some things I just knew. I knew Leon was somebody.

  He was funny, hot, smart, and had extraordinary trust.

  I’d never been so taken aback by a person’s pure genuine trust in someone they just met. Even if it was because he thought we would never see each other again, or the bottle was throwing away his fucks, he was quickly becoming someone I wanted to lose myself in.

  Men had always been dogs in my eyes. I’d never had an experience that proved them different. So I controlled them, and they followed like the little beggars they were, panting and clawing at the chance to have me in their grasp. But it would never happen. I’d had enough of men using me. I was the user now.

  That being said, the occasion was rarely needed. Vibrators were better than most dicks, anyway.

  But something inside my rattling brain told me Leon was not to be used.

  “Let’s go get some food, Star.” The nickname had come up about an hour after our first meeting, when he told me about how his football career went crashing down. He had gotten to the club shortly after it’d opened.

  “Aren’t you going to get in trouble for leaving work?” He stopped and looked concerned for me and my job. I smiled and leaned up to bite his chin. He was tall, which was nice for my five-foot-nine height.

  “I do what I want. They know that. The job is for fun. I like to dance.” I wrapped my arm around his and started pulling him toward food.

  We settled at a booth at an Irish pub called The Ray. The live band was singing their little accented hearts out, and the beer was flowing.

  Our table was filled with all sorts of food, since I liked to try everything, and Leon didn’t know what he wanted.

  Every time he’d smile, I was completely captivated by his lips. He was not a man who smiled, but it was a forced frown. His face was made to be lit up.

  “You’re not what I expected,” he said as he finished his fried fish.

  I tilted my head to the side and grinned. I was all sorts of unexpected, but I was curious which part he was focusing on.

  “You’re so much more than the wildfire inside you. I can tell you’ve got shit that’s fucked up in your head, and that stuff changes you. But I see you.” He was looking at me with no other intent but to speak of what he truly saw in me.

  “Don’t go all sugar on me now, Star.” I laughed and then shoved a fry in my mouth.

  “Thank you.” He was all serious now, and it was making me feel awkward.

  “Let’s dance!” I jumped up and pulled his hand, making him stand with me.

  He indulged me while I danced to the music right next to the table.

  “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, and I felt my spirit fall a littl
e. Everyone thought I was beautiful.

  “I’ve got a great pair of tits, what can I say?” I shimmied and raised my hands in the air, jumping with the high point of the chorus.

  Hands grasped mine and then slid slowly onto my tapered waist.

  “Your fucking soul is beautiful. I couldn’t give a shit about your sexy body that you know brings men to their knees. You do it on purpose. But what you don’t do on purpose is keep a stranger from sitting at his pity party alone. That is your soul, darling.” His hips start moving with mine, and I was just staring at him like he’d spoken a foreign language to me. People don’t see my soul. Hell, I wasn’t sure I had one.

  I did the only thing that came to mind. I gripped his shirt and yanked his body to the side. He flew back into the booth, and I prowled over him, his eyes wide. He wasn’t scared of me, but he knew I wasn’t one to fuck around with.

  “Call me darling, one more time.” I leaned over, inches away from his lips. Would I bite or would I do something much nicer? His next move would determine that.

  His hand reached up and wrapped itself tightly around the bulk of my hair, making it so I couldn’t escape the distance between us.

  “Darling,” he whispered, making a small gleeful giggle escape before our lips crashed.

  He moaned, and his hand gripped my hair to a gloriously torturous mixture of pain and pleasure.

  His dominating kiss was scorching my insides, and for once I had no issue with letting a man be in control for this introduction of tongues.

  “Oh fuck, marry me,” he groaned, and I kissed him harder. My body latched onto his in seconds, reveling in the feel of him under me and his hands on my bare back beneath my top. I was getting lost, and I didn’t want to lose this feeling. Leon Daniels was something worth fighting for. My next words were made with complete confidence.

  “Right now,” I demanded. With me wrapped around his waist, he lifted us up, dropped a few large bills on the table then carried me out the door with our lips never parting. Every wall, every streetlight on the way to the small, late-night chapel was part of our exhibition. My skin craved his hands, my kisses wordless pleas to feel him everywhere all at once.

  He nudged the door opened with my back pressed to it, and I groaned, feeling the wood bite into my skin slightly. I liked this roughness.

  “Marry us now, friar!” I called out to whoever was in the chapel, grinning.

  “No friars here,” a man replied, stepping out from a door to the right.

  “Well, I want to fuck my boyfriend here and we are kinda waiting till marriage. So let’s get this show on the road.” I winked and went back to nipping at Leon’s swelling lips.

  “Just a moment, do you have any witnesses with you?” the preacher man asked and we shook our head no. He said he would get us some for an extra fee, which was great. I didn’t care one bit who witnessed us sealing our fates together.

  Leon set me down, and we walked toward the end of the aisle.

  “No regrets?” I asked him as we grabbed hands and waited for the whole I’m-with-you-till-the-end speech started.

  “I’d never deserved something so precious as you, Lilith. But I vow that I’m going to sew our broken souls together and protect the good remaining inside us.”

  And just like that, we were husband and wife in the eyes of all.

  He picked me up and carried me toward the marina. How his arms weren’t tired was beyond me. He was so strong—a trait that was going to come in handy when it came to the bedroom.

  “You live on a boat?” I asked, clapping my hands with excitement. It was a beautiful boat.

  “We live on a boat,” he corrected, and all I could think about was getting him undressed and on top of me.

  “We sure do, Star.” He set me down so he could open the door and then helped me down the few stairs into the cabin.

  “It’s super cozy.” I loved adventure, and this was one hell of a ride.

  “Speaking of rides,” Leon was already one step ahead of me, pulling me toward the bed in the front of the boat.

  He lay down on the mattress and stared at me with a look that I’d seen before. Many times, in fact, but none gave me the feeling that his gaze did.

  “You’re mine now, darling,” he told me, and I felt the security of his words lace themselves around my heart. I was his. For better or for worse.

  Chapter Five

  Leon

  God, I feel like shit. I groaned and rolled over to shade my eyes from the light coming in through the little window. What the hell did I do last night? My eyelids pulled back, and the sight before me was not what I was expecting.

  “Jesus Christ!” I flew off my bed and smacked the side of my cabin, punching a hole right through it.

  “Dammit!”

  “Good morning, Star.” The beauty lying in my bed, wearing just my shirt, stretched and looked at me with hungry eyes.

  “What the fuck are you doing on my boat?” I tried to calm down. Lily Blue didn’t need any more damage. The black-haired girl sat up and looked at me with her head titled to the side, like she was trying to figure something out. Suddenly a big grin flashed on her face and she laughed. Hard.

  She was off her rocker.

  “Oh, boy. You don’t remember shit, do you?” She crawled toward me and I tripped backward to get away from her, fucking up my boat even more.

  “Just stay where you are, and tell me what the hell is going on.” I put a hand out, trying to get her to stay away from me. I could have sworn I saw hurt flash in her eyes, but then she gave me a wicked grin and licked from my wrist to my fingers.

  “Well, Leon…” She sat up on her knees.

  “You and I got hitched last night.

  “So, husband, I’m in my new home.” She looked around and smiled at the small cabin.

  Oh, shit. My legs gave out from shock.

  I was married. That can’t be. I was about to deny it but then she reached over to the little table on the other side and grabbed a piece of paper.

  “Here.” She handed it to me, and there you go: signed by both of us, two witnesses, and the notary that did it. We were legally married.

  “I can’t deal with this shit right now,” I groaned, and then not on accident, I turned and punched more holes in my boat, not giving one shit at the moment.

  “Now I know how you carried me all over Seahill last night. So strong,” she purred, not looking at me like the freak I was.

  “Yeah. Your new husband is a freak of nature. He can crumble a car up like a piece of paper. Oh, and some other little bit of info you probably didn’t know—I’m wicked fast, too. Can run faster than the fastest car there is.” I was having a breakdown. Last thing I remembered was getting hammered at the club after Charles called to tell me he wasn’t getting that surgery. Then my eyes narrowed at the beauty before me.

  “You’re the cage dancer!” I remembered her, and I remembered her sitting in my lap. Talking. But then things start to get fuzzy, fading out until there is nothing but this morning.

  “That’s me, baby.” She came closer, and I just couldn’t do this right now.

  “I’m sorry about all this. But I don’t wanna be married.” We had to get this thing annulled, and quick.

  She looked at me again then started that same big grinning laugh she had done before. Crazy woman, I’m telling you.

  “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, honey. But we got married in Seahill, baby. That means we have to wait a month before we can get this marriage taken care of.”

  Fuck.

  “Well, I need to go get some of my things and make this place more homey for me.” She stood and took off my shirt, revealing that she had been completely naked underneath. She reached over to grab her outfit from last night off the shelf.

  Did we sleep together? I mean, technically we were married, and that was our wedding night…

  “The answer to your question is no. We didn’t fuck. I was about to hop on ya, but you passed out. So I bundled
you up like the good wife I am and went to sleep.” She pulled up her tight leather pants and started working on her top.

  My eyes got stuck on her body as she wiggled in front of me. She had pierced nipples, with little wings coming out the sides of the barbells.

  “Like what you see?” she teased, and I covered my face in my hands.

  “I’ll see you later, honey.” She walked up to me and pressed a kiss to my hands before leaving the boat.

  I stayed there, stunned. This could not be happening to me. What the hell was I going to do?

  “Obviously you have to stay married for a month, asshole,” I said to myself.

  Dropping my hands, I looked around my cabin, taking in all the damage I’d caused. Fuck. If it started raining tonight, my cabin was screwed. Seahill was notorious for crazy weather. It would be sunny for one day then rain for three in a row right after. Plus, it was getting cold. I cursed and got dressed before grabbing my tarp from the storage closet by the helm. Once the tarp was secured so the weather wouldn’t screw up my boat, I decided I needed to take a walk. Work out everything that happened and try to remember last night in more detail.

  It was just my luck that I would get so pissed drunk that I would get married to a cage dancer in a city that wouldn’t let you get divorced right away. I get that the city was trying to discourage quickie weddings and hasty divorces. But that obviously didn’t factor in to my thinking last night.

  My hands were tucked into my pockets to stay warm as I walked through the marina.

  Would my new wife truly be coming back with stuff to put in my boat? She seemed like a nut bag. Maybe she would just move on and we could wait out the month timeline separately.

  The more the thought stayed in my head, the more I figured it was a good idea. I did not want to be married, and I was asshole enough to avoid her till our time was over. My curse was mine to bear, and I wouldn’t demand anyone take that heavy load onto their shoulders.

  She didn’t seem scared when I knocked holes into my boat, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t running like hell now. She was pretty quick to leave this morning.