Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Elton remained rooted to the ground for a beat, his head tipped forward, then he moved without warning toward the back exit, kicking it open and disappearing into the night. Deeming the sobbing man on the ground harmless, Eve sat down and waited for her turn to take the stage.
Chapter Thirty-Three
By the time Madden pulled into the parking lot of the Gilded Garden, he was ready to combust. He’d have been there two hours earlier, if not for the congestion on the highway. And when he saw that there wasn’t even one available parking spot, his panic increased. Too many fascinated people around Eve. Too many members of the media warring over information, wanting to know more about them and willing to get up close and personal to track down details. Anything they could report to feed the growing public interest.
Even now, he could see cameramen and reporters lurking at the front entrance, barred entry by the bouncer. That was a good thing, at least. To avoid being rushed and questioned, Madden drove his truck around back, through an opening in the trees, and parked at the backstage exit, alighting from his truck as fast as possible before anyone caught wind of his arrival.
Keys in hand, he juggled until he found the right one. The key Eve had given him years earlier and he never thought he’d have to use. Thankfully, it still worked, and Madden let himself into the backstage area.
As soon as he heard the music, he knew he was too late.
It was the same song that played the night he’d walked into the empty club and found Eve dancing by herself. His wife was out there on that stage right now. And did he like her taking off her clothes in front of strangers? Hell no, he didn’t. He wanted the seductiveness of Eve to be deployed only on him. Only ever on him. But he was more upset knowing she’d been driven out there by desperation. By the self-destructive need to detonate a bomb and walk away giving everyone the finger.
Including him.
And yet, as he took a position at stage left to watch her, out of view of the crowd, he saw the woman he’d fallen in love with. God, she was fucking glorious in her unsmiling defiance, black silk gloves on the ground at her feet. Standing with her hip cocked in the blue spotlight, she pulled the lace of her corset with a coy flutter of her eyelashes, sending the crowd into a tizzy, the volume increasing as she loosened the black, ribbed garment more, more, before swiftly giving the audience her back and letting the corset tumble down, past her hips to the floor.
She kicked it backward at somebody in the front row with the aid of her sky-high heels, hitting them square in the face. “Oops.” She pouted over her shoulder.
She wore nothing now but heels, a tiny silver skirt, and a black lace bra that looked suspiciously sheer from where he was standing. His body reacted to naked Eve the way it had been made to do, his cock swelling a little more with every wiggle of her hips. And yet, his hunger was accompanied by the twist of dread in his stomach, his chest. His ample knowledge of Eve told him this was wrong for her. She was acting out. But what could he do about it without making the situation worse? Her control had been stolen over the last forty-eight hours. He couldn’t and wouldn’t take any more of it.
A beat dropped midway through the song and Eve moved with it, turning to the crowd and letting them see her in the brief, transparent bra, their whistles and cheers egging her on, and it was hard to know that, despite her mental turmoil in this moment, her underlying desire to be on display was being satisfied.
Eyes closed, body locked in a sensual roll, Eve lowered the side zipper of her skirt, all the way to the bottom, and Madden’s mouth dried up, his pulse thickening everywhere because he couldn’t take his attention off the beauty of her, peeling open the side of her skirt in the sapphire light and . . .
What was that?
She turned away from the audience again before her panties could come into view . . . and they must have been low-cut panties, instead of her usual high-waisted ones. The ones she always wore and had in every color. But not tonight and . . . Eve stopped on a dime as she faced Madden, her movements ceasing as if her batteries had run out. He couldn’t see her face, though; all he could see was the scar running from the lower right side of her belly button, curving kind of like a hockey stick and ending near her pelvis.