Page 81 of Gloves Off

She huffs a laugh. “Lucky you, then. My parents are having a party next weekend. They’ve been begging to meet you.”

The Greenes want to meet me?

A bad taste fills my mouth. The Greenes run in the same social circles as Emma’s family. Georgia might even know Emma. Their party will be catered with staff in uniforms, serving the finest champagne. The out-of-touch guests will complain about the government using their tax dollars on the poor, or how many immigrants are being let into the country.

I was wrong about her being spoiled and selfish. I was wrong about her wanting to marry rich and live a life of leisure.

Maybe I was wrong about her family. Maybe they’re nothing like Emma’s.

I thought I had her all figured out, but now I’m realizing I don’t knowanythingabout my wife.

CHAPTER 39

ALEXEI

I’m sittingin the kitchen, waiting for the doctor to get home so we can go to this party with her family, trying not to think about what we did after at the benefit last week, when curiosity gets the best of me, and I open that social media app she was using a few weeks ago.

I’m forced to make an account to view her profile. She’s easy to find, with a surprising number of followers, and I hit the ‘follow’ button before spending a few minutes browsing through her photos. Lots of her with Jordan and Darcy, a few at work, a selfie in Hawaii from the summer. I remember exactly how she looked in a swimsuit—lush curves on display. I’m clicking different parts of her profile when I find the tagged pictures. Another collection of images pops up with her in them.

One of them, though, looks different. @doc.georgia.greene.queen is an account dedicated to her outfits. Some images are pulled from her own account, some are from people spotting her out in the wild, usually walking in or out of the arena.

She has a fan account? I hit Follow.

I’m looking at the picture of us on the plane the other week—hottest couple in the NHL,one comment says—when I get a waft of that familiar violet scent.

“Stalking me?” she says over my shoulder and my watch goes off again.

“Jesus.” I tuck my phone away. “Don’t sneak up on me.”

She lifts her brows and sends a pointed look at my phone. “I saw that. My favorite comment is the one that says,Volkov looks at his wife the way I look at a double quarter pounder with cheese.”

No, I don’t. Do I? The back of my neck feels hot.

She smirks, cool and indifferent, like the library never even happened. Like she hasn’t thought about it once.

And then there’s me—who can’t stop replaying it. Can’t stop jerking off thinking about being buried in her tight, hot pussy. Can’t stop hearing the little panting noises she made as she got closer to the edge, as she started to clasp me harder inside her.

She wants to pretend it didn’t happen? Fine. I will, too.

“Are you ready to go?” I ask, glancing at the time.

“Not even close.” She gives me a strange look before gesturing to the garment bag she draped over the stool beside me. I was so absorbed in looking at photos of her that I didn’t even notice. “We need to go in costume.”

I unzip the bag and recognize the superhero costume in an instant. “Batman? Do you have a mask kink or something?”

“What’s the kink called where I don’t want to look at your face?”

My mouth twitches and the urge to laugh tightens in my abdomen. After what happened at her work benefit, though, the last thing we need is to be laughing together. I’m already having a hard time not thinking about it.

Night and day, all I think about is fucking her. The flare of lust in her eyes when I didn’t let her come.

She liked being told what to do, and even worse, I liked it, too.

Her hair’s down around her shoulders, glossy and wavy, begging to be touched. Makeup done in a way that makes her eyes sparkle harder, her lips more distracting. She’s wearing a T-shirt and those leggings again. “What are you going as?”

She smirks. “You’ll see.” She makes a shooing gesture. “Go get changed. I’ll meet you down here in twenty.”

Twenty minutes later, I sit in the living room wearing the surprisingly high quality Batman costume, holding the mask in my hand, inspecting it.

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