Grinning in anticipation, Owen dressed in all black, but not the typical jeans and T-shirt he usually wore. He slipped into a pair of tailored slacks and a button-down shirt. He did wear his Converse though, because they were the only shoes he ever wore. His tattoos all concealed beneath his clothes, he decided to play down his rocker image. He removed his lip piercing and the barbells in his ni**les, but left the half-inch black plugs in his ears since when he went without jewelry, the holes were even more noticeable. He fingered the hoop in his eyebrow and decided to leave it in as well. The piercing had never healed right, so he had a hard time getting the ring back in the hole if he took it out.
“All black tonight? If you had a cape, you could be a vampire,” Kelly said, using his towel to dry his long hair instead of using it to conceal his body.
“Black is slimming.”
“You’re not fat any more, Owen.”
“I know.” Owen ran a hand over his flat belly, making sure those rock hard abs he worked so hard to maintain hadn’t suddenly disappeared. Still there.
He added a touch of product to the ends of his damp hair, arranging the dark blond locks into disarray. “Hurry up, Kelly,” he said, suddenly eager to get to the club and f**k any woman who would have him.
“Keep your pants on,” Kelly said as drew a brush through his longish black hair.
“Hopefully, I won’t have to for long.”
Chapter Two
Caitlyn was going to screw every man in this club. That would show the insufferable bastard. She had trusted him, loved him, and picked his damned dirty underwear off the floor for twelve years. How could he do this to her? Her no-good, lying, son-of-a-bitch ex-husband had cheated on her with a freshman in his introductory English class. A nineteen-year-old. A baby. Then he’d had the audacity to file for divorce stating irreconcilable differences. Yeah, he wanted to put his dick in someone, and Caitlyn had an irreconcilable difference of opinion that it should be only her. The worst part was that because she made more money than the ass**le, she had to pay alimony while he spent his summer off in Italy f**king that little tramp. How was that fair? How was that even legal?
Caitlyn was going to screw every man in this club twice. That’s what she’d told herself while she was purchasing sexy lingerie in the shop downstairs. What she’d told herself when she’d been changing into her new white lace nightie, thigh-high stockings, and four-inch heels. That’s what she told herself when she’d marched into the club and strutted—the best she could in these ridiculous shoes—across what might have been a dance floor if anyone had been dancing. But the other patrons were occupied with activities that made Caitlyn alternately gawk and avert her eyes. They were involved in things she hadn’t done in the privacy of her own bedroom, much less in public.
Yeah, she was about to go do some of that stuff herself. Lots of that stuff. And she would mentally give Charles the middle finger the entire time another man was stuffing her with his cock.
So why was she hiding in a secluded corner avoiding eye contact? And why were her knees knocking together?
She’d asked Jenna to bring her to the club. Asked Jenna to leave her here. By herself. Because Caitlyn had been afraid that she wouldn’t be able to open her thighs to a stranger and at the first sign of masculine interest, would have begged Jenna to take her home. That wouldn’t have done anything to hurt Charles. Not that she cared if she hurt him as much as he had hurt her—she doubted it was possible anyway. Word would get back to him that she’d come here, and she’d make damn sure he thought she’d participated in the orgy of her life. And that she’d loved every minute of it. Without him.
At least that had been her plan when she’d arrived.
But instead of participating in the overt sexual acts going on around her, Caitlyn observed. And tried not to feel like a coward and a loser and the most unattractive, undesirable, oldest woman in the place. Tried to pretend she was alone because she wanted to be, not because no one wanted her. Being here was not making her feel better about herself or empowered or even sexy. Why had she come?
Caitlyn had only ever slept with one man. Charles couldn’t claim he’d slept with only one woman. He couldn’t even claim he’d slept with only one woman when he’d been married. Would removing Charles’s claim over her body help her heart mend? She’d thought so at first, but now she wasn’t so sure.
Caitlyn watched yet another couple leave the main parlor to go to one of the private rooms in the back and then lowered her eyes to stare at her thumbs. The man had held the woman’s breast in his hand and had his other hand down her panties—teasing her, stroking her, making her moan—as if he couldn’t wait to take her, to touch her.
Caitlyn wanted someone to take her. To touch her.
God, how she wanted someone to touch her.
How long had it been since a man had found her irresistible?
Had a man ever found her irresistible? Yeah, Charles had once. When she’d been a freshman in his introductory English class. An innocent, trusting virgin. It seemed he didn’t find women over thirty attractive at all. Did anyone?
What did she have to do to feel sexy again? To feel wanted? Sitting in a frilly white negligée in the corner of a sex club staring at her thumbs wasn’t working so well for her. Not the way she’d thought it would. She’d thought braving this place would make her feel confident. Attractive. Desirable. Instead she felt out of place and uncomfortable.
“Do you know what your problem is, beautiful?” a deep voice asked from the chair across the table from her.
She hadn’t realized anyone had sat down. “What?” she snapped.
“You’re much too pretty to give off such incredible men-suck vibes.”
She caught herself before she said, Men do suck. They suck shit-encrusted balls. But she’d have been lying. Not all men sucked. Charles sucked. But not all men did. She liked men. Most of the time. Most of her colleagues were men, and she got along just fine with them.
Caitlyn stared at a pair of dog tags resting against a black button-down shirt covering a man’s chest. Her heart thudded too fast for her to find the courage to actually meet his eyes. He’d called her beautiful. Pretty. Was this that masculine attention she’d both coveted and dreaded? She was pretty sure he was hitting on her. Wasn’t he? She’d never dated much before she’d gotten married. She wasn’t sure how this worked.
Oh God, what was she doing here? If she made eye contact would he expect her to have sex with him? Could she go through with this? “You’re very perceptive,” she managed to say.