Idle Hands
by Lionel

chapter 2

Lorenzo regained his composure as they walked to the limousine, the unpleasant feeling of having been teased helping to subdue the desire that had flared in the restaurant. He was calm and cool again by the time they got in the car, but curious about her unusual behavior, and he wondered whether it would continue on the car ride back to the compound. He rather hoped it would so he could figure out her game, and because it was such a pleasant contrast to her usual hostility, but she was quiet, whatever energy had carried her earlier having faded. He sat in the back seat, glancing over at her occasionally, trying to figure out what exactly had transpired at the party.

Eventually he cleared his throat, breaking the silence. "Everyone was very impressed with you tonight, Alexis. Thank you."

A bitter smile formed briefly on her face, and she glanced over at him. "You're welcome."

"You're quite remarkable when you want to be. I was … proud to have you as my wife." As soon as he said it he knew it was wrong, and her scornful laugh confirmed it. "Pleased," he amended. He hadn't exactly won her hand; the only thing he had to feel proud of was the way he had played his hand of blackmail. "You appeared to have a good time," he observed.

She lifted one elegant eyebrow and shrugged slightly. "Isn't that how it was supposed to appear?"

"Wasn't it real?"

She looked at him quizzically. "I'm not sure I know what that would mean, Lorenzo."

He sighed slightly, resigning himself to the return of her usual manner -- suffering dignity laced with barely restrained condescension -- but he refused to be swayed from his questioning. "Did you really have a good time or were you just pretending to be charmed by every man and captivated by every conversation?"

"Yes. I was pretending."

"Really." For some reason he wanted her to admit she had enjoyed herself.

"Isn't that what one does at dinner parties?"

Lorenzo nodded slightly. "I suppose so. But sometimes one really does have fun."

"I wouldn't know. I can't tell the difference anymore."

She turned away, trying to bring the discussion to a close, and for a minute he watched her without speaking. They had been married two months, but she was mostly a mystery to him. He knew little more about her than he did when they were hostile strangers, when she lofted insults and he tossed threats each time their paths crossed. He had gone out of his way to make it so: he tried hard not to pay too much attention to her, beyond what was necessary to inflict his petty punishments, for fear he would stop seeing her as only the villain in his play. He wanted to hold on to his perception of her as a cold, bitchy shrew, and for the most part her seething contempt made that easy, but there were moments – when she didn’t know he was watching, when she played with her daughter, and now, at the moody end of a charged night – when everything was closer to the surface and he couldn’t ignore the more nuanced woman she obviously was.

"What about when you kissed me?" he pressed. "Was that real?"

She shrugged easily, but didn't really look at him. "Garrido was watching. I was under the impression that you wanted me to sell our marriage to everyone, particularly him."

"Yes. But that's not an answer."

"You think my kissing you was something other than an act?"

"Wasn't it?"

"Apparently you've forgotten the circumstances of my presence there tonight. It's not likely I'm going to forget that you're holding me a virtual prisoner."

Lorenzo nodded slowly. "Nevertheless, it felt real."

She didn't disagree or give him the disdainful look he expected. She simply fell silent again, and turned away. Though her cheeks were no longer flushed, and her eyes no longer shining, still she looked beautiful, sitting perfectly still, just barely lit by the streetlight filtering in, her classically made up face reflecting some elusive emotion, something like sadness or disillusionment or maybe just the elated weariness that comes in the aftermath of a party, and he felt some perverse pride for his own part in bringing the moment to pass, for the little torments he inflicted that were responsible for some of the sadness etched in such lovely shadows on her face. For a moment he felt a generalized artistic impulse: if he were a painter, he would try to capture her expression – the emotion tangible in the moment – with oil and canvas; if he were a writer, he would struggle with words; but he settled for committing the image to his memory. It was almost sadistic, the pleasure he took from observing her unhappiness; he had never thought himself a sadist, but she wore it so well.

"Why are you doing this, Alexis?" he asked quietly. He had been so certain that she was toying with him with her flirtation at the party, but now her retreat into melancholy made him wonder. Perhaps she had simply been swept up by the energy of the evening. He certainly had been swept up, losing his grip on his antagonism for a bit, seeing his reluctant wife in a new and flattering light, seeing her as others did just for a bit, and he wasn't at all sure how he felt about that.

Her eyes fell closed. "What?"

"Why did you agree to meet those people? And you didn't just meet them; you made an indelible impression. I know you'd rather not have anything to do with them."

"For the same reason I do everything these days. Because you're blackmailing me."

"And you're that desperate to keep Sonny from finding out Kristina is his daughter?"

"Yes."

"Desperate enough to let a very dangerous world know you're my wife, desperate enough to submit to constant protection for you and Kristina? How is this better than letting Sonny in her life?"

She frowned. "You sound like you think I should back out of our arrangement. I thought it was working out quite well for you. It's hard to miss Carly's antics." He almost thought he heard a tinge of jealousy in her tone.

"It's working out just fine for me. I'd just like to understand what's really in it for you."

"So you can find new ways to torture me?"

"No. So I can understand one fundamental thing about my wife."

"Oh, please. Like you give a damn about me."

There was the disdain he expected, and a dose of vulnerability as well. For just a moment he felt awful, like a complete shit, and he looked away, frustrated. He wanted to contradict her, to assure her his interest wasn't malicious, but then he reminded himself what she had done. She deserved every cruelty he could inflict.

"Anyway, thank you for making an effort tonight, Alexis," he said, his more formal tone returning. "I was very pleased."

She didn't respond, and neither of them spoke again on the trip home, but he didn’t miss the single tear that slid down her cheek. She wiped it away discreetly just an instant before he reached over to do it for her, and he chastised himself silently for the instinct. Of course he didn't give a damn about her. She wasn't his wife in any real way. He didn't care about her thoughts or feelings unless they affected their arrangement. They lived together, and maybe he noticed things even when he tried not to, like the way her emotions flashed across her face and the way her moods took over her whole body, changing everything from the way she walked and held her head to the movements of her eyes, so that as hard as she tried to maintain her stoically impersonal manner around him still he could read her with just a bit of study. Maybe he noticed, and he paid attention, but he didn't care. As long as she was miserable and cooperative, he was happy. A little lust wasn't going to change that. Neither was a smile, a kiss, even a tear. She wasn't going to get to him.

*****

He repeated his avowal to himself less than an hour later as he lay down in bed to go to sleep. In the short time between their arrival home and the time she fell asleep, she had managed to turn his head around once more, summoning that treacherous desire again, the one that threatened to undercut all his plans, and the worst part was that he wasn’t certain that she had done anything at all to precipitate it. Perhaps it was all in his head, testosterone run amuck. Perhaps she couldn't help it. Or else she was playing him like a pro.

When they walked in the house, she went straight to check on Kristina, and by the time she arrived in the master bedroom Lorenzo had already undressed, opting to slip on a pair of pajama pants tonight, and he was sitting up in bed reading. He looked up from his book when he heard her enter and caught her paused in the doorway, nervously eyeing his bare chest, but as soon as he saw her, she averted her gaze and continued into the room, sitting down at her dressing table to remove her jewelry. She took off his ring first, the overdone rock he insisted she wear every day and that she insisted on taking off as soon as she walked in the door, and then she took off the earrings, laying them carefully in their box. She paused at the necklace, regarding herself in the mirror for a long moment, and he wondered whether she liked it. He had bought her quite a lot of jewelry, most of it intentionally much too garish for her taste, but this piece he'd bought with less malevolent intent, genuinely believing that for all its extravagance it would complement her natural elegance. In his own judgment he had been absolutely correct, but he was curious what she thought.

She fumbled with the intricate and unfamiliar clasp that held the heavy necklace on, and he hesitated only briefly before climbing out of bed to help her. Her eyes flickered to his reflection in the mirror and she watched him approach, her gaze sliding down briefly to assess his state of dress. He couldn't tell if she was pleased to find he wasn't entirely naked. She sat still, submitting in silence as he stood behind her and rested his hands on her bare shoulders. He was surprised she didn't brush them off.

"Can I help?" he asked, his eyes meeting hers in the mirror. She nodded.

Working slowly, rather savoring the husbandly task, he undid the clasp and carefully lifted the necklace from her neck. As he reached around her to set it on the table, his bare arm brushed against hers, skin on skin, and he felt her flinch from the warm contact. She turned her head and looked at him directly for the first time, her dark eyes unsteady, but she didn’t say anything. To him the sexual tension felt heavy, but her face wasn’t legible to him, and he wondered again what the hell was going on with her.

He gave her a small smile. "What do you think of the necklace?"

"If I tell you I like it, will you take it away?" she asked pointedly.

His smile grew to something of a grin, but she didn't smile back, and her gaze was cold. He felt ashamed of himself again, ashamed of his games. "Yes," he lied.

"Then the truth is I think it's tacky."

He froze an instant, not at all sure how to interpret her statement. Did that mean she liked it or was she insulting his taste? Both, he figured, having the distinct feeling he was being toyed with again. He laid the necklace in its box and moved to place the necklace and earrings in the safe on the wall.

When he turned back to her, she was leaning down to take her shoes off, stretching to reach the buckle on the outside of her foot. Her low-cut dress and bent-over position offered him an almost unobstructed view of her tantalizingly pushed-up breasts, and a rush of desire heated his blood again. He stared for a bit as she struggled with her shoe, wondering if she knew and figuring she did, and then he knelt down in front of her to help. Her face was at his eye level and just inches away, and he watched her eyes as his hands moved down her calf, looking to see if he'd find the same hunger reflected there, and perhaps invitation as well. There was something there, a shadow or a glimmer, but he couldn't identify it, and then she looked away. He slid off her shoe and offered it to her, dangling it by a strap from his finger, and then he did the same with the other. She stood up, stepping around him, and walked to her closet to deposit the shoes.

He climbed back in the bed and picked up his book, but he continued to watch her as she moved around her dressing area, putting away clothes left discarded earlier and then pulling down her hair until it fell in soft curls onto her shoulders. She rarely let him catch her going through her rituals of dressing and undressing, and it was all a bit novel to him. Usually she waited until he was out of the room, and if that didn't work she did everything behind the closed door of the bathroom, spurning the dressing area, which was just an alcove on her side of the bedroom, with little to block his view. Tonight she stayed where he could see her, and he wondered why. More than that, he wondered how much of a show she was planning to put on.

He ended up getting more than he’d expected, if perhaps less than he might have hoped for. But he did get an eyeful of her legs, and that was nothing to scoff at. Standing with her back not quite to him, she pulled her dress up almost to her hip and rested her foot on a stool, and she carefully peeled off one thigh-high stocking, and then the other, with a panache that left him paralyzed. She stood upright and reached for the zipper on the back of her dress, but something stopped her. He decided she needed help, and if he hadn’t been paralyzed he might have made it out of bed before she changed her mind. Instead, she took a pair of pajamas from a drawer and disappeared into the bathroom before he could move. The fact that they were black silk pajamas didn't escape his notice, nor did the fact that he felt a pang of regret at the thought of her taking off that dress without him. A very vivid image ran in his head, in which she pressed up against him the way she had in the restaurant, and he eased the zipper down her back, uncovering all that warm, bare skin he'd never touched. He picked up his book, determined to get his mind on something else before she came out.

She was in the bathroom forever, at least twenty minutes, and he never turned a page. When she finally emerged she wore the pajamas, somehow managing to look both cute and sexy at once. But she looked comfortable, too, and more relaxed, and she wasn't showing nearly enough skin for his taste. All in all, he disapproved. It was better than the sweats, but still. He wondered how she would react if he outlawed pajamas altogether. Probably not well.

She padded across the room in her bare feet, putting the rest of her things where they went, and then she turned off the lamp on her nightstand and climbed into bed. She lay down on her back, pulled up the covers and closed her eyes. And that was it. Lorenzo watched her, waiting for her eyes to open, or for her to make any move at all, but she just lay there, and eventually her breathing grew more regular and she appeared for all the world to have gone to sleep. Damn it. He tossed his book on the nightstand and turned off his own light. What had he been expecting? What had he been hoping for? Did he think she was going to extend some wifely invitation? Did he want her to?

As he lay down and closed his eyes, he cursed her and the weakness of his flesh. He was pathetic. A dog. A few pats on the head, a scratch on the belly, and he was ready to be leashed. What about his brother? What about Carly? Sure, it turned out that his wife could play sexy as hell, and maybe she was pretty damned impressive, but that didn't change anything between them. Yet all she had to do was sparkle a bit for his friends, throw a few smiles and kisses his way, stop being a bitch for one lousy night, and he was ready to sabotage his entire plan. He wanted to reach across the bed, drag her over to him and start exploring. He wanted to be nice to her. Pathetic.

*****

It was an agonizingly restless night's sleep for Lorenzo. Every time he closed his eyes, she was there: kissing him at the party, reaching for him in bed, climbing on top of him. Every time he started to drift off to sleep, he came back to consciousness with a jolt, certain she had touched him. She lay there beside him, seemingly oblivious, the covers drawn lightly up to her waist, her face bare and placid and impenetrable, and he grew angrier and angrier. When finally he opened his eyes for the hundredth time and saw sunlight peeking in around the curtains, he gave up on his sleep and dragged himself out of bed.

He spent an hour in the exercise room trying to work out his anger, and then half an hour in the shower trying to burn away his stubborn desire. He wanted to think about Carly, the woman he loved, but again and again the images of Carly that he summoned slipped away from him, dissolving, or worse yet they turned ugly, snarling, and his thoughts turned instead to the woman in his bed, his wife, the woman he hated. Frustrated and desperate for release, he finally gave in and let his mind go where it wanted, and visceral images of the things he wanted to do to her filled his head.

Later, when he joined her at the breakfast table, he felt a moment of embarrassment, almost as if she would look in his eyes and see the carnal thoughts of her he'd indulged in, and then it all made him angry again: his desire, his embarrassment, the fact that this woman who was supposed to be under his control had him on the defensive. She was distracted over breakfast, paying him even less attention than usual, and that didn't help his mood, either. And so he took it out on her because he could.

"We're having dinner out tonight," he told her, not bothering with any pretense that it was up for discussion. She looked up warily from her conversation with Kristina. "Garrido and some of the others are staying in Port Charles one more day. You're to join us for drinks at the club at six-thirty."

She didn't respond immediately, instead finishing her discussion with Kristina and sending the little girl off to play. Lorenzo watched their interaction, impressed in spite of himself by the way she always protected the girl from him. When it was the three of them, she spared him her usual veiled barbs, and more than once she had asked him to leave when he couldn’t keep his own hostility from shining through. It was one of the few ground rules she had insisted on from the beginning: Treat me as you like when we're alone, but when my daughter is present you are to speak to me with respect. I'm her mother, and I will not allow her to watch you treat me as your servant or your prisoner or your whore. He had agreed, of course. How could he not? He had no desire to harm her daughter, and it eased his conscience considerably to see that Alexis never let her own unhappiness filter through to Kristina.

Once Kristina was settled with a pile of books on the couch, Alexis finally responded. "I would prefer not to miss Kristina's bedtime again tonight, but if it's important to you I'll do it."

He smirked at the way she made it seem as if she had a choice, as if she were doing him a favor by respecting his request, while at the same time she made it perfectly clear that he was imposing on her and that the imposition would be duly noted in whatever grand ledger she kept in her head. "It is important to me," he nodded.

"Fine. I'll join you. But I'll have to meet you there."

"No, I want you to come home and change beforehand. You should wear something less …" He glanced down at the black pantsuit she wore. "… professional." He hated pantsuits. He hated her in pantsuits. Given what he'd seen of her legs last night, she should only wear skirts, and very short skirts at that. He was going to insist on it. That would be another rule, for another day, when he really wanted to piss her off. Right now the mere reference to her attire had her pissed off, and she was trying hard not to let him see how much she hated it.

"I have a very full day, Lorenzo, and an early court date tomorrow," she resisted. "I may not be able to get home in time. But I'll do my best."

Lorenzo nodded and smiled almost genially. "I forget sometimes what an important woman you are, Alexis."

"I wouldn't say important, but I do have clients who are counting on me."

"Well, your husband is counting on you as well, and I hope you'll make every effort to be home on time."

"As I said, I'll try."

"Good." Lorenzo picked up his newspaper and casually glanced at the headlines. "I think perhaps it's time for us to discuss your work schedule, Alexis." He looked up, taking glee from the slightly panicked look she tried to hide. "As much as I admire your skills, I'm finding it rather inconvenient to have a working wife. I think it's time to cut back on your hours. Or perhaps it makes more sense for you to stay home entirely. You'll have more time during the day with Kristina, and more time at night with me."

Her tongue ran back and forth over her lips, and he suspected it was taking all of her willpower not to audibilize whatever was running through her head, probably some variation on the Greek curses he sometimes caught her muttering. “I don’t really think that’s wise, Lorenzo,” she said in her most diplomatic tone. “Not that I wouldn’t enjoy a little leisure, but it’s in your interest that I maintain my practice.”

“Oh, I tend to disagree, Alexis,” he responded, smiling coldly. “In any event, I think we should plan on discussing it tomorrow. I’d like all of your attention focused on tonight."

*****

An hour later, Alexis stormed into Ric Lansing's office and flopped down in the seat across from his desk. "The nerve of that man!" she exclaimed, shaking her head for the hundredth time as the memory of breakfast came to her once again.

Ric looked up from the document he was reviewing. "Trouble at home, sweetie?"

"Now he thinks he's going to make me stop working. Hah! We'll see about that."

Mindful of her ever-present guards looming outside with a clear view in the window of the door behind her, she tossed several files down on Ric's desk. She really did have several open cases to discuss with the D.A., but mostly those files were just a cover for her visit, for a sanity-saving session with the only person who knew what her life had become. Ric had forced the truth out of her at the beginning, guessed it really based on his own knowledge of her secret. Of all the people she knew, he was the only one who had steadfastly refused her feeble explanations for her sudden marriage to Lorenzo and her subsequent isolation from her friends.

"He told you you had to quit?" Ric asked with some alarm.

"He suggested it might be time for him to consider it. Because you know how inconvenient it is to have a wife who isn't sitting at home polishing her nails when you need her."

Ric shrugged and tried not to smile. "Maybe you should embrace a life of leisure. You might enjoy being kept. Spend your days at the spa instead of the PCPD. Shop to your heart’s content. You'll have perfect nails every day. No more cavorting with criminals except the one in bed with you every night."

"Please. Then I really would go insane. I can put up with all the rest of his crap as long as I have my work. I need this time to be a normal, independent adult. Of course, maybe he's finally figured that out. Took him long enough."

"What brought on this desire to turn you into Sally Homemaker?"

"Pure malice, I think. And he didn't like the fact that I may not be available to play wife for him tonight when and how he wants. God, I hate him." Shaking her head, and without missing a beat, she pushed one of her files across the desk toward Ric. "Thomas O'Malley. I'm making a motion to exclude the weapon and dismiss for insufficient evidence. They searched his girlfriend's place without a warrant."

Ric scowled. "His 'girlfriend' is a prostitute with half a dozen priors. He had no expectation of privacy. But I'll plead him out. Third degree assault. No prison time."

"Really?"

"Really. Tell me how dinner went last night."

"Dinner went … well." Her face broke out in a broad grin.

"Well? Were you a naughty girl, Alexis?"

"Not at all. Lorenzo was very pleased with my performance as his wife last night."

Ric stared at her. "Please tell me that doesn't mean what I think it means."

"No, I didn't sleep with him. But maybe I did flirt with him just a bit." She grinned. "And he liked it."

Ric frowned. "You really think that's wise, Alexis? The one saving grace of this marriage is that he doesn't expect you to sleep with him."

"I need to do something, Ric. I need to get leverage somehow."

"What happened to waiting him out?"

"I'm just not very optimistic that it will work. He's a lot more patient than I expected. You should see the way Carly has been throwing herself at him. It's disgusting. But he's being smart about it. He's going to wait until she walks away from Sonny before he opens his arms to her."

"And then he'll set you free."

"Except that you and I both know that Carly is never going to walk away from Sonny. And what I'm beginning to understand is that Lorenzo can wait forever. I thought he'd get bored of torturing me by now, but I really think he can continue this forever. And I'm at his mercy, because I need him to be quiet, and there isn't a damn thing he needs from me. And I'm worse off than before I married him because now I can't just tell him to go to hell and take my chances with Sonny. I'm his wife, and everyone knows it, and I need his protection. So if he tells me to jump, I jump. If he tells me I have to stop working, I'm going to have to do it, and then I won't get to see you ... my friend … and then I really may lose my mind."

Ric returned her soft smile. "You have a plan?"

She nodded. "I'm going to make him need me, Ric. It's the only way to get leverage."

"By flirting with him?"

"By making myself valuable to him. I finally figured it out. I had a blinding moment of revelation over the lamb last night. The only power I have is to threaten to leave, and right now he really doesn't care much whether or not I stay. He can always use someone else to make Carly jealous. But I'm going to make him want me to stay. I'm going to make him need me as his wife. And then I can start to push back and draw up a few rules of my own."

"You think you can make him want you that much?"

"He already wants me, Ric. You should have seen the way he suffered last night. I'm not saying he's going to forget about this ridiculous obsession with Carly. But he's beginning to see some of my advantages as well. I'm a damn good wife. Ask Jax."

"You really think that's going to work?"

"Like a charm, Ric. Last night was child's play. A few kisses, a smile, a few hours spent working the room for him, and I had him eating out of my hand. On the way home he was digging around trying to figure out exactly why I preferred him to Sonny. He wants to know what's non-negotiable for me, and that's because he wants to be sure he doesn't go too far and drive me away. This is going to work, Ric."

"He's going to know you're up to something, Alexis. If you start making eyes at him – "

"Give me a little credit, Ric. I do know how to seduce a man."

Ric scratched his head, holding back a smile. "Really? Why haven't I ever witnessed that particular skill?"

"Haven't you?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. "The key of course is to make him think he's the one seducing me. A look of regret here, a tear there, and he'll convince himself I'm falling for him in spite of myself. That I just can't resist his charms."

Ric stood up and handed her a folder before he started to pace the room. "Okay," he said slowly. "So if everything goes as you hope, you end up with Lorenzo Alcazar lusting after you and determined to keep you married to him. How is this good? The man has seriously obsessive tendencies. This is only going to make things worse."

"They can't get any worse, Ric. He's not going to let me go just because I want him to, and he's just going to make it harder and harder on me unless I push back. I need leverage, and I don’t see any other way to get it."

Ric stopped pacing and faced her with his hands on his hips. "Are you going to sleep with him?"

"This isn't a time for standing on principle, Ric. I'll do whatever I think I have to do to protect my daughter, including quite a number of things more distasteful than sleeping with Lorenzo Alcazar -- should that turn out to be necessary."

Ric's mouth fell open slightly and he nodded. "Oh, I see. You want to sleep with him. You're attracted to him." He scratched his chin thoughtfully, but the gesture didn't quite cover his expression of distaste.

"I didn't say that."

"No, but you implied it. So all those nights spent lying next to him, hearing him breathe, maybe watching him sleep, maybe watching the little tent go up and down, have you hot for him, looking to get in your hubby's jammies and see what's inside."

"There's no wondering, Ric. The man doesn't wear jammies."

"What, he just parades around naked?"

"Pretty much."

Ric shook his head. "I don't like it, Alexis."

"Because you don't think I can pull it off?"

"Yeah. And because I’m afraid you will."

*****

At five o'clock, the phone on her desk rang. The caller i.d. was blocked, but she knew who it would be. "Alexis Davis," she answered.

"It's your husband. Are you coming home?"

Alexis glanced around at the papers scattered on her desk and winced. "I still have some work to finish up," she said tentatively, reluctant to set off his anger again. "I'll meet you at the club at 6:30."

"Fine." To her surprise, he didn't sound angry at all. "You should be getting a delivery any minute. I've sent you something to change into."

"You did?" she said cautiously.

"See. I can be flexible, Alexis. And I hope you'll do your part as well tonight."

"I'll do my best."

"Good. If we're both willing to cooperate, perhaps we'll find that we can accommodate the demands of your job." There was a brief pause before he spoke again. "I can't wait to see you, Alexis. Don't be too late."

He hung up, leaving her holding her phone receiver and staring at it with a mix of confusion, trepidation and excitement. She wondered what he was up to, but she wasn't left to wonder very long, for there was a knock on her door a moment later, and it opened to reveal one of Lorenzo's guards holding several shopping bags.

She brought the bags into her office, closed the door and opened them one by one. He'd bought everything she would need, from underwear to shoes to clips for her hair. She opened a jewelry box and found a long strand necklace, twined diamonds and rubies, the most extravagant jewelry he'd bought her yet. It was gorgeous, and she eagerly opened a smaller box to find matching dangling earrings. When everything else was laid out on her desk, she finally came to the hanging bag. She unzipped it with trepidation, and inside she found a shock of ruby red silk. She pulled it out, held it up, turned it around, her eyes growing wider all the time. It was almost indecent, and might well be fully indecent once she put it on with the undergarments he had selected. Was he trying to embarrass her, or was this the way he wanted to show her off? She would never wear anything so bare, or so red, and she wasn't certain she could pull it off at this point in her life. When she was twenty-five, hell yes, though she wouldn't have had the guts to have fun in it back then. Tonight, she would give it a go.

*****

She was all dressed and made up and about to leave her office to go meet Lorenzo at the club when Ric showed up. He gave a nasty look to her guards as he came in and closed the door, and when he turned and got his first real look at her his jaw fell open. He stood there, looking for all the world like he was about to say something, but no words came out. She turned around, showing him the back of her dress, and finally he managed to speak.

"Oh, shit."

She laughed at his reaction, but he just swallowed several more times and licked his lips.

"Jesus Christ. You're going out in that?"

She nodded. "Mm-hmm."

"You're going to get arrested. Hell, I'm going to send someone to arrest you."

"Hey, I'm a married woman."

"And I'm going to save you from yourself. That's a little obvious, don't you think? Lorenzo's going to know you're up to something."

She grinned. "I didn't pick it out. Lorenzo did. He sent it with firm instructions that I'm to wear it tonight. He made it quite clear it's a test. If I'm a good girl and let him show me off in front of these business associates he's so eager to impress, maybe he'll let me keep working."

Ric shook his head in admiration. "He is a nasty one, isn't he?"

"But it's going to come back to bite him, Ric. He's going to be drooling all over his silk tie tonight. He's going to be putty in my hands."

"Lucky putty."

"You don't doubt me anymore?"

"Hell, no."

"I can do this."

"I'd say you've done it already. He didn't put you in that dress just for kicks."

"He's meat."

"He won't know what hit him."

"He's mine."

"Oh, yeah." Ric swallowed hard. "And then what the hell are you going to do?"

chapter 03