Chapter 24: Past Five Thirty

The reception ended at ten, and by eleven the forty-second floor was dark except for the city in the windows.

Cora stood in the bedroom doorway in her ivory dress with her shoes in her hand.

Her feet ached, and her face hurt from smiling, and she had never been so happy in her life.

Alexander shut the door behind them and leaned against it.

"Mrs. Lenhart," he said.

"Cora."

"Cora." He said it slowly, tasting it. "My wife."

"Come here and unfasten this."

He crossed the room in two strides, turned her around by the shoulders, and set his fingers to the line of tiny buttons down her spine.

There were forty of them.

He did them one at a time, and each time one came free he put his mouth to the skin it uncovered.

By the twentieth she had both hands on the bedpost.

By the thirtieth she was saying his name in a voice she did not recognize.

When the dress fell, she stepped out of it and turned to face him.

She had nothing on under it but a thin pair of white lace panties, and she watched him look.

"Alexander."

"I'm looking."

"I know. Take your clothes off."

He undressed fast, unbuttoning, dropping, kicking away, and then he stood naked in the lamplight with his chest rising.

She put her palm flat on his heart.

It was racing.

"I did this to you," she said.

"Every day for five years."

She pushed him back onto the bed.

He went down on the sheets with a startled laugh, and she climbed over him and sat astride his hips.

His hands went to her waist.

"Slowly," she said. "This time you let me."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Divorce Me If You Dare: The Hidden Queen's Revenge from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.