Her dead-eyed stare says she absolutely does not understand. “You don’t need makeup,” she says like a womanwho’s never flirted with a man so hot he might punch drywall for fun.
“I’m not doing it for me, Susan,” I snap. (Her name is probably not Susan. But she flinches, so I’m going with it.) “This isn’t vanity. It’s justice. Lip gloss and lawful horniness. I’m about to meet my future second court-ordered ex-husband and I refuse to show up with crusty lashes and neutral pH.”
She checks the clock. “You have thirty seconds.”
I spin on my heel, eyes wide, lip balm half uncapped. “Shit. I wanted to be mysterious and ethereal and slightly damp from face mist. Now I’m just aggressively damp.”
I break into a speed-walk, trying to apply mascara mid-stride like a sexy, legally-compelled tornado. “If I die, tell him I was flirty and emotionally unavailable.”
“Please don’t talk to anyone,” the receptionist calls after me, voice weary with secondhand embarrassment.
Too late.
This glitter grenade is armed.
And about to walk into a room with rage issues, raw sexual tension, and orgasms wrapped in jeans and a t-shirt.
Chapter Three
Delilah
The door creaks like it regrets its life choices. Which is fair. I am the regret. The drama. The walking court-ordered catastrophe.
Six men sit in a sad little circle of silver folding chairs. Every one of them looks like they’ve tried to fix a woman with mediocre fingering and a motorcycle that doesn’t start. The air smells like Drakkar Noir, spicy armpit, and unsupervised ego. It crackles with masculine rage and protein farts.
And then I see him.
Ryker.
Sir Tight Jeans. Duke of Delts. First of His Name, Breaker of Restraints, The Patron Saint of Problematic Fantasies.
He’s lounging like the chair is his throne, one tattooed arm thrown over the backrest as if he invented posture porn. Legs spread in that “I have testosterone and no impulse control” stance. Chin tilted just enough to make my inner slut do cartwheels.
He looks at me. Really looks at me.
And I swear on Satan’s unwashed jockstrap, my knees buckle like a cheap bra under a high-speed motorboat handjob.
My brain pulls the emergency brake on all function and starts piping in slow, jazzy porn music. Every neuron is chanting sit on his face in Gregorian choir format.
“Hi,” I manage, to the group, but mostly to his thighs. His biceps. His forearms. Sweet Lucifer’s tattooed nutsack, those fucking veiny forearms. I want to lick every inch and learn who hurt him.
Across the circle, a man with wire-frame glasses and the sexual charisma of a soggy Triscuit adjusts a clipboard loaded with papers and judgment. He looks like the type who files his taxes in ink and has missionary once a year with the lights off and a small apology afterward.
He’s the therapist, I assume. Dr. Dickblock.
“You’re… new,” he says, like it physically pains him.
“I’m Delilah,” I announce, chipper and chaotic. I want to sound normal, but I probably sound like a slutty cult leader. “I’m here to support the judicial process. Personal growth. Emotional reflection. Boundaries.”
I’m also here to climb Ryker like he’s a jungle gym in a porn parody of Gladiator.
Dr. Dickblock blinks. “This group isn’t for… that.”
“Right,” I say with the bright, terrifying certainty of a woman who put glitter in her court binder. “It’s about angry boundaries. And I am stuffed with rage. Absolutely engorged. Just leaking unresolved trauma like a rage piñata. You hit me with a stick and all that comes out is ‘fuck you, Bambi’ and passive-aggressive Instagram captions.”
The man beside Dr. Dickblock mutters, “Jesus Christ.”
Ryker doesn’t laugh. But his mouth twitches.
