DAMAGED - A Bad Boy Romance by Gabi Moore Read Free Book Online

anyone could see that. She had always turned heads. Ordinarily, we skirted around that fact with all the tact married couples are supposed to have, but this time, something in me was …curious.
    She looked at me, trying to decode my expression. Surprisingly, I felt a faint flicker of pleasure at the idea. I had called her a slut so often these last few weeks. Well, here she was, opening up again. To someone else. Like a slut. What I did next …well, let’s just say it took me by surprise as much as it did her.
    I turned to look at the guy again, and then gestured for him to come over to our table. A quick flash of panic appeared on his face but he stood up and walked over. I swear I could feel the heat of my wife’s body increasing as he approached the table.
    “Hey man. Want to join us?” I said, indicating the empty seat next to her. God, I was such an alpha male in that moment, I was turning myself on. It was more like an order, more like a challenge than a friendly invitation.
    I had no idea what I was doing.
    Instantly, Tanya extended her hand and burst off into prattle about this and that, her small talk covering up the awkwardness of the moment. Once or twice, she shot a glance in my direction, as if to ask me …something. Permission? For what?
    The guy seemed cool enough, and was answering her questions, smiling and asking his own.
    I sat quietly.
    He had two tanned arms resting on the table, and to my surprise, Tanya lightly brushed her fingers against them, just once, just for a split second. He noticed this. I noticed this. We all noticed each other noticing. For the first time, he looked at me, with a questioning look echoing the one she had shown me moments before.
    I smiled and said nothing.
    We ordered a round of drinks together and chatted some more, but with each little touch of Tanya’s fingertips, here, there, she was slowly ramping up some strange new tension at the table. I noticed, very faintly, that her fingers were shaking, but then I remembered her devilish face that day on the side of the road, her hungry insistence, her utter disregard for whoever drove by that day… no, she knew exactly what she was doing here, I was sure of it.
    The guy, seemingly content that I had given some sort of go-ahead, was focusing his attention more and more on her, his eyes flickering lower down over her body every time she turned away or looked at me.
    Then, she did something: when a plastic coaster fell noiselessly to the floor, she instantly bent down to pick it up, lingering at the bottom so the billowy top of her blouse gaped open and flashed him an ample glance of the tops of her breasts.
    She came up again, to a mood that had changed even more. She cleared her throat.
    “So, like I was saying, the views are beautiful here, really. We’re very cramped at home so it’s lovely to see so far to the horizon. The view in our room is actually the best I think,” she said.
    “What, better than this view?” he replied, referring to the beautiful sculpted gardens all around us.
    “Oh yes. Much better. You get to see so much more …”
    “Really? Probably not.”
    “No really. Wanna come see?
    And that was that. The form of the rest of our evening was beginning to snap into shape. She had been snaking along, looking for some sort of hook in the chit chat, some gap to wedge in some insinuation, some suggestion. And this was it.
    Now, I’ve told you that I’m not too good with picking up on subtle social cues, but it did strike me that all this hinting and flirting was probably unnecessary, given how quickly and eagerly he responded.
    “Yeah, sure, I’ll come up,” and he flashed another pointed glance at me.
    “Yes, come up, she’s exaggerating the view, I think, but let’s go up. We have whiskey in the mini bar, too, I’ll pour you another.”
    And with this flimsy premise of looking at views and drinking whiskey, we all got up and headed over to our room. Tanya, thank heavens, filled all the