Lexi allowed Lucas to draw her up. “All right then. No rehab for me. We’ll try the BDSM approach to fixing a fucked-up chick. Should be fun.” She turned to Aidan. “Not that you’ll have any fun. I know my safe word, and I intend to use it.”

She flounced away, walking to the door and standing there.

Lucas picked up the bag he’d packed for her. “She hasn’t joked like that in a very long time. Thank you, Aidan.”

Tears pricked at Aidan’s eyes. He might be the bad guy, but he felt pretty damn good in that moment.

* * *

Lexi sighed as Aidan’s truck pulled into The Club’s parking garage. She was heading to Aidan’s hometown in a few minutes, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Lucas had set a course, and she would follow it. He needed this, she told herself. It had nothing to do with the way her heart sped up when Aidan looked her way.

There was no question about it. Aidan was infinitely more dangerous now. The pretty boy was gone, and in his place was a man who knew how to take control. He’d mastered Lucas. The spanking he’d delivered had gotten her wet and twitchy in a way she’d never been before. Seeing Lucas submit did something for her. They had sat together, waiting for Aidan’s judgment, their fingers tangling like flowers growing together in the sunshine. Aidan was the sun.

She had to stop thinking that way. He would walk out on them the minute the going got tough. Lucas was the one she could count on. It was just that he’d looked so fulfilled as he took that punishment. Lucas’s joy was what had her thinking about Aidan.

It wouldn’t come to anything. Lucas had spent his whole life without discipline. His parents had utterly ignored him. He hadn’t had anyone who really cared until he’d met Jack. Lucas had a skewed view of life, and so did she. Everyone except her mother had died on Lexi. It made a person think. That was why they needed a Dom. It didn’t have to be Aidan.

“I can’t go,” she said suddenly, her mind catching on a problem. “I have to be at work tomorrow.”

It was Friday. They had an opening on Saturday. They would need her to do the grunt work that any monkey with half a brain could do. Someone needed to make a Starbucks run. Someone had to convince the gallery owner’s wife that her face didn’t look like a weird piece of plastic someone had applied blush to. That last part was the hardest part of her job because that woman had had way too much surgery. Still, it was her job, and she was paid very little money to do it.

“You’re fine, Lexi,” Lucas said with a smooth smile. He sat in the passenger’s side seat. “Everything’s been taken care of.”

“Really?” She had to ask because her boss was an asshole with a two-by-four shoved up his anus.

“Yes, Lexi. I called and quit for you,” Aidan said flatly.

“See, no problems.” Lucas slid a hand around her shoulder.

“You did what?” Lexi was well aware that her screech reverberated through the cab.

Aidan brought the truck to a stop in front of the valet station. Even at this time of the night, there was a well-dressed young man eager to help. “I quit for you.”

Lucas slipped out of the cab as the valet opened the door. He turned and held his hand out to assist her. “Don’t be upset, Lexi. You were three months in. It was only another week or so before you quit or got yourself fired. Aidan just upped the time line.”

Lexi allowed Lucas to guide her out of the truck. So what? She’d had a bunch of jobs in the last two years. She hadn’t found the right place. It didn’t give Aidan the right to quit a job she loved. Except that she kind of hated it and had been thinking about quitting. The only reason she hadn’t was the way her stepfather had groaned when she told him she needed a reference.

She could write.

The idea teased at the back of her brain. Lately, the stories had started to return, but she didn’t deserve them.

“Oh, Lexi!” A curvy blonde flung herself toward Lexi, encasing her in a bear hug. “Are you okay?”

Lexi hugged Dani Lodge-Taylor. Julian and Finn’s wife was one of her closest friends. “I’m fine. I take it Aidan called Julian.”

“Yes, he did.” Julian stepped up with Finn by his side. Julian looked her over as though assessing what damage had been done and what he needed to do about it. Finn shook Lucas’s hand and asked how things had gone with the police.

There were two other men dressed in leather pants. One had a T-shirt over his chest, while the other hadn’t bothered to button up his dress shirt, leaving a monumentally cut chest on display. Lexi finally allowed her eyes to glance up at their faces. Twins. Superhot twins. Given their leathers and the air of authority they gave off, Lexi couldn’t help but think of them as gorgeous Dom Ken dolls.

“Is this the pretty princess we’re supposed to protect?” the one in the T-shirt asked.

Lucas actually stepped in front of her, his chest puffing out. Lexi couldn’t help but grin a little. She thought he might actually do that gorilla-chest-thumping-thing. It was sweet.

Then she looked at Aidan and was pretty sure he was about to kill someone.

Julian’s hand was already out, waving off the tension. “Don’t you two start. Aidan, I called Chase and Ben. You had to know I would do it.”

Dani leaned in and whispered in Lexi’s ear. “That’s Ben and Chase Dawson. They’re private investigators. Ben used to be on Leo’s SEAL team, and Chase was on another team. Julian put them on retainer because so many of his friends end up with people trying to murder them that it just made sense to get a group discount. Part of their deal is that they get access to The Club.”

“Thank you for the play-by-play, little one,” Julian said. He gestured toward the doors to the elevator. “Could we take this upstairs? I’d like to talk to Aidan and Lucas and fill in Ben and Chase. Finn has already contacted the DA. I assure you they will take this seriously.”

Lexi held up her hand. “Uh, hello, victim here. Shouldn’t I be in on this conversation?”

Julian’s left eyebrow practically reached the ceiling. “Are you going to be reasonable?”

“Nope. I’ll be a bitch.” Lexi decided it was a night for honesty.

“Then no. Please go and retrieve Lucas’s bag from the suite you vacated without your Dom’s permission. Then perhaps you and Danielle can have a drink in the bar.”

Lexi frowned. “Yeah, I don’t think I’m allowed to do that anymore.”

A brilliant smile crossed Julian’s face as the elevator dinged open. “Then my evil plan, as my wife so lovingly put it, has worked.”

The men piled into the elevator, but Lexi held back. Dani stayed at her side.

“We’ll catch the next one,” Dani said. “And I’ll make sure all of Master A’s things are packed and ready to go.”

“Thank you, Danielle,” Aidan said with a gentle smile that turned to a slight scowl when he turned his attention to Lexi. “You behave.”

“I make no promises,” Lexi replied as the doors closed. She turned to Dani. “You are too good. I was going to shove everything he owned into a trash bag and toss it in the back of the truck.”

Dani held her hand and rushed into the next elevator that opened. “Come on. We need to hurry before Julian figures out what’s going on. I thought you might like to meet the competition. Some woman showed up in the lobby asking for Aidan, claiming to be his fiancée. The concierge called Julian, but he was all freaked out because of the shooting thing, so he told me to handle it. Want to help me handle it?”

Aidan’s fiancée? Oh, yeah, she wanted to help handle that.

Dani turned to Lexi. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. If I had any idea of what Julian was planning, I would have called you.”

And then gotten into serious trouble with her Dom. “Don’t worry about it, Dani. Lucas is happy. He wants to try the Dom thing for a while. I would rather it wasn’t with the man who ripped my heart out of my body, stomped on it, and set it on fire, but I owe Lucas. And I owe Jack. And, quite frankly, I owe Julian.”

It was true. She was drifting, and she knew it. She hadn’t done a very good job on her own. Maybe it was time to give something else a try. If this could get her out of the funk she’d been in the last several years, it would be worth it.

The doors opened to the lobby. The lobby of The Club was an elegant showcase. Part hotel lobby, part wealthy office space, it was streamlined and modern. As Lexi exited the elevator, she could hear the high-pitched whining coming from the front desk.

“I don’t care about what your job is. I want to talk to my fiancé. I know he’s here. I’m not going anywhere until I get escorted up to his room.” The blonde standing at the front desk actually stomped her foot.

She had big, platinum blonde hair. She wore white jeans and a tight top that showed off boobs that were far too large for her small frame.

“Mrs. Lodge.” The concierge was visibly relieved. “Thank you for coming down. I’m having a bit of a problem with this lady. She doesn’t seem to understand that we are a private club.”

The blonde’s scarlet red lips pursed. “And I explained that my fiancé, Aidan O’Malley, is a member here. He’s a rancher. He owns one of the largest spreads in Central Texas.”

“His dad died?” Lexi hadn’t heard that. She’d met the man a time or two. Aidan hadn’t been terribly close to his father. He’d lost his mom at an early age, and Conner O’Malley had been a bit distant, but it had to have hurt Aidan to lose his dad.

The blonde shifted her focus, and cool blue eyes narrowed. “Do you know Aidan?”

Dani stepped forward. “I would say she does. She was engaged to him once.”