I should’ve known everything would really fall apart when we rolled into Vegas.

For five days, Zane and I had managed to keep the peace by pretty much staying the fuck away from each other. It was like we both just knew if we got within screaming distance of one another, we’d end up fighting and/or fucking, and hurting ourselves and each other all over again.

So we kept our distance.

I knew he was probably mad at me, again, and hurt, and I couldn’t fix it.

But I’d been honest with him. I couldn’t handle just having a sexual relationship with him.

And I couldn’t handle anything more.

I sure as fuck couldn’t handle losing him completely.

Which meant I was smack in the middle of the world’s worst Catch-22.

Damned if I do…

Damned if I don’t.

Fortunately, the rest of the tour was going strong. I didn’t think I could deal with any major catastrophes on that front without dissolving into a puddle of useless mush.

The Phoenix show was incredible, and the rest of Dirty seemed happy.

The day after the Phoenix show, Jesse and Dylan took Katie and Amber on a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon with a picnic on the canyon floor. Katie invited me along, but I didn’t go. Too fucking depressing, being surrounded by all that romance.

I kept myself busy, though. And thank fuck I had Talia in my corner, because I really couldn’t face Zane like this.

Because I’d been honest with him about something else, too. I was in love with him, and yay me, I’d finally admitted that to both of us.

Which meant that any way you looked at it, I was incredibly fucked.

It was our first night in Vegas when it really hit me—the fucking sadness. The major fucking downer of being in Las Vegas again, which only brought back all the memories of the last time I was here.

In that penthouse suite of my dad’s hotel… with Zane.

We weren’t staying there this time, thank God. For whatever reason, my dad had been distracted or disinterested enough that he didn’t reach out to invite Dirty to stay there. I was relieved, of course, but I was also a little hurt. Because stupid me. As much as I always dreaded seeing the man, it hurt when he made no effort to see me.

It always had.

Maybe it hurt less now than it did when I was a little girl, but it still hurt. He was still my dad. The only one I had.

When we’d checked into our hotel in the afternoon, Zane had texted me. It was the only time he’d spoken to me in days.

Zane: you talk to Dizzy?

Me: No.

And that was it.

For the rest of that night, as the band went barhopping and I tagged along, and everyone else had a great time, I just felt sad.

Anytime I’d glimpsed Zane, he seemed to catch me looking at him—and he didn’t look very happy, either. His jaw was tight, his gaze cold, and he barely seemed to be talking to anyone. I wasn’t sure if he was just pissed at me, or also pissed at my dad for not reaching out to me while I was in town.

I wouldn’t doubt that.

But I definitely couldn’t handle that look on his face.

I couldn’t handle fighting with him anymore—about anything.

It was breaking my heart.

And our second day in Vegas only got worse.

People started talking—about Zane. About what a foul fucking mood he was in.

Apparently he’d lost it on some of the crew at a TV interview, which wasn’t his style. Zane could be hotheaded, he could be moody and he could definitely be a dick, but he generally didn’t go off on random people who were just trying to do their jobs. Especially people whose job was to make him look good.

Glad I wasn’t there to see it, and I definitely wasn’t gonna watch the footage that had leaked onto the web, showcasing his little tantrum.

Brody called me about it.

I let that call go to voicemail, promising myself I’d deal with it tomorrow.

And for the rest of the day, my spirits just sank.

I didn’t see Zane until later, when we all ended up hanging out in Jude’s hotel room. The party went late. Hotel management came by a couple of times and politely asked us to shut up.

Normally that might’ve stressed me out, but I just let Jude deal with it. Jude had a lot of experience greasing palms; something I’d never been able to pull off with much authority. Made me uneasy.

Meanwhile, I’d just kept making drinks. I often played bartender at Dirty parties, and usually it was fun. Kept me busy and feeling like I was looking after everyone—my comfort zone. Though this time it felt weirdly wrong, serving up booze while Zane just sat in a corner with Shady, sipping his water and looking angry.

The party eventually dissolved and we were all now sitting in some diner eating middle-of-the-night breakfast. I couldn’t even remember how we’d ended up here. I wasn’t drunk. I’d maybe had two drinks over the course of the night. But I was tired and distracted and incredibly disconnected from whatever was going on around me.

All I could think about was Zane, and that night almost two years ago.

Standing at the altar with him.

And the next morning, lying naked in bed with him. Wanting to be naked in bed with him. Freaking out when I found out the marriage was real—that I was now legally married to the biggest manwhore I’d ever met, and my career was fucked.

And the ring he’d given me that morning. The gorgeous platinum ring with the giant diamond.

The ring I still sometimes carried around. The ring I was right now wearing, on my middle finger, with the diamond spun around to the inside where no one would see it but I could grip it in my fist.

I didn’t even think about it when I’d put it on today. I didn’t want to think about why I was putting it on. I was just so sad.

Because I was so totally fucked over the man who’d given it to me.

So. Fucked.

When did my life become so fucked?

The moment you decided to work for him.

Yeah. Right about then.

Oh, and when you decided to marry him.

Yeah. Thanks, Mom.

This was my first time back in Vegas since the wedding, and things were even more fucked-up now than they were then. How was that possible? There was a part of me that was just so fucking confused. That couldn’t understand why it couldn’t just be simpler. Why we couldn’t just work things out and ride off into the sunset together.

Why I couldn’t just be with him, trust him, give him a chance.

Or why I couldn’t just let him go.

Or why I couldn’t just fall in love with a nice, sane rock star instead.

Like Matt.

He was sitting next to me again. He’d been doing that a lot, actually. Our group was all squeezed into a few big booths, and his arm was around my shoulders while I picked at my pancakes. As if I needed a giant stack of pancakes in the middle of the night? Everyone was talking and laughing around me, loudly, but it had all become a buzz of noise. I couldn’t make out a single word.

Then someone started yelling.

When I looked up, I noticed that the waitresses in this place were wearing 1950s soda pop girl outfits, and everything was pink and silver and turquoise and happy. Bruno Mars’ incredibly upbeat “Runaway Baby” was playing, and Katie, Talia and Sophie were singing along to it in the next booth, putting on a little show for all the rock stars… and I just wanted to cry.

I wanted to be in my hotel room alone, and I wanted to be where Zane was.

I should’ve removed Matt’s arm from my shoulders. But I only realized that about ten seconds after the shit hit the fan.

I was that out of it.

I was staring right at Zane. I realized that belatedly, too… about five seconds after he started tossing cutlery and throwing a world-class rock star tantrum in the middle of the restaurant, and I snapped back to reality.

He was on his feet in the next booth, and he actually took a halfhearted swing at Jesse when Jesse tried to put a hand on his shoulder and reel him back in.

Jesse dodged it.

Then Jude and Seth joined the fray. Jude tried to put a hand on Zane’s arm as he shoved his way out of the booth and Seth said something about not causing a scene, and Zane lost it.

He grabbed a glass coffee pot off the nearby counter and hurled it at the wall. It smashed, coffee and glass flying everywhere. People screamed and ducked. The men at my table got to their feet, except for Matt—who froze and seemed about as shocked as me.

Zane had definitely snarled Matt’s name among all the other nasty shit he was spewing. We’d all heard it.

If Matt doesn’t stop touching her, I’m gonna fuck up his face.

Now he was screaming something in Jesse’s face about Fuck you and You don’t fucking know—and then he turned and lunged for Matt.

Whose arm was still around me.

Zane grabbed Matt by a fistful of shirt; the other fist was already raised to strike by the time I processed what was happening.

“Zane!” I screeched, throwing my hands up—but thank God Jude and Shady were on him. Jude grabbed Zane’s raised arm and prevented him from landing that punch. But Zane was strong and he was in a fury.

Had I ever seen him lose it like this?

He was practically frothing at the mouth, and he wouldn’t even look at me.

In the end, it took Jude, Shady, Con and Jesse to subdue him while Seth and Flynn got Elle to safety, the other girls got the hell out of the way, Lex and Bane cleared a path and tried to convince the restaurant staff not to call the police, and Matt and I sat in our booth in stunned silence.

At least his arm wasn’t around me anymore.

I did an automatic mental headcount of everyone, like I would in the middle of any Dirty disaster. I didn’t even know where the hell Dylan was. The washroom?

“What the hell’s up your ass?” I heard Jesse ask, as the guys struggled to get Zane to sit down in an empty booth.

“Don’t ask,” Jude muttered.

“She’s my wife,” Zane spat out. I froze as he turned his ice-cold gaze on Matt, and if looks could kill… I was just glad four large men were holding Zane down.

Jesse looked over at me. “What?”

“What??” That was Katie, who was hunkered down in the next booth.

When I dared to look around, everyone else was staring at me, too.

Elle, Seth, Amber, Jude… everyone.

Beside me, Matt slowly raised his empty hands. “Hands to myself,” he said. “Scout’s honor.”

Which set Zane off again.

He shot up off his seat, but the guys were on him, and this time they decided to haul him outside. I watched them go, Jude, Shady and Jesse fighting Zane all the way out the door.

Oh, Jesus…

“Take it easy,” I kept hearing Shady say. “Take it easy, brother…”

“Alright,” Con said loudly, with his trademark charming grin. “Show’s over.” And gradually people pretended to go back to their food. Then he and Lex herded the rest of our party out the door.

Except for me and Matt, who just sat here in our booth.

Jude walked back in and looked at us, then glanced at the waitress who was cleaning up the broken coffee pot. He sighed and shook his head. “Have Dylan pay the bill,” he told me. Then he walked back out, to deal with whatever was going on outside.

Our waitress appeared and laid the bill on our table without looking at our faces, then disappeared.

I was pretty much numb with shock. I couldn’t feel anything. I’d finally hit some kind of emotional/sensory overload where I just couldn’t take anymore.

I felt Matt looking at me kind of sidelong, like he was afraid to look at me.

“Wife?”

I swallowed. “I, uh, married Zane at the end of the last tour.” My voice was small, but I managed to get the words out, quickly. No point lying to Matt’s face again, but I’d definitely never felt more like an asshole about the whole thing than I did right now. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Uh… no.”

Someone walked up to our table and I looked up to find Dylan standing over us. Auburn-haired and crazy-tall, Dirty’s drummer stood out like a gorgeous sore thumb and didn’t even notice half the diner was staring at him. He scanned the three empty booths, then looked at Matt and me. “Where’d everyone go?” he asked lightly.

I put my hand down on the bill and slid it toward him.

“Thank you for the pancakes.”

Then I got up and walked out the door, still in shock.

* * *

When we got back to the hotel and everyone piled into the lobby, it was freakishly quiet. No one said a thing to me. Which was fine with me; I made eye contact with not one person and went straight for an elevator.

Zane got on with me.

No Shady.

No one else.

They all very purposefully stood back and let the elevator doors close behind us.

Fuck.

They all knew.

Because Zane fucking told them.

The shock was gradually wearing off and giving way to an ugly, helpless rage.

Neither of us said a word inside the elevator, but when the door opened again, Zane was quick to close a hand around my arm and escort me up the hall so I couldn’t disappear. He pretty much dragged me through the door of my room and tossed me inside.

Then he shut the door and stood his big body in front of it, blocking my only way out. He was already digging around in his vest, and I knew what he was looking for. He was gonna smoke up—and mellow the fuck out.

Which meant if I started yelling, I’d probably be doing it alone.

“Fuck, you’re an asshole.” I bit that out, then turned and walked into the room, throwing my jacket and purse so hard at the bedside table it knocked the lamp off.

“Yup.” When I turned to look at him again, he’d produced a joint and was lighting up. “You want help trashing your room? Got some experience in that department.”

“No thanks. Bad enough I’m gonna get a bill because you’re stinking up my non-smoking room with your weed.”

“I’ll pay the bill, Maggie,” he said, like it was the most inconsequential thing in the world, and took a deep drag. “You just need to calm down.” Because now that he had a joint in hand and had rolled right back into king-of-cool mode? I was the one who needed to calm down.

“Calm?” I snapped, as calmly as I could. “What, like you? You, who just flipped out in front of everyone and told them I’m your wife?”

“Yeah, I flipped out.” He ran his tongue over his bottom lip. “Obviously, if Matty Brohmer thinks he can feel you up, I’m gonna flip out.”

“Feel me up? Are you kidding me? He put his arm around my shoulders.” Really. Matt was just being friendly.

I’d never seen Zane go off like that, even over a guy touching me.

I hadn’t seen Zane in many fights over the years, although there had definitely been a few. And yes, they’d usually been over a woman. Because some dude had rubbed him the wrong way, or he’d said the wrong thing—or put his hand up the wrong girl’s skirt—and utter chaos had ensued. Violent chaos.

But if he had some kind of jealous hate-on for Matt, it was news to me.

“You think I don’t see how he looks at you?” he said, eyes hard and cold. “How he sits next to you all the fucking time? Touching your hair? Staring at your ass?”

“Well—”

“He’s got a hard-on for you, Maggie,” he cut me off. “Guy can’t keep his mouth shut about you. If he could’ve wrapped his dick in a pancake and fed it to you right there in that restaurant, he would’ve.”

I tried to ignore that, because I really hadn’t noticed Matt playing with my hair. And if he was staring at my ass or talking about my ass in front of the guys, it wasn’t my fault.

I scowled at Zane meaningfully. “At least he didn’t put his hand down my pants right in front of you.”

“Good thing.” He stalked over to me and got right in my face. “Because if he did that, I’d have to break his hand and his dick, along with his fucking face, and we’d be out another bass player.” He took another drag off his joint, and turned the tip toward me. “You want? Do wonders for your mood.”

“What I want,” I said, slowly and clearly, “is for you to take your weed and your tantrums and your jealous caveman bullshit and shove it all right up your ass.”

Normally, he’d probably have laughed at that or had some clever come-on of a comeback at the ready. But right now? His expression darkened. His eyelids lowered. He flicked his joint in the glass of water I’d left on the table.

Then he pushed me backwards, using his whole body to steer me where he wanted me. His hips crushed me against the wall.

“So, what? You can’t handle this?” He grabbed the neck of my dress in his fist, yanking me toward him for emphasis. “So now you’re just gonna hook up with someone else?”

“Hook up?” I grabbed a fistful of his shirt in return, yanking him toward me. “I was eating pancakes. And so what if I hook up with someone else? How is that your business?”

He laughed, but it was more of a snarl. “You kidding me?” He pressed his forehead against mine, hard, so I had to push back. I could already feel his hard-on digging into me—and he was starting to undo his jeans. The rings on his fingers scraped me through my dress as his hand moved between us… and shivers tore through me. All the blood in my head was rapidly fleeing south. “You so much as think about touching a guy who isn’t me,” he said, his lips almost bumping mine, “and you better fucking believe I’m gonna make it my business, Maggie.”

Breathless. I felt utterly out of breath, my entire body possessed with the need to have him. I was empty, aching with emptiness, and the only remedy for that ache was Zane.

Hard and hot and long and deep… filling me completely, over and over again. My clit throbbed with the force of my pulse, and I wanted him in me, now.

“I’ll hook up with whoever I want to,” I informed him, but my voice shook. “I don’t belong to you.” I knew I was pushing him, just fucking pushing him to screw me and make me his.

He ripped my panties down my thighs, and my pussy clenched.

Oh, fuck…

My panties drifted down to my ankles. He shoved his hand between my legs. His fingers were so warm… He smeared them over my swollen flesh, so slippery, and there was no hiding it… I was so wet. He hiked my left leg up around his hip, spreading me open as he pushed against me. I was quivering, I was so hot and ready.

Why did his possessive neanderthal bullshit have to get me so fucking wet?

There was something wrong with me. Had to be. Because I already knew who I belonged to and I just kept fighting it. I knew, and there was nothing I could do to change it, no matter how I fought it.

And all it did was turn me on.

And scare the crap out of me.

“Like. Fuck,” he growled. Then he shoved into me. Every inch of his big dick, straight up inside me. I was that wet, and he was bare. “You’ll fuck me, Maggie. Me.”

“Yeah,” I panted, as he fucked me against the wall. He hit my limits, fast, stretching me, and I squealed.

“Fuck, yeah… take me, Maggie…”

“Yeah, fuck, give it to me…”

“You want it…?”’

“Yeah, I want it.” I clutched at him as he gave it to me, moaning and scrambling to get my legs around him. “Yeah. Yeah, gimme…” I was already way beyond making sense or using my brain to get me out of this.

I didn’t want out.

“Gonna show you who your man is,” he growled, his fingers digging into my thighs as he hiked me up and pounded into me. “No one else gets this pussy. It’s mine. I’m your husband and this shit belongs to me. All of it. Don’t even think about giving it to someone else. You’re mine.”

He drove that point home by hiking me up higher and jackhammering into me. He kissed me hard, and I caught his bottom lip in my teeth and sucked, moaning, losing my mind as the sensations flooded my body.

Then he yanked me off the wall and pulled me with him onto the bed so suddenly my head spun. He lay back and held my hips over his and fucked me from beneath.

“Take it, Maggie,” he urged me as I rode him.

And I did.

He dug his heels into the bed and pumped up into me, every muscle in his body locked up tight as I braced my hands on his hard chest, gripping his shirt… and I knew why he put me on top. It wasn’t to give me control.

It was so I could see him. So I could watch him fuck me.

So he could look me in the eyes while he did it, just like he wanted to.

Then he rolled me over and pulled me right down to the floor. We lost his vest, but the rest of our clothes were still half-on. We kissed and bit and clawed at each other and rolled around in a crazy, dirty, knock-down, drag-out fuck. Me on top of him again and then him on top of me… both of us fucking each other with a vengeance, both of us chasing our own orgasm—and hellbent on making the other one come first.

“You getting the message, Maggs?” he growled as he pounded into me, almost out of breath. He was on top of me and I was close to orgasm, and he fucking knew it. I was shaking, hyperventilating as I rode him, fast and hard from underneath, meeting every thrust. “You understand who you belong to now? Or do I need to show you some more…?”

“No,” I gasped, “I am not yours.”

“Yes. You. Are.” He held me down by my throat and drilled into my G-spot with this fat cockhead, and oh my God…

But I couldn’t stop fighting it. I just couldn’t stop fighting him.

“This is the last fuck,” I choked out as I did my best to strangle him with my inner muscles. “This is the last time I’m fucking you, Zane Traynor.”

His face flushed. He was grunting with the effort as he slammed into me, his hips slapping loudly against my thighs. “Fuck you, Maggie,” he growled, just as I lost the battle and started to come. I cried out and he stiffened. He shouted something obscene, garbled and barely English, and blew into me with a series of low groans, his hips ramming against me. I could feel him bruising me.

I didn’t care.

As my body shook with the tremors of pleasure so extreme I actually felt tears of ecstasy running down my face… I couldn’t even fathom it all. I couldn’t fathom how I could love someone so much, could want someone so bad, and be so afraid of my feelings for him at the same time. So afraid, I suddenly wanted to gnaw off my own limbs to get out from under him as he collapsed on top of me.

And the condom…

What condom?

There was no condom. Neither of us had stopped to get one or even mentioned it. Zane just came deep inside me and I didn’t even care.

Pregnancy, STDs… These vague concepts swirled in my head with the ecstasy and the terror and the strange numbness, as I felt myself detaching from it all… because it was all too much to take.

Just… fuck.

Zane was smart enough to use condoms with other women, right? I was pretty sure about that. I was pretty sure no matter what a manwhore he was, he was probably clean.

And I was pretty sure I was at a point in my cycle when I probably couldn’t get pregnant. Or at least… wouldn’t likely get pregnant.

Right now, that would have to be enough.

But it wasn’t enough.

I swiped the tears from my face before he could see them and shoved his shoulder. “Get off me.”

He groaned as he pulled out and pushed himself up on his arms above me. He stared at my face, and he looked about as wrecked as I felt. “You can’t have anyone else,” he said, his voice all broken like he was about to cry.

I shoved at him again and tried to wriggle out from under him. “Why? Why can’t I?”

“Because it’ll kill me.”

I pushed him one more time and he rolled to the side, letting me free.

“What does that mean?” I demanded. “Is that a threat? Are you threatening to start drinking again or something if I end up with someone else?”

“It’s not a threat. It’s a fact.”

“You can’t put that on me, Zane,” I told him. “You don’t get to fuck around and then throw a shit-fit tantrum because another man puts a hand on me.”

“Yeah, I fucking will have a problem with it if someone puts a hand on you.”

“No. No, you’ve gotta act like a sane person here, okay? Matt was just being friendly. What are you gonna do when someone actually makes a move on me? Oh wait, I know. Start a food fight.” I got up, shakily, covering myself with my dress. “So how about the next time some bitch grabs your junk in front of me, I’ll just throw chili at her head, would that work?”

“Go ahead. I wouldn’t mind seeing that, actually.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. Jesus.” I raked my fingers through my hair and stared at him. He was just lying there on the floor, half-dressed. “Do you not get this AT ALL? I’m never getting in a catfight over you, Zane. I am never gonna stand between you and other women. I’d be fucking trampled, do you get that? I don’t want to be the reason you don’t fuck other women, and I don’t want to be the reason you don’t drink, or the reason you don’t end up in jail. What I want—no, what I need is for you to be the reason you don’t do any of those things, FOR YOU.”

“Yeah,” he said, gazing up at me. “That’s pretty much what Rudy said.”

Rudy? Rudy Baker?

He’d talked to his AA sponsor about this? About us?

“Well then, Rudy’s fucking right.”

I turned around, searching the floor. Where the hell were my panties and how did he incinerate them so fast? I needed them back on before his come started running down my leg, and the reality of what we just did without a condom sank in and I truly lost my shit.

I’d probably just end up fucking him again, since that was what I did, apparently, when I lost my shit in front of Zane.

I started to laugh, this scary-ass, high-pitched giggle that made no sense.

“I need you, Maggie,” he said. I heard him getting up off the floor behind me, slowly, and my laughter died. He sounded defeated, and I didn’t want to see him like that. But I couldn’t even stop myself from turning around.

He looked defeated as he sat on the edge of the bed, his jeans hastily pulled up but still undone, his shirt all askew. He pitched forward with his elbows on his knees and just stared at me.

“I need you, too,” I admitted. It was the truth.

I needed Zane, and Jesus Christ I wanted him. Seeing him vulnerable, the way he looked right now, the curve of his shoulders and his blond hair in his face, fucking killed me. I wanted to put my arms around him, so bad.

But I didn’t. I couldn’t seem to move. I just stood rooted to the spot, wanting him.

“I just can’t,” I told him, again. “I can’t do this with you.”

“Fuck, Maggie. Come on.”

“I told you. I already told you I can’t.”

He held my gaze, and he actually looked scared. “Ever?”

“I don’t know. Just… not like this.” I turned to get away from those blue eyes of his, and I finally glimpsed my panties. I snatched them up and pulled them on. I wanted to run right out the door, but I didn’t. It took everything I had to just stand here and not take off, but I didn’t.

I turned around and I forced myself to look at Zane again. His eyes were still on me, and he still looked scared. I hated making him look like that. I hated hurting him.

But I seriously didn’t know what to do.

I really couldn’t handle this.

All I could seem to handle—just barely—was avoiding him, then giving in and fucking the shit out of him… over and again.

Which was no good for anyone.

It just hurt like fuck.

Worse, I was starting to realize that maybe it was me who was hurting us both more than anything else… and the guilt of that on top of everything else was gonna fucking destroy me.

“Fuck,” I said, because sometimes, there were no other words. I pushed my hands into my hair, wanting to rip it right out at the roots. “You make me fucking crazy. Like no one’s ever made me this crazy in my life.”

He just stared at me, like he knew exactly what I was talking about. “You love me.”

I softened, any remaining fight totally leaving me, because that was the truth, too. I did love him.

I loved him badly.

“Love isn’t enough, Zane.”

“Maybe not. But it’s a fucking start, isn’t it?

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s a start.” I stared at him, sitting there on the bed just two feet from me, and I hugged myself. “Here we are, eight years in… still standing at the starting line.”