Page 66 of The Viper
She laughed, the sound filling the room, and I felt something other than dread.
Maybe this was reckless. Maybe it would blow up in our faces. But standing there with Lexi, watching her eyes light up at the idea of escaping for a night, I didn't care.
I was starting to enjoy the perks of being a Dane.
And if that made me selfish, so be it.
23
LEXI
We left the sitting room at Dominion Hall with the kind of reckless plan that always sounds smarter when you say it fast. An hour, Lucas had promised. A yacht. Then a jet. Dinner in New York, because why not set a match to common sense and see how bright it burns?
In the dressing room, racks of loaner clothes—somehow my size, somehow already tailored—waited like the universe was daring me to play. I picked a silk slip dress the color of champagne and a white blazer soft as dusk. Heels I could run in, if I had to. Hair down. Lips a bare hint of rose.
If the world insisted on watching, it could.
When I stepped into the foyer, Lucas was already there. Black suit, open collar, no tie. He looked like a man you meet once and remember forever, the kind who could pry open a door with a glance or close it with a word. His eyes swept me, not hungry so much as intent, cataloging. I felt it everywhere.
“Ready?” he asked.
“I am,” I replied, and I meant it.
As we walked down to the dock, we didn’t talk much. His hand held mine, my fingers brushing his knuckles now and then like I needed to prove he was real. Every time I did, the muscle in his jaw ticked like I’d just thrown him a switch he didn’t trust himself to touch.
The yacht was absurd in the best way—sleek, black, humming with quiet money. Not ostentatious, not a floating nightclub. A blade with rooms. Crew waited on the dock in polos that matched the sky, and for a second, the old reflex kicked in: smile, be gracious, apologize for the trouble of being you. Lucas didn’t give me the chance.
“Ms. Montgomery won’t need anything until we’re underway,” he said, in that even tone that closes a door without sounding like one. The captain nodded and vanished. So did the deckhand. So did the world.
We slipped out into the harbor, gulls cutting clean lines overhead, the peninsula sliding by to starboard. The wind found my hair. Lucas stood behind me at the rail, close enough that I could feel the heat of him, his presence a wall I could lean on or climb.
“What do you think?” I asked, eyes on the water.
He didn’t answer for a long beat. Then: “I’m not used to any of this.”
“The yacht?” I teased.
“The money. The speed. Doors that open because a last name asks them to.” He paused. “It used to be that when I wanted to see the ocean, I drove all night and slept in my truck.”
I turned. “Where?”
“Montana boy,” he said, a small smile. “Seven brothers, one house that leaned when the wind blew, a mother who could fix a fence and fry a steak without breaking a sweat. We weren’t just poor. We were … lean. Everything we had, we earned twice.”
“And the military?”
He looked past me, toward the line where the harbor met the Atlantic. “It made sense. A place that wants your discipline more than your pedigree. My first year, I sent home every dollar I didn’t need to stay alive. Second year, too. I learned to live on less than I could count with one hand.” His mouth curved, rueful. “Now, someone hands me a key to a suite that costs more than my mom made in six months and expects me to sleep like that’s normal.”
“Is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet.” His knuckles brushed the small of my back—not possessive, not casual, something in between. “But I know what I want to do with it.”
“What’s that?”
He didn’t blink. “Spoil you.”
The words landed low and hot, ridiculous and right. A breeze lifted the hair at my neck; he watched it fall. For once, I didn’t reach for a joke to deflect. “I have my own money,” I said, not defensive—just fact.
“I know.” He eased closer, body heat skimming the line of my spine. “You can build a fortress out of your own money. I want to line the inside of it with everything else.”
