The restroom had taken the edge off.

It had not removed the source.

By the time Victoria’s bedroom door closed and the house settled into its deepest quiet, the residual jealousy from David Renner’s campus push and the public restraint of the dinner still sat in Marcus’s body like a second pulse. Elena felt it the moment he locked the study door behind them and turned to look at her. The black dress she still wore from the restaurant covered every mark, but the lower bruises across her ribs ached in a dull continuous line. Between her legs she carried the combined heat of the afternoon load and the one...