Page 14 of The Love Destroyers

I scrunch my nose. “Only if you have a very broad definition of the word.”

She grins at me and knocks back the contents of one of the flutes. “I tend to define words as it suits me. And I’m going to keep an eye on Seamus.” She gives me a small nod. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

“You’ll be waiting forever,” I mutter.

She gives me a disappointed look. “I hope not. I don’t like to be kept waiting. Seems to me you could begin the new year broken, or you can focus on breaking someone else.” That dubious advice given, she flounces away, heading toward Anthony and Rosie. My sister-in-law grins and waves her in.

I wonder if she’d still be grinning if she knew her good friend just gave up her secret without any prompting. I’d be glad I hadn’t decided to confide in Nicole, who is obviously a poor confidant, if she didn’t already know everything anyway.

Dammit.

I take my champagne and mosey toward the door, smiling and waving to keep from getting drawn in to any conversations. Suddenly, I need to get away from the crowd. I don’t have the slightest desire to cheer in the new year.

The old year can end. Good riddance. But I didn’t have the greatest hopes for the new one, other than stripping the last of my father from this sagging, once-great house.

I leave the room but keep walking all the way to the front door. Once there, I balance the two flutes of champagne in one hand so I can let myself out. Cold air gusts in, but I step out into it—almost grateful for the way the chill breeze wraps around me and billows under my dress. It’s enough to wake a woman up, just like the polar plunge I did one year for charity, and I feel my buzz sliding away as I weave around the side of Smith House.

I don’t understand what drove me outside until I see him propped against the wall in his leather jacket, a cigarette in one hand. He’s barely visible, hidden behind the thick evergreen shrubs as he stares up at the moon with a bemused expression. Although he’s in a suit, it looks like he ditched the jacket in favor of his leather one.

I almost turn right back around, but then he sees me, and his eyes widen. He instantly stubs out the cigarette and pockets the butt.

He looks like a kid who got caught smoking on school grounds, and I lean my head back and laugh.

His expression darkens and he stalks two steps toward me. He has the pace of a predator, and I feel a prickle of nerves dance across my skin, but I’d be lying if I said excitement wasn’tdancing directly beneath it. Then he completes the journey and takes off his leather jacket, slipping his own heat over my shoulders.

CHAPTER FOUR

SEAMUS

“I don’t need your coat,” Emma says, watching me closely in the dark. “My dress has long sleeves.”

As if I’d notice a thing like that when she’s been pushing up the loose, flowing bottom all night to access my flask, held to her shapely thigh by the sexiest black lace garter I’ve ever seen. I take a longer look at the dress now, noticing the way it fits across her chest.

Holding her gaze, I say, “It’s too thin for you to be out here without anything over it.”

“How doyouknow that?” she asks, giving me an imperious look.

“I can see your nipples through your bra.”

I half expect her to slap me or splash one of the flutes of champagne in my face, but instead she gushes surprised laughter. “Who says I’m wearing one?”

A smile washes across my face, but I shake my head. “I’d be able to see them better if you weren’t.”

“It’s the closest you’ll ever get to them.”

“So I might as well enjoy it,” I say, letting my gaze linger, because fuck, it’s a sweet sight.

“I guess you can take my second glass of champagne,” she says, shoving it at me.

I accept it, my fingers slipping against hers. “Gladly, but if you think this makes up for stealing my whiskey, you’re wrong. It’s like grape soda, and that’s a fine whiskey I put in that flask.”

She snorts and slips one of her arms into the sleeve of the coat, shifting the champagne between her hands, and then slides on the other. I feel something stir inside of me at the sight of her wrapped up in my coat, her nipples pointing up at me as if to say hello. She’s something else, this woman. A mixture of curves and hard edges that makes me want to get drunk on her.

She turned Chuck away earlier, which I resent, but it is the day of her brother’s wedding. Maybe she wasn’t prepared to talk shop.

“You’re a Philistine,” she comments.

“You probably don’t think I know what that means,” I comment, “but you’d be wrong. I may not have given half a shit about school, but I like to read.”

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