Page 41 of Best Man Speaking

A tender kiss presses against my jaw, just once, before a delicate cough from right outside the curtain catches our attention. Instantly, I try to push myself away, but he doesn’t let go, and I refuse to make the noise of a struggle.

“Marcus, thanks so much for suggesting I send Cara out to grab lunch. I just wanted to let you know she’ll be back in five minutes, and I have my next appointment in ten. If that, you know, works for you?” I can hear the unchecked amusement in Andrea’s voice.

“I think that works for me,” Marcus responds, looking and sounding just as smug.

I shove my right elbow back and into him as hard as I can, but he only laughs.

“If you could just pass me the dress once you have it off, Hallie, that’d be great.”

The words are barely out of her mouth before Marcus has the dress and hanger in hand and reaches them out of the fitting room curtains.

“Oh! Well, then, I’ll just leave the two of you to get changed, then.” Andrea doesn’t wait for a reply and moves away with an amused chuckle.

I sigh, all hope of any type of secrecy well and truly out the door.

“Thanks, Andrea,” I call. “We won’t be long.”

With all the strength I can muster, I turn and push both palms against Marcus’s chest. “You are the worst. Get out!”

There’s no heat behind my words, and he grins at me, delighted in my frustration. He lets himself be moved out of my personal space with ease.

As a parting gift, he calls, “By the way, I have to take care of a work thing, but Erica and Jules called before to ask us to go to drinks tonight. I told them you’d be in. I might even let you kiss me again if you’re on your best behavior.”

Chapter Twelve

Marcus

The skin on the back of my neck prickles with awareness moments before the bartender’s stare locks somewhere behind me. These are the only signs I need to know that Hallie’s arrived. Without being told, without having to turn, I know her focus is on me as she makes her way across the low-lit bar. And I don’t hate it. Far from it. With that troublesome thought planting itself within my brain, I turn toward her and watch as she heads directly to me. My gaze is slow and appreciative, tracking her as she places one heeled black boot in front of the other before moving higher up her body.

When Hallie’s big blues finally meet mine, I’m caught by their open expression and the sharp burst of happiness that takes hold of her upon seeing me, lighting up her face.

Not just happiness but excitement.

I feel the moment a smile breaks free on my lips, the genuine giddy nature of it catching me off guard. She tamps her expression down so quickly I could almost convince myself I’d imagined it.

It’s a look I hadn’t expected, even if it only lingered for less than a moment. For once, our response to one another is light, and my fingertips tingle with a joy I haven’t felt in a long time.

Hallie might’ve dropped her grin, but I’ve kept mine, and I raise a single brow in question at the way her cheeks flush at my reaction to her. I try to ignore the tightening in my chest when she slips onto the leather-backed stool at my side.

Fuck. She is stunning.

Tonight, her hair’s poker straight, her lips back to their normal deep red, and I want to keep her to myself.

Which is a damn problem.

“Happy to see me?” she asks playfully.

“Every. Single. Inch.” I give her a cheeky grin.

Hallie sighs, tilting her head to the side. “Are you really going to make me remind you that my eyes are located on my face?”

My gaze has yet to leave her body, as if I’m somehow going to be able to see through her clothing to all that lies beneath.

She curls her index finger beneath my chin, lifting so my eyes meet hers, the scruff of my five-o’clock shadow surely scratching the delicate skin of her fingers in the process.

I decide to gift her with my blatant honesty as I palm my tumbler of whiskey. “Hallie, I haven’t been able to get the thought of that tiny little serpent from between your breasts out of my mind. The image of you naked in that fitting room, writhing in my arms, will forever live rent-free in my head.”

The corners of her lips curl upward, even as the flush on her cheeks continues to deepen. “Marcus, I don’t want to hear any cracks about one-eyed snakes.”

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