Page 14 of Sip
Crazy woman. “This is two-hundred-year-old whiskey. You don’t shoot it. You sip it.Sip.”
Fingertips touch her damp lips, and she slowly shakes her head. “I didn’t know. The only time I ever drank hard liquor it was a shot.”
Her voice, husky and strained from the alcohol, tantalizes me to my balls. I cup her face, rubbing over the pink skin with my thumb. “That’s because that was shit. This is the good stuff. You savor the taste rather than rush past it.”
“Oh…okay.”
Fire lights between us as we stare at each other. She inhales deeply and emotions play out in her expression I don’t fully understand. Her dilated pupils and parted mouth tell me everything I need to know. I step closer, unable to control myself. Powerless to contain the force luring us together. My free hand splays across her spine while my other caresses her cheek. Just one taste and I can move on. Let her go. Give her up.
The softest lips I’ve ever felt remain still when I press against them. Unrelenting and unyielding to my pressure, my teeth, my tongue. She refuses to let me in.
Fuck!
When her voice cracks, breaking my name in her whisper, I force myself pull away.
“We can’t–”
She’s fully crying now. And I’m the bastard who’s made the only woman I’ve ever loved cry. On her wedding day. To my brother. I’m totally and completely fucked.
Footsteps click behind me, and I snarl from the gasp that makes Grace weep harder.
“Oh my god! Oh god! Oh shit!”
Grace closes her eyes against her sister’s admonishment. The woman wedges herself between us and her head whips back and forth scouring our faces.
“None of this happened! Do you hear me? None of this!”
Faith’s scolding hisses with fear, and her trembling hands shove against my chest. The heavy make-up barely concealing the bruising around her right eye cracks from the exertion. Panic rather than anger floods her expression.
“Shane must never know what you’ve done!”
Her sister’s assertion jolts Grace like a taser from hearing her fiancé’s name. Reality crashes in harder than a tsunami. Her slight chest caves in deeper and deeper as she attempts to suck in air. I reach for her— my pixie is hyperventilating. Yet the other two women gang up on me, pushing me away and fussing for me to leave. Let them fix her make up. Fix her dress. Fix her.
“Everything okay in here?”
Grace’s brother-in-law, Carl stands in the doorway. A frown pulls down his mouth as he watches his wife dab at her sister’s face with a tissue. Disapproval that makes her lips purse after she glances over and realizes he’s scrutinizing her. Everything makes sense now.
I spin around and stride to him, clutching his bicep and escorting him out of the room and down the hall. “Let’s get a drink.”
He relaxes under my grip, thinking this is going to be a friendly conversation between joining families. I love it when the stupid and cocky have no idea what’s waiting for them.
I shove him through the doorway to the library. Like the idiot he is, he rubs his hands together and looks around, greedy and obnoxious. Searching for potent scotch and expensive cigars. Instead, he receives my fist to his gut. The fleshy rolls bounce from the force and he bows at the waist, stumbling forward.
“What the fuck?”
He can barely breath, wheezing out his shock. I jerk him up by his shirt and slam him against the wall. He winces from his head pounding the plaster. No worries there. Other parts of his body will hurt way worse once I’m finished with him. Three more punches in rapid succession drop him to the carpet. “You ever hit your wife again I will kill you.”
“I’d never–”
Liar. Knee to the nose and blood trickles down his chin. “If you do, I’ll know. I will enjoy killing you so if you want to live don’t give me any reason to come after you. I won’t be able to stop myself until only DNA can identify you.”
“But I…”
The truth shines in my eyes, and he shuts the fuck up. I release him, letting him crumple to the floor. I’ve done enough damage to send the message but not so bad he can’t clean himself up to attend the ceremony.
I leave him lying like the pile of shit he is and return to the hallway. The door to Grace’s dressing room is closed and my brother stands in the entryway to his office. All fucking signs to ensure I can’t take what I want. He motions to me, lifting his glass in invitation. Oh sure, now he’s fucking ready to drink.
Trashed to the core is the only way I’ll survive this. Me ending him or him ending me are the two things that will stop the wedding, and either way I’d lose her. That realization is the one thing keeping me going at this point.
