Page 19 of Cursed Luck
“Ouch! What was that for?” Peter shouted.
Brandy glared at him before her eyes met Edward’s and softened. “Don’t listen to him…”
Everyone seemed to find interest in their shoes or plates. “What’s going on?”
Serena tugged on his arm. “What do you feel around Mia?”
He tried to process her words, unsure what she meant. Surely his family did not want to hear about his sexual attraction to a woman. His heart sped up as images of Mia came to mind. There was not anything about her he didn’t find attractive, from her bare feet to the tendrils of hair framing her oval face.
“Edward… Does your skin tingle when she’s near?” Serena asked.
“Or do you feel any static electricity whenever you two touch?” Ryan asked as he wrapped his arm around Brandy’s waist.
“Or an invisible magnetic pull that makes it impossible to keep your distance?” Max asked, his eyes on Claudia.
He pinched his brows together, unable to admit even to himself if he felt everything they had mentioned. “What you’re saying is absurd. I barely know the woman. How could she be my mate?”
Mine, his mind yelled. He could not hide the truth from himself, but he would ignore it for as long as he could. Her image pushed to the front of his mind as he yearned to see her, to touch her.
The last time he saw her, he had pissed her off and gotten himself kicked out of her shop. His eyes swept over Junior, James, and their wives. Life was fickle, and even if Mia was his mate, there was no guarantee they would be together.
Max laughed. “Before I had even set my eyes on Claudia, I knew there was something special about her.”
“I didn’t even like Ryan when we first met, but the connection was there,” Brandy admitted with a shrug.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” Ryan said with indignation.
Peter laughed. “Oh, stop it, you big baby. You were stalking her even while you tried to avoid her. Finding your mate is a rarity. Be happy you have…” Peter’s mood became dark and his body tensed.
Edward did not know an awful lot about the werewolf, but it was clear he had not found his mate.
“There’s no point in fighting it. None of us could,” Vanessa said, sidling up to Carter, who wrapped his arm around her and kissed the top of her head.
“The woman knows what she’s talking about,” Carter replied.
“If it matters…” Debbie called from the kitchen. “We all really like her.”
“She fits in great with us,” Andrea said.
Junior cleared his throat and clapped his hands. “All right, everyone, how about we get back to eating?”
Silence fell over them before the attention on Edward seemed to vanish. A tingling of magic reached him, and when his gaze flew to Junior, his brother winked. Relief filled him, thankful for his brother’s persuasive abilities.
A few moments later, as Edward grabbed a brownie from a plate, Brandy whimpered. “Damn it, Junior!”
Junior chuckled. “Sorry, not sorry. Y’all need to give him a break.”
Edward shoved the brownie into his mouth in two bites and thought about what they said. It was his luck they would fall for the one girl who seemed to bring out his teenage self. If not for the dozens of women who warmed his bed across the country, he would question his prowess to woo a woman.
As a teen, he had been awkward and the furthest version of who he was now. He had no game, no smooth words or appeal. He was tall, lanky boy who didn’t know how to speak to girls. Clearly, Mia brought out the worst in him.
***
“Hi, handsome…” a feminine voice called.
Edward twisted in the bar stool and smiled at the blonde. Soft-looking curls framed her face, landing just below her chin. Her size D’s greeted him just above her dress’s neckline. In the dim light, he found her hair too processed, and her breasts, while lovely, were a cup too large for his taste.
His smile faltered as he continued dissecting the poor woman’s features. It was not that she wasn’t pretty. She was. He just realized he preferred dark brown, almost black hair over blonde, or red for that matter. Her porcelain-white skin tone looked smooth and delicate but not quite the olive he wanted.
