Page 7 of Venomous Throne

The tone was velvet to my ears.

I whipped my head around. A pair of steel grey eyes pinned me in place. They were hard, and I felt the judgment seep from them. Other details registered: This man was built like a wall, with the body of an athlete. His dark blond hair was pulled back into a bun at the back of his head. His face was concealed behind a close-trimmed beard that was a variegated combination of colors. But it was his eyes I found myself drawn back to.

“Nothing to see here!” I chirped. “Move on.”

I tried to pull the cart back with the tips of my toes, but it wouldn’t cooperate. My arms were likewise useless. I hung precariously, keenly aware of how idiotic I looked.

All for some damn butter.

Mr. Tall and Handsome strode purposely forward. He gripped the cart, and then one large arm wrapped around my waist. With the grace of a gym rat, he lifted me. Easily.

Held under his arm, that single point of contact, reality tilted. But I didn’t once feel like I was falling.

He had me.

A rich scent, woodsy and masculine, filled my nose. I was embarrassed to say I took a second breath, inhaling the smell deep into my lungs, where it spread through my body in a warm caress.

For only a moment. And then my bare feet hit the ground. My hands flailed, trying to catch hold of something as I struggled to regain my balance.

“What the devil were you trying to get?” the mountain growled.

“Butter,” I gasped. “The one that looks like a bar of gold.”

It was in my hand a moment later.

The stranger released me.

I suddenly realized how cold it was, standing there slightly damp in the cooler section. Or maybe it was because the man had been a furnace of living flesh.

I turned to thank him, but he was already walking away. His hand opened and shut at his side.

As if he fought the urge to wipe the touch of me away.

“Thank you!” I called after him, struggling to find my voice.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t move to look back.

A quick turn at the end of the aisle, and he was gone. It would have been all too easy to imagine him not having been there in the first place.

If my sternum wasn’t tingling from the contact, and my nose filled with his scent….

I stumbled, trying to climb back into my shoes. I gave up on the second attempt. Tossing them in the cart, I walked in the direction the stranger took. At the end of the aisle, staring along the length of the empty store, I frowned.

Not all of me was cold.

Oh, Santa Caterina, no! There was a definite heat pulsing low in my belly. As I searched for the stranger, realization finally clicked into place. The feeling was so foreign, it’d taken me this long to name it. Arousal. I groaned. My hormones were sparks, kindling my body into a blaze.

“I’m just tipsy,” I muttered.

I never masturbated as a teen—good little girls didn’t do that. And when my husband failed to create the low, smoldering burn, I just assumed I was incapable of feeling the natural human reaction.

Yet, standing in the grocery store in my bare feet, there was no other explanation.

I decided there was only one way to deal with the discovery. I made a beeline for the wine and beer section, took the first one and then two—for good luck—bottles of pink wine. Because I hadso many purchases, I decided to put the cheese puffs back so the rest was easier to carry. Sober Isabella could thank me for that decision.

Chapter 4 – Jaxon

I shouldn’t have done that.