When Hunter replies that two security personnel are at the ready to intercept Keke before she can slip into Col’s car and that Hugo is waiting out back nearmy town car to drive Isabelle home, I return my cell phone to my pocket then raise my eyes to the commotion.
Partway there, they lock onto the most alluring pair of chocolate eyes. Isabelle is staring at me, and although I’d give anything to disperse the jealousy in her eyes with hours between a set of satin sheets until Hunter gives word that Col has left the premises, I can’t, so I wink at her instead.
It doubles the jealousy brightening the richness of her eyes before it sees her responding positively to Ryan’s attention for the first time tonight instead of negatively.
After smiling large enough to gain the attention of my cock, she parts her lips at Ryan’s request before swallowing down the cherry he’s dangling above her succulent mouth.
The tables surrounding us descend into the same irreverent silence bombarding ours when Isabelle fishes out a cherry from the large banana split a waiter recently set down in front of her so she can return Ryan’s gesture.
Unaware of the immense bolt of danger about to surge his way, Ryan playfully nibbles on Isabelle’s fingertips before his tongue delves out to scoop up the cherry she’s barely clasping in its slippery state.
“Don’t,” Tatiana begs when the uncontrollable urge to bang my chest while claiming Isabelle as mine in front of the hundreds of guests gawking our way almost gets the better of me. Not thinking, I removed her backside from my thigh and placed it onto the seat it left abandoned two hours ago. “Col could still be lurking.”
Col is the last person on my hit list when Ryan leans in intimately close to Isabelle’s side.
They look like a couple, like the powerhouse duo I plan for Isabelle and me to become one day, and the recollection has me desperate to show Ryan the game was over long before he joined the fight, that he will never be a contender in any bout that includes Isabelle.
And the chaos muddling my mind grows when Isabelle leans in to seal her mouth overhis.
I thought the image of her kissing another man via surveillance was bad, but it has nothing on the absolute hysteria it rips through me from witnessing it firsthand.
My astuteness is lost.
My intellect is depleted.
So any chance of good judgment remaining is a farce.
I’m out of my chair and storming for Isabelle’s half of the table before Ryan can consider how much he will lose if he dares to ram his tongue down her throat. Isabelle is mine, and although murder has never been a skill I considered adding to my resume, Ryan’s inability to recognize that has me reconsidering my objectives.
I’ve never wanted to kill a man as desperately as I do now.
With the growl of a man thirsty for blood, I band my arm around Isabelle’s slim waist, then yank her away from Ryan. After a sluggish start due to an emotion that better be shock, Isabelle’s fighting spirit returns stronger than ever. She lashes out, her words as jaded as the frantic thrusts of her legs and arms. “Put… me… down!”
Too blinded by rage to consider the consequences of my actions, I continue walking us through the brimming-with-patrons restaurant. In a way, Isabelle should consider herself fortunate that we’re surrounded bypaying customers. If we were alone, and I trusted myself not to take things too far, she’d be over my knee, and my hand would be spanking her sass right out of her.
Twice!She kissed a man twice in three days, and to make matters worse, she didn’t sign the death certificate of one pathetic weasel of a man I plan to squash like a bug. She smeared the entire board with anarchy, leaving me no choice but to add mass murderer to my list of credentials.
“Isaac…” Isabelle snaps out more sternly. “Put me down.”
When I storm through the back exit of the restaurant, the first person my slitted eyes land on is Hugo. He takes one look at my red face, drops his amused gaze to Isabelle wiggling in my arms, curses under his breath, then hotfoots it to the driver’s side door of my town car.
Tonight’s charade was for the public eye, so I collected Tatiana from her home in my Mercedes.
The remembrance of how things went tonight sees me placing Isabelle in the back seat of the Mercedes Hugo is now helming before slamming shut the door with her on one side and me on the other. “Stay here.”
Warm air blasting from vents above the door morphs with the fierce heat roaring through my veins. I’m worked up, overheated, and on the verge of hitting Ryan with more than words when his brow arches about my return.
He assumes he forced my hand.
I’m well aware that he did.
After demanding Tatiana to collect her things, I say to Ryan, “I once asked if you could fight. You said, ‘You don’t need talent to fight. Anyone can take a hit. It’s how you accept it that proves your worth.’” I wait for him to acknowledge a conversation we had years ago before finalizing my comment. “I never understood what that meant until now.” My hands ball when I confess, “I’ll accept your hit like a man, Ryan, but you need to accept mine in return.” I lean in close, my anger so white-hot, sweat beads on Ryan’s temples. “Love is about guts. If you have it, you fight the world to keep it. If you don’t, you fight no one but yourself.” A feeling I’ve never experienced before lightens the heaviness plaguing my chest when I mutter, “This isn’t your fight. It is mine.”
By ‘it,’ I mean Isabelle.
I take a moment to ensure Ryan understands whom I am referencing before flicking my eyes to Cormack and Harlow. Cormack appears shocked. Harlow is both bemused and happy, but her smile slips when I farewell them with a dip of my chin before guiding Tatiana out of the restaurant by placing my hand on the small of her back.
The hairs on my nape are prickling, and although Isabelle’s presence can evoke many uncanny responses from my body, the deprived sickly feeling my stomach gets when being eyed by a man more evil than Satan is not one of them.
