Page 41 of Silver Brewer

“Then I’m listening to a damn good bottle of Moscato.” The gruff voice behind me startles me, and my eyes widen as I stare at Marcus. The sound certainly didn’t come from his lips although it holds all the teasing Marcus would make. My head slowly shakes, but Marcus nods with a matching pace. He knows what I don’t. I lift a hand to my upper chest, my heart hammering under my skin, and the pinched smile on Marcus’s face curls into a wide grin.

Slowly, I turn to face the rugged tone and meet a tux-covered chest. My eyes climb the tall stature, taking in the black bow tie at his throat and the dark spark to his eyes.

I’m hallucinating, I tell myself.

Before me stands a giant of masculinity, polished with a trimmed beard and combed hair. A sharp gleam graces those bark-colored eyes. His broad shoulders are covered by a fitted black suit like he’s a member of the wedding party. My eyes roam the remainder of his large physique, drinking in the tux on him like it’s the bubbly wine in my glass. Gone is lumbersexual, replaced by dashy and debonair.

My God, he’s tasty.

“What are you wearing?” he asks, his voice gruff, reminiscent of our first meeting.

“He washed your hair?” Marcus gasps in a hushed tone from behind me.

“Giant,” I breathe out his name with shock and desperation and longing.

“Cricket,” he addresses me, and Marcus chokes at my back.

“He has a pet name for you,” Marcus practically squeals. “You didn’t mention a pet name.”

“Marcus,” I groan, keeping my eyes fixed on Giant, who isn’t grinning, but his lips twist. He wants to smile. He’s moving his mouth like he’s fighting it, and all I can think about is how I want that mouth on mine.

“This is Marcus?” Giant asks, offering a hand to my friend, but I don’t miss how he skims my arm to reach around me.

“George Harrington,” he says. “But people call me Giant.”

“Mmm…I bet you are,” Marcus purrs. He doesn’t play his gay card often or to the hilt, but this is over the top, even for him, and Giant quickly retracts his hand. Marcus steps around me and looks back and forth between Giant and myself. “The pleasure to meet you is all mine,” he states, and then he continues circling, taking a step behind Giant but still facing me. He lifts his fingers toward his hardly-there hair and makes massaging motions as he mouths his new standard statement. I giggle as I wave him away.

“What are you doing here?” I ask of Giant, still breathless and stunned. He’s actually standing before me. In a tux!

“Heard there was a wedding happening, and the prettiest woman here needed a date.”

I step toward him, fighting the urge to wrap my arms around him and climb his body like the mammoth tree he is. He leans forward to kiss my cheek while he rubs my bare shoulder. It’s a little reserved. Where was the wild man from the ranger station? Or the adventurous one the first night in our tent? Or the one who kissed me senseless on our last night together?

You hurt him, I remind myself. He hurt you, my brain replies.

But he’s standing here before me.

In Chicago. “Let’s get out of here,” I whisper, and he chuckles, slipping his warm hand down my arm to my fingers. I grip them hard.

“It appears I might be late to the party. Don’t you have some obligations tonight?”

“You aren’t late.” I exhale. It’s only been twelve days, twenty hours, and roughly three minutes but not late. “I need to give a toast, but the second I’m done, you’re mine,” I groan, the wild in me clearly reaching out for him.

17

The man in the mirror

[Giant]

You’re mine. I shouldn’t like the sound of that as much as I do, but I do. I so do. Her dress is hideous, but she’s so beautiful with her chestnut hair piled at the nape of her neck and soft curls framing her face. She’s wearing makeup, which I hadn’t seen her wear while camping, so she looks different. Still pretty but polished. I want to smear her lips with mine. For a moment there, I thought she’d jump into my arms, but something stopped her. My heart dropped.

I’ve waited twelve days to see her. I can hold out another hour to have her alone.

“The wedding was on a Friday?” I expected to arrive in time for a rehearsal dinner, surprising her and giving us time to talk. Instead, I walked into the Drake without a room or a plan to find the placard in the lobby announcing the wedding in the ballroom.

“My sister wanted to be unconventional.” Letty lifts a glass of wine for her lips. “Just like how she obtained her new husband.”

She’s already told me she isn’t bitter about him and her. It’s more the principle of their meeting, and I understand. Cheating is unacceptable. Disloyalty, lies, half-hidden truths. I don’t care for any of the sort even though I’m guilty of a few on a minor level.