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Startled out of my musings, I move as Audrey pushes past me dragging a smiling Lottie with her.
“Where are you taking her?”
Audrey laughs and pats my cheek in an annoyingly familiar way that she has when she’s drunk. “Relax, cousin, I won’t let anything happen to her.”
Lottie looks at me and I see doubt has crept its way onto her pretty face. I hate that she thinks I’m displeased. I want her to be happy, to sink so far into this marriage that she’ll never want to leave.
“Go, have fun. I’ll be waiting here.”
Her returning smile and the way she tentatively bends to press a kiss to my lips, her hand cupping my chin, makes me suck in a breath, filling my nostrils with the scent of her until I’m drowning in it. She’s gone before I can react, pulled away by a different member of my family this time.
A hand claps me on my shoulder and I turn to see a grinning Harrison. “How’s married life, buddy? You sure shocked the shit out of us.”
I shake my head as he and the others laugh at my expense, but I don’t feel anger, only a tentative contentment. “Fuck off.”
“Well, was the virgin pussy worth the shackles of marriage?”
My gaze slashes to Ryker and I feel an overwhelming anger at his words. He hasn’t said anything untoward as such. We talk like this frequently, but Lottie is different. She’s my wife. “Watch your fucking mouth when you’re talking about my wife.”
My hardened stare seems to cut into him, the warning evident as he freezes, placing his drink slowly back on the table. The others remain silent as if sensing a shift in me and wary of how it might play out.
I can’t explain it, nor do I even want to try when I barely understand it myself. I just know that however this started between me and Lottie, she’s now my wife and deserves the respect that comes with that title from all of them.
“I meant no harm, Lincoln.”
“I’m aware, but from now on you’ll all treat her with the respect she deserves and keep your fucking hands, dicks, and eyes away from her.”
“Or?” Harrison asks as if testing me.
A coldness sweeps over me as I consider the question. “Or I’ll make the person who tests that warning cease to breathe.”
Ryker smirks at me. “Easy, brother, it was only a joke. Now we know Lottie is off limits, none of us will touch her. You have our word, and she’ll be treated and thought of as if she’s an adopted sister.”
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t think of her at all.”
A deep laugh blooms around the table the tension lifting as fast as it had settled.
“Fuck, man, you have it bad.”
I shake my head. “Don’t talk shit, I have nothing. I just want Lottie to be untouched by you animals and treated with the same courtesy you treat Audrey.”
None of these men would go near my cousin and treat her less than an equal. They know better than to disrespect her like that and I’m just adding my wife to that mix.
“Message received.” Ryker holds his drink aloft. “To Violet and Lincoln, long may she hold the key to his dick.”
I laugh and clink my glass with the others.
A little while later I’m feeling edgy, wondering how long Audrey is going to keep my wife away from me. I head to the balcony railing, ignoring the withering look Monica sends me as I pass her. She was nobody to me and the sooner she works that out the better.
Resting my arms on the edge I looked down at the crowd and my gut clenches when I see my wife. Sudden blinding rage fills me, tempered with a sense of ownership and lust as I spy the woman who’d said vows to me dancing in the middle of a throng of men who look as dazed by her addictive beauty as I am.
My feet are moving before I realize my intent, my body pulled like a magnet to hers. The people on the dance floor separate as I shove through the throng to get to her. Capturing her around the waist from behind, I feel her stiffen and then relax as if she senses it’s me without even turning her head. I dip my head low, biting her earlobe and whispering a soft warning. “I warned you not to dance with other men, Lottie.”
She goes to speak, but I stop her, spinning her around and hauling her close to my body as people undulate around us like an erotic dance of foreplay. My mouth seizes hers in an angry kiss, meant to punish her for her temptation, but quickly I realize I’m the one being punished as her tongue winds into my mouth, desperate and wanting.
Dragging my mouth from hers, I see the half-lidded desire in her eyes and my restraint snaps. Turning on my heel, I drag her from the dance floor and up the stairs.
“Linc, wait.”
