When James asked me to be his best man, I thought he was joking. Sadly, the joke is on me. Now I’m paired up with the chaotic, loud, attention-seeking Avery Williams. And unfortunately for me, her mouth is as big as her beautiful tits. It’s taking every bit of willpower I possess not to stare. Especially when I know what she’s hiding under that figure-hugging taffeta dress. There isn’t a man on this planet who hasn’t seen a photo of Avery topless and for some reason that irritates the shit out of me almost as much as she does.
She’s beyond irritating—but there’s no denying she’s stunning.
Although, she’s about to be stunningly drunk if she doesn’t stop chugging back the champagne like a student at a free bar.
I watch from my position beside James at the confetti-covered bridal table as she weaves gracefully through the guests, pausing to chat, or air kiss on the way to the bar. The sun set over the sea several hours ago and I just have one more best-man duty to do before I’m off the hook.
The meal is over.
I survived the speeches, thank fuck.
I couldn’t bring myself to say Avery looked pretty.
It would have been a lie.
She looks fucking phenomenal.
I couldn’t bring myself to say that either. Instead, I settled for the word beautiful, and looked at everyone except her when the words left my lips.
‘Great speech,’ James says from my left. He claps a huge hand on my back and I battle a grimace. PDAs aren’t my thing. In fact, I can hardly tolerate being touched at all. ‘Thanks for being my best man,’ James continues, his voice thick with emotion as he reaches for his whiskey. My two older brothers have turned soft since they fell in love. ‘You were the best brother for the job.’
‘It’s an honour.’ I’d do anything for my brothers. Even kill for them.
‘You were the best choice.’ James brings his glass to his lips without taking his eyes from Scarlett as she hands their daughter Halle to our sister, Zara. ‘Rian’s too fucking wild. Caelon has his head so far up Ivy’s ass I can see his shit-eating grin every time she opens her mouth. And Sean, well, he’s just Sean, isn’t he?’
Sean’s a mystery to all of us. There’s barely a year between us, but he’s the brother I know least. He goes out drinking with Rian a lot, but he doesn’t indulge in women the same way Rian does. I sometimes wonder if he has different tastes completely.
‘Ready to do this?’ James looks at the band. They’re setting up on the white wood dancefloor overlooking the beach. Fairy lights adorn every available surface, along with ivory lanterns and huge flickering church candles.
‘One dance and my best man duties are complete.’ The prospect of holding Avery in my arms churns in my stomach, not because I’m repulsed by her–quite the opposite in fact– but she’s everything I avoid in my life. Avery lives for the limelight. I live for the quiet solace of the shadows.
‘You never know, you might enjoy yourself.’ James quirks a thick eyebrow as he rises from the table. ‘Either way, Avery won’t be short of willing men to dance with.’
Heat sparks in my chest, but my lips remain firmly pressed together.
‘I’m going to join my wife,’ he says with a slight smugness. ‘See you on the dance floor.’
The guests flock from the white linen tables towards the dancefloor. The sound of laughter carries on the soft, warm breeze. I reach for my drink, down the whiskey, then reach for James’s unfinished one and neck that too. If I have any hope of surviving Avery’s huge pert breasts pressed against my chest, I’m going to need it. That freak of a photographer might not be the only one with a boner, and unlike his one-man tent, there’d be no missing my industrial sized marquee.
Time to get this over with. I stand, rolling up the sleeves of my crisp white shirt. I lost my suit jacket and bow tie as soon as the photos were over.
The band’s grungy looking drummer, Raven McCormac, is cosying up to Avery as I reach the bar. He touches her arm, whispers something in her ear, and she leans into him and laughs.
‘Shouldn’t you be out there setting up?’ I bark.
‘Shouldn’t you be crunching bones for a toothpick?’ Avery rolls her eyes but steps away from the little drummer boy. Her cheeks are flushed with a tinge of pink. Is it the heat? The alcohol? Or arousal? Does she actually like the dirty-looking douche beside her?
Her topaz eyes fall to my forearms, roam over my chest, then back up to meet my eye. I force a neutral expression. What is it about this woman that gets under my fucking skin?
‘Move,’ I snap and Raven glares at me before stalking back towards the band.
‘How am I meant to get laid when you’re terrorising my potential suitors?’ Avery runs a finger over the stem of her champagne glass and my dick twitches in my pants.
‘Use your imagination. Or your right hand.’ That’s something I’d pay to see. ‘Now, let’s dance.’
‘Keen aren’t you?’ Avery drains her drink again. Is it her fifth? Sixth? I’ve lost count.
She slips her arm through mine again and I bristle at the contact. Without the security of my suit jacket, her bare flesh brushes against mine. Flames lick my skin, shooting in every direction. Not helpful. How can it be possible to dislike someone so much, and still want to fuck them into next week?
‘Keen to get this over with.’
The first chords of Jason Mraz’s ‘I’m Yours’ float through the air as we stride towards the action. A myriad of stars punctuate the sky overhead and the full moon casts a luminosity over the shimmering water. Even I have to admit it’s like a fucking fairytale.
We linger by the edge of the crowd as the lead singer calls Mr and Mrs Beckett to the dancefloor for their first dance. My chest tightens as I watch my brother twirl his wife around the floor like he hasn’t got a care in the world. I’m happy for him. Really, I am. Doesn’t mean I have to blubber up like Avery beside me.
‘It’s just so beautiful,’ she whispers.
So are you. But I learnt the hard way beautiful things can be the deadliest.
The quicker this wedding is over and there’s some distance between us again, the better. She stirs things in me that I’d prefer to remain unstirred. It’s confronting.
Applause fills the air as the song draws to an end and the next one begins. Our turn. The first line of James Arthur’s ‘Say You Won’t Let Go’ drifts into my ears, something mushy about meeting in the dark. I get a flashback of the first time I met Avery. She was dancing at the Luxor Lounge, wearing nothing but a decadent lace triangle between her legs. It was dark then too, but I saw enough to know she was trouble. The subtle flicks of her hair. The way her tongue darted over her lips. The way she demanded my attention, and the attention of every other man in the room, was downright despicable.
It wasn’t her I despised though, not really—I despised myself for wanting her. For being as weak as every other man in the room. I was weak once before and it cost more than I can ever repay. I craved Avery the same way I craved Sarah; the first and only woman I ever loved. And that ended disastrously. I vowed to never be in that position again.
I assumed Avery would stop dancing when she graduated from Trinity. Assumed she’d stop tormenting me with those tits.
I assumed wrongly.
Now they’re in every lads’ magazine. Every lingerie campaign. And she’s all over the TV, radio and internet. There’s no escaping her.
‘Killian,’ her smooth, silky voice jolts me back to the present. ‘We need to move.’
Scarlett’s beckoning us onto the dancefloor, clutching the bottom of her long white dress in one hand. Her giant diamond rings glint like a beacon on the other.
I inhale a lungful of air and blow it out slowly as I follow Avery on to the dancefloor. It’s just a dance. It doesn’t mean anything. I’ve survived a hell of a lot worse.
Scarlett envelops her friend in a huge, teary hug, buying me a few more minutes before Avery’s body will inevitably be pressed against mine.
The sound of Rian’s ear splitting wolf whistle pierces the air and I wince. Avery turns to face me, staring at me for a long beat like her psychology doctorate didn’t entirely go to waste.
Fuck that.
Does she think she can analyse me?
She’d have more luck cracking The Da Vinci Code.
Even I can’t work me out. I relinquished the need to try years ago.
I extend a hand, trying to keep our torso’s apart, but no, she doesn’t get the memo. Her slim hand sinks into mine the same second as her huge breasts rest on my chest.
Fuck.
Her fingers linger on my shoulder. Mine tingle as they gravitate to the womanly curve of her hip. The pebbled outline of her nipples burn against my shirt and sear my skin. Blood rushes to my cock. The intoxicating scent of her peony perfume seeps into my nose.
Tractors.
Football.
Politics.
Brain give me something–anything–to think about other than those fucking taut twin bullets pressing against my pecs. The soft sound of her rhyming off the lyrics is a dangerous melody in my ear. She’s trying to kill me. Her voice is like warm, drizzling honey.
It’s the longest song in history. Four thousand hours pass with us swaying around the dancefloor, me and my dick aware of every damned inch of her. When the song finally draws to an end, I drop her hand like it’s a hot potato and stalk towards the bar.
Thank fuck that’s over. I’ll avoid her for the next five days, until it’s time to go back to Dublin, back to the security of my penthouse, back to work, and back to routine.
The evening passes in a blur. I catch up with cousins I haven’t seen in years, watch my parents sway around the dancefloor like they’re the damn newlyweds, and sink two more whiskeys.
Rian joins me for a while before hitting on the hotel manager, Alexia Farnborough—a razor-sharp Brit with honey-blonde hair cut in a severe bob that somehow manages to be both intimidating and alluring. I watch, shaking my head as she follows him back to his quarters. My little brother is physically unable to keep his dick in his pants.
Guests begin to retire to their suites, while others kick off their designer shoes and dance barefoot in the sand. Some drink like the bar won’t be open tomorrow.
Avery does a combination of the latter two.
Sitting at a high-backed stool by the bar, I watch intently as she sways her hips in time to a reggae beat. Her eyes are closed, she’s surrendered her soul to the song, and she’s dancing like no one’s watching. Although I’m pretty sure every red-blooded male in the vicinity is captivated and drooling. It’s only when she stumbles that I notice just how drunk she is.
I leap to my feet, but that slimy prick Thorne beats me over to her. ‘Avery, love, I’ll walk you back to your room.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’ The words have barely left my lips when three of my security team appear, looking menacing in their dark suits and ear pieces. Thorne slopes away like a rat back into his hole.
‘Maybe I should go to bed?’ Avery slurs, wobbling on her feet again. ‘I do feel a bit woozy, but I’m having so much fun.’
I catch her arm and steady her. ‘Party’s almost over anyway, princess.’ Exasperation tinges my tone. What kind of state is this to get herself into? Has she no regard for her own well-being or safety?
‘Want us to escort her back to her suite?’ Blake Sterling, my second in command, asks. He’s built like a brick shithouse with the temper of a two-year-old. He didn’t earn his nickname, Psycho Sterling, for nothing.
‘No, I’ve got her.’
Avery is almost asleep standing. I’ve never seen her so docile.
I scan the rapidly dispersing crowd. The band are packing up their equipment. ‘Take me to bed, Killian,’ Avery sighs dreamily.
In my darkest fantasies, I’ve imagined those words from her lips, but never like this.
Her head rolls onto my chest and she snuggles in closer. How much did she fucking drink?
I sweep her up into my arms like a rag doll, carrying her the short walk to her suite. She’s in room 101, overlooking the beach. I know which room everyone is in—for security reasons. I have a master key which opens all of them—also for security reasons. I reach into my back pocket and fish it out.
The second the door swings open, every hair on my body pricks to attention.
Something’s wrong.
Someone’s been in here.
Don’t ask how I know, but I do. I have an innate instinct for danger and right now it’s screaming at me.
I touch my earpiece. ‘Sterling, room 101. NOW.’
Nudging the door open wider, I flick a switch on the inside wall and brilliant, harsh light floods the room.
My blood turns to ice the moment I see it—a black calla lily placed with surgical precision in the centre of her white silk sheets.
There’s a handwritten note tucked beneath it.
Four simple words set my world on fire.
I’m coming for you.
