Them. Those big-breasted blondes with tattoos. The ones he always fell for.
My lips tightened in anger, and I spun around, running into Wheeler.
I snatched his shirt and balled it up in my fist. “You owe me one.”
He lowered his head to the left. “Yeah. And?”
“Put me on your shoulders.”
His eyes widened with disbelief. “You want what?”
“I want you to put your head between my legs and lift me up.”
Someone patted him on the shoulder and laughed. “If you don’t take her up on that offer, I will. I’d love to put my head between her—”
Wheeler knocked the guy in the jaw and then spun around. I nervously gripped his hair as he lifted me off the ground. Damn, Wheeler was strong, and his shoulders and arms felt like granite. He handled me as if I weighed nothing.
There I was—the one and only thing that Jericho couldn’t possibly ignore. My red hair was illuminated beneath a low spotlight directly overhead.
Jericho abruptly stopped singing, but the music kept going. His eyes slid from my red hair down to the Pink Floyd shirt.
The one that said “I love you” by simply being on my body. The one he’d asked me to wear when I was ready to tell him what he meant to me.
I held my breath and vaguely heard Wheeler complaining about how tightly I was fisting his hair.
Hell’s bells, Jericho looked lickable. Smoldering eyes pulled me in like magnets. Strands of his long hair had lighter shades of brown, just enough to make you notice him a little bit more. He had on his smoky eyeliner, not that I went for guys who wore makeup, but it had always been part of his act. He said onstage it worked to a man’s advantage to draw attention to his eyes when they were light in color. My brows knitted when he turned away and dragged the microphone stand to Trevor, patting him on the shoulder. The tempo changed to a different song, and Trevor took over, singing a slower ballad in a hungry voice that made a few women gasp.
Jericho leapt off the stage and sliced through the crowd as he moved in my direction. I got the shivers just watching his swagger and the animalistic way in which his eyes devoured me. I remembered his heated kiss, the way he made me laugh, and the way he loved me. I remembered a guy who sat next to me on a rainy day at a bus stop and held a magazine over my head in a failed attempt to keep me dry, who invited me for donuts and coffee until the rain stopped. It had gone on for three days, and it seemed like that’s how long we stayed in that shop together, talking and realizing the friendship between us was effortless. Jericho made me a stronger woman, and I wanted to make him a stronger man. I wanted to see him succeed in life and have everything he’d ever wanted.
But right now, it looked like he only wanted one thing.
“Isabelle, is there something you want to tell me?”
I looked down at him with a foolish grin, his brother between my legs, flanked by his pack who’d begun to close in on us. In front of everyone who mattered and others who didn’t, I told him what I’d been holding back for decades.
“Jericho Sexton Cole, I love you to pieces. I love the man you were, the man you’ve become, and most of all I love the way you love me.”
His shoulders sagged as if he’d been holding his breath. “Come down here.”
Wheeler set me down, and my stomach knotted when I saw that Jericho wasn’t smiling. He didn’t kiss me, twirl me, lift me into his arms, or do any of the silly romantic things that I thought might happen after giving him my declaration of love.
“Are you mad?” I asked.
His mouth formed a grim line, and he shook his head. “You bailed on me tonight during the first song.”
“Are you serious?” I said, my voice raising an octave. “I had to drive all the way home in hellacious traffic. I hit almost every red light, I almost hit a cat, and all so I could put on this shirt!” I said, tugging at the fabric. “Are you seriously upset that I didn’t hear you sing?”#p#分页标题#e#
“Yeah, I kind of am.” He stepped forward and tilted his head to the side. “I had plans.”
“Did I miss the striptease act?”
“Baby, there’s only one thing I want to take off for you.”
He reached beneath his shirt and lifted a long silver chain from his neck. My knees weakened when a smile tugged at his mouth and he fell to one knee, holding my left hand.
“Isabelle Marie Monroe, will you be my life mate?”
A ring slid on my left ring finger, and it sparkled like nothing I’d ever seen before—like a supernova. The chain still hung from it, and my hands trembled. Jericho’s cheeks flushed, beads of sweat appearing on his brow as he looked at me expectantly.