Velvet Kisses(33)
“Well, hello, stranger.” Jemma attaches herself to his side and sniffs his neck doing her best impression of a golden retriever. “Rumor has it you’re showing some interest in my little sister. You sure you want to run in the kiddie pool? I think a man like you needs a real woman who knows what to do with that equipment you’re wielding.” She licks his tie—oh, God, kill me—she slips to her knees until Izzy hoists her back up again.
“This is my sister, Jemma,” I say pushing both Izzy and Jemma toward the bar, but they bounce right back like a pair of unwanted boomerangs.
“Say, don’t I know you from somewhere?” Jemma stirs the air with her finger, missing his nose by inches.
Izzy pulls her back just enough for her finger not to lodge in his nostril. “He was one of my blind dates a while back.”
Jemma jerks with delight. “The toe licker!”
“No, eww.” Izzy mouths I’m sorry over to me once again.
“It’s nice to meet you, Jemma.” Wyatt makes an attempt to shake her hand while pushing out that killer grin of his. “I don’t believe we’ve met before. I’m pretty sure I would remember you.”
Like forever. And not in a good way. God forbid her foot ever attempts to go anywhere near his mouth.
“One-night stand with Izzy?” Jemma’s jaw goes slack. “One-night stand with my sister? Where’s the back of the line, honey? Because I am headed in that direction!”
Sobering up is clearly not on Jemma’s to-do list at the moment.
“No!” Izzy shouts above the music. “Wyatt and I had a blind date not a one-night stand.” She gives a nervous smile to Holt. “Trust me, there was no standing involved.”
“She dumped him for me.” Holt gives a shit-eating grin, and something in the way he’s flashing his pride like a badge warms me. What is it with the Edwards clan and finding the right one? The entire lot of them should be in Guinness or in Ripley’s Believe it or Not. True love for sure is an “or not” event at least where I’m concerned. It’s certainly hard to believe in.
“Well”—Jemma curls her finger under Wyatt’s chin and growls—“when you get dumped by my sweet baby sister, why don’t you look me up?”
Look her up? In what? The welfare line?
Poor Wyatt. Hell, poor me. Just because Jemma is soaked in chardonnay or whatever the hell else she’s been drinking doesn’t excuse her from trying to steal my appointed human vibrator from beneath me. God knows, Jemma has never had a problem finding a power tool of the male variety all by her lonesome. When she finally sobers up, she can look forward to having the spiked end of my stiletto aiming for her rear—sooner if she threatens him with a one-night stand again. That’s my job. Not that I ever succeeded at it, besides I’ve got my sights on the bigger picture now. And, I have a feeling one night with Wyatt will never be enough.
“I’d better find her some coffee.” Izzy shuttles her toward the bar once again.
“And a muzzle,” I say under my breath.
“You’d better find me a man!” My sister gives the command with a violent shriek.
“Lovely, isn’t she?” I wrinkle my nose and freeze in that position. Each time Jemma humiliates me, I have a visceral response. I’ve lost track of how many times my sister has been the specific cause of mortification in my life, but tonight, for whatever reason, she’s decided to take the crap cake and smear it in Wyatt’s poor face. “She’s really a different person when she’s not hammered.” Or awake.
“She seems sweet.” Wyatt steps into my line of vision, his easy grin softening just a bit. “You’re beautiful.” His fingers gently brush the hair from my shoulders. His eyes lay over mine like a fire. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Marley.”
A bashful smile comes and goes as my cheeks heat ten shades. Wyatt has the power to touch me to the marrow with a few simple words. “Same to you.” I turn my face towards his fully, and any ill will I felt toward my sister melts like cotton candy in the rain. “Did you come to see your brother tonight?” I nod to the stage. A part of me doesn’t want that to be the answer.
“Nope.” He pulls a single red rose from behind his back, and I die a little at the sight of the tight, red bud. “I came to see you.”
My mouth drops open, and a series of tingles vibrate over me all at once.
“I’m stunned. I don’t know what to say.” I can hardly catch my breath. My heart pulsates with a violent tremor as if this simple act were the most thoughtful proclamation. I used to sneer at guys who plied their girlfriends with flowers, and, now, here I have a single beautiful rose staring me in the face, and it feels like the most precious act of thoughtfulness in the world. All those poor, pitiful stems from Will were nothing more than rhetoric. And, from Wyatt, it feels ten times more special.