Then—the hand on her elbow, holding tight.
“Stop this. Be honest. Let me kiss you and remind you of what we had, Jill. I promise you’ll realize what a mistake you’re making.”
“I’d recommend you take your hand off of her and step back,” I growl, dropping a hand to James’s tight shoulder.
He whirls on me, releasing Jill too quickly for her to regain her balance. She stumbles back, and her back makes contact with the wall, making her wince. Her eyes fly to mine and stay there, relief blazing bright inside of them.
I try to dial back my anger. Punching this guy isn’t going to be helpful to either of us, especially not today. But I want to. More than that, I want to break every bone in his hand so that he’ll never forget the repercussions of touching her.
Instead, I roll my jaw and shift to stand in front of Jill. I reach back with a semi-formed fist, just needing to touch her. My rage softens when she takes my hand in hers and slowly uncurls my fingers. James is silent as he stares at me, unable to see her now. The annoyance in his expression doesn’t disappear, but he’s nolonger curling his lip at me like a rabid dog who just lost his favourite toy.
“Jill doesn’t need you to fight her battles for her, Greg.”
I suck my teeth and let that petty dig run off my back. “She can speak for herself. You didn’t need to put your hands on her to get a point across.”
“Come on, man. We all know this is just a ploy. You don’t have to convince me,” he pushes, not letting it go.
Jill slips her fingers through mine and clutches them tight. I give a responding squeeze and suck in a calming breath. This is not the situation I wanted us to be in this morning.
“To be blunt, James, I don’t give a flying fuck if you believe it or not. I’m crazy about this woman, and my feelings are the furthest thing from a ploy. I’ve been wanting Jill for years, and now that I have her, I’m not letting her go. Especially not to you, a man who I hadn’t so much as heard a whisper about before a week ago.”
His expression tightens, frustration and anger mixing to create something cruel that has me bristling. He clears his throat and crosses his arms, attempting to appear bigger, maybe. It doesn’t work. I’ve got at least three inches on him and a solid twenty pounds. But he can try and intimidate me. It’ll be fun to watch him fail.
“I doubt you know even half the things about her that I do,” he snarks.
I almost laugh. “Try me.”
“Can we not make this some petty competition, James? I need to go up and get ready for my sister’s wedding, in case you forgot,” Jill says, sighing heavily.
I hold still while she comes to stand beside me and rests her opposite hand on my bicep, holding me. It’s all I can do not to sweep her into my arms and kiss her against the vending machine, James be damned. After last night, kissing her untilour mouths are puffy and sore is the only thing I want to spend our morning doing.
“If you’re nervous that he’s going to fail, then just admit that this is all some stupid joke, Jill. We can put an end to it now.”
Her annoyance is obvious, but as much as I’d like to simply walk away with her without playing into his hand, I can’t get myself to move. It’s the dark, obsessive part of my mind that has me rooting myself into the carpet and clearing my throat. I need to put an end to this before I can do anything else.
Pinning James beneath my sharp gaze, I say, “I doubt you even know half of these things yourself, but if you want me to prove how well I know her, then I’ll do that. And once I’m finished, you’re going to go back to your room, pack your things, and leave without so much as contemplating attending a wedding that you are no longer invited to attend. Is that clear?”
His responding smile is grimaced, forced as he nods. Jill brings her hand higher up my arm, and yeah, I might flex a bit. The tensing of her fingers is exactly what I wanted and almost needed right now.
“She doesn’t have a favourite colour, but if she had to choose just one, it would be a soft, pastel blue because it looks the best with her skin tone. If you give her the choice of movie, she’ll always choose a horror film, specificallyIT, because for some reason I don’t understand, she likes clowns and, despite having seen it a million times, doesn’t get sick of it. She takes her coffee with three sugars and a flavoured creamer. It doesn’t matter which flavour, as long as it’s sweet enough to make your teeth ache. Her friends are the most important people to her, and she loves kids, babies especially. They love her right back. I think everyone who meets her does because she doesn’t hide how much she adores those in her life. They—we—can feel it with every twinkle of laughter and wide grin, and that means more than she knows.
“If you want to go toe to toe here, I’ll win, James. I’ve got a vault in my mind with her name on it, and if you give me the time, I’ll spend days, maybe even weeks, listing every single thing I’ve ever noticed about her. So, you can doubt this all you want. It doesn’t mean anything to me, because I know how I feel and what I’m willing to do to prove myself to her every single day for the rest of my life. That’s something I know you wouldn’t do. Are we done here now?”
It’s pin-drop silent when I finish.
I wait for him to reply, but when his face flushes a deep, ugly shade of red, I know he won’t. There isn’t anything for him to say that will matter. Not to him, or me, or the woman beside me, and that says more than enough. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest to see him walk away.
His footsteps carry down the hallway as he stalks to wherever his room is. I wait for even a tickle of guilt to hit me for being so pointed with him, but nothing comes. Instead, all I feel is a blistering desire to kiss Jill and ensure that she knows everything I just said was the truth.
She beats me to it.
A hand presses to my face and turns me toward her. I only get a brief glance at her wide eyes and pink cheeks before she’s pressing onto her toes and yanking me down for a kiss.
The taste of her lips makes everything else fade to nothing, and I’m content to stay lost in this gap in reality for the rest of eternity.
13
JILL
