by Amy Olle
He wasn’t a saint, or a prude, but he was discriminating. Cautious.
Even so, as he watched the unknown woman with Emily, the fire coursing through his veins implored him to throw it all away, all the caution and common sense and restraint he’d ever held on to, for nothing more than the chance to discover her name.
Chapter Three
Haven approached Emily with an apology on her lips. “I’m so sorry I’m late—”
Emily scrambled to her feet and threw her arms around Haven. “I’m so glad y-y-you’re h-here,” she whispered, squeezing tight.
At the fierce desperation in Emily’s deep-tissue hug, Haven’s heart pinched. All the angst and frustration she’d experienced in the past twenty-four hours melted into an inconsequential puddle on the floor.
She slid into the booth. “I almost gave up. This place is nearly impossible to get to.”
Emily sat across from her. “I’m sorry it’s b-been so awful for y-y-you.”
Haven lifted the wineglass in her hand. “I’m almost recovered from the trauma.”
Emily laughed, as Haven had hoped she would.
She leaned forward with a conspiratorial smile. “So tell me, which one is he?”
A blush touched Emily’s cheeks. With a quick scan of the room, she pointed to the bar where another mouthwatering piece of tuxedoed man candy stood beside the hottie with the probing gaze.
Haven’s mouth fell slack. “Holy shit, I’m just gonna say it—your husband is freaking hot. Does he have any brothers?” she teased.
Emily held up her hand. “F-Four of them.”
A pang struck Haven beneath the breastbone. “Wow, four brothers?” The old wound, scarred and calloused over after so long, hardly hurt anymore. “Are they all as hot as Luke?”
Emily blushed. “Luke stands out, but y-yes, they’re all good-looking and w-wildly successful. One’s a w-world-famous professor.” She craned her neck and rocked forward and back. “He’s the one next to Luke. W-We like him. He’s smart and funny, and super sweet.”
Haven straightened, trying to peer around a cluster of bodies passing by their table at just that moment. She leaned back, and when the path cleared, she caught a glimpse of him standing beside Emily’s groom.
He was a college professor? The tuxedo skimmed his tall frame, lean except for the wide span of his shoulders. With his imposing size and carelessly tousled hair, his appeal was so much more than the summation of his pleasant features and dark coloring. He had an aura. Edgy and confident. Compelling. And he was smart, too?
Haven licked her lips. He was the total, delectable package.
Too bad she’d given up sleeping with men she met in bars years ago.
She sipped her wine while Emily spoke. “O-one brother quit law to run this p-pub and o-one is a p-p-professional hoc—”
Someone bumped Haven’s elbow and wine sloshed over the rim of her glass onto her skirt. She bristled, but froze at the expression that came over Emily’s face when a woman with bottle-blonde hair dropped into the booth beside her.
“So, Emma.” The woman snickered. “Have you met my friend Kate?”
Emily’s features morphed from wary to panic-stricken.
Kate, a leggy blonde with large breasts and dewy skin, bore a striking resemblance to a Victoria’s Secret catalog model, even down to her wide-set, cornflower-blue eyes.
Which blazed with envy as she gazed at Emily.
Kate sank into the booth next to Haven. “Congratulations.” The word held a teardrop of heartbreak in it. “I didn’t know you and Luke were even dating.”
Emily’s throat worked. “Oh, w-well, uh… w-w-we… uh….”
Were these women the reason for the desperation in Emily’s hug? Was she so in need of a friend, any friend, that she’d even take one as pathetic as Haven?
“It was a bit of a whirlwind romance. Love at first sight.” The words spilled out of Haven. “I mean, what’s not to love, am I right, Emily?” She couldn’t resist hanging the heavy emphasis on her friend’s name.
A Cheshire cat smile curled Bottle-Blonde’s lips, and she raised her pint. “How about a toast? To love at first sight?”
Haven bit down ruthlessly on her tongue. This was Emily’s wedding day. She would not ruin it by informing one of the guests that she was being a bitch. She would keep her mouth shut no matter what, because she didn’t let her passions rule her anymore.
With the look of someone about to swallow poison, Emily lifted her glass.
Blondie squinted at the champagne flute in Emily’s trembling hand. “Wait, is that water? Why are you drinking water at your wedding reception?”
Riotous color rushed into Emily’s cheeks.
Haven winced with Emily’s pained expression.
Just as Blondie’s scandalized gasp pierced the air. “Oh. My. God. Are you pregnant?”
The color drained from Emily’s face, her honest features confirming the accusation. Her mouth moved wordlessly and her toffee-brown eyes filled with watery panic.
Haven’s heart wrenched for her friend.
The bitch chortled. “So that’s why he married you.”
Jack couldn’t pull his gaze off the woman. Thus, he watched the tension arise between the quartet, and his sister-in-law’s smile disappear with it. When the peachy color drained from her face, an eerie calmness came over her friend whose name he didn’t yet know. The dark-haired beauty remained stock-still in the booth, like a jungle cat poised to pounce on her unsuspecting prey.
Jack glanced over at Luke, who remained surrounded by people, his line of sight to his wife blocked.
Noah and Shea, engaged in a robust debate about the proper mechanics involved in pouring a pint of Guinness, didn’t seem to notice their sister-in-law’s growing misery.
Jack pushed a heavy sigh through his lips. He wasn’t a hero.
Not a romantic and not a hero.
Still, he had a reputation in the NHL as an enforcer, and if his sister-in-law needed someone to step in and deliver a hit for her, Jack was her man.
He slid off the barstool, and as he picked his way across the crowded barroom, someone called out his name in friendly greeting. He turned his head toward the sound—
A sharp cry rang out. His head snapped around in the direction of Emily’s booth as chaos erupted.
The overprocessed blonde lunged across the table and pounced on Jack’s woman, who deftly wriggled out from under the assault.
Then it was all thrashing hair and long, writhing limbs. Curvy body parts bounced and swayed in glorious, carnal combat. The tight skirt strained over his woman’s luscious ass, which clenched and jiggled with her epic struggle.
Gaaawdddaaamn.
With a piercing shriek and the devil’s scowl, the blonde relaunched herself and Jack snapped out of his lust-filled stupor. He charged forward and hooked his arm around his woman’s waist, hauling her back from the fray.
She was fierce and fiery in his arms.
“Holy shit.” Jack gasped for air. “I think that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”
The woman twisted in his arms, craning her neck to look up at him. A gasp burst from her. Her ample breasts, which rested atop his forearm, rose and fell with her labored breathing as she gazed up at him with huge, dark eyes.
“I might say the same thing,” she said, her cheeks flushed pink with exertion.
If he had been the romantic type, he might’ve fallen in love with her then and there.
His hold on her tightened. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Hi, I’m Jack.”
“Hi, Jack. I’m Haven.”
Haven. Hot name to go along with that hot ass.
“You bitch.” The blonde seethed. “She threw her drink at me.”
Haven blinked her wide, doe eyes. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened. The glass slipped right out my hand.”
The blonde coiled with tension, and secretly, Jack prayed that she would reengage.
Instead, she pressed
a palm to her cheek and, with a feeble huff, stalked away.
Haven peeked up at him from beneath the long sweep of her eyelashes. She tipped her chin in the direction her vanquished foe had fled. “Sorry, but she was mean to my friend.”
Jack’s gaze swept over Emily, whose misery had turned to stunned disbelief as she openly gaped at them.
“Your friend is my new sister-in-law,” he said. “So I thank you.”
Haven’s laugh came out on a puff of air. “Are you single, Jack?”
Without releasing his hold on her, he reached up and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “As a matter of fact, I am, Haven.” His fingertips stroked her silky-soft skin and a shock of electricity shot through him.
Her breath caught. “Are you going to let me go, Jack?” Her voice dropped to a husky whisper that squeezed his balls.
His gaze fastened on her mouth. “No, I don’t think I will.”
He might hold on forever.
“Emily, where are you?” a voice boomed over the pub’s sound system.
Jack looked up as Emily turned toward the front of the pub. His gaze followed the path hers had taken, over the wall of the crowd to Luke, standing on the small stage, a guitar strapped to his body.
“C’mon up here, sweetheart.” Luke teased the bars of a song on his instrument. “Let’s show these jackasses how it’s done.”
The color leached from Emily’s face. She swayed slightly, but stiffened and remained upright.
Jack’s hold on Haven relaxed, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to let her go completely.
“Em, are you okay?” Haven asked.
Emily didn’t respond, nor did she move. She stayed rooted to the spot, motionless and pale as a porcelain statue. One by one, people turned to stare at her, and with each set of eyeballs that landed on her, Jack could feel the panic mounting within her.
She was going to bolt, and if he were perfectly honest, Jack wasn’t certain his brother would have a wife when it was all said and done.
He dropped his arm, though the other lingered loosely around Haven’s waist. He leaned closer to Emily, close enough that she might steal a bit of his strength.
“What do you say, Em?” He forced a hitch of playfulness into his tone. “One of us should go up there and kick his ass, don’t you think?”
A startled laugh—or was it a sob?—burst from her. Toffee-brown eyes clamped onto his face.
His mouth pushed up at one corner. “Is it going to be you or me?”
Her brows pulled together with the faintest hint of a determined scowl. She might’ve moved, or did he only imagine it?
Then—there, she did it again. She took one tiny, infinitesimal fraction of a step forward.
Then another.
Suddenly, Luke appeared before her, his hand outstretched. She hesitated, and her pain-filled gaze locked onto her husband’s face.
Luke’s throat worked, and then, finally, she placed her hand in his. As Luke pulled Emily through the buzzing crowd toward the stage, Jack heaved a relieved sigh.
He looked down to find Haven still nestled against his body, gazing up at him with shimmering brown eyes. Something soft and slippery danced in their warm depths. Not lust or attraction—well, not solely. Gratitude? Admiration?
Whatever it was, his body hummed with appreciation of it. Like the lit fuse of a firecracker, it sizzled through his veins with a delicious crackle. At any moment, it might blow.
He welcomed the destruction.
His eyes were the most unusual color. Neither green nor gold, the color vacillated between the rich jewel tones. They ensnared her.
As she stared into their kaleidoscope centers, her body pressed against the length of his long, well-muscled frame. With his arm still wrapped around her waist, his other hand slid down her arm to the fine bones of her wrist, where he pressed the tips of his fingers to her throbbing pulse point.
He entwined his fingers with hers as overhead the chords of a melodious ballad began to play. Neither Jack nor Haven spoke, just gazed into each other’s eyes as they began to sway gently with the music. Jack’s palm smoothed in tight, tiny circles on her lower back as Emily’s sultry, fragile vocals intermingled with the strong, clear tone of Luke’s voice.
Together, they sang. A love song, or a lover’s lament, Haven didn’t know. The words didn’t matter. Their song poured over and around her and Jack, locking them together inside a solitary sphere. An insulated shelter that hummed with their awareness of one another.
Her gaze devoured the interesting angles and fine contours of his features, and his crisp, spicy scent soothed her senses as they swayed and yet barely moved to the music. His hands on her body stoked the flicker of heat rising inside her. Heat and something else.
Something more.
Something calming, comforting.
Her heart swelled with the chorus. His head bent low, and her pulse skittered.
Then his mouth met hers in a kiss. Nothing sloppy or out of control, just the barest brush of fire.
At the gentle friction of his lips against hers, a delicious tension began to build low in her belly. Her tongue slipped out to take a tiny lick of his lower lip and a dizzying rush swooped through her.
He tasted like freedom.
She clutched at the lapel of his tuxedo and his hands came up to cup the sides of her face. When he broke the kiss, he didn’t move his hands.
“Haven….” He swallowed hard.
“I know.” She felt it, too, this thing zinging between them.
The crowd sent up a wild cheer and Haven jolted, having forgotten the others. Jack’s arm slipped protectively around her waist.
A confused pucker crinkled the spot between his brows. “I can’t explain it, but I can’t bring myself to let you go. Haven.”
The sound of her name on his lips sent a delicious shiver shuddering through her. “I don’t want you to let me go, Jack.”
A sensuous light flickered in his eyes. “What are we to do, then?”
“Keep holding on, I guess.”
His arms tightened around her as another song began to play. “I can do that.”
She couldn’t catch her breath as he gently rocked her in time to the music. The haze of instant, all-consuming lust enveloped her and she got lost in studying his face. In the dim lighting, she didn’t at first notice the small scar above his left eye, or the one catching the corner of his puffy bottom lip.
Her lust-addled mind grappled with the information. Had he been a fighter as a child? Small and picked on? He did have four brothers, after all.
Suddenly, she wanted to know everything about him.
Her fingers danced over the warm skin at the back of his neck and toyed with his soft hair. “Are you close to your brothers?”
He seemed surprised by her question at first, but then a frown turned down the corners of his mouth. “No, actually. Not as close as I’d like.” A frisson of vulnerability rippled over his features. “I travel a lot for work and don’t see them often.”
A college professor traveled a lot? Honestly, she knew little about the job. She’d started to ask him when his hand shifted from the dip of her waist to the curve her hip.
Her thoughts scattered. There was nothing scandalous about his touch, but she sensed he hovered at the edge, his desire and restraint a potent mix that caused her heart to beat at a frantic pace.
A body bumped into her from behind. With a slight turn, Jack angled his big body around her, protecting her like a shield.
“Would you like a drink?” He spoke low next to her ear.
She shook her head. She didn’t want anything that involved leaving the security of his arms, and she didn’t want a single drop of alcohol to dull or alter the full force of her experience inside his embrace.
She lifted her chin and looked into his face. “I want….”
He tilted his head. “What is it? What do you want?”
“I want you… and I….”
The gold
light in his eyes flared.
“I want us….”
His grip on her hip tightened. “Say more.” He cleared his throat. “Please.”
“We’re both single, and sober.” She didn’t understand why her voice trembled. “If we wanted to… get closer, just for tonight, is there any reason we shouldn’t?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Are we talking about a hookup?”
Haven blushed. She never blushed. Maybe it was the heat swirling in his kaleidoscope eyes. Or the way he thought to protect her, and Emily. Or maybe her heart had fixated on him the moment she glimpsed his obvious longing to be closer to his brothers.
He had a good heart, she was certain of it, and she wanted to reach out and touch it. To experience its softness and warmth, for a time. She wanted to recall what it felt like to love and live, and take her pleasure in the heat and strength of a man like him. Something she hadn’t allowed herself to do in a very long time.
“Y-yes. A hookup. One night, no regrets.”
A cool shadow chased across his face. “I don’t sleep with women I’ve just met.”
Haven flinched. Neither did she sleep with men she’d only just met. Not anymore.
There was a time in her life, when she was lost and lonely and more than a little troubled, that she’d sought sex with unfamiliar men to fill the hole near her heart, but those days were far behind her.
She enjoyed sex. Good sex, that was. Sex with those men, men she didn’t know and who didn’t care that they didn’t know her, wasn’t good sex. Not because they were strange to her, but because she’d had sex with them for all the wrong reasons. Reasons that had too little to do with their merits and everything to do with her lack of self-worth.
Sex, she enjoyed. That sex, she regretted. Regretted that she’d given them everything. Her respect. Her vulnerability. Her heart. She gave it all away, though they didn’t deserve any of it.
Haven didn’t think she’d regret sex with Jack, and if the rioting in her veins was any indication, she’d definitely enjoy it, but the last thing she wanted was for him to have regrets about her.