Page 134 of Matlock
Like being gay was a fucking hobby.
“Marjorie,” Goliath said, his voice low and warning. “You need to walk away.”
“I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking,” she said, straightening. “It’s one thing to defend family, but it’s another to—”
Goliath moved faster than I would have thought possible.
One second, he was standing on the other side of Haizley; the next, he was right in front of me, his massive frame blocking Marjorie from view. He reached down, grabbed my face with both hands, and kissed me.
Hard.
On the mouth.
In front of everyone.
My brain short-circuited.
What the fuck—
Goliath’s lips were firm, insistent, and completely arousing. But this wasn’t just a statement. This was aclaim. His mouth opened against mine, and his tongue slipped past my lips with deliberate intensity, tasting me, owning the moment. His hands tightened on my face, angling my head to deepen the kiss, and I felt the raw power of him, all that controlled strength and size pressing down on me.
I’d always been attracted to him. How could I not be? The way his massive frame moved with surprising grace. The way his hands could be gentle with Haizley and devastating to anyone who hurt someone who meant something to him. The way he commanded a room just by existing in it. There was something primal about him, something that made my body respond on an instinctual level.
But it wasn’t him I loved.
Goliath’s tongue stroked against mine, slow and deliberate, and heat flooded through me. My hands came up to grip his cut, needing something to anchor myself as the kiss deepened further. He made a low sound of approval, his mouth moving against mine with a possessiveness that was purely performative. He was putting on a show for the diner, for Marjorie, for everyone watching.
Yet my body didn’t seem to care about the distinction.
When he finally pulled back, I was flushed and dazed, my lips swollen and tingling, my breathing ragged. His hands lingered on my face for a moment longer, his blue eyes intense as they held mine.
“Does that clear things up?” Goliath said loudly, his voice carrying through the now silent diner, his hands still framing my face. “You got a problem with who he is, Marjorie, then you got a problem with all of us.”
My heart was pounding. My lips tingled. My mind was racing to catch up with what had just happened.
Goliath wasn’t into me. He had an old lady. This wasn’t—
Oh.
Oh, he did this on purpose.
But God, for a moment there, I’d felt something. Something that made me question everything I thought I knew about my own desires. Something that made me forget, just for a second, that my heart belonged to someone else.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but I never got the chance.
Because Tonyexploded.
“GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF HIM!”
The roar tore through the diner like a detonation, raw, feral,unhinged.I barely had time to process the sound before Tony’s hand clamped around my arm with bruising force andshoved me behind him so violently, I nearly fell.
I stared in horror as Tony’s fist connected with Goliath’s face.
The impact wassavage, not a controlled punch but a desperate, violent explosion of rage. Goliath’s head snapped back with a sickeningcrack,blood spraying from his split lip and nose. He staggered backward, nearly falling, his hand coming up to his face.
The dinererupted.
Chairs scraped. Voices shouted. Someone screamed.
