Page 24 of Anger Bang
He knew his mother’s smile lied.
“Oh my God, this leotard is giving me the absolute biggest wedgie,” Thea said as she hooked her arm through his and tore his attention away from the cute little mother-son reunion that made him want to puke.
And that’s when the fact that there was a camera focused right on him registered. Oh yeah, there were two cameras getting every second of Dex and their mom, but Justine had one cameraperson zeroed in on him. No doubt she’d done her research on every member of the wedding party to wring as much drama as possible out of this wedding. Years of honing her skills as a reality TV producer had to have given her the ability to smell blood in the water. She knew which vein to cut to get the results she wanted.
But here was Thea, like a quickly applied Band-Aid to stop the flow. How in the hell she’d known, he had no clue, but he wasn’t about to fight the life raft she was offering.
“You have got to come over here so we can be the first ones to take the self-guided brewery tour.” She tugged him away from the front of the brewery and over to the side of the log-cabin-like building where the other bridesmaids and groomsmen were gathering around a surly lumberjack-looking guy holding a tray of beer flights.
“Are they still following?” Thea asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Kade checked over his left shoulder and spotted the cameraperson sort of standing behind a tree. “Yeah.”
“Well then, let’s just start that tour.” She all but dragged him through the door into what looked like a supersized garage filled with tanks, each decorated with an oversize sticker showing a bear in attack mode. No one else was in there—no doubt they were all dealing with the rest of the bridal party outside.
Thea peeked behind them once the door swung shut and let out a relieved sigh. “Mom let it slip that the brewery wouldn’t let them film inside. You doing okay? Who was that? You looked like you were staring down the grill of a Mack truck.”
“My mother,” he ground out from between clenched teeth. “And as long as I don’t have to come that close to her again for the rest of this week, I’ll be just fine.”
Seemingly unperturbed by his snarl, she crossed her arms and gave him a mock glare as she leaned against the wall. “Are you trying to steal my word?”
Her word? For a second, he wasn’t sure what she meant, and then he remembered that she’d said it last night. Watching her unwind from her versions of “fine” had him up most of last night with his hand wrapped around his cock. It hadn’t been enough. He took a step closer to her, leaving barely any space between them. The urge to touch her had his entire body hard with want and need. Lust, hot and demanding, rushed through him. Yeah, he wanted to go slow to really give Thea what she obviously needed, but it just might kill him from lack of blood to the brain.
“I’ll take that word,” he said, his voice low and raw with want, “if it means you can’t say it ever again.”
She bit down on her lower lip and looked up at him through her thick glasses. “You sound like my therapist.”
He leaned closer, his hands pressed firmly against the wall on either side of her, letting her feel him without ever touching her at all. “That is definitely not what I was going for.”
Color bloomed in her cheeks as he dipped his head down and she parted her lips, wetting them with the tip of her pink tongue. Fuck, this woman’s mouth. It was hypnotic, and for the first time since he was a teen, he just wanted to kiss. He wanted to cover her mouth with his, tease her with his tongue, deepen the kiss, and keep going forever until they were both breathless and lost in each other. Not that his dick wasn’t so hard his balls hurt in anticipation of doing a helluva lot more than just making out.
He was so close. Only a few inches and he’d be breaking their no-kissing rule. He didn’t think Thea would object. Hell, she looked like she was ready to grab his shirt and yank him the rest of the way down.
He shouldn’t.
But damn did he want to.
“Thea!” Jackie hollered. “There you are!”
Kade didn’t jump back from Thea, but he straightened, putting a few inches of sunshine between them that felt like miles.
Jackie’s gaze went from her sister to Kade to his undeniable hard-on pressed against the ridiculously small shorts. She made a gagging face.
“Oh my God. Really?” She rolled her eyes. “We are all waiting on you for the bridal shower. All of the bridesmaids, Mom, and my future mother-in-law have to be there. Come on, Thea, I gave you the schedule.”
Jackie flounced out of the brewery, letting the door smack shut behind her, obviously expecting Thea to follow.
“Do you ever just want to tell her to fuck off?” he asked.
“All the time,” Thea said, but then her expression softened. “But there’s more to Jackie than just this bridezilla persona.”
He shook his head, not seeing even a hint of that being true. “That’s what Dex says, too, but I sure as hell haven’t seen it.”
Thea cocked her head to the side. “He’s not wrong, and if she’s actually shown him her soft underbelly, then maybe there’s more to this wedding than a PR stunt.”
He flinched. “God, I hope not. No offense to your sister, but getting married is about the worst thing a person can do. Do you know how many spouses kill each other every year?”
And that was on top of all the regular fights and problems—some of which he was lucky enough to witness before his mom left and after her abandonment with stepmoms one, two, three, and (until Dad passed away) four.
