Surge (The Beat and the Pulse #7)- Amity Cross Page 0,1
and Dean took his womanizing to the extreme. His brother had settled, but Dean? I couldn’t see it happening anytime soon, which was why I pushed my attraction into the crush column.
Then there was the scene that had just played out with Hamish.
So many reasons why tangling tongues with fighters wasn’t the greatest plan in the playbook.
“Do you want a drink?” Dean asked, pulling my attention back. “You might need a little liquid courage.”
I snorted. “I needed it ten minutes ago.”
“You haven’t spoken to Ren yet,” he said with a chuckle.
“And I’ll avoid it for a long as possible.” I grabbed his hand and dragged him through the house back out to the patio.
“Where are we going in such a hurry?” Dean asked, trying not to laugh.
“You’re dancing with me.”
“Me? Dancing?”
“I’m using you as a human shield.” Half-truth, half lie. I just wanted to dance with the guy and pump up my deflated ego.
I opened the patio door and delighted in the fact I had Dean Hayes off-kilter. “Don’t sound so panicked. You just sway from side to side. Surely a fighter who knows how to duck and weave can handle a little two-step.”
I felt eyes beginning to fix on me, but I ignored every single pair as I turned Dean around to face me. A slow song was playing, and couples around us were wound tightly together, including Dean’s brother, Lincoln, and his girl, Violet.
“Here,” I said, as the twin hesitated.
Curling my fingers around his wrists, I guided his hands to my waist and his big hands settled in place. All at once, I was aware that he was touching me like Hamish had only moments before. Dean looked awkward, but I was fairly sure it was because of the dancing part of the equation. He wasn’t trying to get out of it, so I took it to be a good thing. He wanted to touch me.
A shiver traveled down my spine, and I resisted the urge to close the space between us. That’d be poor form five minutes after Hamish, Ash’s best man, left after I’d smashed his heart.
Sliding my hands over his shoulders, I smiled as he turned his gaze away.
“See?” I declared as we began to sway back and forth to the slow beat. “Easy, right?”
“Nothing about this is easy,” he murmured, turning his green eyes back to my blue.
“What do you mean?” I asked, my heart beginning to swell of its own accord, but his attention had shifted over my shoulder and off into the distance.
“Is that…” he began, sounding surprised.
I followed Dean’s gaze back over my shoulder, and instantly, my lip curled.
Monica Miller stood just inside the house, lingering on the edges of her half-sister’s wedding. The same sister she had sold out to Hammer, the piece of shit who tried to beat and rape Ren. It had been a ploy to get her sister out of the way so the bitch could sink her claws into Ash, but for Hammer, it had been to get the fighter out of the way so he could win the Championship at The Underground. A win in that place netted a fighter a few million dollars. The shit people did for money.
On that night, Ash had shown up at the gym and found Hammer about to…and all hell had broken loose. I remembered it all like the back of my own hand. I wasn’t at Beat, the fighter gym owned by Ren’s father, when it happened, but she’d turned up on my doorstep right after in tears. Then Ash had gone missing…along with Hammer. Everyone thought Ash had done the unthinkable until Hammer turned up alive and well, but it was months before Ash surfaced again.
Totally screwed up if you asked me.
For Monica Miller, the cause of so much pain and heartache, to show her face here after all these years was nothing short of insulting…and at Ren and Ash’s wedding! That bitch had balls.
Dean’s grip loosened on my waist, and I realized he was about to ditch me to go over and talk to her. There was no way I was letting that happen, not when I knew he used to harbor an epic hard-on for the woman. Talk about misplaced affection.
“Don’t,” I hissed, trying to shove the jealousy down. “Keep this to yourself, and don’t tell anyone. I’m going to get rid of her.”
“But—”
“But nothing,” I snapped. “This is Ren’s wedding. She can’t know Monica is here, do you understand?”