Brent hadn’t spoken to the guy since Michael had helped him get the ring. He hadn’t seen Michael since Christmas that same year, when he’d met him, along with Ryan, Colin, and Shannon’s grandparents. Brent and Shannon had flown back to Vegas together for the holiday break. He’d met her family and she’d met his. A few months later, he’d proposed. Her brothers had all liked him.
Didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know the opposite was true now.
Michael’s dark eyes raged as he stared at Brent. He raised his left hand, clapped it on Brent’s arm. But it wasn’t a friendly pat. It didn’t speak of years missed. It didn’t say good to see you too, man. His hand sent another message. Do not fuck with my family.
Michael spoke, low, but powerful. Like a hiss. “My sister is one of the most important people in the world to me. I swear,” he said, letting his voice trail off like the smoke from a fired gun. Brent parted his lips to say something, anything, but Michael left him no room. This was not a conversation. It was a speech. “If it were up to me, you’d never get close enough to hurt her again. You have no idea what you did to her. You fucking broke her heart—”
He held up a hand. “I know, man. And I am sorry. And I have told her that—”
Michael didn’t even acknowledge the words. “And if you do it again, you will know a new kind of hell.” Michael’s hand moved to Brent’s collar. He smoothed it out. Brent’s collar didn’t need smoothing. “I will not hurt you with fists, because I am not that kind of a man, but I will make sure you are fucked in this town. Is that clear?”
Brent shrugged off Michael’s hand. As much as he understood where Michael was coming from, he wasn’t going to let himself be manhandled.
He raised his chin. “Message is loud and clear, Michael. But I want you to know I’m not the same guy I was ten years ago, and I will do whatever I have to do to prove that to your sister,” he said, then paused, because as much as he didn’t intend to get pushed around, he also knew he had to show some respect to a man who looked out for his own. “And to you.”
Michael didn’t answer. He simply stared at him and breathed out hard. He lifted his chin slightly, a nearly imperceptible nod.
“You better,” Michael said, then resumed his pace, walking down the stairs, the confrontation over. Each man had said his piece.
Brent cleared the moment from his head and made his way to Shannon’s door, knocking twice. When she answered, there was no real estate in his brain for anything but her. He forgot about everything else in the world—schedules, plans, flights? Gone.
“Wow.”
He’d never been short of words. Never.
But as he repeated himself, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to speak again. She knocked the breath from his lungs and stole the words from his tongue. “Wow.”
Her eyes sparkled, and she jutted out her hip. The dress she wore had been painted on. The color of champagne, and with some kind of shimmer to the fabric, it hugged her hips, her thighs, her flat belly, and her beautiful breasts. He wished he had been there to watch her slip it on and zip it up. More than that, he hoped he’d be taking it off tonight. Feeling everything underneath. Tasting every inch of her skin. Watching her arch beneath him.
“You like?”
He shook his head. “I love.”
He loved everything about her. The dress that was caressing her body. The bare legs boldly on display. The red leather shoes that he’d bought for her.
Most of all, what she’d said about those shoes the other day. And is this your way of trying to fuck me again?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Right now.
Skip the show. Spin her around. Fuck her against the wall.
Wait. No. Spread her on the table. Get those legs of hers where he wanted—up on his shoulders.
She stepped closer to him, ran her hands down the front of his dark blue button-down shirt. Her touch was electric. It torched his blood. It was a bolt of lust slammed through his body. She trailed her fingernails down the buttons on his shirt, and he was sure she was reading his mind, seeing straight through him.