“Better. Than. You.” My voice is low. Dangerous.
He shoves the barstool away and gets in my face. He’s tall, maybe six-four, but I’m taller. And he’s a big dude, but I’m bigger. Yeah, he’s younger than me, but there’s never a day in this world when he would overpower me.
I shove him with one hand, and he staggers back, his legs banging into the barstool. It falls to the floor with a clanging sound.
He juts back in my space, fists clenched. “Stay out of my way, Harlan. It’s my bar too.”
“Actually, it isn’t. The owners are revoking your membership.” All it took was a few well-placed phone calls about his abusive behavior toward my wife. I tap my chin. “Go on, take a swing. I’ll give you one free shot.”
He stiffens, his gaze taking in the crowd of Emmy’s friends behind me. Jane glares death daggers at him. Even Babs looks a little scary as she takes her glasses off and tucks them into her purse like she’s getting ready to rumble. Cas has his arms crossed, a lethal grin on his face. Mason even looks like he’s ready to throw down. I look at him and point to Kian. “This is why I invited you. I don’t know you, and you don’t seem to like me, but we have a mutual enemy. You know what he did to her, yeah?”
“I like you now, Graham,” Mason mutters with a head nod.
I turn back to Kian. “Come on. Don’t be a baby. Hit me, Kian. You want to because I married beautiful, sweet, Emmaline Darling, and you can’t have her.”
Rage grows on his face, his hands twitching. He swings at me, and I let it connect, feeling my lip split. It’s nothing.
I laugh as I wipe at the blood on my mouth. “You hit like you play football. Lazy.”
He leans back for another punch, and I catch his fist, grab him by the throat, and maneuver him against the wall of the bar. My crew gathers around me. The rest of the place just watches.
My hand encircles his neck. “This is exactly what you did to Emmy, although honestly I’m being easy with you. Want to know why? Because Emmy doesn’t like violence. She detests it,” I grind out as I put my nose to his.
“W-what . . . ,” he tries to say, then peters off.
I nudge my head to the people behind me. “They all know what you did. They also know that you’ve been following Emmy, leaving shit for her, and stalking outside the bookstore. It ends here and now. Gentle-like. I won’t hurt you. For her. But give me a reason, any reason, and I will destroy you piece by piece and make sure you never play football again. If for some reason I’m not around to hurt you, the people behind me will be. Feel me?”
He struggles to pull my fingers away, and I tighten them. “My coach and my team are here to support me. This is a private club that you are no longer welcome in. I never punched you. You hit me. So go away. Live your life and leave Emmy alone or I’ll have you arrested for splitting my pretty lips.” I glance back at Brody. “Remind him of who our dad is.”
“Powerful lawyer in New York,” he says grimly.
I look back at Kian. “Don’t call her, walk by her, look at her. If you see her coming, run in the opposite direction, and don’t you ever fucking lay your hands on a woman again.” I smile. “Say you will, Kian.”
“Y-yes. J-just let me go.”
I toss him away, and he catches himself on a table. The bar is silent, hard eyes on him as he stumbles through the place. The hostess opens the door for him as he walks away. She shuts it with a slam, and a cheer goes up in the crowd.
“How did you know he’d be here?” Jane asks.
It took some planning. “Several of the waitresses sent him a text that they wanted to see him tonight. He agreed to come. But he won’t be back.”
I raise my hand up to get everyone’s attention. “Drink and food on me.”
Whoops go up through the bar. “Now it’s a fucking party!” I say as someone hands me a shot of tequila.
It’s one in the morning when I walk in the door at home. The room is darkened, with only a lamp illuminating the area.
Emmy is asleep on the couch, her hand curled up around her chin. I stroke a finger down her face, and her eyes open slowly.
“It’s bedtime,” I murmur as I help her sit up.
“Okay,” she says around a yawn, then yelps when I swoop her up in my arms and carry her to my bedroom.
Life with her has been a blur of sex ever since the bookstore. I wake up and go to practice; she goes to the bookstore. Afterward, we have dinner with her family at the store or here, then fall into bed at night.
I’m not thinking about the future.
I can’t.
I’m just taking it one day at a time.
My wish is for her happiness. To shelter her from anything that might hurt her.
“You smell like you’ve been dunked in a keg,” she says as I ease her down, and she whips off her tank and pants and crawls under the covers with only her panties on.
I get naked and cuddle up to her. “I’m really tired,” she murmurs.
“Which is code for ‘I’m not down to fuck.’”
“Hmm.”
My fingers stroke her hair, then trail down to her shoulder. “I’m gonna sleep naked anyway,” I whisper.
“How was the party?”
“Lots of people. Drinks. Food. The usual.” I smirk, then wince as my lip stings. “Tell me about your day before you go to sleep,” I murmur, and she sinks deeper into my embrace.
“The new hires are great. Angela from the Times practically orgasmed over the window. There’s not another bookstore in New York with the same concept. The fiftieth anniversary of those books just makes it all the more relevant. You, Mr. Cream, have great ideas. How about your day?”
I caress the line of her shoulder, my fingers gliding down her arm to lace our fingers together. “Practice was good. Our first preseason game is coming up, with Kansas City. You’ll need to come.”
She stiffens in my arms.
“Don’t worry, darling. I’ll be fine.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I can hear the wheels in her head spinning.
A long exhale comes from my chest. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about football.”
“Okay. Wanna talk about the blood on your lip, then?”
I sit up and click on the lamp on the nightstand as she props her head on her arm and watches me. “You saw it? I thought I cleaned it up pretty good at the club.”
“You don’t think I inspect you from head to toe after you’ve been to a bachelor party? I was checking for hickeys and lipstick, and what I get is a busted lip.”
I arch a brow. “Sorry?”
She moves and straddles me, her lace underwear rubbing against my hard cock, making me hiss. My hands land on her hips as she scowls down at me.
“Jane goes to a party, and you don’t think she told me what happened immediately? In graphic detail. Then she admitted that Kian’s been walking past the bookstore and leaving flowers again.”