“Your tie.”
He tilted his head back as I went for his undone top button. I slipped it through the buttonhole and trailed my fingertips down to his tie. It didn’t need much tightening, so it only took one soft push to put it back into place properly.
“There,” I said quietly, resting my fingers on the smooth satin. “Perfect.”
Brett looked down at me and smiled. “Thank you,” he replied, trailing his hand down the curve of my jaw. He dipped his head and brushed his lips over mine oh-so-lightly that if I didn’t feel the tingle of his touch, I could well have imagined it. “Come on. We’re going to be late.”
“Okay.” I pulled my clutch off the dressing table and, after verifying my phone was inside, I nodded to him. “Let’s go.”
“I hope you realize you’re going to be glued to my side all night,” Brett murmured in my ear as we walked across the vast ballroom-type room toward our table.
“Really?” I replied just as quietly. “Your vice-like grip on my side didn’t clue me in to that at all.”
“Damn, then I’m not holding you tight enough.” He twitched his fingers to tighten his grip, but the teasing way he did it just tickled me.
“Stop it,” I breathed out. “It tickles.”
“Hmm.” He turned his face into the side of my hair as he pulled my chair out for me.
“What’s ‘hmm?’“ I leaned back and looked at him.
“Nothing.” His lips curved up sexily. “Just me wondering if it’ll tickle you as much when I use my mouth there.”
A shiver ran down my spine and I—somehow—managed to repress an entire-body shudder at his words.
“You’ll have to wait to find out, won’t you?” I flashed him a playful grin and took my seat.
His gaze was hot on me even as he eased my chair forward. “Hmm.”
“You’re hmm-y today.”
“Hmm-y? Is that even a word?”
“Did I just say it?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s a word.”
Brett sat down, fighting his smile. “You can’t just make up words to suit you.”
I blinked at him. “You’re talking a bunch of words that were once made up to suit people.”
He stared at me for a second before lightly shaking his head. “I have no idea how I’m supposed to argue that fact.”
I picked up my glass of water. “Can’t argue the truth.”
“You’re sassy tonight.”
“It’s the knowledge I wield a weapon capable of driving a man to torture.” I sipped and put the glass back down. “I’d probably not be so sassy if you stopped looking at me like you want to eat me.”
He leaned in and whispered into my ear, “But I do want to eat you. Until you scream, to be precise.”
I blushed. Hard.
Brett laughed under his breath as he sat back in his chair properly. He looked oddly proud of himself, and judging by how hot my cheeks were, it was no surprise.
He had me blushing so hotly you could lie me on my side and fry an egg on my cheek.
Awesome.
“Behave yourself,” I demanded, clearing my throat.
“I have been ever since you came back.” He peered sideways at me. “Now it’s all pent up inside and I need to get it out.”
“Or you could grow up.”
“I could, but saying a few more things that’ll make you blush like that seems like way more fun.”
I pursed my lips, but my response was cut off by Camille’s arrival to the table.
She stared at me as she sat down. “Why are you blushing like that?”
Of course, that only made me blush harder and Brett laugh again.
“On second thought, I don’t want to know.” She smoothed out her black dress and scooted her chair in. She leaned right forward and looked at her brother. “Keep it to yourself. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Why? ‘Cause you aren’t getting any?”
“Ooookay!” I held my hands up and mimed pushing them apart. “If you’re gonna do that, I’m changing tables. I’m not sitting between you while you fight all night.”
“Who’s fighting? Are they hot and oily?”
Brett groaned as his Great Aunt Bel took the chair directly opposite us. “Who sat you with us? I told Mom you’d drive me crazy if she put you by us on the seating plan.”
Aunt Bel looked up and cocked her head to the side. “There’s a seating plan?”
“The card is right in front of you.”
Her glasses were hanging around her neck on a multi-colored beaded chain, and she lifted them to her eyes while bending forward and squinting at the card. “Oh. Well, that’s unfortunate.” She plucked the card from the table and flicked it at Camille. “Cammy, dear, go find where I’m supposed to be sitting and swap this.”
Camille blinked at her as she lifted the card. “Aunt Bel, you can’t just mess with the seating plan.”
“Yes, I can.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I can do what I want. That’s what happens when you get old. Nobody gets to tell you what to do.” She peered over at Brett and pointed her glasses in his direction. “Except you. You started that early.”
Brett wasn’t happy. “Seriously. Go find your own seat.”
“I’m sitting in it.”
“The right seat.”
“I’m sitting in it.”
Dear god. Coping with the Walker family was like being freshly qualified as a teacher for college students then being thrown into a glass of sugar-hyped five year olds.
“Aunt Bel,” I said, kicking Brett’s ankle under the table. “Just stay here, but behave, okay?”
“Ha! I always behave.” Her eyes glittered. “Are the hot, oily fighting men here yet?”
“I’m going to find her seat,” Camille muttered, standing up.
“There are not hot, oily fighting men,” Brett said. “She was talking about me and Camille.”
“You just can’t get the staff,” Aunt Bel tittered. “I’m going to have to have a word with your mother about the entertainment at these things.”
“Aunt Bel, if you saw hot, oily men fighting, you’d probably have a heart attack.”
“And I would die very happy.”
I looked between them both. I felt a little like I should have a scorecard and be refereeing this. The constant back and forth between them was exhausting and, honestly, a little scary. I tuned them out until Aunt Bel cackled.
“You can tell you’re a Walker, boy. You’re just like me.”
Brett froze. “God help me.”
“He can’t,” I said to my plate. “He’s too busy giving me strength.”
Aunt Bel looked at me. “Smart mouth. I like that in a girl.”
I smiled. I never would have guessed.
Camille sighed as she approached the table with a name card in hand.
“Have you told her about The Thing yet?” Aunt Bel asked Brett.
Camille spun on her heels and walked off.
That alone made something ring in the back of my head—and Brett’s reaction to her words made my curiosity gene bounce up and down like a kangaroo on crack.
He was deathly still, and judging from the immediate tension that formed in the air, his gaze was just as terrifying as his stillness.
The Thing? What was The Thing?
Aside from not knowing what it actually was, I knew one thing from his reaction: This was the secret. The one thing my boss wanted me to find out. The thing that could ruin this family.
Two weeks ago, I wanted to know it. I wanted to do just that.