Make It Known

Bonus Chapter #2: Weddings

I should be pissed but I just want to laugh.

Carmen gets a doubtful, hesitant look on her face and glances between me and the short, pretty blonde spitfire who's just come to stand beside me.

Alison gives the poor girl a sugar-sweet smile that I know is totally fabricated and says in a low, confiding voice, "He gave my friend gonorrhoea a couple months ago."

Carmen mutters something entirely unsexy under her breath before floating grumpily away.

"Chlamydia, actually," I shoot back at her with a withering look. Her soft pink lips tilt up at the edges as she tries not to smile.

I take a good look at her, five-foot-two, dressed in a pale pink, flowing gown that's draped flatteringly over her slender curves. Silver heels that give her a bit of height, shiny blonde hair done up in some elaborate design at the back of her head. It's getting late and some of those wavy golden strands spill to the sides of her flushed face. Little glimmering silver earrings hanging from her earlobes. Her make-up is subtle but defines her delicate features, makes her skin glow. And those sharp, tumultuous grey eyes are looking at me with a challenging gleam that I know oh-so-well.

Her brightness is a contrast to the dark, dimly-lit, thumping ambience of the room and I can't help but picture her with fewer clothes on, wonder what colour lingerie is hugging her soft skin beneath her dress.

I don't even remember why in God's name we started fighting with each other in the first place.

I tried being charming and chatting her up when we first met but she wasn't having any of it. Gave me a biting sermon about being a thoughtless accomplice to Gavin and Melanie's reckless, destructive affair.

Something about her thinking she knew better than me and that she cared about their well-being more than I did got me all brassed off at her.

And, I'll admit, exchanging nasty, snide insults with her is quite entertaining. Tossing inventive obscenities at the Maid of Honour made this entire wedding process more bearable. She has a quick, clever mouth this one does.

As I glance down at the lower half of her face, I suddenly imagine that glossy pink mouth wrapped tight around my cock.

And a warm thrill shoots its way down my spine at the thought of it.

Ah, bloody hell. I can't fuck her. Not just because it's frankly demeaning after all the crude, creative ways I called her unattractive, but because it's really damn complicated, yeah?

I know she and Zach hit it off when those two met at the first wedding. Even though it didn't go anywhere because the bloke set off for a year somewhere on the other side of the world for some reporting project. Crazy journalists.

It'd still be a dodgy thing to do. Sleep with her. She's Mel's closest friend. She and I have opposing world views, we disagree about what's important in life. It would never be sustainable in the long-term, and then we'd be unable to avoid running into each other and it would become so bloody awkward.

Except thinking about screwing her makes my blood heat up.

I need another drink.

"Another one, please, mate." The bartender nods, slides a half-full tumbler of golden-brown liquor and ice towards me.

"I'll have one too, please," Ice Queen asks in a pretty voice, giving the chap a bright smile.