No Weddings (No Weddings #1)(45)
“Awww, c’mon, Cade. We were just trying to cheer you up.” Kiki dripped out the words with a sweet tone.
She fooled no one.
“Uh-huh. Just you remember, payback’s a bitch. Kincade Michaelson’s retribution is calculated and scarring.”
All three of their expressions fell. Kendall turned white. Yeah. They realized how far they’d pissed me off tonight. And when I got this mad, I waited. I cooled off. I planned. And then, things got brutal. Wars were started in the Michaelson household in the aftermath.
Kristen wrapped an arm around Hannah as she took a first sip of her drink. “We were only helping out a friend and our brother. We didn’t want you two to be separated because of a little ol’ wedding.”
My eyes narrowed at Kristen’s smirk. They didn’t know anything. They couldn’t know.
I glanced at the three, who were doing their best to downplay their meddling. “Fine. You want to avoid my wrath? You’re point on Hannah tonight. All three of you. Pretend like she’s one of you tonight—like she’s not just my friend I want to protect, she’s my innocent sister. No man better touch her. And if one looks about to, one of you had better body check him before I see, or blood will spill. And it will be on your hands. And then, I will square a debt of revenge on each of you. Individually.”
Hannah laughed, tipping her head into Kendall’s. “I had no idea he’d go all possessive and protective. It’s kinda hot.”
Kendall scrunched her face while Kiki voiced, “Ewww.”
I growled, unhappy none were taking this shit seriously. Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t told my sisters anything about my date tonight, but Hannah clearly had said something for them to know about the wedding. Kristen had seen a glimpse of us together at the charity function, but hadn’t confirmed anything.
How much did they suspect?
It couldn’t be much. None of them knew the depths of what I felt for Hannah, because even Hannah didn’t know. Fuck, even I was still trying to nail down that one. All they could possibly know was that we worked closely together and were about to go out for dinner, which was the truth of the matter.
But that they weren’t jumping all over my shit for a potential breach in their “no doing the help” rule raised all kinds of suspicious red flags with me, not that Hannah was the help. Not even close.
Occam’s razor: simplest explanation is always the most likely. And the simplest explanation? My sisters loved to f*ck with me. And that’s all this parading-Hannah-to-look-like-the-sexiest-f*ckable-bombshell shit was about.
“Cade!” Lisa wailed her final plea before her mutiny.
“Go.” Kristen shooed me off with waving hands. “We’ll guard Hannah with our lives.”
Hours flew by with barely a breathing break as drinks gushed forth from bottles. Our heads spun with the unrelenting and unprecedented demand. The line outside the door remained over a block long until well past midnight, when the crowd began to thin.
By 1:00 a.m., the dance floor cleared enough to allow movement without mass body contact—actual dancing, rather than group up-and-down bobbing. Hannah and my sisters had popped up off their Cade-reserved barstools and made their way to a center opening on the floor. True to their word, they’d kept Hannah under a tight lock-and-key watch all night.
A slower dance song with a heavy downbeat began, and the four of them swayed their hips. Throwing their heads back and laughing, they moved in together, Kristen coming up close behind Kendall, and Kiki pressing her body up behind Hannah’s.
My breaths shortened as I stared, watching Kiki grind into Hannah. When my cock twitched in my jeans, I scowled, thinking it was a thousand kinds of f*cked up to get turned on by anything my sister did, regardless of the woman she did it to.
“Lisa, you got this?” I didn’t glance back at her.
I couldn’t take my eyes off of Hannah. Her gaze had dropped down and locked onto mine. Expression softening, her eyes had closed halfway in sensual invitation. Then she licked her lips and moved her flattened palms from her hips over her waist and up toward her breasts
“Yeah. I’m good.”
I strode out from behind the bar as Lisa finished her reply.
A slow smile curved onto Hannah’s lips. As I came closer, she reached her arms out to me.
I clasped hands with her, pulling her away from Kiki. Kiki had the nerve to smirk before she moved over to attach herself to the back end of Kendall and Kristen’s bump-and-grind train.
Sighing, I shook my head. “You’re all gonna drive me to therapy.”
Laughter rang out from the reckless threesome, but the sounds of the club faded as I wrapped my arms around Hannah, focusing all my attention on her.
She snuggled into me, pressing her hips into my groin as we danced.
We were in full view of my sisters, but I really didn’t give a f*ck. They’d messed with me tonight to get me to want to touch Hannah, so let them earn those smug looks they’d worn earlier.
I growled. “You are a very bad girl.”
On a slow lip bite, she looked up. “Is that a bad thing?” Her brow furrowed a fraction.
I gazed into dark eyes that began to sparkle. With the beginnings of tears?
I was usually an expert at reading people. Back as far as my memories stretched, I’d known when my sisters deceived, when a kid manipulated, when adults told white lies. In negotiations, I saw beyond ploys. When a person stood before me and “played a part” to cause a response in me, I detected their ruse the moment they began. And the woman in my arms right now? Had no idea what she did to me. Seemed to actually think she’d done something wrong.