The Girl's Got Secrets (Forbidden Men #7)(119)

“Not that it really matters who cut the damn cord right now,” her cousin spoke up, making me blink back to reality, “Because we have other problems, like how’re we going to get this party started? Is there another kind of speaker around here? I can run home and get my guitar if I need to.”

I glanced at him, my mind racing. He, Remy, and I might just be able to pull out a quick band, but then Remy snapped her fingers. “The karaoke machine,” she said. “It’s got a small speaker on it. That’ll work.”

Shaking my head, I blurted out a laugh. “What? You’re just going to sing karaoke all night? This reception could go on for hours.” She’d wear herself out.

She shrugged, already turning away to open a nearby closet and roll out the karaoke machine. “If I have to,” she answered as she plugged it in. Then she straightened and brushed her hair out of her face. “Besides, Big T can fill in when I need a break. His voice isn’t half bad.”

Her cousin snorted at that, but didn’t argue any of her claims.

I sighed and glanced skeptically at the karaoke machine. I usually hooked it up to the sound system, but it was also designed to play on its own if it had to.

Apparently, tonight, it was going to have to.

Remy and I bent at the same time to turn it on.

“Sorry,” we murmured together when we nearly bumped foreheads. Then we shifted an inch apart, but still both going in to get the machine up and running.

“Holy shit,” she murmured under her breath, turning toward me slightly. “You smell really good.”

I didn’t want it to, but my body reacted, remembering every touch, lick, and kiss she’d ever given me. I glanced at her face, and her eyes flared as if she was in trouble for saying such a thing.

“Sorry.” She lifted both hands in some kind of surrender. “It’s just...it’s new. You’ve never smelled like that before.”

Lust stirred through me. I tried to bite it back, tried to cling to the fact I was mad at her, but a need unlike any I’d ever experienced with any other person roared through my blood.

I had to shake my head and blink myself back to the present, remind myself where I really was and what I was doing. And that was most definitely not Remy Curran.

“It’s, uh...Eva gave it to me as the best man gift. I figured I should wear it today.”

She nodded, agreeing. “Well, it’s amazing. I think I just got pregnant.”

I snorted out an amused sound, not meaning to smile, but smiling anyway.

She leaned in closer to me as I set up the karaoke, and suddenly I could smell her too. Something girly and not at all like Sticks’s masculine shampoo.

She smelled like...Elisa.

And yep, now I had wood.

“You have to admit,” she told me as my fingers fumbled over knobs. “It must be nice not having to sneeze when I get close to you now, because you know...no more need for the latex mask anymore.”

I glanced at her, about a second from leaning forward and kissing the hell out of her. But the predatory gleam in my eyes must’ve come off more like warning to her.

“Okay, fine.” She lifted her hands. “I’m backing off. Just...damn it, one more sniff before you go.” She leaned in quickly, took a quick, noisy drag, and was promptly pulling away again. “And by the way, you look sexy as hell in a tux.”

“Sticks,” I warned, but I wasn’t really mad. I was tempted to my limit.

“I’m staying away now,” she argued with a small scowl. “I swear. I’m accepting the fact I bombed any chance I might’ve ever had with you. From here on out, I’m going to be the real, unvarnished me, and the real me would totally flirt with you while you look like that—even if I would prefer to be home in bed, bawling my eyes out right now.”

I glanced at her, not sure what to think because honestly, I was as disappointed as I was relieved by her words. Crossing an X over her heart with her finger, she kept her promise and stepped back. Then she waited until I was done and had straightened until she moved back to the machine, already searching for the first song she wanted to sing.

I scanned the crowd. All my friends from the bar were present. Even Mason, Reese, and his sister Sarah had made it. Decked out in her maid of honor dress, Reese hovered close to her fiancée, rubbing his arm as if to soothe him, and Brandt Gamble sat by Sarah’s wheelchair saying something that tugged a reluctant smile to the girl’s lips.

Though I knew they must be suffering from the loss of Mason’s mother, I hoped tonight helped cheer their spirits a little.

Gaze wandering on, I smiled at Julian and Skylar, who ran circles around the dancefloor, making balloons fly above them. Then I caught sight of Ten and Caroline hovering around Quinn and his wife Zoey, who was holding a swaddled bundle in her arms before she passed the baby off to let Caroline hold him. Noel and his wife Aspen were over by the bar, talking to Felicity and Knox. When I spotted the bride and groom near Murphy from the repair shop, I unintentionally caught Pick glancing my way.

When I nodded to him, letting him know we were taking care of things, he turned to Eva and held out a hand to her. My heart lurched in my throat, hoping he didn’t think we were ready yet. I seriously did not want to mess with his vision he had of how his first dance with his new bride was supposed to take place.

But then the music started in the karaoke machine, and f*ck me if Remy wasn’t playing “Baby Love,” the very song Pick had told me he danced to with his new wife.