Angela’s smile froze into something that felt as dry and brittle as plaster, but she managed to keep her snappish comeback on lockdown, and for that, she was grateful. Of course Perfect Carolyn couldn’t imagine any fate more glorious for Angela than to follow along the path Carolyn had blazed. But Angela was sick of being a dumb sheep trying to keep the shepherd in sight. Sick of trying to think of something she could do that Carolyn hadn’t done first and better. It was time she found her own path.
If Carolyn’s greatest ambition was to be a wife and mother, well, fine.
Angela would be the career woman in the family.
Teetering dangerously on the four-inch stiletto sandals Carolyn had picked for her attendants to wear, Angela found her place at the table, sank gratefully into a chair, and looked around. She felt a little awkward sitting by herself, but others would be back soon.
No sign of Justus, thank goodness.
Relaxing a little for the first time all day, she was just crossing her legs and arranging her skirt when a movement caught her eye.
And she knew.
She looked up, heart already pounding.
Justus loomed over her like the Empire State Building.
His slow gaze traveled up her legs and the rest of her body before it settled on her face.
Their gazes locked with an unsettling intensity that made her breath hitch. Prickly heat crept up her neck and over her cheeks before shivering down her body, causing goose bumps to erupt in its wake.
What could he want? He wasn’t going to sit here, was he? With her?
“Hey,” he said, his deep voice easily slicing through the babbling crowd and music.
“Hi,” she managed.
And then, without any invitation at all (What? Was he raised by wolves?), he ignored all the other empty spots at the table, pulled out the chair right next to her, and sat, putting his champagne glass on the table in front of him. His NBA-worthy size shrank the table as if he’d cut it in half with a saw, and her pulse thudded along on heightened alert. One of his knees lightly brushed her thigh as he settled himself, and she drew up a little, resisting the urge to pick up her chair and scoot it several feet away.
Justus.
He had quite the imposing physical presence. That was for damn sure.
If she had to guess, she’d say he was at least six-four and two-ten or twenty. She’d thought she’d gotten used to his size by now, because they’d walked, arms linked, together down the aisle today. But she hadn’t adjusted to his height, or the broad shoulders, or the long, long legs, any more than she could adjust if a lion moved into her apartment and claimed the left side of her bed.
She watched him, everything else forgotten.
Amusement appeared in his eyes after a lengthy silence. “So...how’s the cake?”
“Cake?”
One of his dark brows shot up as he laughed. “Yeah, cake. Or whatever you’re calling that stuff on your plate.”
Oh! Her cake! Relieved to have something else to look at besides his wide, dimpled grin, she stared at her plate.
The problem with Justus, which she’d avoided diagnosing until this very second, was that he was way too attractive, especially for a teenager. His velvety chestnut skin was perfectly smooth, as though teenage acne had decided not to bother with him. He had skull-trimmed black hair with crisp edges, as though he kept a standing weekly appointment with his barber. But his skin and hair, nice as they were, weren’t the problem. It was the eyes and mouth that did it for her. His straight nose she could live with. But the mischief in his eyes, the delight in his gleaming white smile, the energy he exuded like a pheromone, well, those things made it impossible for her to look him in the face for more than half a second at a time.
Worse, they made her want to squirm in her seat.
He’s only seventeen, she reminded herself. Only seventeen.
“I haven’t tried the cake yet.” Feeling sheepish, she took a large and clumsy bite, smearing icing on the outer corner of her lips. Its lemony deliciousness sent a delightful rush of sugar straight to her brain. “Oh. It’s wonderful,” she said, licking her lips.
“Because...” he began, sounding a little hoarse as his attention strayed to her mouth. He cleared his throat. “I was thinking of the chocolate.”
“No,” she told him. “Lemon cream. All the way.”
He sprawled back in his chair and nodded. “So, how’s law school?”
She wiped her mouth. “I like it. And you! Playing ball at XU in the fall—you must be so excited!”
He dropped his head, grinning. “Yeah.”
“You’re still going to get your degree, though, aren’t you? Because if you get injured—”
“Absolutely.” He nodded firmly. “That’s the point of college, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely.” Mutual understanding pulsed between them as they smiled at each other. “So what do you want to do when you graduate? Do you think you’ll be drafted?”
He shuddered. “No way. I want to open my own gym. Be a personal trainer.”
Something told her he’d be very good at it. His relaxed manner; his way with people; his athletic experience.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “I think that’s the perfect job for you.”
“You think so?” he asked excitedly. “Because my father wants me to be a lawyer, like him and V.J.”
Angela snorted. This boy had about as much business being a lawyer as she had being an Olympic ski jumper. Anyone with two eyes could see that.
“What’s the world need with another lawyer?”
A slow smile dawned across his face and her answering smile felt as natural as taking her next breath.
But when his gaze strayed back to her mouth, his smile faded.
And then, without warning, he gently brushed the edge of her lip with his thumb, sending sparks of pleasure throughout her body.
“Icing,” he said, licking his thumb.
There was something so hypnotic about him—so utterly enthralling—that Angela had to force herself to look away as she wiped her tingling mouth again.
“Thanks.”
Justus watched her, a terrible, speculative gleam in his eye, but said nothing.
“So...” She hesitated, trying to find something harmless to talk about. “What do you do when you’re not playing basketball?”
“I signed up for a cooking class over the summer.”
“What?”
“Anyone who puts away as many groceries per meal as I do should learn how to feed himself.”
“You cook? I love to cook! A while back, I took a great pasta-making class at Cincinnati State. You should look into it.”
“That’s the one I signed up for,” he said, looking amazed. “So what else do you do for fun?”
“Well, I don’t have a lot of time these days, but I’ve started getting into crime dramas. They help me decompress, you know? And there’s this great one from the UK—”
“Prime Suspect,” he said faintly. “With Helen Mirren. I just started watching it again. My favorite show.”
Her smile faded.
Her heart began to hammer uncontrollably.
The lights dimmed, creating a bewitching halo around the flickering candles throughout the room. All the excitement in the air—the food, champagne, wine, and music—converged and crystallized into an enchanted world where anything seemed possible.
All of her excitement converged on the young man sitting next to her.
Over on the dance floor, V.J. and Carolyn took their places under the spotlight for their first dance. The jazz combo started playing one of Angela’s all-time favorite songs and a Nat King Cole classic, “When I Fall in Love.”
She watched the couple, acutely aware of Justus’s gaze riveted to her face.
And the way his attention made her skin glow hot.
“Where’s Carla?” she asked, since they both seemed to need a reminder that he had a girlfriend. “I haven’t seen her tonight.”
Uncrossing her
legs, she scooted forward in her seat and picked up her fork again.
“No idea.” Justus leaned closer and planted his elbows on the table.
She scowled, certain he’d done it just to jerk her chain. She felt crowded again, almost trapped. Worse, she felt the heat radiating off his powerful arm. Her flesh—not just her bare arms, but also every inch of her skin—shivered with awareness.
“Cold?” he asked, that awful, speculative look in his eyes again.
“No,” she snapped, now thoroughly flustered. “You don’t sound like you care where your girlfriend is. What if she’s decided you weren’t paying her enough attention and leaves with someone else?”
He laughed, shrugging those endless shoulders. “I don’t care. And she’s a fuck buddy. Not a girlfriend. I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Scandalized, Angela gaped at him. “What?”
“Yeeesssss?” He leaned in even closer, eyes alight with wicked glee.
She looked wildly around, half wondering whether she wasn’t the unfortunate victim of a prank on some TV show. “I don’t even know where to start! Does she know she’s just a...a...”
She trailed off, unable to say it.
“Fuck buddy?” he supplied, clearly going for maximum shock value. “She should.”
A horrible thought entered her head. “There...there aren’t any others, are there?”
A bark of laughter answered her. “Do I look like a monk?”
No, he certainly did not. With his earrings, he looked like some sort of modern pirate. Nothing about his appearance suggested how young he was, and he clearly had street smarts far beyond his years. And far beyond her years, for that matter. If she hadn’t known otherwise, she’d have thought he was at least twenty-five. More troublesome than his looks was his charisma, which his body couldn’t contain any more than a wire basket can contain a cumulus cloud.
Still, he was the minor here, and she was the adult. “Do I need to have the safe sex talk with you?”
Staring her in the face, he reached under his jacket and withdrew something from his back pants pocket. Then his wrist flicked, unfurling a string of foil-wrapped condoms like a grandfather flipping open his wallet to show pictures of his grandkids.
“Guess not.”
Excruciatingly conscious of the fact that they were sitting at the head table, the focal point of the entire ballroom, Angela grabbed his condom-filled hand and shoved it down into his lap.
“What are you doing?” she snarled, horrified.
The hateful boy just laughed, relishing her embarrassment. “Come on, Duchess.” He nudged her good-naturedly before he put the condoms away. “You can laugh. That was funny. Admit it.”
Angela crossed her arms and legs and pursed her lips. She’d never considered herself a prude, but next to Justus she felt like a cloistered nun visiting Vegas for the first time. What was wrong with kids today? Why were they so anxious to grow up? Had this boy never been in the Boy Scouts? The church choir?
“It wasn’t funny, and why are you calling me Duchess?”
“Because you’re sitting there like someone shoved a metal rod up your spine. Like a duchess waiting for her maid to bring in the tea. You should lighten up a little, Angie.”
“Angela.”
“See?”
She heard the laughter in his voice even though she was determined never to look him in the face again.
“Well,” she said coolly, “I’m glad to see that even though you’re rude, annoying, and promiscuous, you’re smart enough to protect yourself from becoming a teenage father.”
Justus threw back his head and roared with laughter. Despite all her best intentions, Angela laughed, too.
“I don’t smoke, do drugs, or drink—”
Angela pointed to his champagne glass. “What’s that? Sparkling apple juice?”
“Oh, that.” He waved a hand. “I just grabbed it to piss my father off. I can’t drink if I want to stay in shape, can I? I like sex. A lot. If I didn’t have that one little vice, I’d be damn near perfect.” He shot a glance at V.J., who was still twirling Carolyn on the dance floor, and his smile faded. “Like my brother.”
Angela felt an unexpected twinge of sympathy for him. If there was one thing she knew, it was how irritatingly exhausting it was to live in a sibling’s shadow.
An irresistible impulse made her squeeze his arm.
“And what fun would that be?” she asked quietly.
Justus’s intent gaze flew to her face again, and they stared at each other for a long, charged moment.
Until she dropped her hand.
“Well,” she said finally, her voice unexpectedly raspy, “one day you’ll fall in love and get your comeuppance for all these girls you’re just hooking up with. And I hope I’m around to see it. Karma’s a bitch.”
“Love? That’s something that’ll never happen to me. Or marriage.”
Her heart squeezed as if someone had run it through a meat press while she wasn’t looking. She didn’t know why his feelings mattered so much to her, but they did. How could someone so young be so jaded? Who’d ruined this poor boy at such a tender age?
“Why not, Justus? You make it sound like Ebola.”
His jaw flexed. “My mother fell in love with my father and married him. He made her life hell until she died two years ago.”
The vast bitterness in his eyes, and, underneath that, the sadness, made her wince.
“So if you ask me,” he finished, “love and marriage don’t do nobody a damn bit of good.”
“Angela!” boomed a voice behind them, sparing her beleaguered brain from having to think of any response.
Startled, she swung around in her chair to see Vincent Robinson standing next to a distinguished-looking older gentleman with white hair.
“This is Judge Meyers from federal district court,” Mr. Robinson said. “I told him you were starting your second year of law school, and he wanted to meet you.”
Angela stood and shook the man’s hand. “So nice to meet you.”
Mr. Robinson edged in front of Justus who, strangely, remained seated. “Angela has a political science background.”
Angela darted an uncomfortable glance at Justus. Though his head was bowed as he stared down at his clenched hands resting on the table, she could see he’d taken on a ruddy flush.
“I, uh—” she began, distracted. “I hope to be a litigator.”
“Wonderful.” Judge Meyers fished around in his inside jacket pocket. “Here’s my card. You call me, and I’ll put you in touch with a couple of people you ought to talk to.”
“Thank you.”
By now, Mr. Robinson had completely blocked Justus from view and clearly had no intention of introducing him to the judge. What the hell? Her opinion of Mr. Robinson, whom she’d heretofore considered merely pompous, dropped exponentially. What kind of jackass would be so rude to his own son?
Stepping around him, she gave Justus a pointed look, caught his elbow, and tugged it until he had no choice but to reluctantly stand up.
“Judge Meyers,” she said, “have you met my friend—”
Mr. Robinson smiled broadly, stepped forward, and clapped Justus on the back as if he’d intended to introduce him all along. “My youngest son, Justus.”
Justus smiled bravely, but his strained face and drooping shoulders broke her heart. More unbearable was the fact that the mischievous glint had left his eyes, which were now dark and flat.
In that moment, Angela hated Mr. Robinson.
Justus took the judge’s hand. “How are you?” he asked politely.
“Well,” Mr. Robinson said, steering the judge toward another table, “let’s go over here and say hello.”
They left.
Justus shoved his hands deep in his pockets and stared at the tips of his shiny black shoes.
And Angela discovered, much to her surprise, that she infinitely preferred the brash and cocky Justus to this wounded, brooding one.
“You a
nd your father don’t get along, do you?”
Still looking down at the floor, he shook his head. “Nope.”
She stepped closer. “His loss,” she said flatly.
Justus’s head jerked up. They stared at each other for a long, heated moment.
Spellbound, Angela wondered what, exactly, this kid had done to her. He’d graduated from high school last month, yeah, but he was still a minor until his August birthday. A minor! Why was that so hard to remember?
She wanted to throw herself into the moment with him and see where it took them.
She wanted to run away and never see him again.
She wanted...
Him.
Across the ballroom, a singer in a slinky white satin bias-cut gown with a gardenia in her hair stepped up to the mic. She looked exactly like Billie Holiday, which heightened Angela’s sense of enchantment. Especially when her husky voice launched into one of Angela’s favorite Louis Armstrong songs, “A Kiss to Build a Dream On.”
The music sent thrilling chills up and down Angela’s spine.
“Dance with me, Duchess,” Justus said quietly.
He caught her hand and an excruciating jolt of awareness shot up her arm, pooled in her belly and throat, and became an ache. Against all her better judgment, she stared into his piercing black eyes and let him tug her as he backed up to the dance floor. Once there, he reeled her in and slid his big hand, fingers splayed, slowly down her bare back to her waist.
Shivering, she stared up at him and tried to fight her terrible attraction. There was no point in pretending it was anything else. Her head knew he was underage, but her body—her sensitive breasts, breathless lungs, and pounding heart—refused to believe it.
His gaze flickered to her mouth and she felt his hopeless longing as strongly as she felt her own. She imagined the sweet pressure of his full lips on hers and the taste of the champagne in his mouth until she had to squeeze her thighs together to relieve the insistent throbbing.
When the small distance between them became too great, he pulled her closer until they stood thigh to thigh, breasts to chest.
She went willingly.
Every inch of him was hard and powerful, as if an oak tree had leaned down to wrap her in its branches. Except that no oak tree had ever felt so warm and vibrant. So right.
Risk (It's Complicated Book 2) Page 2
