Page 33 of Lush Curves

Aidan and King glared down at her, only half-jokingly, and she laughed. Yeah, it was pretty hilarious how every one of these former womanizing bastards had fallen hard for their women. Tessa had been sure that the guys were dedicated, hardcore players who’d rather gnaw off their own arms than get married… but she’d been wrong. Glancing over at Curtis, taking in his tall, muscled frame, his hard face and cool eyes, his full lips that did naughty, delicious things to her, she shivered with happiness. She wasthrilledto have been wrong, and she knew that the other women felt equally lucky, that they counted their blessings just as fervently as she did.

“Back to work!” she said brightly, sashaying off to a group of guys from the Road Devils MC who had just sat down. King caught the eye of the VP, Scars Innis, gave him a chin raise. The other man stared back, his eyes the clearest blue that King had ever seen. Even from this distance and in this dim light, they were as pure and bright as a waterfall, and even a guuy like King who had no real appreciation for the color of a man’s eyes noticed them. Yeah, Scars was a tough son-of-a-bitch, a dangerous man, a former one-percenter who’d done some pretty bad shit – and as an individual very much like that himself, King had eternal respect for him, and saw Scars’ decent heart under the club cut, under the ferocious scowl.

Scars nodded back, gave his attention to Tessa as she spoke to him. Tessa was so bubbly and charming, and very few guys were immune to her sweetness. Sure enough, Scars suddenly smiled, and as always, the sight of something so open and warm in that badly-scarred face pierced King somehow, hit him in places and ways that surprised him.

“King?” Jax had appeared out of nowhere, and now stood next to him. King jumped, surprised that a guy Jax’s size had somehow managed to sneak up on him. “You got a sec, man?”

“Yeah.”

“My office?” Jax looked nervous, and King’s alertness level went up a few notches. “Just us?”

“Yeah, sure.”

King grabbed his drink off the bar, followed Jax down the hallway. Jax’s private office was where some pretty intense discussions had taken place over the past few years, and King braced himself for bad news. Maybe Jax had heard something from one of the bar’s patrons about some new local threat or worry? God knows, Curves was crawling with Denver’s criminal element, which made it a hotbed of gossip and information. Maybe Jax had picked something up, and he thought it important or legit enough to share with one of his best friends, who also just happened to run a special-ops-for-hire group.

Jax shut the door, turned to face King. His dark-green eyes were serious and King waited for the hammer to fall.

“I was – I just – I wanted to –” Jax stopped, cleared his throat, started again. “Matt…”

King froze. Jaxneverused his real name. Whatever this was, it was big.

“Yeah?” King said quietly. “What, man?”

“Oh, shit. Isuckat stuff like this.” Jax shook his dark head. “Fuck. Sarah told me that I should just say it, so that’s what I’ll do.” He took a deep breath, like a man about to cliff-dive into freezing water. “Matt, will you be my best man?”

“I – what?” King stared at his friend. “I – isthatwhy you called me in here?”

“Yeah.” Jax looked embarrassed. “So… you don’t want to?”

“Are you fuckingkiddingme?” King was incredulous. “OfcourseI do.”

“Yeah?”

“Hell, yeah. And actually… I wanted to ask you the same thing.”

“Yeah?” Now Jax looked both embarrassed and pleased. “For real?”

“Yeah.”

“So… yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“How many times have we said ‘yeah’ in the past minute, do you think?” King asked him. “A rough estimate.”

“Ten?”

“I’d agree with that.”

The two men stared at each other, hard, then without a word, without a second of hesitation, they stepped forward at the exact same time. The embrace was brief, fierce, silent, but it was heartfelt and honest. Then they stepped back, studiously avoiding any and all eye contact, scrambling to regain their manly swaggers.

“You think that Mac and Aidan will be OK with this?” Jax said suddenly. “I mean… I want them both my wedding party, but you know, you can only have one best man…”

“Actually, they’re gonna ask each other.”

Jax paused. “You know this, how?”

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