Page 19 of Bourbon and Proof

Faye laughs out, “No way! I’ve been waiting for my turn with Griz all night.” And like he’s been waiting to show off, he twirls her around. She leans over, puckering her lips at me, “I need one from you too.”

I give her a kiss back and they dance away, still laughing. “She might be my favorite now,” I tell Lincoln as we watch the patriarch of the family dance with their newest member.

“You said that about Laney too,” he says while still smiling at his wife.

“They’re fucking fabulous, what can I say?” I glance back toward the bar, silently berating myself for always looking. When I find Ace talking to the bartender, it seems like a good time for water. “I’m parched,” I say as I spin under Linc’s arm and toward trouble.

“Go get him, Hads!” he calls out after me. I donotneed the encouragement, but it makes me smile, nonetheless. Linc is my best friend for a roster of reasons, one of them being that he knows exactly what to say when I need it most. The Foxx men are good at that—Lincoln provides encouragement, Griz has wisdom, Grant’s the good conscience, and Ace is my rook.Protector, instigator, and yet somehow, it always feels like more. A driving force to do better and prove him wrong.

The room crawls with busy-bodies and watchful eyes. People love weddings almost as much as they love the rumors that come out of them—who got too drunk and who went home with whom.

“Hello, bartender, I would love a water,” I sing-song with a charming smile. I instantly feel Ace’s attention on me. Brushing up against his arm, I look right at him when I add, “And a bourbon. The 1910. Neat.” I hold up my hand. “Three fingers.”

“She’ll just have the water,” he says as he glides one hand into the pocket of his pants, angling his body toward me.

I lift my eyebrows. “You do not have a say about what I’m swallowing tonight, Daddy—” I can barely finish, gasping as his arm wraps around my waist, moving us down the hall toward the restrooms. “What are you?—”

“Keep moving,” he bites out. “I’m not having this conversation in front of one of my employees or the rest of this fucking town.”

My senses are on fire, lit up from the inside out, as I push his hand from my hip and stride ahead of him. Once I reach the edge of the distillery hallway, right where the light ends, I turn to look at him again.

But he doesn’t stop, eyes darkening on me as he walks me backwards, just a few feet farther, into the shadowed space.

“That’s enough,” he says, voice low, his body so close and distracting that I don’t register what he’s saying.

I can’t begin to unpack why making him mad has me feeling so triumphant. Enough to have me saying something I’ve wanted to for a long time.

I aim for unaffected as I rest my head back against the wall where he has me caged. “You know what’s tiring?” I ask as I look down the front of him and then back up to his stupidly sexy face.“Finding you staring at me, and knowing what it looks like when someone wants something?—”

He steps closer. “Is that what you think? That I wantsomethingfrom you?”

I drag my bottom lip through my teeth. If there was ever going to be a time to be blunt with him, it would be now. Why add a filter when I’m already this deep into it? “I don’t think you know exactly what you want from me. But it’s driving you wild, trying to figure it out. That much is obvious.”

His body inches even closer, and my heart beats so damn fast that I feel out of breath.

“You’re a pain in my ass, Hadley.” His eyes search mine before glancing down at my lips again. But he quickly realizes how close he is and takes a step back.

Not so fast, Daddy.

I take a step closer, head tilting back so he has no choice but to keep his eyes on mine. “What did you want to tell me so urgently that you needed to pull me into a dark corner? Or was talking not on your mind?”

“To knock it off.” Taking another step back, his hands move to his pockets. “You’re working awfully hard lately, trying to get under my skin.”

Without a thought, I blurt, “I felt exactly what I was working on making hard last night.” And I don’t regret it when I see his jaw tic, just as I expected it to. Looking at the perfectly manicured scruff along his chin, leading toward his full bottom lip, I add for good measure, “Or was the blonde with her feet on you responsible for getting you all worked up?” I sarcastically open my mouth, mocking surprise. “Is that your little kink, Ace? Stilettos and femdom?” Erasing the space he’s building between us, I watch as his throat bobs.

As I run my fingers along the center of his shirt, my thumbs graze the buttons, and I can feel how quickly I’ve turned the tables on him as his breath catches.

When I look up at him, though, I realize the mistake I’ve made. Pushing his buttons is one thing, but this close, with his blue-gray eyes locked on me, I almost forget my own name. With a narrowing gaze, he brushes a curl out of my face and behind my ear. His thumb traces the line of my jaw so softly that it feels like I’m practically imagining it. My whole body heats, and words, thoughts, the world outside completely disintegrate at the simplest touch.

The low rumble of his voice raises goosebumps along my skin when he says, “I think if you knew my ‘little kinks,’ you wouldn’t push me with that bratty mouth so often.”

Oh, fuck.

Heart racing, I’m overheated and out of my depth. Dirty talk and submissive behavior are nothing new, but the suggestiveness coming from him has me ready to shove away thoughts of feminism and simply adopt a needy dialect of phrase combinations like “yes, sir” and “please, Daddy.”

His hand falls down my arm, grazing my skin until he reaches my elbow, and instead of pulling his hands away or retreating to his pocket, he follows the same line, along my waist and down my hip. The light touch has me holding my breath, my panties warm and wet as my thighs clench. Taking the smallest step closer, he breathes me in, perhaps gathering his wits.

So I do what I do best when it comes to Ace: I push it. “I think if you really were paying attention, you’d catch on that my bratty mouth would like you to finally do something with it.”

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