Page 20 of Tiger Bitten

His smile was back, and he offered his arm for her to slip her hand to the inside of his bicep. “I’m starving.”

“I’m always starving,” she admitted.

His chuckle reverberated through him and right into her hand as she squeezed his strong bicep. “I’m sorry about today,” she said.

He made a click sound behind his teeth and said, “No, I’m sorry. I thought about messaging you on a break, but I was busy trying to convince myself the wedding was a bad idea, and you would be better off going without me.”

“I will admit I had a moment or ten of panic when you didn’t show. Look around. Everyone is coupled up.”

Mars wasn’t paying attention though. He was looking at Abe as they passed him and Taryn. Mars pulled Ren’s hand from his bicep and pressed a kiss to her knuckles as he glared at Abe, who ducked his gaze and nodded at something Taryn was saying to him.

“He’s going to get on my damn nerves tonight,” Mars said. “I can already tell.”

She belted out a laugh, surprising herself. “Territorial over a stranger,” she accused him.

“It’s not that. It’s just…” His dark eyebrows drew down. “Well, I don’t know what it is. I just don’t like a man who can’t pay attention to his own woman and is making googly eyes at someone else instead. It’s fucked up.”

“Googly eyes,” she repeated, amused.

“You know what I mean,” he ground out.

The DJ started playing a faster song, and several of the kids and teens at the wedding ran to the dance floor to do a line dance.

“I like this song,” she murmured, watching them.

“I’ll dance to fast songs with you,” he said easily.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“That surprises me,” she said as they moved up in line and reached the serving plates.

“Why?”

“Because you’re so…cool.”

“You think I’m cool?” he asked through a grin. “I’ll have you know I was captain of the debate team in high school and was the lead in three plays my junior and senior year, and I was in the math club.”

“Liar.”

“I’m dead-serious. I even wore glasses.”

“Did you have braces too?”

“Yep. For three weeks before I got in a fight with my brother, Stellan, and he popped me in the mouth and broke the wire, and my stepdad got pissed and removed the braces with a pair of needle nosed plyers when we got home and said it was going to be too big of a pain in the ass to take me to the orthodontist every time I was an idiot, so I never went back.”

“He sounds like a gem.”

“He was the worst,” he agreed, piling spoonfuls of chicken in a cream sauce onto her plate for her.

“Do you have pictures from high school? Ones with braces on? It would make me feel better about being seen with you.”

“Shut up, you’re hot and you know it.”

She nearly choked on air. “You think I’m hot?”

“Any straight man would think you’re hot. Old Googly Eyes over there can’t stop staring at your tits.”