“That’s music?” Sed asked, glancing toward the flashing DJ booth suspiciously. “Could have fooled me. Sounds like shit.”
“This shit is far more popular than our music,” Eric said. He reached around Sed for a plate but was blocked by the shift of Sed’s body, as if they were playing one-on-one basketball instead of raiding a buffet.
“Put me out of my misery.” Trey grabbed a butter knife, gritted his teeth, and aimed the knife at his ear canal.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Eric said, “Small as it is, your brain is rattling around in there somewhere.” He grabbed Trey’s wrist and they made a big theatrical scene of fighting over embedding the butter knife in Trey’s ear.
“I’ll do it,” Trey said, cringing as the knife slipped and scrapped against one of the piercings in his ear. “I’ll end it all. Make the noise stop.”
“Get the knife, Jace,” Eric said, “before Mills bleeds all over the blood pudding.”
Jace squeezed Trey’s wrist and took the butter knife out of his loosened grip. He dropped the dull blade on the table. “Maybe you should talk to the DJ,” Jace suggested. “Ask him to play something more to your liking.”
“But that would be the sensible thing to do,” Eric said.
“And the DJ happens to be a her,” Sed remarked, adding several crumpets to Jessica’s already overflowing plate.
“Oh really,” Trey said, his body going erect with interest.
“Does Reagan know you still flirt with every woman who will hold still long enough for you to harass her?” Eric asked.
“Of course she knows. She isn’t stupid or blind,” Trey said. “She also knows a little harmless flirting leads to nothing.”
“Except anything you want,” Jace said with a grin.
Eric released Trey, who tugged on his form-fitting burgundy brocade vest and straightened a very large lacy cuff. Did men actually wear this stuff back in the day? How did the human species not go extinct? Dressing like a chick couldn’t have done much for their ancestors’ testosterone secretion. Trey smoothed an eyebrow with one spit-wet fingertip and headed toward the umph umph umph blaring from giant speakers across the room.
“I don’t know why Reagan puts up with him,” Eric said, crossing his arms over his chest. “If I acted like that with other women, Rebekah would put me on pussy restriction for a month.”
Jace laughed. “Does Rebekah have trust issues?”
“I don’t think so,” Eric said. “She’s just very territorial.”
“Aggie is as well,” Jace admitted. But like Reagan, he understood that his mate could be trusted to enjoy others without breaking their emotional bond or cheating.
“Jess is also territorial,” Sed added, resting the full plate on his forearm and grabbing a second plate to add a selection of desserts.
“Territorial? If you keep feeding her like that, she’s going to end up as her own sovereign territory,” Eric said.
“No worries, she shares.” Sed grinned. “And she’s been so horny lately, I can scarcely keep her satisfied.”
“Maybe you should hire some assistance,” Eric joked.
Sed hit him in the forehead with a crumpet.
An unexpected silence filled the room. Jace had been tuning out the music in the background, but its sudden absence was very noticeable.
Trey’s voice came over the speakers. “I hope you all can dance to Exodus End,” he said. “I can’t stand the club music for another moment.”
Everyone on the dance floor gawked at him as the familiar intro of “Bite” filled the large room. Apparently no one knew how to dance to Exodus End, so Trey entered the dance floor to show them.
A hand pressed against Jace’s lower back.
“Is anything on the buffet edible?” Aggie asked.
He glanced at her and smiled. “I wouldn’t know. Sed is holding up the line.”
“I’m almost finished.” Sed added another slice of cake to his second plate.
“Yeah,” Eric said, “but there won’t be anything left for the rest of us.”
“I’d hit you, but I don’t have a free hand.”
“I’d be willing to take on the task,” Aggie said. “For a price. I don’t work for free.”
“Does she still charge you, Jace?” Eric quipped.
“Not after tomorrow,” he said. “Marrying her makes good financial sense.”
“Bassists do make a little more than paper boys,” Aggie said.
“But not by much,” he said.
Eric lifted an eyebrow at him. “Didn’t your contract give you an even cut of Sinners’ profits?”
“Yeah.” Jace shrugged. He really didn’t care about the money. It was nice to make a living off what he loved, but he could do without. It wasn’t as if he’d never been destitute. He didn’t particularly want to go back to wondering where his next meal would come from, but he’d survived it once and could survive it again.
“Inside joke,” Aggie said. “My mother was trying to get him to tell her how much money he makes.”
Sed snorted. “Sounds like my mother-in-law.”
“I thought you and Jess cut all ties with her after the way she acted at your wedding,” Eric said.
“Yeah, well, she decided she could control herself if she was allowed to see her grandchild. She’s been marginally successful at not pissing off Jessica so she doesn’t get disinvited from the delivery room.”
“Jessica looks pretty hungry if you ask me,” Aggie said. “If anyone is pissing her off, it’s you.”
And Sed finally left the buffet to allow the growing line a chance to score some food.
“You’re brilliant,” Jace told Aggie.
“Eh, Sed thinks like a typical guy. He’s easy to manipulate.” She kissed the corner of Jace’s mouth. “I’m still trying to figure out how to get you to do what I want you to do when I want you to do it. You’re still a bit of an enigma to me.”
“Tripod is not complicated,” Eric said. “Just bring out the short jokes. They get him all flustered, and he forgets he’s brooding and that he lacks a sense of humor.”
“He’s not short, he’s perfect,” Aggie said. “Maybe you’re just freakishly tall.”
Jace lifted his eyebrows, the corner of his mouth twisting in a smirk. “Eric’s just jealous because my dick is bigger than his.”
Eric stared at him with his mouth hanging open, apparently without a proper comeback.
“Yeah, well,” Eric said finally. “My dick’s not small. It’s perfect. Maybe yours is just freakishly large.”
Aggie and Jace laughed.
“And I like it that way,” Aggie said, giving Jace a courteous slap on the ass.
Eric grabbed two plates and, as if on cue, Rebekah sidled up to him, bypassing the entire line.
“Hey,” Aggie chided. “We were here first.”
“Eric was holding my place,” Rebekah said, the red streaks in her blond hair matching her ball gown perfectly.
“I was?” Eric said, his lips twitching with amusement.
“Yes.”
“And where have you been, Miss Reb?” Aggie asked. “Setting up more pranks to scare the piss out of me and Jace?”
If the looks of confusion on Eric and Rebekah’s faces were fabricated, they should have gone into theater instead of music.
“What are you talking about?” Eric asked.
“The message you wrote in lipstick on the mirror,” Aggie said. “Very mature, Eric.” She crossed her arms over her large breasts and scowled at him.
Jace had almost forgotten about the creepiness they’d experienced before they’d entered the castle. He shuddered as the feelings of unease settled upon him once more.
“What did it say?” Eric said with a snigger as he filled his plate with food. “Get out! Get out of Aggie’s pussy, Jace. You’re late for your own rehearsal dinner?”
“You know damned well what it said, jackass,” Aggie grumbled.
“He is mine,” Jace told
them. He lifted a heavy white china plate from the end of the buffet as Eric followed after his wife down the spread of food.
Eric’s head swung in Jace’s direction, and his eyebrows shot up toward his bizarre hairline. “Do you have something in the closet you’d like to share, little man?”
“No.” He prodded Eric in the ribs with his elbow. “That’s what the message said.”
“I’d love to take credit for rattling the unrattleable—”