Page 79 of On the Rocks

I shook my head, leaning in to kiss her and elicit another breathy sigh.

I decided it was my new favorite sound.

“Better,” I murmured against her lips. “They taste even better.”

Ruby Grace

Church felt like the Gravitron from the Tennessee State Fair that morning.

One minute, I was smiling like a loon, stomach flipping as I replayed every moment with Noah the night before.

The next, that stomach flip would turn into more of a roll, and I’d lurch forward, feeling like I was going to vomit any minute.

In the course of twenty-four hours, everything had changed.

I glanced down at the ring on my finger — the one I’d put back on before leaving Noah’s — and bile rose in my throat again. I couldn’t wait to take it off. I couldn’t wait to shake off the weight of the wedding to a man who didn’t love me, who didn’t care about anything other than what I would look like on his arm, what my family could do for his campaign.

I felt like the biggest fool, but soon, it would behimwho felt that way.

Still, I knew my stomach wouldn’t stop turning — not until it was all said and done, and maybe even then, too. I didn’t know where to start, who to tell first, and I didn’t have any way of knowing what to expect once our house of cards crumbled.

Our friends would be shocked.

The town would gossip.

Mama’s heart would be broken, no doubt.

And Daddy? I had no idea how he would take the news. Part of me wondered if he’d disown me, if I’d even be able to call myself a Barnett by the end of the week.

Part of me didn’t care, as long as I was free of the man who had lied to me for the past year.

And maybe that was what upset me most — that under all the anxiety over what was to come, I was still heartbroken over what had happened. The man I had promised my forever to wasn’t the man I thought I knew at all, and as much as I wished I didn’t hurt over that fact, as much as I wished Noah being with me the night before fixed everything, it didn’t.

I had still been betrayed.

My heart fluttered at the thought of Noah, a small smile curving on my lips. I reached up, smoothing my fingertips over the bottom one, remembering how it felt when his tongue swept across the sensitive skin.

The way he touched me, the way he made love to me…

It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

How could I feel more passion and care in one night with that man than I felt in an entire year with the one I promised to marry?

As if he could sense I was thinking of him, Noah stretched his arms up over his head, resting them on the back of the pew before he did a casual scan of the congregation like he wasn’t just trying to look back at me.

But he did.

When our eyes locked, every shred of doubt, every fear faded.

He smiled.

I smiled.

And then I counted down the minutes until I could be in his arms again.

“Mama, can we talk?”

She was in the kitchen, baking her famous lemon squares for her meeting with the women’s circle at church the next day. Her auburn hair was up in a messy bun — which Mama never did, unless she was stressed, cleaning, or baking.