Page 21 of Rolling 75 (The Noire Brothers #1)

“Terribly so,” she grumbles with an eye roll as she strolls over to me, taking my glass to top hers off as she perches on the stool beside mine. “I can’t risk a stage-five clinger, but that leaves one-night stands, which are … rudimentary.”

“Rudimentary?” Reduced to a stupor where I parrot her words, I stretch over the bar, grab the champagne, cognac, and simple syrup to mix them without the out-of-reach ice or lemon juice, like a dirty drunk would, because this is far more important. “Who the hell are you fucking?”

She shrugs. “Law students.”

“Ahh, yes.” I rub my jaw, perplexed by … wherever the hell this is headed, and mix my cocktail. “Another thing that gets better on the dark side.”

“Maybe that’s the problem.” She flings a reproachful hand at me.

“I’ve been immersed in La Lune Noire and tales of what the sex club offers for too long.

You’ve ruined me. Or the environment has.

Without any personal experience on the matter, my mind still asks, Is it really sex if there aren’t whips, chains, and ball gags? ”

Jesus. Fuck. She’s going to kill me.

Ruining her is the best idea I’ve ever fucking heard.

“You might score a belt or a tie slung over the bedpost with a lawyer, but that’s probably as kinky as it gets.” I know anyone in any profession could be into what she’s suggesting, but there is no way in hell I’m telling her that.

“I’m reasonable.” She beams, her cheeks blushing, but she’s bold. The liquid courage is undoubtedly dictating her responses. “I’ll meet them in the middle. Praise, wax, ice, a swift spank, an order to get on my knees, or a demand for me to crawl. That seems doable, even for someone stuffy.”

Fucking Christ. My cock is offering a standing ovation to every damn word dripping from that perfect mouth. “So, what if you don’t meet the right guy by thirty-four? Then what?”

She groans, her arms soaring out in defeat.

“Then I become a desperate woman, obsessing over my timeline and the shortcomings of every prospect, because I also don’t want to settle, which will ultimately lead to analysis paralysis, causing a mental breakdown and eventually a barely there mind.

Before I know it, I’ll be in a nursing home, shouting about how I had a long road of dull lovers who were a distant second to a cat.

Don’t think I haven’t thought about that. ”

I suppress the chuckle bubbling in my throat from that absurd scenario. “Fucking dire. Forget the nursing home. The real travesty is all the sex without ball gags.”

“Shit, that is depressing.” She smirks—a coy tilt to her plump lips. “No need to rub it in on my birthday.”

“Fine, but based on that bite of yours, a gag is such an obvious choice for you, Viper.”

Her head slants to the side, and all her features scrunch as she plays with the cocktail napkins. “You’re going to have to stop calling me that.”

A beastly possessiveness throttles me, and my blood boils so hot that I find myself growling, “The fuck I will.”

Unaffected by my outburst, she forges ahead. “I’ll never meet anyone if they think I’m too intimate with one of the Noire kings. You’re an intimidating cockblock, even without the term of endearment.”

She phrases that as a negative, but it is instantly my new life goal. I don’t know what the hell that means, but allowing Mercy to do any of those things with someone else is never going to happen.

So, I do what I do best—negotiate. “If you want me to stop using the nickname, we’ll need to make a deal.”

Her hand swings out as though I were an exhibition to showcase. “Says the devil.”

“Says the girl who chose to spend her birthday—and most special occasions—with said devil. That’s worse. I am what I am.” My skills are flawless because that backward argument has her chewing her lip, so I press, “Are you in?”

“I think I might miss the nickname.” Her shoulders droop. “But I’m intrigued. Lay it on me.”

“If you aren’t married at thirty-five, we should tie the knot.”

She slaps the bar, more enthusiastic than I anticipated. “You know that saying originated because the couple’s hands were tied together with a cord in a handfasting ceremony, so if we did that, we’d also be working in my proclivity for restraints.”

It figures that an idiom she’s familiar with would be one in which she’s also proficient in its roots.

I’m unsurprised by her enthusiasm about a random fact and too enamored by this discussion to tease her about why she knows that tidbit.

Her weird homeschooling education is usually the culprit.

The home—and resort—education that my siblings are now getting is far more unorthodox, but that’s beside the point.

Regardless, I fuel her vision. “Efficient. Why stop there? We could go a step further and get you a diamond collar.”

“So much better than a veil, which is so archaic.” She snorts, which is her drank-too-much, end-of-the-night tell. “I’ve had just enough champagne to think this is brilliant. How drunk are you?”

“Not drunk enough to forget this.”

“Just in case”—she taps an invisible light bulb in the air before hopping off her stool, scurrying behind the bar, and grabbing a Sharpie and a cocktail napkin—“we should write it down.”

“Let’s do that,” I encourage. “Then it will be binding.”

She cackles as she resumes her seat. “Yep. Don’t get too crafty and slip in the ball gag. I wouldn’t be able to say my vows.”

“Good point.” I take a hefty swig of my warm cocktail and snatch the marker and napkin from her. “We can save that for afterward.”

Her brown eyes widen with excitement. “Yes, sir.”

Jesus.

Diving in, I abandon all caution and write out a simple agreement that fits on the small square.

Mercy Phillips hereby agrees that if she is not wed by her thirty-fifth birthday, she will marry Ryker Noire in a handfasting ceremony on that day.

She clucks her tongue, her good sense clawing through her French 75 haze. “Marrying someone who operates a safe house for criminals would probably tank my career, so I’m not sure this delivers the whole package.”

“Orr,” I argue because I’ve lost my goddamn mind, “you’d have an endless supply of clients who required your services.”

She’s intoxicated just enough to see the wisdom in that, but still, she hesitates. “I’m pretty sure you’re against the whole institution of marriage. But if you’ve changed your mind, you’re a year and a half older than me. Why wouldn’t you be hitched by then?”

“You’re right. I’d never get married”—I pause long enough for her brows to knit together—“to anyone but you, obviously.”

“Obviously.” She giggles, stealing the Sharpie back. “Let me add something.”

She flips the napkin over, scribbles something, and hands it to me for approval.

Ryker Noire promises not to wear pants for said public wedding.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Insurance,” she declares. “If the king shows up without his clothes, I’ll know he really wants me.”

Nonsensical and ingenious at once. That sums up my Mercy.

I’m not sold on the idea—a wedding with or without pants. I’ve never pictured myself as a husband, not after the tumultuous marriage my parents had. But I’m riveted by the prospect with her. So, I sign, and she does too.

She pours the last of the champagne into her flute. “But now you can’t call me Viper anymore.”

Not wanting her to wake up with a massive hangover, I rise to get her some water.

“If you ever decide to say fuck off to all the vanilla men who would be threatened by our relationship and you want to come to the dark side—where praise, whips, wax, and orders are doled out freely—ask for your nickname back.”

No idea what the hell I’m doing. But I have more than a decade to worry about it, and most likely, neither of us will remember any of this by then.

“Like a code. Deal.” She swallows, and there’s a tentativeness to her words that’s rarely there. “And … if you ever …”

Uncertain or not, I fill in the part she isn’t willing to voice. “If I’m ever prepared to offer that and more, I’ll call you Viper again.”

The memory of that night dissipates, and I’m left with the same aura I carried for years after it, that maybe it was all in my head. The heat. The hope. The possibilities and promises. It all hovers out of reach, like a fever dream of delusions Mercy and I aren’t meant to hold.

It makes sense that she was taken aback by me throwing the nickname out there yesterday, even though both times we kissed, her responsiveness was zealous. She sliced through that euphoria with her admission that I was on that fucking floor with her.

But we’ve spent our time in hell, and …

I toss my dice into the air, struck by what lands in my palm—seven and five. As gratifying as that is, it’s nothing compared to what I see next.

Mercy rounds the corner in an elegant black crepe cocktail dress.

It’s so her —off the shoulders, belt defining her waist, pockets in the skirt, which hits mid-thigh, shimmery legs for fucking days.

Her dark blonde locks kiss her bare skin, a fine chain necklace drapes her collarbone, her diamond La Lune Noire–access bracelet adorns her dainty wrist, and my ring sparkles on her finger.

Sophisticated and sexy.

My plus-one. No, my goddamn fiancée.

Mine.

Hope is the last thing to die.