A quick glance at his watch told him what his knotted gut already knew: time was running out, and when time ran out, he’d be screwed. The wedding reception hummed along at full speed, and he’d survived enough of these gigs in his seventeen years to know how they worked: dinner, then cake and dancing, then everyone split. The chattering, overdressed crowd had already swilled their gourmet dinner like starving pigs at a trough, so he figured they’d slice the cake any second. His frustration grew. With each tick of his watch he felt chances slipping away, precious opportunities evaporating. Magic vibrated in the air tonight and he meant to take full advantage of it.

If only he could find her.

“Nice party, man.”

Justus turned to see Brian Henderson walk over, his tan face flush with excitement.

Justus grunted, unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket, shoved his hands in his pants pockets, and leaned against the nearest marble pillar.

“I guess.”

The place did look beautiful, he thought grudgingly. Glittering crystal chandeliers lit the gilded art deco carvings on the walls and ceiling. Tall candles on taller candlesticks flickered on the white-clothed tables. The centerpieces? Round glass bowls crammed with enough fragrant pink and white roses and lilies to stock a florist shop for a month. It was pretty, sure, but Justus couldn’t get over the waste. By morning every one of those flowers would droop, and by tomorrow evening this time they’d be nothing but a distant, expensive memory.

Brian leaned against the other side of Justus’s pillar and tugged at his bow tie. “Your dad sure can spend some money,” he said, raising his voice over the string quartet ten feet away in an alcove.

Justus’s jaw tightened. “You have no idea.”

Little did Brian know that his father had engineered this whole blowout to demonstrate to Cincinnati’s elite—black, white, and otherwise; judges, politicians, and local TV personalities—that he’d arrived and planned to stay for a good long while. The old man should have just handed out copies of his bank statement and been done with it. Then he could have donated the $75K he reportedly spent on the reception to the Boys & Girls Club or something else worthwhile.

Justus scanned the crowd and saw his beaming brother and his new wife accepting congratulations from an elderly man at a table across the room. V.J. looked happier than he’d ever seen him, and Justus was glad for that. But their father’s corresponding smugness still pissed him off.

“Anything for V.J.,” Justus muttered, glaring around at the ridiculous display of conspicuous consumption in every direction. “Nothing’s too good for the crown prince.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “Don’t start. Where’s your girl?”

“Carla went to the bathroom. No telling when she’ll be back.” Justus focused for the first time on Brian’s blond hair, which stuck up all over his head like a rooster’s comb. “What the hell’s wrong with your hair?”

Brian grinned and swiped his hand through it. “It’s the style. Carla liked it.”

“Carla ain’t got no sense.”

Truer words were never spoken. Carla had her uses—Justus patted his back pocket to make sure he’d remembered his jimmies—but they were pretty much limited to looking good and being eager and available. The bottom line was that Carla was just that—a
girl
. The person he wanted to find? Now, she was a W-O-M-A-N. He discreetly scanned the room again.

Brian’s eyes narrowed. “Who do you keep looking...” He trailed off suddenly, his entire body snapping to attention.

Justus rolled his eyes, knowing that only one person in the room commanded this reaction.

He turned in time to see his father walk up and extend his hand to Brian.

“Hello, Brian,” Vincent Robinson said. “Welcome.”

“Thanks, Mr. Robinson. Great reception.”

Justus scowled at the way his father’s chest puffed up.
Jackass
. Oh, sure, the old guy looked perfectly normal at first glance. He was tall and slim, with salt-and-pepper hair trimmed short, dark brown skin, sharp eyes with frameless glasses, a fancy silk tuxedo, and gleaming patent leather shoes. He looked exactly like what he was: a successful civil rights attorney with his own practice.

The problems started every time he opened his mouth and began spewing his passive-aggressive bullshit.

“Thanks, Brian. Glad you could come.” Vincent’s perfect white teeth gleamed in a wide smile, at least until he turned to Justus and nodded. “Son.”

Justus automatically slouched against the pillar and crossed his arms over his chest. Maybe Brian didn’t see the man’s animosity oozing from his pores like sweat, but
he
sure did.

“What’s up, Vincent?” Justus asked coolly.

His father’s temples began to throb, as predictable as the Bengals losing come playoffs. It was childish to get such pleasure from something as easy as calling his father by his name, true, but why pass up these little moments of joy?

Vincent looked to Justus’s ears. “I see you wore those earrings.”

While Brian stared fixedly at the cake table and pretended he’d suffered a catastrophic hearing loss, Justus fingered the two-carat round CZ studs he wore. He’d planned to take them out before the ceremony, but forgot in the pre-wedding excitement.

Now, though? What the hell. He’d play.

“They’re not too much, are they?” he asked, channeling a newborn’s wide-eyed innocence as best he could.

Vincent’s lips thinned into virtual invisibility, but then he faced Brian and clapped him on the back. “When do you leave for New Haven?”

“Ah...” Looking startled, Brian darted a glance at Justus. “A few days before school starts.”

“Some of the best days of my life were at Yale,” Vincent said thoughtfully, shooting a fond smile in the direction of the newlyweds, who’d moved to the next table down. “Vincent Junior’s, too. It’s where he met his wife, of course.”

V.J. glanced over, saw Vincent and Justus together, and frowned.

Justus studied his fingernails and waited for his father’s inevitable criticism, which should arrive in four...three...two...

“I’d hoped
both
of my boys would go to Yale and join me at the firm,” Vincent continued delicately, “but, well...”

Justus yawned—hugely and loudly.

Vincent scowled and opened his mouth.

But Brian, who was loyal to the soles of his feet, jumped in to defend Justus. “Well, you know,” he said, cheeks glowing red. “Xavier’s a great school, and all.”

“Don’t bother, man,” Justus said. “Some people would be glad their kid got a full ride at a good school, but not Vince, here.”

Vincent’s face turned the color of sunburned eggplant, which was wonderfully gratifying to Justus. “I did
not
pay for all those years of private school so you could play basketball at Xavier University!”

That was it for poor Brian, who cringed and melted away into the crowd.

Justus seethed and tried not to think about how much he wanted to lunge for his father’s throat.

He had no hoop dreams beyond college; he was nowhere near good enough for the NBA, and he knew it. His highest ambition? To become a personal trainer with his own gym after he graduated, which seemed like a perfectly respectable and worthwhile contribution to society, even if he’d never be able to finance a wedding reception that cost seventy-five large for any future daughters he might have. One day he’d tell Vincent the real deal about his career aspirations.

But not today.

“Don’t worry, old man.” Shrugging, he grabbed a champagne flute from a passing waiter’s tray, gave his father a mocking little cheer, and sipped appreciatively. “When I move out in August you’ll never have to spend another dime on my ass. And when I’m drafted and get my signing bonus, I’ll write you a check for the hundred large you’ve spent on my education up till now. Deal?”

And...there it was.

Check and mate.

Vincent went rigid. Muscles in his jaw and neck throbbed with what looked like the beginnings of an apoplectic fit.

Justus watched him, idly wondering whether Vincent would actually slap him right here in front of God and everybody.

Their mutual animosity might have exploded and mushroomed into World War III if V.J. hadn’t materialized at Vincent’s elbow.

“Dad?” he asked, shooting Justus a death glare. “Hey, Dad? Judge Meyers just asked for you. He’s at table twelve.”

One beat passed.

Two beats.

Finally Vincent blinked and gave the bottom of his jacket an efficient tug.

Justus, knowing he’d won this round, grinned and raised the flute to his lips again.

Vincent lashed out and jerked the glass away. “No seventeen-year-old son of mine drinks alcohol,” he snarled, then spun on his polished heel and stalked off.

Without missing a beat, Justus took a fresh glass off the tray of another passing server.

“
Why?
” V.J. asked tiredly. “Why do you
always
let him think the worst about you? You don’t even drink.”

Justus scowled. “Because he’s a dick, that’s why.”

“He’s our father.”

“He’s still a dick.”

“He’s not so bad,” V.J. said.

“To
you
.”

V.J. pressed his lips together and chose not to argue with this unmistakable truth.

“Come on,” he said instead, nodding toward the dance floor, where several servers were wheeling the cake table. “It’s time to cut the cake.”

“Wait, man.” Justus caught his brother’s arm to stop him, because this was the first second they’d had alone since the wedding and the occasion seemed to call for a few words. He cleared away the unexpected lump in his throat. “You did good. Carolyn’s great. I’m happy for you.”

V.J. beamed. “Thanks. And thanks for being my best man. I love you, man.”

He pulled Justus into a bear hug so tight Justus expected to hear his ribs split with a loud crack.

Justus pushed him away, perilously close to tears. “You always have to go too far, don’t you?”

V.J. laughed again. “Let’s go.”

With that, he hurried back to his wife’s side with Justus trailing behind. The cake-cutting procedure followed. Big snooze. At least until Carolyn laughed and turned to say something to her smiling sister:

Angela, the maid of honor.

There she was!

Justus stilled, his heart thundering, his stomach tightening the way it did before a big game.

Angela, man.

Now that was a
woman
.

Even though everyone else today had gushed about the bride (who, let’s face it, looked like the meringue on top of some pie in her fluffy dress), he’d been unable to stop staring at the bride’s sister.

Like all the other bridesmaids, Angela wore a pale pink dress that reminded him of the dress Marilyn Monroe wore in that old movie where she stood on the subway grate so her skirt could blow up. It had a halter top and some sort of pleated knee-length skirt that left too much—way too much—of Angela’s gorgeous flesh visible.

Her skin was perfectly smooth, a deep, reddish brown he wanted to touch and taste.

Yeah, he’d thought about it.

A lot.

He wanted to run his hands and lips all over her bare back, shoulders, and arms, to have her wrap her long, shapely legs around his waist, to bury his face between the breasts that filled the front of her dress to overflowing, to squeeze that tight ass, to clamp his hands on those curvy hips and anchor her while they had sex with her on top.

Yeah, she was older and he was younger, but when he looked at her, honest to God, he couldn’t make their age difference matter.

Not when he wanted...wanted...
wanted.

The gnawing ache in his gut grew.

He watched avidly while Angela chatted and laughed with V.J., relaxed with his brother in a way she’d never been with him. He tried to look away a couple times, but his eyeballs were no longer taking direction from his brain.

What was it about her? His fascination with her, which had grabbed him by the throat when they met yesterday at the rehearsal, made no freaking sense. But when V.J. introduced them at the church and Justus saw her—the heart-shaped face topped by a widow’s peak, the long sable hair, the wide brown eyes tipped up at the outer edges, the straight nose, the lush, bow shaped lips—he felt like he’d been whammed in the ribs with a baseball bat.

Why couldn’t he escape her gravitational pull? Yeah, so she was beautiful. But so what? He’d screwed lots of beautiful girls in his short life, starting with the sexy little senior (cheerleader; big tits; bigger ass; skilled mouth) that’d popped his cherry when he was fifteen. Angela’s age—twenty-four—and the fact that she already had a political science degree and a year of law school under her belt intrigued him, but he didn’t think that accounted for her appeal, either. The only other thing he could think of was that she was (as far as he could tell, and his instincts about people were usually dead right)
uptight
. A rule follower but never a rule breaker.

A good girl.

This knowledge attracted him as though she’d used a giant shepherd’s hook to catch him around the waist and pull him in. It made him want to ruffle her feathers and make her laugh. To see if he could access the part of her that was a little bit bad. And since his Spidey sense was telling him he had
way
more sexual experience than she had, he was betting he could.

Angela
.

Even though, as best man and maid of honor, they’d spent a lot of time together in the last twenty-four hours, he hadn’t really had a chance to talk to her. Worse, when the reception ended, he had no idea when he’d ever see her again.

Yeah, no.

He couldn’t let this opportunity pass.

So when she took a piece of cake and wandered back to her seat at the head table, Justus, plagued by a relentless curiosity, followed her.