The Winemaker's Dinner: Dessert (The Winemaker's Feast) by Dr. Ivan Rusilko Page B

collaborated in a fantastic moment of having avenged what was lost. The demon had been vanquished, and Ivan had reclaimed a piece of his pride.
    Caught off guard, Damian lost his balance and crashed back into the bar, knocking his friend over in the process. He looked up at the man who’d just backhanded him with hatred smoldering in the depths of his eyes. A collective snicker rippled through the crowd of bystanders.
    “Are you done here, Ivan?” the bouncer called from behind the onlookers.
    Snapping out of his fury, Ivan smiled at the bouncer before turning his attention back to Damian, who remained on the floor. It seemed he did not care to tango—not tonight, not ever.
    Ivan leaned down, his voice low and menacing. “How did that taste, asshole?”
    Damian just stared back, gasping like a fish out of water.
    “Yeah, I figured as much,” Ivan scoffed. He motioned to the bouncer. “Get these clowns outta here, would you?”
    In one rough motion, and with little regard for their wellbeing, the security guard parted the crowd and grabbed each of the men by their shirts. He dragged them to their feet and toward the door.
    A wave of giggles and murmuring followed them out, but after a few moments, with no more to see, the crowd dispersed. Ivan took a deep breath and felt a momentary lightness. The weight of this burden had finally been lifted from his shoulders, but he wasn’t done. The freak was free, and it was time to right so many, many wrongs.
    Despite the release he’d relished after confronting Damian, he could already feel the tension returning. So now the freak turned his head toward her. He looked over the heads of the crowd, many of them still conversing about the bitch slap that had sent a TV star flying, and found the girl in the teal dress. Suddenly every other woman in the club faded away. The freak had made his choice. Even he wanted Jaden.
    She and Tasha sat side by side, giggling and sipping martinis, and the veil fell over Ivan’s eyes once more. Making the same beeline he’d made in Bianca what seemed like a million lifetimes ago, he darted through the crowd and across the dance floor. As he approached, a second burly security guard nodded and stepped aside.
    “Hey, Doc,” the man greeted him as he granted access to the roped-off area.
    “Hey, Sam,” Ivan replied as he pushed past the crowd lingering to get a better look at the beautiful people behind the ropes.
    More than a few heads turned as he crossed the room, but the girl who sat with her back to him—the one and only person Ivan wanted to notice him—remained oblivious. As he came to stand next to her, he held his breath. Finally sensing his presence, Jaden turned in her seat to face him. Her eyes, as green as emeralds in the mid-day sun, locked with his for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. How long had it been since her words had broken him? He could tell by her face that those same words now echoed in both their ears.
    A two-second visual conversation was all he needed. Emotions rushed through him—hate, love, anger, lust, disdain, sorrow, pity, envy—until he had no idea what he felt. But pinpointing his feelings didn’t matter. He was drawn to her presence, and he knew from experience that the freak was not about to turn back now. He didn’t care about the anger, he didn’t care about the confusion, and he didn’t care about the pity. All he cared about was reclaiming what had been stolen. What tomorrow brought was insignificant. Tonight she would be his, and that’s all that mattered.
    Silently, he extended his hand to her. Wordlessly, she accepted.
    The feel of her skin against his sent a flash of energy though his body. He prepared himself for a night of passion that wasn’t spoken but screamed.

Chapter 17
    “Crazy Bitch”
    I VAN T OOK J ADEN’S H AND and led her back through the dance floor and around the bar, blindly pushing past anything between them and the back exit of the club. They crashed