Seven Nights

by Kristin Daniels

  “No.” Evan shook his head, smiling down at her. “I just looked through the house.”

  “Oh, come here then. You have to see this.” She dragged him out of the bathroom and to the wall of sliding doors, yanking one side open and pulling him out on the deck with her.

  Late spring in the Panhandle was about as perfect as it got. Garrett loved this time of year down here. Warm temperatures during the day, cooler nights, and none of that ungodly humidity that typically suffocated the area during the brutal summer months.

  True to form, a warm breeze swept across the wide expanse of the deck. Evan and Riley stood at the railing looking out at the waves in the Gulf while Garrett sat in one of the cushy seats surrounding a hammered-out copper gas fire pit.

  Oh yeah, a guy certainly could get used to a place like this.

  “This is nothing like home,” she said, sliding her gaze over her shoulder and back toward Garrett. “It’s so open here. And spacious.”

  “Ouch. I felt that.” Garrett rubbed a spot on his chest that didn’t really hurt, smiling all the while.

  “Uh oh,” Evan said.

  Riley blew out a soft chuckle. “Definitely uh oh. He’s been teasing me with hints that we’ll move out of our tiny one-bedroom apartment and into a real house for over a year now. I like giving him hell about it every now and then. You know, just to make sure he hasn’t forgotten.”

  “Oh, I haven’t. All in due time, babe. We’ll get there.”

  “A home of your own, huh?” Evan asked.

  She sighed and went back to staring out at the Gulf. “Yeah. With a real back yard.” With a slight tilt to her lips, she nudged Evan with her elbow. “Anyway, aren’t you going to miss it here? It’s like a little slice of paradise.”

  Evan leaned his forearms against the railing. “Views like this, definitely. The rest… Not so much.”

  “The rest?”

  “Yeah,” he said, but didn’t elaborate. Instead, he craned his neck to glance back at Garrett. “You know what they say about Inlet Beach?”

  “What?”

  “That it has some of the best shark fishing around.”

  Riley pushed back from the railing, her eyes narrowing on Evan. “Sharks? Like da-dum, da-dum, da-dum-da-dum-da-dum? Jaws sharks?”

  Evan laughed at her theme song imitation and turned around to lean his butt against the banister. “Well, that was a great white, which you don’t see too much around here. But there are several other species, like bull sharks, that you can catch and keep. Or release. Whichever.” He tossed a furtive glance toward Garrett. “It gets the adrenaline pumping, that’s for sure.”

  “I’ve never gone shark fishing.”

  “I’ve got some connections. It wouldn’t take much to borrow my buddy’s boat. We could make a day out of it.”

  Riley held up a hand. “Wait. You want to go out there,” she said, swinging her hand around to hitch her thumb toward the Gulf. “Way out there, and try to catch a shark? On purpose?”

  Evan shrugged. “Yeah. It’s the sport of it.”

  “I’m game,” Garrett added.

  “Oh God,” she said, flouncing on the seat next to him. “Really?”

  He just smiled at her. “How well do you know me?”

  She groaned, but a tiny smile grew on her lips nonetheless. “Too well. I should’ve known you’d want to do something crazy like shark fishing.”

  “What’s crazy is doing it at night,” Evan chimed in.

  Garrett tossed out an enthusiastic “Yes!” just as Riley popped up and gripped his arm with a more emphatic “No!”

  He was having a hell of a time hiding his laughter. “Oh come on, babe. Think about it. The three of us out on the water with the bright moon overhead. The sky will be gorgeous. You know it will be.”

  “There are stars at home. I don’t need to go out on a boat in the middle of nowhere to see them.”

  Evan cut in. “I can guarantee the stars at home have nothing on the ones you’ll see thirty miles out in the Gulf.”

  “Thirty miles?”

  “We’ll be there to protect you,” Garrett teased. “No way would we let some wimpy shark get the better of any of us.”

  “Absolutely,” Evan added. “Besides, half the time they take off and snap the line anyway. Chances of actually reeling one in run more to the slim side of things. It’s just the idea that you might catch one that makes the entire trip worthwhile.”

  “If I do this,” she said. “If I go with you, you guys will owe me. Big time. Like for-the-rest-of-the-week big time.”

  Garrett didn’t know about Evan, but he could totally get behind that trade-off—no matter if they went shark fishing or not.

  “I think that’s fair. And who knows,” Evan said, coming up to sit beside her. “Owing you might turn out to be a way more exciting experience.”

  Damn straight, it would be. Garrett didn’t have a single doubt that being up to their eyeballs in hock to Riley could quickly become the highlight of their entire week and he, for one, couldn’t wait to begin working off his debt.

  Evan Tucker sat there staring at the beautiful woman next to him, wondering what the fuck he was getting himself into. Again.

  And he wasn’t just talking about the shark fishing.

  He was like a moth to Riley’s flame. She was so drop-dead sexy, and there was no denying her independence or her intelligence. Three absolute turn-ons for him, and she cornered the market on each one.

  Hell.

  Not just hell, but fucking hell. Because he knew how lost in this he could get. How lost in her. And Garrett. Ah God.

  He’d be the first to admit that he wasn’t finished licking his wounds, not by a long shot. Leaving town, for him, had been the best—okay, maybe the easiest—solution he could come up with. It was the only way to clear his head—and his heart—of the last half-year’s misery.

  He’d been this close to freeing himself. Then whammy…

  Heaven walked into the bar not five days ago.

  He shouldn’t have taken the job in the first place. It’d only been a three month fill-in stint anyway, meant to tide him over until his brother Simon lined up all his ducks and was ready to go with the construction gig. It was what he needed at the time, though, he supposed. A break from his old life, a clean slate to do what he wanted.

  And damn if right now he didn’t want to do these two.

  When it came to something like this, his willpower was for shit. Always had been. This wasn’t his first threesome rodeo, and he found it nearly impossible to stop that itch from running up his spine—the one that told him this was a bad, bad idea.

  But then he looked at her, and at Garrett too, and shoved all his niggling doubt right out the proverbial window. How could something that felt so right last night be so wrong?

  It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.

  “So it’s settled then. I’ll call my guy and see if we can borrow his boat,” he said. The resulting groan Riley blew out made him smile. “Until then, are you two up for some food and maybe a little fun? I drove past a beer festival on my way in. Suds and Seafood.”

  “Oooh,” Riley said. “I could go for some grouper.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Garrett added. “Let’s unpack first so we don’t have to deal with any of that later.”

  “Perfect.” Evan followed them back into the house and down the two flights of stairs to the lower level. He’d dropped his oversized backpack just inside the doorway off the kitchen when he arrived. It was all he had with him, all that he cared enough about to bring.

  With a booted foot, he pushed his bag to the side and met them outside by their rental car to help them unload. Riley stood at the edge of the garage, her gaze narrowed across the driveway to where he’d parked his Ducati Monster 1100. “That’s yours?”

  “Sweet ride,” Garrett said, coming up beside the bike. “Mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  Garrett swung his leg over the top of Evan’s matte black
and silver baby with the practiced skill of a man who’d ridden before. Straddling the seat and gripping the handlebars, he rocked forward until the bike tipped off the kickstand. The look on his face was one of pure respect and admiration. Respect for the power he held between his thighs, and admiration because the bike was one fine piece of machinery.

  “It’s been years since I’ve been on one of these. Although any of the bikes I ever rode or owned before weren’t quite as nice as this.”

  “You ride?”

  “Rode,” Garrett corrected. “Past tense. Laid one of these babies down about fifteen years ago. I was young and stupid and thought the term crotch rocket had something more to do with my dick than the equipment I was riding.”

  “Damn.”

  Garrett huffed out a chuckle. “Yeah, well. It’s what I get for trying to show off. Luckily my helmet and a nice set of leathers saved my hide—and my life. Haven’t really had the itch to climb back on one since.”

  “Is it horrible to say I’m glad I didn’t know you back then?” Riley asked, tucking her arm under Evan’s and resting her head against his biceps. “I would’ve been out of my mind with worry.”

  Evan slid his hands into his front pockets and shrugged. “It’s all about respect. Respect for the bike, for others on the road.”

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “There’s something about a man straddling his motorcycle that’s downright hot. Exciting, really. But that kind of excitement often brings a healthy dose of fear right along with it.”

  Excitement and fear. Yeah, that pretty much covered the exact way Evan was feeling right now. And not a damn bit of it had to do with his motorcycle.

  “Doing what I do, I’ve just heard way too many horror stories,” she added.

  Garrett reached out and stroked Riley’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. “You don’t have anything to worry about with us, babe. Right, Evan?”

  Evan knew he should answer in agreement, knew that both of them were waiting for him to. Instead he leaned in, kissed the top of her head and said, “So I guess we’ll be using your rental this week?”

  Garrett eyed him for a moment before lifting the bike back onto its kickstand and hopping off. “Sure. Where’s this festival again?”

  “About twenty minutes away, down in Panama City Beach.”

  “Let’s get moving, then,” Garrett said, swatting Riley’s ass on his way past her.

  She laughed a little before sobering and turning her face up to Evan’s as Garrett headed toward the back of the SUV for their bags. The abrupt shift from light-hearted to the concern riddling her eyes now tore him up more than any wreck on his bike ever could.

  “I’ll worry about you too, you know.” Even though she whispered the words, they still struck him head-on, dead-center in his chest.

  “No need to worry about me. My hot-doggin’ days are way behind me and I won’t be going back.”

  “Good,” she said, even though he knew she didn’t have a clue what he was referring to. Hell, maybe he wasn’t so sure himself anymore. Because the one thing he swore he’d never do again—the only thing he promised himself he’d never again get caught up in—was staring him down now with enough heat blazing in her eyes to light up a few catastrophic Florida wildfires.

  And he knew right then it was going to take every bit of power he had inside himself to not get burned alive.

  By the time they found a place to park and wormed their way through a dozen or more booths offering up the same baskets of fried fresh fish or battered salty pickles, or—wait, were those really deep-fried Whoopie Pies?—Evan could practically taste the first sips of ice cold beer sliding down his throat.

  They sidled up to the first microbrew stand they came across, where Evan took the liberty of ordering three beer flights. Each of the four small glasses in the sampler ranged in varietal and were set up on thick wooden paddles in descending shade—the darkest stout being on one end and the lightest amber on the other. The souvenir serving tray may be kitschy and all, but there was a method to Evan’s madness. As soon as he saw the paddle, his mind flew in fifteen different directions with possibilities. Jesus, how he’d love to use that with Riley—minus the glasses filled with beer, of course—just so he could see her ass turn the perfect shade of pink from a sexy spanking.

  He dug his hand in his front pocket for his money clip and nonchalantly readjusted himself while he was in there. He caught his dick at half-mast and willed the thing the rest of the way down. But it had a mind of its own, especially when Riley laughed as the woman behind the counter handed the paddle and beers over to her.

  “This is so great,” she said. “Gives new meaning to the phrase serving up a spanking.”

  “Oh hell yeah,” Garrett said, leaning in closer to her after being given his own sampler paddle. “I can think of a few ways to put this to good use.”

  Damn if the man wasn’t reading Evan’s mind. There was no hope of his cock going down now, not with images of Riley bent over while he reddened her ass running through his mind. All he could think at that point was how thankful he was for a nice pair of loose-fitting jeans.

  He followed them to a grouping of picnic tables set up next to a small stage. According to the sign adjacent to it, a band was due to start in a few minutes. Evan took advantage of the quiet before the group got going and they wouldn’t be able to talk over the music. He sat next to Riley as Garrett took the seat across from them.

  Evan took a sip of his first beer when they did, set it down and licked the foam from his lips. Tasty stuff. “So,” he began, looking more to Riley than to Garrett. “You’re not opposed to a little spanking?”

  He asked the question right as she was taking another sip. She nearly choked before her cheeks pinked up. “Wow,” she said, coughing. “Way to get to the heart of it.”

  He shrugged. “I figured there wasn’t any point to beating around the bush.”

  She glanced across to Garrett. “It’s not anything I’ve tried before.”

  “But you’re not opposed,” he pushed. It wasn’t as if Evan was into BDSM or fetishes himself, but now that he’d latched onto the idea, he couldn’t shake the image of her curved over his lap with her ass lifted and poised for a little attention.

  “I don’t know.” She stammered a little as she spoke, her cheeks still an adorable shade of red.

  Garrett plucked each beer off his paddle to set the glasses aside. When he gripped the handle and smacked his palm firmly with the wide end not once, not twice, but three times, Riley’s breath hitched. Evan was enthralled with the rise and fall of her breasts, the way each pant seesawed in and out of her lungs, and the way she delicately placed her hand at the curve of her cleavage as if she was torn between being excited and afraid.

  Evan slid his gaze to Garrett and immediately caught the interest in the other man’s stare. Evan couldn’t help but think that his own eyes probably looked exactly the same.

  “I think you know,” Evan tossed out, reaching for her wrist and discreetly covering his crotch with her hand. “You can tell what just thinking about it is doing to me.”

  Through his pants, she gripped the spike his dick had become and he wanted to groan.

  “I’m not opposed,” she whispered.

  Holy fuck, he wanted to kiss her. Right here, right now and right in front of her husband for everyone to see. But he knew if he did, he wouldn’t want to stop. He’d want to pick her up and lay her across the top of the table, he’d want to dip to his knees in front of her and bring her this close to a killer orgasm using only his tongue before flipping her over and spanking the tight globes of her ass until the pleasure and pain of it all made her fall apart.

  “Later, then,” he forced himself to say as he let go of her wrist. She returned her hand to the rise of her breasts, her fingers dancing lightly there, and he wanted to moan all over again.

  “Keep this up and you two will get us arrested for public indecency,” Garrett said, still gripping the
paddle and leaning in across the table closer to them. Riley slid her hand over her husband’s and smiled, but she didn’t say anything.

  “I think we need a distraction.” Hell, Evan didn’t just think it, he knew it, and once again he wondered what the fuck he’d gotten himself into. But he couldn’t walk away, not now. She’d gotten to him too much. They’d both gotten to him too much for him not to see this week through. “Food. We need food. What was it you said you wanted?”

  Potentially loaded question, but she responded without the smart-alecky answer she could’ve given.

  “Grouper. Any kind. Oh, and fries.”

  He turned to Garrett, feeling a little as if he was back in the bar taking orders. But he needed the few minutes it would take to get their food to regroup and get his body under control. “You?”

  “That sounds good to me. I’ll have the same, thanks.”

  “No problem. I’ll be right back.”

  He headed toward the nearest food booth and placed an order for three fried grouper sandwiches on French bread along with three orders of fries. The band started to play as he waited for the food and he leaned against the counter to watch them. Country music really wasn’t his thing, but at this point he’d grab whatever opportunity he could to get his mind off fucking Riley and Garrett right here in the middle of this damn festival.

  Just thinking about the two of them had his gaze shifting in the direction of their table. Only it never made it all the way there. It stopped on two people working their way through the crowd toward him—the only two people in the world he didn’t ever want to see again.

  They hadn’t caught sight of him yet, and hell, he wanted to move. Goddamn it, he wanted to fucking disappear. But he couldn’t. He was frozen in place. So he did what he did best. He sucked it up, stiffened his spine and held his ground.

  His gaze shot over to Riley and Garrett, who were sipping their beers and watching the band, and then back to Shannon and Brad, who were still making their way toward him. He prepared himself for the suffocating pain, for the ache to spear his chest as if his heart was being ripped in two. The same ache that had been there for the better part of the last six months.