She wasn’t even going to look back at him. It was seven-thirty a.m. on Monday morning. The weekend was officially over. She hadn’t even meant to spend last night with him. She’d meant to sneak out at some point and go back to her hotel.
That hadn’t happened. Neither had sneaking out this morning.
Addison reached for the door of the cab, but just as she was pulling it open, she heard, “Addison.”
Don’t look back. Don’t look back. It’s over. Just get in the cab and go.
She opened the cab door and then…of course, looked back. “Yeah?”
“I’m glad you came to town.”
She gave him a very heartfelt smile as she gripped the top of the cab door. “I’m glad you liked the Seinfeld GIF.”
He smiled too and it was a mix of humor and maybe a little melancholy. “I’m glad Elena texted you about accidentally almost getting married.”
Addison laughed. She’d finally gotten the whole Vegas story. “Me too.”
“So…take care, okay?” he asked.
Addison knew he’d been about to say something else, but had resisted. She appreciated him respecting her not wanting to make this into anything more. “Yeah. And,” she added before she could think better of it, “this was the best…beignet…I’ve had in a really long time. Thank you.”
He gave her a single nod and she finally got into the cab and shut the door between them.
She gave the cab driver the address to Elena’s office and then pulled out her phone so she wouldn’t watch Gabe as the car pulled away. She hit speed dial number one and lifted the phone to her ear.
“Hi!”
She smiled, her heart warming at the familiar, beloved voice on the other end of the phone. “Hi, sweetheart. I miss you.”
“I miss you too. When will you be home?”
“Tonight. I have a meeting in a little bit and then I’m coming home.”
“Good. I have something for you.”
Addison laughed. “You do? Like what?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“Oh, I love surprises.” She didn’t. Not at all, as a matter of fact. Surprises were the worst. But the person on the other end of the phone was the one person who could make Addison not mind them quite as much.
Which made her think of the man who had surprised her, in so many good ways, this past weekend…
But the person on the other end of the phone was also the main reason Addison couldn’t see Gabe again.
Her name was Stella. She was four and a half. And, well, she had been the biggest surprise of Addison’s life, frankly.
“So, you have a great day at preschool and tell grandma I’ll be there around six, okay?”
“Okay!” Stella made a kissing sound into the phone. “I love you.”
“Love you too, Stell Bell. See you soon.”
They disconnected and Addison rested her head back on the seat, looking out the window at New Orleans going by.
Wow, she really loved this city. Too bad she couldn’t come up with a good reason to come back and visit. Really, really soon. Then again, if she did, there was no way she’d be able to avoid Trahan’s Tavern.
It was for the best that she just stay away.
One month later
“Uh, hey, end of the bar needs you,” Logan said to Gabe.
Gabe frowned down at the blender he was currently using. “Just take care of it.”
They were slammed tonight and for the past hour he’d been mixing daiquiris for the bachelorette party that wouldn’t leave. He fucking hated daiquiris. You didn’t come into a bar like Trahan’s for fucking daiquiris. You went down to Bourbon, paid three times what they were worth, and walked around with an obnoxious plastic souvenir glass like all the other tourists.
“Hey, I’m totally fine with that,” Logan said. “But you might want to think about that a little harder.”
“That bachelorette party is in here because of you,” Gabe said, pouring the pink blend of ice and strawberries into two glasses. “I blame you for this entire night.”
Logan had flirted with one of the bridesmaids two weeks ago when she’d been in for another bachelorette party and she’d insisted that this group come to Trahan’s tonight. And because Logan was now flirting with all of them, they wouldn’t fucking leave.
“Gabe.” Logan stepped in front of Gabe as he turned to set the glasses on a tray.
“What?”
“End. Of. The. Bar.”
Gabe blew out a breath and glanced over.
And froze.
Then thawed. Quickly. His entire body went hot and he immediately started in that direction.
Addison Sloan was perched on the stool at the end of his bar.
“That’s what I thought,” Logan said with a chuckle.
Gabe didn’t even look in his brother’s direction. Or anyone else’s direction. He stalked to the end of the bar. Then around the end of the bar coming to stand directly behind her stool.
Addison pivoted and opened her mouth to reply, but he had his hand in her hair and his lips on hers before she could make a sound.
She tasted even better than he’d remembered. Even better than his dreams about her since he’d put her in that cab twenty-eight day ago.
He kissed her as if he was never going to have another chance. Because, fuck, he’d never thought he would again.
Finally, after several long, hot minutes, he lifted his head.
“Balcony or beignets first?”
She smiled. “Balcony.”
As Gabe took her hand and started for the stairs to the apartment, he smiled.
Karma was an amazingly wonderful, generous, glorious thing. And he must have been very good in a previous life.
Thank you for reading Easy Going! I hope you loved meeting Addison and Gabe!
* * *
Their story continues in the full-length, stand-alone novel, Going Down Easy!
Click it today!
* * *
And do you want to see the full text exchange between Gabe and Addison and get in on what happened in Vegas with Gabe, Logan, Elena, and rest of their friends?
You can get that short story, So Easy, for FREE right here!
And be sure to sign up for my newsletter and follow me on Amazon and BookBub to get notified of all my new releases!
* * *
Now read on for an excerpt from Going Down Easy!
Excerpt from Going Down Easy
It was still amazing to Gabe Trahan how well Addison Sloan’s ass fit in his hands. It was as if it had been made specifically for him to cup and squeeze as he pressed her close while he kissed her. Or when he was dancing with her. Or when he was thrusting deep and hard.
His body stirred at the thought of doing just that as she pushed her fingers into his hair and arched against him as if he hadn’t just given her two—count ’em, two—orgasms upstairs before she’d gotten dressed for work. But they were standing on the sidewalk in front of his tavern, and her cab was waiting. This was supposed to be a goodbye kiss, not a get-her-hot-and-ready kiss.
The problem was, not only did her ass fit his hands perfectly, but the rest of her fit against the rest of him pretty damned well, too, and it was extremely difficult to stop fitting against her once he started.
Addison pulled back a minute later, breathing fast, her pupils dilated. “I have to go.”
Yeah, he knew that. It was the second Monday of the month. That meant she was headed across town to the architectural firm where she was consulting on a once-a-month basis, to do whatever she needed to do there, and then she’d head to the airport to fly back to New York, and it would be another month until he’d see her again.
He leaned in, putting his nose against her neck, inhaling her scent. It was his favorite thing about her. And considering he knew every inch of her intimately, that was saying something. This woman had a lot of really nice inches.
“I know,” he said. “Just give me a minute.”
She
sighed, her fingers curling into his scalp. The sound was almost wistful. “Shit,” she said softly. “This goodbye thing was supposed to get easier.”
Yeah, he would have thought so, too. In fact, he would have expected that by the sixth weekend with her, he would have been over her. Especially considering they didn’t really have a relationship. They had sex. And beignets. And jazz.
When she was in town, they stayed up all Saturday night having the hottest sex of his life. Sundays, they woke up late and spent the day in the French Quarter, eating and shopping and people watching. Then Sunday night, they burned up his sheets all over again. He loved showing her the classic New Orleans stuff—the café au laits and po’boys, the jazz bands on the street corners, the riverboats and the French market. She was addicted to it all. She couldn’t seem to get enough. And seeing it all through her eyes was like rediscovering it for himself.
But they didn’t talk about anything too personal, and they didn’t communicate at all in between her trips to New Orleans. All he knew was that she was a restoration architect from New York who had been consulting with a local firm on a big project in the Garden District. She came to town once a month on Friday morning, showed up at Trahan’s, the tavern Gabe owned and operated with his brother, Logan, on Saturday night, spent the rest of the weekend with him, and then went to the architecture firm again on Monday before heading back to New York that night.
When they were together, they talked about the food, music, and people around them at the moment. Occasionally they dipped into their interests and hobbies, their work, their friends to some extent, but nothing else. They kept it all in the moment, in the present, no talk of their pasts or their futures.
He had no idea if she had siblings, what her favorite color was, when her birthday was, or what kind of car she drove. But he knew that she loved sex against the wall, that she had a particular fascination with his abs, that jazz music made her horny, and that the sounds she made when he sucked on her nipples were the hottest things he’d ever heard.
And that was enough.
Or at least that should be enough.
She was a fling. A once-a-month diversion—that he thought about far too often in the time between her trips to New Orleans. A very fun way to spend thirty-six hours or so every once in a while.
She didn’t even live in New Orleans. They barely knew one another. He had no desire to go to New York City.
And yet, it was definitely getting harder and harder to say goodbye to her.
Hell, after the first night she’d come to Trahan’s with her friend and local architect Elena LeBlanc, and Addison had ended up in his bed for the weekend, he hadn’t expected to see her again. But the next month, almost to the day, she’d been sitting on the stool at the end of the bar. And he’d been shocked by how happy he was to see her.
“Quit your job and come waitress at the bar,” he told her now, pulling back and looking into her big brown eyes.
She laughed lightly. “You mean, quit my job and spend my days giving you blow jobs behind the bar while you serve drinks?”
It would have been playful and funny if he didn’t suddenly want that with an intensity that freaked him out. “Hell yeah,” he growled, lowering his head for another kiss.
It was, as always, long and hot and not nearly enough.
He started to back her up against the side of the building when her cell phone started ringing.
She pulled back and dragged in a deep breath. She stared up at him. “Damn, you’re good at that.”
“We’re good at that.” This was like nothing he’d ever felt before.
Addison continued to watch him as she dug her phone from her purse and lifted it to her ear. “Addison Sloan.” She paused. “Yes, that’s fine. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She disconnected and smiled at him. “I have to go.”
He took a deep breath and stepped back, shoving a hand through his hair. “I know.” Fuck, he should be relieved that she’d gotten the call and had to get in the cab. That was how he would have felt with any other woman. But no, he felt irrationally irritated that she was being called away.
He took another step back. Maybe if he couldn’t smell her, he’d snap out of . . . whatever this was.
It was not okay that he wanted her to stay and that he wanted to see more of her. If she did live in New Orleans, he would have called this off a long time ago. It didn’t matter what her favorite color was or when her birthday was. He knew the important things—she was a New York City workaholic who, obviously, traveled extensively for her job. She wasn’t what he was looking for.
“So I’ll . . . see you,” she said, suddenly acting awkward.
Gabe tried with everything in him to seem nonchalant about that. No, dammit, to be nonchalant about it. “Yep, see ya.” He never asked when. He never confirmed that she’d be back the next month. He always bit his tongue before asking any of that.
“Thanks for . . .” She glanced up at the window to the apartment above the bar. “Everything,” she finished with a naughty smile that made him want to put her up against the wall of the building, taxi driver be damned.
“You’re very welcome.” He couldn’t help the half smile that curled his lips. God, this woman was the best hot-good-time he’d ever had. “And thank you.”
Her cheeks got a little pink, but she laughed and moved toward the cab. “My pleasure.”
Yeah, it had been. Heat rocked through him as he watched her open the car door, slip inside, wave to him through the window, then pull away, headed for the offices of Monroe & LeBlanc, the best restoration architects in town.
Gabe took a big breath and worked on pulling himself together. He’d never been messed up over a woman, and he wasn’t about to start now with one who could never be anything more than the best lay he’d ever had.
So what if her laugh made warmth spread through his chest? It also made his dick hard, and that was all that mattered. So what if watching her eat beignets made him want to pull her into his lap and hug her? It also made him want to hike up her skirt before pulling her into his lap so he could slide his hand up her inner thigh. And that was what he should focus on. So what if he really fucking wanted to know when her birthday was? He also wanted to know if she’d let him blindfold her in bed, and that was what he should be thinking about.
He yanked open the door to the tavern and stomped inside, pissed that he was upset that she had left. Of course she’d left. She fucking lived in New York City. He was her New Orleans fuck buddy. That was it. And it was really, really good. Why couldn’t he just be happy with that?
“Good morning, Sunshine.”
Gabe came up short when he realized that he wasn’t alone in the bar.
“I assume Addison just left,” Logan said from where he was perched at the bar, a cup of coffee to one side and paperwork spread out in front of him.
Gabe glared at his brother and headed around the corner of the bar and straight for the coffeepot. “What the hell are you doing here so early?” Gabe was the primary bookkeeper for the business. Not the big tax and employee payroll–type stuff. Their accountant, Reagan, took care of that. Gabe went over the weekend receipts and got the deposit ready for the bank on Monday mornings. He took care of inventory and ordering and paying the basic bills, while Logan was the one who dealt with repairs and maintenance on the building and appliances. They both handled issues with the employees, customers, and vendors. Truth be told, it just depended on the day and the issue, which of them was best at it.
“We have that meeting at one,” Logan told him. “I’m getting some of the stuff together that they want to see.”
“Meeting?” Gabe asked, turning with his cup of coffee and taking a long pull of the strong, dark brew. One thing he could say for his little brother—he made good coffee.
“With the architects?” Logan said. “The restoration? Remember?”
Of course he remembered. Well, he remembered that they were meeting with architects about restoring
their building at some point.
“That’s today?”
“Yeah. In about three hours,” Logan told him with an eye roll. “Did she fuck you stupid or what?”
Gabe frowned. “Watch it.” Even though, yeah, it kind of felt that way. He couldn’t seem to focus on anything but Addison this morning. Still, he hated hearing Logan put it like that.
But he should be grateful to his brother for pointing out what this thing with Addison should be. Fucking. A fling. Orgasm central. Hot, no-strings-attached-and-thank-the-good-Lord-for-it sex. Something that he’d be getting over any fucking day now.
Instead, he found himself wondering if he should send flowers over to the office where she was today. That would be okay. It wasn’t like he was sending flowers to her home or something. That would be more personal. And he wouldn’t write anything sweet or romantic on the card. These would be thanks-for-the-two-blow-jobs flowers. Or you-do-cowgirl-better-than-anyone-I’ve-ever-met flowers.
“Hey, you okay?” Logan asked.
Gabe realized he’d zoned out. Thinking about sending Addison flowers. And not your-ass-fits-perfectly-in-my-hands flowers. More like I-already-miss-you flowers.
He could not send her I-already-miss-you flowers. Damn, he needed to get his shit together.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Logan gave him a yeah-right look. “Damn, I knew I should have waited on her and Elena that first night,” he said.
Gabe felt his hand curl into a fist and had to work to relax it. It was ridiculous to be jealous over the idea of his brother being the one to serve Addison that first night. And the insinuation that it would be Logan kissing her goodbye on the front sidewalk on Monday mornings if he had made her that first bourbon sour.
Easy Going Page 5