BANNED: An enemies to lovers romance (Love and Liquor Book 1)

by Angel Devlin

  "But you're not," I tell her, "and I made a promise I wouldn't do this with you."

  "Why?" she asks, frustration evident in her tone.

  "Because."

  Rachel jumps out of bed. "Because, is not a fucking reason. I'm going to get washed and dressed."

  She lands out of bed with a thump, which is a mighty feat for someone so slim, then storms off into the hallway, looking for the bathroom. "Where’s the fucking bathroom, Evan?"

  "It's downstairs," I tell her.

  Thump.

  Thump.

  Thump.

  For thirteen stairs.

  Then, slam.

  I hear the shower turn on. I lie back on the bed realising just how much our screw has screwed us up.

  Rachel

  To say I'm fucked off is an understatement. I wash quickly, thankful that the practised act of Evan sex means there are guest towels laid out in the bathroom and some female shower gels and shampoos. I bet he even has fucking tampons in the cupboard.

  I step out of the shower, wrap a towel around my head and another around my body and get ready to stomp back upstairs as I forgot to take my clothes with me. As I pass the front door something silver catches my eye and I grab it before going upstairs. Evan passes me as I reach his room. "I'm going to get cleaned up myself, then we'll talk."

  "Talk. I don't recall any of your other lovers saying they talked. Except to try to give you their phone number on their way out of the door."

  "Just give me a moment, Rach."

  I wag a finger at him. "Do not Rach me. We are not friends right now."

  He huffs and leaves the room.

  I look around for somewhere to hide what I've stolen. Got it. There's a loose piece of carpet at the edge of the room and it fits under there nicely.

  I get dressed, find a hairdryer, and dry my hair.

  Evan returns. He's put on some lounge pants and an oversized tee. He sits on the edge of the bed.

  "I'm so sorry, Rachel. I genuinely didn't know that women talked about me and that I had a set routine. I guess I'm just used to picking a woman up and doing my thing."

  "Do you know what else they say?" Her lip curls.

  I sigh. "Please, enlighten me."

  "They say you seduce them, then you shag them, then you send them out on their arse."

  I sigh again. "That's true. No repeats and my rule is no one stays."

  "Why?"

  "Because they're one-night stands. I don't do commitment. I don't want to encourage them."

  "So, is that what I am? A one-night stand?"

  "No, Rachel." I feel my heart clench as I get ready to say the words my brain screams at me not to say.

  "You aren't a one-night stand. You shouldn't have happened. This was a mistake."

  She punches the pillow. I thank Christ that it isn't my face. I'd have been out for the count. Actually, I think I might feel better if she did lay me out. At least I'd escape the awful feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  She's going to go home and tell her mother.

  Then her mother is going to tell my mother.

  Then I'm dead. I swore I wouldn't touch Rachel.

  Something nags at the back of my mind. When I first saw Rachel when I was leaving the pub she said those words, but differently.

  "Is that really what they say about me? Seduce. Shag. Send home?"

  "Yes." She nods. "And I've no intention of joining them. I will not be part of the stand-drooling-at-Evan bar crowd."

  I breathe a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God. So, you get this was never supposed to happen? Can ours be seduce, shag, secret?"

  "No, it fucking cannot."

  I watch as she stands with a hand on her hip and repeats the words I heard earlier that night.

  "I'm seduce." She holds up a finger.

  "Shag." Finger number two.

  "And stay the whole damn night. What are you going to do about that, hey? You broke your rules already. No finger in Rachel's ass, so get ready to break another. That no one stays the night. I'm going nowhere until I get the full Heavenly Evan experience."

  "Well, that's not happening," I say and I rush at her, picking her up before she can realise what’s happening and place her over my shoulder. Grabbing her bag as I turn to leave the room, I try to ignore the pert ass next to my head and I walk down the stairs towards the door.

  Eh?

  Where's my key?

  WHERE’S MY FUCKING KEY?

  "Where's my key, Rachel?" I demand.

  "Somewhere you aren't finding it until I get my goddamn shag," she sasses.

  I put her back on the floor.

  "In fact, Mr Evan Hale.” She leans against the door, hands once again folded over her chest. “I'm not leaving until a – I get my butt hole finger shag, and b – until you realise that" – she stabs my chest with her finger to enunciate every last word – "That. I. Am. The. One. For. You. Do you hear me? THE ONE. No more fucking about. So, get comfy, Mr Hale, because I intend for us to get intimately acquainted tonight. We have a lot of years to catch up on." She glares at me. God knows what I look like right now, my chin must be on the floor. "Okay, now that’s clear, I think we'll start with a tour of this house. I need to get to know it better and I'm dying for a glass of water followed by a mug of steaming coffee. Come and show me where everything is in the kitchen, Evan."

  I stand there for a moment, not moving. I need to know where that key is, so I'm going to have to play along until she either realises this is a mistake, or a glance from her eyes gives its location away. Looks like we're both on a mission this evening.

  "What time do you not let them stay past?” she asks. “I'm sure the odd time you fell asleep afterward."

  "Never. I've never slept and I won't tonight. You're not staying all night, Rachel."

  "We'll see. You'd better make sure the coffee is strong if you don't intend to sleep all night. I'm staying until eight am. That will count as me having stayed the night and broken your rules. Then, if you're still being pig-headed, at least when I chat with all the girls in the pub and they talk about the ass finger, I'll be able to say I stayed the night and they'll all be jealous of me.”

  "Can you please stop going on about your ass? My finger is getting a complex."

  "Hopefully though, you'll have come to your senses by then and realise that you need no other woman than me. That what you needed all along was right beside you, living next door, but you were just too blind to see it."

  Oh, I was never too blind, Rach. Almost went blind with all my jacking off, but I saw you alright. Tonight is going to be the death of me.

  My coffee needs to be very, very, strong because I can't risk falling asleep. I need that key. I need it as soon as I can, before she manages to do what she’s set out to do and has me so I can't say no. I can't risk it not working out and me breaking her heart. I can't. I think too much of her. She could never be just a one-night stand, not mentally. But in real life, that's what I'm going to have to make her. I'll play her games and when she falls asleep — which she eventually will — I will leave. I'll find the key and a way out of my house. If only I knew where I'd put the damn window lock keys. One way or another, we are not staying the whole night together. Because if we do, it risks too damn much.

  "I'd better show you the kitchen."

  coffee and confessions

  Rachel

  Hmmm, this is going to be harder than I thought.

  I look down at Evan's cock hanging free in his pants.

  Rachel, you can't think of his cock every time you think of a word like hard.

  Fuck, I just looked at it again.

  So, in my dreams, it had always gone that we would do the dirty and he'd realise that I was the best bonk ever. We'd fall asleep in each other's arms, and I'd be there all night. The next morning, he would realise I was there, declare his undying love for me, and voila - happy ever after. Huge white wedding. Three children.

  I was not expecting to be told I was a mistake and to
have the bloke doing his best to turf me out of his house. He's fooling no one if he thinks acting casual and lounging around is going to make me think he's accepted what I said. He’s had a personality transplant, fake bastard. Oh no, I’m not fooled, not in the slightest. But, well, I may as well make the most of his easy-going manner, cos he's bound to become a right ratty twat when he wants to sleep and won't let himself.

  I head into the kitchen. It's full of plain white units with a strip of black glossy bricks set between the worktop and upper cupboards. I spy the coffee machine in the corner and take out the bit that needs filling with water. I turn to Evan.

  "Can you show me where you keep the pods, mugs, spoons, etc."

  He smiles as if he couldn't think of anything nicer to do and opens every single cupboard to show me what's inside, including the inside of his fridge and freezer. As I expected, Evan lives on microwave meals, jars of curry, and pasta, and two-minute microwave rice. He gets his nutrition from his Sunday lunch at his mother’s. How the hell he's maintained such a great body must be a testament to the large fruit bowl on the kitchen table, overflowing with oranges and apples. I take out two mugs from a cupboard which I wash in the sink because I don't trust a twenty-five-year-old bachelor boy to clean properly.

  Then we both spot it, at the same time. There's a key in the back door. Not a chance mate. I leap for the door at the same time as Evan. The key is in my hand and Evan forces my wrist around until he prises it out of my grip. So, I poke him in the eye.

  "Holy fucking Jesus Christ, you crazy bitch. I'm blind."

  He's not blind, but he is keyless. He dropped it clutching for his eye, and I put it down my knickers. The only way he's getting it is by getting in my pants. Either way, I win.

  He takes his hand away, his eye red and watering. He shakes his head in disbelief. "Why would you do such a thing?"

  "You're trying to get me out of the house. I'm not going anywhere."

  "You can't get home from my garden. It's fenced off."

  "Then why did you jump for the key? I firmly believe you'd have locked me outside until I agreed to go home."

  "I was going to put it out of your crazy ass way so that in the event of a fire, we could get out without being burned alive. Just in case you've swallowed the front door one, and I've got to wait for nature to take its course before I get it back."

  "Ew, I have so not done that, you sicko. But don't worry, to get to the kitchen one, the fire needs to be in my pants."

  He looks at my jeans, eyes wide. "You put my kitchen door key down your knickers?"

  "Yup. Want to open the door, you’re going to have to open my legs."

  "You're disgusting."

  "I aim to please."

  "You can keep the kitchen door key. I don't need it. I will have a coffee though. I'm starting to get a headache, I can't think why."

  Five minutes later we have two fresh coffees, and Evan takes me around the rest of the house. "So, this is the living room. As you can see I've no dining room. The kitchen does both. Other than that, downstairs, there's the bathroom which you've already seen, and a small utility room which, to be honest, is full of bikes and the crap my mum gave me when I moved in."

  The living room is a decent size and quite square in shape. His leather couch looks like it could do with a good clean. It has cup marks on the seats. Blokes can be disgusting. "Have you got some wipes so I can clean the sofa?" I ask.

  He looks at me like I've mentioned that I'm married to an alien.

  I roll my eyes and push past him, back into the kitchen where I grab his tea towel and wet half of it under the hot tap. I then come back and clean the sofa.

  "I'm surprised your mum lets you get away with keeping a pigsty of a house."

  "My mum doesn't come here. That's why I go there on a Sunday. Keeps her sweet and away from here, plus I get a decent meal for free every week."

  "I was surprised when you moved," I tell him. "One moment you were there, the next you were gone. I thought with you going to Uni in Sheffield you'd have stayed at home and made the most of the free rent."

  Stay at home. Yeah. That had been the plan...

  losing things

  Evan

  I managed, though it was a struggle, to live next door to the ever-emerging beauty of Rachel Summers. The main saving grace was that she loved gardening and was forever dressed in a grubby pair of cargo pants and a baggy tee-shirt, with her hair in a ponytail and her face and hands covered in dirt. Still looked sexy as fuck but it was toned down.

  Everything went wrong when she turned seventeen, and her mother decided she could now drink and visit nightclubs. A fact I only found out when a drunken Rachel came up to me in such a club, inebriated, in a night not dissimilar to the one we'd just had.

  September 2010

  "Evan. Evan. Thank god you're here."

  I swing around to find myself face to face with a woman who looks like Rachel from next door. I take in the short black dress, the fuck-me heels, the smoky eyes, poker-red lips, and my dick salutes. Then I realise it is Rachel. Rachel Summers is in front of me, in front of every sex-mad man here, in this club, looking entirely fuckable. She's pissed as a fart and can hardly stand up straight, and she looks panicked. Hell, has someone attacked her?

  "Rachel. Is everything okay?"

  "I've lost my phone. Evan, can you help me find it? My mum will kill me. She only let me come out with the promise I would keep my phone on me and let her know as soon as I phoned a taxi home, so she knew when to expect me. She's shitting herself that I've come out drinking and now I can't reassure her because I've lost my damn phone,” she says, shaking the exact phone she's talking about in front of me.

  "Er, Rachel. Is this your phone?" I ask her.

  She stares at it, a look of complete amazement crossing her face.

  "Yes. Yes, it is. Oh, thank you, Evan. Where was it? Oh, I'm so happy you found it."

  I'm almost knocked over as Rachel throws her arms around me. "Oh, thank you, Evan, you've saved my life."

  I'm instantly aware that her boobs are squished against my chest. She looks up at me with her large brown doe eyes, and I'm about three seconds from sticking my dick down her throat so they can look at me like that while she makes me come in her mouth.

  One, two. I push her away as if she's on fire.

  She stumbles backwards and almost falls over.

  Damn it.

  "Rachel. Who did you arrive with?"

  "Keeley. But she's in the corner with Aiden, her boyfriend. I'm a goose bump."

  "You mean a gooseberry?"

  "That's what I said. Are you all right, Evan? You look a bit clammy and flushed.” She leans over and feels my forehead. "Do you feel all right?" She slides her hand down the side of my face. "Lovely Evan, finding my phone."

  "Okay, let's get that taxi called," I tell her. I need the safety of a cab so that my own actions are being watched and I can get her home safely.

  I get her to give me her phone so I can text her mother and then I take her home.

  Her mother opens the door and shakes her head as Rachel wobbles up the path. "Thanks, Evan, for bringing her home. I warned her not to get in this state. She could have ended up in real trouble. Thank goodness we have a well-behaved gentleman living next door. I'd better get her inside and get some water down her."

  Adam appears, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "Oh dear. Well, I guess we all do it at least once, hey? I'll help you get her up to her room, Sally."

  With that, the door closed and I went back to my own house.

  The next time I went clubbing I lost my virginity to a woman with long dark hair in an alley at the back of the club.

  While, no doubt, Rachel's room spun around, it was my thoughts that did. Thoughts of her pert breasts against my chest. Her arms around my neck. Her hand caressing my face. I realised that night that I couldn't carry on living next door to Rachel anymore. It was too much. Men were going to come on to her and date her, and I didn't want to w
itness any of it. So, I moved into digs with some Uni mates. I only had to see Rachel a fraction of the time then, when our paths crossed in bars or clubs.

  My pattern of serial one-night stands started after that night. I'm not sure how many times I imagined they were Rachel. Then she started working at the Nag's Head, and I had to get used to seeing her regularly again. Seeing her dating other men. So, I carried on with my one-night stands and hoped that one day sooner, rather than later, I'd click with one of them, make a connection that broke the torch I carried for Rachel Summers. But it never did.

  "Earth calling Evan. Where'd you go then? Not getting tired, are you?"

  "Definitely not," I say, sitting up on the couch. "I'm wide awake," I state emphatically, taking a large swig of my coffee. "To answer your question," I add, "I moved out of my parents’ house because I had manly needs to meet and I couldn't do that in my parents’ home."

  "Ah, you needed a shag pad."

  "Something like that."

  "I missed you when you left," she says. "It was weird not seeing you around, emptying the bins, or having to put up with the crap music that used to boom from your bedroom window."

  "I did not play crap music."

  "That is entirely debatable. But we'll discuss musical likes and dislikes when we have our getting to know each other better session."

  "Our what?"

  "In order to stay the night, we can either go to sleep, or I have a dazzling array of entertainment planned," she says, "including watching a film, a getting to know you session, and a sex Q&A. Lots of things to ensure we stay awake all night long, or…" She tilts her head at me. "We can go to bed and go to sleep."

  "At some point, I'll find that key," I tell her. "And you will be on your way in a taxi."

  "Well, until then, what DVD shall we watch?"

  "There's a cupboard full of them." I point towards it. "Open those doors and knock yourself out."