Evers & Afters (Dare With Me Series Book 2)

by J. H. Croix

  “Of course. Just gonna dump this in the trash and go get another bag of flour.”

  “I’m sure I’ll see you soon for coffee,” he replied with a wink.

  He turned and climbed in the driver’s seat. I leaned over to pick up my purse where it had fallen on the ground. As I straightened, my eyes landed on Elias. He rolled down his window. “Don’t forget you have flour in your hair.”

  My cheeks burned and butterflies spun in my belly at the teasing heat in his eyes.

  Chapter Seven

  Elias

  Two weeks later

  “Elias!”

  At the sound of that cheerful voice, I turned, catching sight of Violet Hamilton. I’d gotten to know Violet pretty well because she’d drawn my blood several times over the last few months.

  “Hey, Vi,” I said as I paused in the hallway at the hospital

  “You’re looking good,” she said as she stopped in front of me with a bright smile. Her dark hair was pulled back, and she wore a neon pink scrubs top with a ponytail holder to match. “No cast.” She glanced down at my left foot before lifting her hand for a high five.

  I smacked my palm against hers as I chuckled. “Finally.”

  “I’m glad. I know it got frustrating with that setback,” she replied.

  “I hope I never break my ankle again,” I said fervently.

  “Right, ankle breaks are a pain in the a—” She paused, correcting herself with, “bum.”

  I must’ve looked confused because she laughed. “Hazards of having a toddler. I try not to swear too much.”

  “Is “ass” technically a swear?”

  Violet shrugged. “I don’t actually know, but I don’t want Alec to say it, so I’m gonna stick with “bum”,” she explained.

  I nodded. “Fair enough. How’s it going?”

  “Busy. Work is busy, and things are picking up at the ski lodge, so Sawyer’s schedule has exploded.” She was married to Sawyer Hamilton who owned the local ski lodge with his siblings.

  “With the snow melting, ski season should be winding down, right?”

  “It hasn’t melted yet. Plus, they do all that hiking and biking stuff now, so they’re busy all the time. Sawyer says they send people your way all the time for flight trips.”

  “They sure do, and we appreciate it.”

  Violet’s name was paged over the hospital intercom. “Gotta run,” she said quickly. “Off to stab someone with a needle. You take care.” She hurried off, waving over her shoulder.

  I resumed walking down toward the physical therapist’s office. He had recommended a massage for me to help loosen up the tension around my knee and hip from compensating due to the problems with my ankle. At this point, I just wanted to be back to full speed, although I was flying again, so I wasn’t going to complain.

  A moment later, the receptionist smiled up at me. The physical therapy and massage therapy offices were housed in an old wing of the hospital.

  “Hey there, Elias,” Claudia said with a soft smile.

  “Hey, Claudia. Dan scheduled me with the massage therapist. I don’t have a name though.”

  Claudia clicked on her keyboard, her eyes scanning the computer screen in front of her. “There you are. You’ve got an appointment with Cammi.”

  I only knew one Cammi, but figured it couldn’t be the same one. “I hope this massage therapist is as good as the coffee at Cammi’s Red Truck Coffee,” I quipped.

  “It’s the same Cammi,” Claudia said.

  “It is?”

  Claudia nodded just as the phone rang. Since I didn’t want to look like an idiot standing there with my mouth open, I stuffed my hands in my pockets and turned to sit in one of the chairs in the small waiting area. I presumed the space was intended to be soothing with soft blue walls and watercolors of flowers. Meanwhile, I was grappling with the knowledge that Cammi would be giving me a massage. The mere idea of it sent electricity zipping through my body. I hadn’t seen Cammi since that foolish kiss in the parking lot a few weeks ago.

  I didn’t like admitting it, to anyone, much less myself, but I’d replayed that kiss in my mind hundreds of times since then.

  “Elias?”

  I glanced over to see Cammi standing in the doorway to the waiting area. I stood and quickly crossed the room to her. Pink crested on her cheeks as I got closer.

  “Come on back.” She gestured for me to follow her.

  A moment later, we were standing inside a small room. A massage table took up the entire center of the room, and it was otherwise almost empty, save for a chair in the corner and a small cabinet against the wall to the side of the table.

  Cammi’s scent hit me, some kind of flower with a hint of sweetness to it. I instantly recalled the feel of her lips underneath mine.

  She twisted her hands, her brows arching slightly with a twitch of worry appearing between them. “I didn’t realize I had an appointment with you. The physical therapy office handles my schedule.”

  “I didn’t know you even did this.”

  Cammi shrugged. “It’s a side gig. Helps me cover the bills during the winter when my coffee truck is closed down. I only do it part time, and then stop altogether in the summer,” she explained.

  Part of me wanted to leave because I didn’t know if I could handle having her hands on my body. The physical therapist had talked me into this, as it was. Yet, her anxiety about it somehow pushed me. I wasn’t going to chicken out.

  As she stood there, I asked, “Is there a problem?”

  “No.” She shook her head quickly. “Unless you think there’s a problem”

  “I don’t think there’s a problem,” I lied.

  I supposed it wasn’t a total lie. The only problem was me and my body’s reaction to Cammi. Surely, I could handle that.

  “Okay then,” she said brightly. “I just need you to strip down to your underwear. You can put everything on the chair there.” She gestured vaguely in the direction of the corner where the chair sat innocuously, oblivious to the undercurrents zinging back and forth in the air. “I’ll be right back. You can lay face down on the table.” She patted it and hurried past me.

  “Didn’t think I’d ever hear you asking me to strip.” Those words just slipped out of my mouth.

  Cammi spun back, her mouth opening slightly and pink cresting high on her cheeks again. She pressed her lips together in a line. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  I didn’t know what the hell had gotten into me. I just wanted to ruffle her even more. “I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

  Cammi let out a flustered sigh, turning and leaving the room without even granting me a reply.

  A few minutes later, I’d done as instructed. I heard a light knock on the door, followed by Cammi’s voice, “Can I come in?”

  “Of course,” I called, my voice muffled through the face-rest of the massage table.

  After I heard the door open and close, she asked, “Any music requests?”

  “I get to choose?” I heard her moving around and resisted the urge to lift my head.

  “Of course.”

  “You pick.”

  I heard her murmur something, and then some soothing seventies blues came on, of all things. Somehow, she’d picked my favorite era and type of music without knowing.

  Another moment later, I heard her saying, “I’ll start with your back.”

  Her palms rested at the base of my spine, sliding up in a smooth pass, the oil warm under her touch. Although it was pure heaven to have Cammi’s hands on me for reasons that had nothing to do with this massage, I didn’t realize how much stress was built up in my body. I had to bite back a groan at how good it felt to have her working the tension out of the corded muscles in my spine and shoulders before making her way to my glutes and then down my legs.

  “Damn, I was more sore than I realized,” I mumbled.

  My entire upper left side was balled with tension. Cammi’s touch was light but firm

  “You’ve been com
pensating for your leg for months now. That takes a toll.”

  It wasn’t until it was all over and I was practically jelly on the table that Cammi’s voice came again. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’ll give you time to get dressed.”

  I lay there, almost undone. After a moment, I slowly rolled up, marveling at the absence of tension, especially in my spine and along that one leg. I definitely could’ve used a few more massages. I chuckled to myself as I got dressed with the Bee Gees playing in the background.

  A few minutes later, there was another knock on the door. I was still sitting in the chair, although I was fully dressed now.

  “It’s safe,” I called.

  Cammi came in, her gaze sweeping over me. “How do you feel?”

  “Better than I have in months.”

  Her lips twisted to the side with a half-smile. “Good. You could use a little relaxation, you know,” she teased lightly.

  “Well, Dan ‘prescribed’ it,” I said, using air quotes as I stood from the chair.

  “Make sure to drink plenty of water. You might experience some soreness after the fact. The water will help.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied, dipping my head in acknowledgment.

  The room suddenly felt small, and the air lit with a humming charge. My rational side knew kissing Cammi again was a bad plan, but reason didn’t hold much power in the moment.

  Stepping closer, I searched her eyes, watching as they darkened like the sky on a stormy day, the blue deepening to almost navy. Her lips parted with a breath, and that soft sound was like a match tossed in dry leaves.

  I didn’t realize I was standing so close until she took a deeper breath and I felt the brush of her breasts against my chest. As if she could read my mind, she whispered, “This is a bad idea.”

  “Maybe,” I murmured.

  I waited, although I didn’t know why. When her tongue darted out to swipe across her bottom lip, I was gone. Decision made.

  Her hair was up in a bun with loose tendrils dangling around her cheeks. Lifting a hand, I brushed one back, the lock of hair sliding like silk through my fingers. I dropped a kiss on one corner of her mouth, and then the other, capturing her gasp with my lips when I fit my mouth over hers.

  She made this little throaty sound. It was like spurs in the flanks of my desire. Closing the inch between us, I slid one palm down her spine into the dip of her waist and over the sweet curve of her bottom, pulling her into a full body clench as I deepened our kiss.

  Kissing Cammi was dangerous. I dove into the sweet heat of our kiss, her tongue gliding like liquid silk. She made a little impatient sound, flexing into me as one hand curved over my shoulder to cup the back of my neck and pull me closer. Her tongue was bossy against mine and for a few moments there, I lost sense of everything but her.

  She was intoxicating. I finally needed air, and broke my lips free, leaning my head back and gulping it in, inhaling her scent, which only served to cloud the haze of lust in my mind. I could feel the press of her nipples against my chest with every ragged breath she took.

  Looking back at her, all my cells were scrambled, and I couldn’t think. Cammi, sweet Cammi, was something else when she let her guard down. Her cheeks were flushed pretty and pink, and her lips plumped and swollen from our kiss.

  I shocked myself with what I said next. “I want to see you.”

  “I’m right here,” she murmured.

  “No, I mean not just a kiss.”

  She swallowed, and something flickered in her eyes. Worry, I thought.

  We stared at each other in the quiet, and then Cammi jumped when there was a knock on the door. “Your next appointment is here,” Claudia’s voice called through the door.

  “Be right there,” she called in return.

  Cammi was all in a fluttery hurry then. “Okay, um. Claudia will schedule you. I’m not sure if the next one will be with me, or somebody else.”

  She practically shoved me out the door, while I tried to absorb the implications of the fact that it seemed I couldn’t get too close to Cammi without kissing her.

  Chapter Eight

  Cammi

  “Finally,” Susie said as she looked around the booth.

  Tess grinned at her. “Finally, what?”

  “We’re finally having girls’ night. Every time we’ve tried, we either reschedule or only some of us make it. I sent that first group text about four months ago. Everybody’s too busy,” Susie grumbled as she shrugged out of her jacket.

  We were at Last Frontier Lodge, Diamond Creek’s high-end ski and adventure lodge, which also happened to have a fabulous restaurant.

  “Three of the nights that were suggested, you had a conflict,” Hannah said, rolling her eyes from across the table.

  “It’s hard. Finding a babysitter feels like an act of God sometimes,” Susie replied.

  I looked around at my friends. Along with Susie, Tess, and Hannah, Emma had also joined us. Susie, Hannah, and I had all grown up in Diamond Creek together. Emma moved here about five years ago. She was Hannah’s biological sister who’d been adopted before Hannah was even born. Tess had shown up here on vacation and fallen in love with Nathan Winters. Nathan, along with his brothers, Jared and Luke, owned a fishing charter business. With Susie married to Jared and Hannah married to Luke, Tess was in the thick of that family mix.

  Emma was married to Trey Holden. He was an attorney and also a pilot who happened to be friends with Elias. Elias, who I seemed to have developed a habit of kissing, if two times counted as a habit.

  Hannah flicked Susie a quick look. “I don’t know what I’d do without your mom.”

  “She’s a godsend when it comes to babysitting, even if she’s not available all the time,” Susie said. She lifted her hand and pulled out the elastic holding her curls up, and they fell in a rumple around her shoulders.

  Emma grinned. “Trey’s my babysitter,” she said.

  “Trey is a saint,” Tess added. “Plus, he’s got a much better schedule than our husbands.”

  Emma smiled. “He does, and I’ll never complain about it.”

  “With you about to have another baby, you’ll be twice as grateful,” Susie commented with a grin.

  Emma replied, “No argument there.” She absently rubbed her palm over her round belly. She was within a month of her due date and very pregnant.

  It was moments like this that I was painfully reminded just how behind the ball I felt in my life. I wanted a baby, so, so much. I was already staring down thirty-three years old, and I had no potential father in sight. It felt like my biological clock had neon emergency alarms blaring. I knew it was all in my head, well not one-hundred percent. Hormones were definitely part of it. I could reason my way out of it, but it didn’t change that I desperately wanted to complain about not having a babysitter, or how hard it was to find one, and have a partner whose work schedule was a nightmare. I’d happily take all of those pesky frustrations if it meant I had a family with someone.

  Instead, I envied my friends, and I hated my envy because it made me feel childish. Needing a distraction as they commiserated over babysitting, I snatched a menu from where it was tucked between the condiments and opened it.

  No one even noticed I wasn’t part of the conversation, and I knew just how ridiculous I was being that even that hurt my feelings a little.

  Blessedly, Delia Hamilton stopped by the table. “Hey, ladies.” She had a water pitcher in hand and immediately began filling our glasses.

  “Are you the hostess tonight?” I asked as I glanced up at her.

  Delia was the chef and managed the restaurant here. She’d been a few years behind us in high school, but we all knew her. Her blue eyes twinkled with her smile, and her blond ponytail swung over her shoulder as she leaned over to fill our water glasses. “Just in a pinch,” she replied. “Harry’s out of town this week, so I’m taking over when things get a little hectic upfront. Kayla will be serving you, and she’ll be out in a minute. Do you want t
o hear the specials though?”

  “Absolutely,” Tess said as she glanced up.

  Delia quickly recited the specials.

  “I already know what I want,” Susie commented.

  Delia grinned. “Kayla will be right here. I don’t even have a notebook. I can promise you that I won’t remember.”

  After Delia hurried off, Emma, always perceptive, caught my eyes. Susie and Hannah were looking at something on Susie’s phone while Tess was texting someone.

  “So, how have you been?” Emma asked. She and Hannah were strikingly similar in appearance. They were both tall and leggy with almost black hair that hung in straight glossy locks. Her blue eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled over at me. I loved having Emma as a friend, but she was a therapist and sometimes too perceptive.

  “I’ve been fine,” I said with a light shrug. “The coffee truck is getting busy, and I need to cut back on my hours doing massages for the physical therapy office.”

  “Do you like doing that in the winter?”

  “I do.” The moment I said that, I recalled my appointment a few days ago with Elias. Dear God, that man made me feel all kinds of inappropriate.

  “I need to get my doctor to recommend a massage,” Susie interjected.

  “You don’t have to have a doctor’s recommendation. You can schedule on your own.”

  “Yeah, but if my doctor refers me, then my insurance pays for it,” Susie countered matter-of-factly.

  “True,” I replied with a grin.

  Just then, a motion across the restaurant caught my eye. Looking over, I saw Elias walking in with Diego and Flynn. The moment my eyes landed on him, my belly did a spinning flip. Heat flooded my cheeks, and he hadn’t even looked at me.

  As if he could read my mind, his head turned and his eyes locked with mine instantly. I could feel the intensity of his gaze from all the way across the crowded restaurant. It felt as if a flame licked through the air between us, traveling on a fuse of desire.

  “Well,” Susie said. “Now that is a look.”