Besotted: An Enemies-to-Lovers Small-town Romance (Carmel Cove Book 3)

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  “Good luck,” I offered, knowing that working with his two brothers who were very… stubborn… was sometimes hard for him even though they all loved each other.

  In the back of my mind, a corner of my brain registered that the door to the Pub had opened but for some reason, I thought it was one of the few remaining patrons leaving.

  “Did you decide about upstairs?” Benny asked, and with the bustle of the night, I had managed to forget that I was on the brink of homelessness. “The room is all cleared out and ready. I’ve been thinking about renting it out on one of those sites for a while but just haven’t gotten around to it. So, you’re welcome to move in anytime.”

  “Move in here? Above the pub? With Benny?” A low gravelly growl interjected and the anticipation that had pooled in every pore of my body for the past few hours lit like kerosene under a match and transformed into a burning ache.

  It wasn’t a guest who’d left. It was Miles who’d walked into the bar and just overheard that I was thinking about moving in above the bar. With one of his friends.

  Miles

  I couldn’t have heard him right.

  Eve. Moving in above the Pub. With Benny.

  I’d wanted to get here a few minutes earlier, but my damn crazy dog decided to play fetch with himself and my damn car keys. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem because I’d walk here and back, but tonight, I wasn’t taking Eve back to my tent.

  After a week of my need for her becoming more and not less, after a week of craving not just her body but that soul-cleansing honesty and light that seemed to fucking follow her like a halo, I was taking her to bed tonight. A real one.

  One that I’d spent two hours at the damn mattress store picking out for Mick’s old apartment.

  “Eve…” I looked at my woman who met my gaze defiantly as soon as her surprise wore off. “What the hell is going on? You’re not moving in here. Why the hell would you be moving in here?”

  Benny stepped back because he knew what was good for him, the movement catching Eve’s eye.

  “Benny, I’m going to get going,” she said lightly, a sweet smile gracing her lips. “Thanks for everything, especially for the offer. I’ll let you know tomorrow.” She reached under the back counter where the register sat and retrieved her jacket and bag, pulling the most-easily-beatable Covington in for a hug. “Good luck with your brothers.”

  “Good luck with your…” He trailed off and nodded toward me with a smirk.

  And fuck if I didn’t want to beat him… just a little bit.

  I fumed as she walked by me casually, waiting until we were both outside when she let her mouth loose on me.

  “Really, Miles? Blaring out my living situation in front of everyone?” Her eyes were on fire but even in the dim lighting outside, I could see the hard tips of her tits against her shirt. Even when she was mad at me, she wanted me. And hell, if that didn’t make my blood sing.

  “There was no one in there,” I informed her tightly. Okay, maybe like two fucking people. “And I want to know why the hell I come to pick you up to find out you’re thinking of moving in with Benny.”

  There was no question that we were arguing, and I had no idea what that was going to mean for the night I had planned, so I couldn’t help but be a little surprised when my stubborn woman walked right up to the passenger door of my Jeep and climbed in.

  No, not surprised. My heart tripped like the clumsy thing it was around her.

  I wished it was the big things that made me realize the difference between Eve and Amanda and how they treated me but it never was. It was always the little, unexpected things—the things I never even noticed with Amanda until Eve did something, and one more blinder was removed so I could see just how poorly my ex had always treated me, even aside from her lying and cheating.

  Whenever we’d fought, Amanda had always run—especially if I had something planned for us. She retreated to her house, her room, or someplace other than where I was, forcing me to follow her around like a lap dog if I wanted any kind of discussion, let alone resolution. She’d made me feel so infinitely small, infinitely inferior for questioning her, that I always ended up admitting to being at fault.

  With Eve, I wasn’t small. I was an equal—an equal that she just happened to be upset with.

  “And what if I don’t want to tell you?” She hummed, her arms still crossed as I turned on the Jeep and pulled out of the lot.

  “Evie, you’re in my car. On the way to my place.” I chuckled. “I have ways of making you tell me.”

  Miles

  The ride to my brother’s old apartment building was spent in tense silence filled with disagreement and desire. And having Kona try to fit his ninety-pound ass up front to see Eve created a furry wagging wall between us—one that Eve was eager to give some attention to while I got the silent treatment.

  Thankfully, it was only a few blocks away, so it wasn’t long before I pulled into a spot and turned to face her again, giving my pup a stern eye to get back into the back seat.

  “Why are you talking to Benny about moving in above the Pub?” I asked again now that I could see her.

  “Why are we at your brother’s building?” she countered with an arched eyebrow.

  My jaw tensed. Maybe I had overreacted a little back at the bar. There was just something about her… My fingers tightened where they still held the steering wheel. Something that just screamed mine.

  Mine. Mine. Mine.

  I knew it was my own fucking fault. I wanted this woman for everything she wanted to give me but I was afraid. Not afraid of the unknown. No, my fear was very real. Like an injury that kept me bedridden for over a year and had the doctors wondering if I would recover. And then there was Eve and she was like my miraculous recovery. But when you are surviving a life-threatening injury or disease, there was always the unquenchable fear that it won’t be a miracle, that it will only be momentary.

  So, you accept the healing with hesitation and, the battle turns inward, wanting nothing more than to believe in miracles but knowing all could be lost just as easily.

  “I’ll show you.”

  I climbed down, letting Kona out who immediately sprinted up the stairs and was probably waiting outside Mick’s old neighbor, Gwen’s door because he wanted to play with her dog, Oscar.

  Eve followed me up to the second level of condos, and I let us into my new place.

  It was sparse.

  It was also a decision I’d made two days ago.

  I watched her steps falter when she saw the bed in the bedroom and her head turned to mine. “What’s going on?”

  I dropped my keys on the counter and leaned my arm against it. “I’m moving in here.”

  “Really?” Her eyes lightened. “You’re… not going to live out of your car anymore?”

  “First off, it was a tent on top of my car, not actually in my car, sweetheart,” I drawled and, even though we were still in disagreement limbo, we both laughed.

  The laughter quickly sunk under the heaviness between us.

  “Why are you thinkin’ about movin’ in above the Pub, Eve?” I couldn’t stop the hard edge from finding my voice at even the suggestion of her living with any other guy except me.

  Adjusting her glasses, she peered up at me and confessed, “I didn’t get the apartment.”

  The vise around my chest tightened. “Why?”

  “I-I didn’t realize that I would need two months of rent for the security deposit instead of one a-and I don’t have it. And that means I don’t have the apartment.” She huffed. “And I can’t tell Addy because she’d push back the work you guys are doing. It’s really only for two more weeks. I think working at the bar should make me enough money by then to get the place—if it’s still available. Really, I was going to ask Laurel if I could stay with her—or maybe even Gwen, but I just know they don’t really have any guest space.”

  She stood again, her hands finding her hips and dragging my eyes to the way she swayed as she began to
pace.

  “I just mentioned it to Benny. I didn’t even know there was another room up there until he offered it to me about five seconds before the floodgates opened and the Pub was packed for the night,” she rambled, her words like a steady stream of truth, bumping and rolling over every event and thought in her mind. “So, I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I do know that it’s only for a few weeks until I either can save more money or find a different apartment… and I know that I’m going to make it work because I’m not going to dip into my savings for this.” She glared at me. “I refuse—no matter how angry it makes you.”

  I pushed away from the counter and closed the space between us.

  Even angry, I was in awe of her—this woman whose truth was a weapon and who used stubbornness as a shield. I was in awe of her unwillingness to falter—even for two weeks—on her dream. And I was in awe because, no matter what she insisted, she’d let that dream falter when it came to me.

  “I don’t want you moving in with Benny,” I rasped with a low voice, dipping my head close to hers and pinning her stare.

  “I’m not moving in with him,” she corrected. “I’m just moving into the same building. The same floor, really. But it’s not like we’re sharing a room. And it’s only for two weeks, Miles.”

  I reached for her hips and yanked her against me. “I don’t care if it’s only for two-fucking-seconds, you’re not moving in above the Pub.”

  Her breath hitched and I didn’t have to look to know that she’d shifted to rub her thighs together. “Well unfortunately, you’re going to just have to—”

  Growling, I captured her lips—and her protests—with mine and sunk my tongue deep into her mouth, informing her not-so-subtly that this wasn’t up for debate. I’d give her the money myself if I thought she’d take it. But she was proud and stubborn, so I’d have to figure out some other way to resolve this.

  Some other way that could be addressed after our need for each other.

  She sighed into the onslaught like she’d been waiting a lifetime for this kiss. Not the sweet, romantic one—this one, the hard, unyielding one that walked the nonexistent line between possessive and punishing.

  Our tongues dueled as I gripped into the perfect globes of her ass and lifted her.

  She was mine.

  She may not know it. Hell, even I might not fully know it, but she was.

  I growled as her teeth sunk into my lower lip, tugging it into her mouth to suck on it. My little mermaid was learning too damn quickly the things that drove me even more insane with need.

  “You can’t just kiss me into doing what you want, Miles,” she murmured against my mouth.

  In reply, I angled my head and filled her mouth with my tongue, stroking against the firm velvet of hers.

  “But I can kiss you until you forget what it is you want,” I muttered, swallowing her moan as days spent apart poured out between our lips.

  Even though I’d talked to Mick two days ago about this place, I’d only picked up the bed this morning. I told myself it was because of work and all but really it was because I didn’t want to have to lie to myself about how I wanted my first night in this bed to be with her. So, I waited until today, knowing I’d be texting her later… knowing that she’d be here.

  Carrying her into the bedroom, I kicked the door shut behind us, leaving Kona to whimper on the other side. I closed us into a space that was only us. No past. No future. No fears. And no fucking apartments.

  Her feet dropped to the floor and I tore at her clothes, grateful that I didn’t rip any the way I pulled them from her body. Kneeling, I peeled down her yoga pants along with her underwear, a feral grunt erupting from my chest when I bared her swollen pussy.

  I wanted to taste her.

  I wanted her too bad to taste her.

  “Bedtime.” I grinned as I stood, gripped her hips, and tossed her onto the bed, reveling in her small shriek that harmonized with the sound of something tearing.

  I looked down to see that my T-shirt had torn. I’d felt her tug on me as I let her go but she must’ve been holding tight enough on the fabric to tear it.

  My eyes slid to the culprit.

  Eve was cocooned in the light blue duvet like she was floating on water. Her face was flushed, her full lips panting from our kiss and her brief flight onto the bed. It was her heavy breaths that felt like they were the source behind the beats of my heart.

  It was those breaths that pulled my gaze down to her chest, the swells of her tits rising and falling like buoyant beacons on the sea. It was those breaths that made my mouth dry as I gorged myself on the sight of her. From those pink peaks that belonged in my mouth, to the taut stomach that guided me lower and long legs that led me up, to where her sex glistened hungrily for my cock.

  “I liked this shirt,” I teased, my voice coming out like sandpaper.

  I didn’t give a shit about this shirt. It was probably the oldest Madison Construction tee I owned and needed to be tossed anyway. Without breaking her stare, I reached up and pulled at the flap of fabric folded down over my stomach, revealing a corner of my chest.

  Even though there was a flush of embarrassment in her cheeks, she murmured, “I like it better off.”

  My dick jolted.

  “You know how many times I thought of you like this, this week?” I growled angrily, pulling the scrap of fabric off of me.

  She was like the current—like the riptide—that flowed under each and every other fucking thought, step, and task. First, wanting to get her out of my mind, determined to believe that one night and one day were enough. It would’ve been easier to believe that one meal for the rest of my life would be enough. Then, convinced of nothing else except that I needed one more night with her.

  Just one more.

  Famous last words of every addict and alcoholic. And I was nothing if not drugged by her.

  “What did you do?” She licked her lower lip, watching my hands as they reached for the waist of my jeans.

  “Suffered miserably,” I bit out. “Until I could get in the shower and jack off, remembering what it felt like to be inside you.”

  She let out a small moan and I winced, pulling down my jeans and boxers over my throbbing cock.

  “I thought about you too. I thought about you so much it hurt.”

  Fuck. Somehow, I got even harder as I placed one knee on the bed, her legs falling open in invitation to her soaked sex.

  Sliding up over her soft body, I aligned my face with hers. “I shouldn’t have asked for one more night,” I confessed in a ragged whisper. “But I need you so damn bad. I’m sorry…”

  I needed her, but I didn’t want to use her.

  Her hands snuck up between us to cup my cheeks as a small smile toyed with the edges of her lips. “Don’t ever apologize for needing me, Miles.”

  A hoarse groan ripped from the broken corners of my heart and pulled them tighter back together.

  “Then I’m not sorry for needin’ you this way, Evie.” A shudder ripped through me as the head of my cock wedged against her hot entrance. “I’m not sorry for needin’ you at all.”

  Her barely parted lips flew open with a cry of exquisite pleasure that came only when it was laced with pain as I thrust my heavy cock completely inside her with a shout, the wet walls of her pussy locking me in.

  Black and white stars flashed in my vision, and I almost came on the spot.

  Whatever discomfort she might have felt disappeared. Eve began to arch and rub against me. Groaning, my eyes focused on her nipples, erect and tight, begging to be sucked. But even that temptation couldn’t make me move to taste them.

  I thought I’d been just remembering wrong when I imagined last weekend, but this… now… I hadn’t imagined it. My cock was squeezed by the hottest, tightest pussy I’d ever felt.

  “Miles…”

  “I’m not sorry for needin’ you like I do,” I growled against the skin of her neck just as I began to move the way she wanted—the way we
needed.

  Grunting, I pulled back and slammed inside her, and she took all of me again. Every angry, aroused inch. Again and again. The more she took the more I thickened. The more she pulled, the more I gave.

  Just like every other part of this impossible and incredible woman, she took whatever I threw at her and somehow made it okay.

  My teeth sunk into the soft flesh on her chest just above her breast as I reached down and found her clit. The little bud was drowning in her desire as my cock ground inside her.

  We’d gone months without each other, but now that I’d had her, a week without touching her, a week without being wrung by her body, was an eternity. An eternity without food or water or air. An eternity without the essentials I needed to survive. An eternity without Eve.

  My hoarse growl drowned out her broken moans and whimpers as I claimed her body, dying each time her pussy clamped around my cock.

  “Need you to come for me, Evie.” My voice was unrecognizable.

  My thumb rolled over her clit and sent her body fracturing around me as she screamed and bowed against me as her pussy tightened and gushed around my cock.

  Grunting, my hips jammed into hers hard and fast, my new bed shaking underneath us as the rippling of her core welcomed my own orgasm. With a long, low groan that sounded a whole helluva lot like her name, my release plowed through me, pumping long and steady inside of her, filling her.

  Heaven. Home.

  I collapsed to the side of her, rolling her with me so I could stay lodged in her slick warmth. And I’d stay there for hours if I could. Release… it wasn’t temporary for me. It was more than the orgasm. It was being a part of her and feeling safe for the first fucking time.

  But that wasn’t exactly practical, so when I heard her labored breathing soften, I gently shifted us so that I could clean us up before she fell asleep.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go a whole week next time,” she offered drowsily. Even in her sated, sleepy stupor, I saw the second she realized she’d assumed there would be a next time.