Bringing Home the Bad Boy

by Jessica Lemmon

  Evan’s brother and his wife. Married. Very much in love. She wanted badly to force a laugh and make this situation okay, but she couldn’t shake what Evan had said to her. How had she failed him?

  Maybe it was the kiss. She knew she shouldn’t kiss him. That was a rule she’d made with herself. Then again, he’d kissed her, so how much of the kiss was her fault anyway?

  “Bud?”

  “Yeah! Lunch!”

  At least she had Lyon on her side, who was smiling and clearly not “pissed” at her. This little boy had no doubts they were still friends.

  She pulled away from Evan and hugged Lyon. “Where to?” She’d go anywhere for this kid. So when he exclaimed “Reggie’s Subs!” and his father agreed, she went. Despite sharing a meal with a man who was angry with her for reasons she’d yet to figure out.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Charlie pulled out the pan of blueberry muffins, turned off the oven, and tossed her potholder aside. Lunch had been agonizing and involved the impossible task of sitting across from Evan and attempting to ignore him completely. She’d taken her seat next to Lyon, feigned interest in his iPad game, and laughed too often, too loudly, her discomfort showcased in every awkward gesture.

  Meanwhile, Evan had silently glowered at her nearly the entire time he ate. He’d kept silent on the ride home, too—they’d opted not to walk downtown since dark clouds had been pooling in the sky since midday. Once again, she’d filled the air with too many questions to Lyon so she could avoid conversation with his father.

  Now it was nearly midnight, and not being able to sleep, or stop turning the conversation from earlier over and over in her head, she’d resorted to baking. She’d started with apple-cinnamon muffins, moved to peach cobbler, and lastly, blueberry muffins. Evan liked baked anything, so it wasn’t a picky palate she was trying to please, but more the need to delay the not-so-long walk across the beach to his house.

  She peeked out her kitchen window hoping to see his windows dark, but as her luck would have it, his studio lights burned bright. He was still awake, painting.

  Bummer.

  Carrying a plate piled high with muffins, she took her time walking across her yard, past her neighbor’s yard. On Evan’s deck, she hesitated yet again, peering into the dark kitchen before finally walking to the side of the deck and trying the door.

  Unlocked.

  Bummer, again.

  She clucked her tongue. An unlocked door was slightly dangerous. Yes, they were in the Cove, but anyone could walk in. Anyone at all. Like his guilt-ridden neighbor who had wandered over way too late.

  Though, she could flick the lock and shut the door and walk back home. Or flick the lock, leave the baked goods inside, shut the door, and walk back home.

  But then what?

  She hadn’t been able to work, hadn’t been able to sleep, hadn’t been able to do anything but worry and wonder why he was angry with her. Instead she had baked an entire plate of “sucking up” as an apology for what, she had no idea. Her neurosis was such that she knew turning around and going back would only result in more baking and pacing.

  Facing Evan, as much as she didn’t want to, was better.

  Inside, she followed the dim light through the hallway, through the laundry room, and to his studio door. The entire wall to her right was made up of windows, framing a nighttime sky dotted with stars. The moon hid behind clouds, barely visible through the fuzzy sheen of mist. She sort of felt like that now. Fuzzy. Barely visible.

  At the doorway, she lifted a fist to the door, but dropped her arm without knocking. Evan, one earbud in, one out, stood in front of his easel shaking his fine ass to music she couldn’t hear.

  On the canvas before him, he painted a patch of color, halting his smooth moves long enough to dip the brush into a smear of color and carefully paint again. Bright cyan made up the background color for a portrait of the comically badass Mad Cow: pierced, tatted-up, gauged, and by the look of his overly thick, frowning brows, indeed very mad.

  Evan’s creation graced the pages of Asher Knight’s debut novel, launching the friends into semi-stardom, and bringing him to her. Proof that once a passion was embraced, success was inevitable. She wanted to believe that.

  She could see it. Passion poured from his brush, echoed in the sway of his hips, confirmed in the bob of his head, lost in the music as well as the art. He was in the zone—a zone she’d admired, had yearned for, but had never quite captured for herself.

  Watching him do what he was best at doing, seeing the brilliance on the canvas before him, filled her with longing. Had she ever done work that imbibed her very being with that kind of passion?

  Sadly, the answer was no.

  She didn’t love portraits. She didn’t love weddings. She didn’t love newspaper photography or shooting landscapes. What she loved was people—capturing that rare moment where they were themselves and didn’t know it.

  She wished she had her camera now. Because she’d never seen Evan more himself than she did in this moment. It was a rare, cherished glimpse, an honor to witness. And almost enough to make her forget he was upset with her. Until he caught her in his peripheral and lowered his brush.

  In a blink, he yanked his earbuds out of his ears and crossed the room, his eyebrows a pair of angry slashes over blue, blue eyes reminding her of the cartoon cow looming behind him.

  “What’s wrong?” He lifted a baby monitor standing on a nearby stool, studied the video screen, and frowned at her again. “Is he okay? What time is it?”

  He looked so worried, she raised the plate in her hand to assure him everything was dandy by showing him the pile of homemade proof. “Nothing’s wrong. I couldn’t sleep, so I baked. Your door was open and I came in. That’s it.”

  “Lyon didn’t get up? Call you? Come get you?” Perplexed, his eyes returned to the screen on the monitor again. Lyon was sprawled on top of his sheets, looking like he was—and had been for some time—fast asleep.

  “No. He looks wiped.”

  “Yeah, we swam.” He watched the monitor for another long, silent minute and for some reason it bothered her.

  “He’d come get you first,” she told him. “You know that.”

  “Not if I didn’t hear him.”

  “He’d come in and slap your arm if you didn’t hear him.”

  He nodded but looked unconvinced. “Be back,” he said, leaving her and her muffins to check in on Lyon.

  Charlie rested the plate on the desk, her eyes tracking to the stack of canvases leaning against the wall behind the easel.

  Shades of deep blue, black, brown, gray, and green covered the canvases. Clouds of billowing smoke on some, smudges on the other. As she flipped through them, she noticed there was another stack wedged between the shelf and wall to her left. These were nothing like the colorful, fun paintings of cartoon characters Evan painted for a living. These were dark. Unhappy. These made her heart squeeze, made her feel. And the feeling was not a good one.

  Before Evan caught her snooping, she left the paintings alone, but when she went back to studying his most recent artwork, the feeling from before hadn’t left her.

  Sad.

  Those paintings were sad.

  And it saddened her those emotions lived inside of him.

  Evan stepped back into the room a minute later.

  “Yep. Out,” he said, talking about Lyon.

  “The monitor does not lie.” When he came closer, she loosened the cellophane covering the plate on the desk and handed him a muffin.

  He accepted, taking a huge bite. “Mmph. Good.”

  She smiled. At least that was something. His eyes went to the painting he’d been working on. Hers followed. It was also good. So very good.

  “Mad Cow has your eyes,” she told him when he joined her.

  “Lyon’s,” he corrected, polishing off the muffin in one big bite.

  She studied the surly expression on the cow, the human way he stood on his hindquarters. Facing Evan, she sai
d, “Lyon has your eyes, too.”

  Turquoise blue. Stunning, honest eyes.

  “Probably why everyone can relate to Mad Cow,” she told him. “He’s a bad cow with a big heart.”

  “And four stomachs,” he quipped.

  She laughed, but she laughed alone. When she turned he was frowning again, staring not at his painting but more through it.

  “Been a while since I’ve painted anything good.”

  Briefly, her eyes went to the paintings leaning against the wall.

  “Thought if I went back to what I knew,” he said, and she turned her attention back to him, “the rest of the book would flow from there.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Dunno.”

  Okay, enough small talk. She had to get the real reason for her being here off her conscience. “I came over to apologize.”

  Turquoise eyes moved to her. Arms crossed over his paint-dotted black tee. She focused on a smudge of red on his bare arm rather than look at him.

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Why?”

  She’d asked herself this question over and over again tonight. And had arrived at only one conclusion. A conclusion she didn’t look forward to sharing with him. Not at all.

  “I’m sorry I kissed you,” she said.

  “I kissed you.”

  “I’m sorry you did.”

  He uncrossed his arms and stepped close, tipping her chin upward. When she met the ferocity of his expression, every last part of her wanted to cower. “Why?” It was a demand.

  She swallowed. Girded her loins. She could do this. “It’s not fair to Rae. Or Lyon. Or you.”

  “Rae,” he growled.

  She pulled in a breath, keeping her eyes locked on his. “Yeah.”

  “What about you?”

  Not understanding, she shook her head, her chin brushing where his fingers rested. “What about me, what?”

  He clenched his jaw and his brows lowered over his eyes. Anger radiated off him like a kerosene furnace. She could feel it. She could practically hear it. His fingers left her chin, slid along the sensitive skin of her neck, and into her hair, sending a drove of gooseflesh down both arms. The palm on the back of her neck tightened, forcing her to tilt her head in order to meet his gaze.

  Slowly, he reiterated his earlier question, this time in the form of a statement. “Is it fair. To you.”

  Fair? To her? “Fair to her” didn’t come into play. Yes, in a way she had lost Rae, too, but Rae wasn’t her spouse, the mother of her child, or her soul mate. Losing Rae had devastated her, but it couldn’t compare to Evan losing Rae. To Lyon losing his mother.

  “I… don’t understand.”

  “I know.”

  His hand squeezed her neck, then released. His eyes went to her mouth for such a long time, she got light-headed and then realized it was because she hadn’t taken a breath since he touched her.

  “I’m going to kiss you. Better stop me if you don’t want me to.”

  It was like she’d been injected with venom that paralyzed her body but left her brain aware. She wanted to say stop, to bring up Rae again, but only intellectually. Her body—and every last cell in it—wanted to feel Evan’s mouth on hers.

  So she said nothing.

  And he kissed her, as promised.

  When his lips lowered, she lifted hers and met him in the middle. The pressure increased on her neck as he adjusted the angle, and she lifted a palm and laid it on his firm chest, feeling his heart pound, feeling the earth shake, and tingling and fluttering everywhere capable of tingling and fluttering.

  She lost track of hands and feet, the whole world. Everything but their mating mouths fell away as he tasted her. Their tongues speared, her head swam, and the pulse throbbing low in her belly relocated to in between her thighs.

  He held her steady—and it was a good thing because she might teeter if it wasn’t for the strong hand gripping her waist. The thought came to her, though she had no idea how the thought-making part of her brain was functioning at the moment, that no one had kissed her like Evan was kissing her now. Like he needed her mouth on his. Like the air they shared was paramount to survival. Like their hands, skimming and sliding over clothes, and exploring planes and curves, were as necessary as if neither of them had sight.

  The same passion he’d poured onto the canvas behind them, he poured onto her lips now. It dripped like honey, the sweetness too much for her to deny.

  He pulled away from her mouth and she came down hard. And when she did, she found one of her hands had wound itself into his hair while the other one clenched on to his T-shirt. That her breasts had mashed against his solid frame, that the whole of her, from thighs to knees to shins, had leaned into him so far that if he moved, she’d fall to the ground. She appropriated her weight so that she was supporting herself, then loosened her grip on his hair. She didn’t let go right away, testing the strands. Soft. Thick. Just like she’d imagined.

  Evan didn’t seem to mind that she’d buried her fingers in it. Russell had very carefully arranged hair but never let her touch it. Evan had not only let her touch it, he’d let her mangle it.

  Ungripping the hand fisted in his T-shirt, she attempted to peel away her body pressed to his like cellophane stuck to itself. He clutched her closer, not letting her back away, and most of her—the throbbing, fluttering, tingling parts—was glad. Because she didn’t want to back away yet.

  The hand on her waist moved to splay across her back. “Do you paint?” he asked, his voice low and rumbly and far too sexy for such a weird question.

  “Finger-paint,” she joked. “But that was a long time ago.”

  His smile turned wicked.

  Her heart kicked against her rib cage.

  The hand left her back and grabbed hers, and she had to remind herself how to use her knees as he led her in three wide strides across the studio. In front of the easel and small table covered in, and with, paint, he stopped and positioned her much in the way she had been standing on the other side of the room. Facing him, very close, one of his hands once again splayed across her back.

  She watched his face, then his hand as it lowered to the palette on the table. His finger lifted, and when it did, she saw a dab of bright blue paint on the tip. He dragged it down her cheek to her jaw, the cool sensation of the paint causing her flesh to pucker with raised goose bumps.

  She sucked in a breath as he lowered his hand again. Then he returned, this time with red, and dragged another chilly line down her neck.

  “How come you never asked me to tattoo you?” he murmured.

  The bizarre line of questioning kept coming.

  “Um…”

  The truth was Charlie had wanted Evan to tattoo her. He was amazingly talented and she wanted something on her body that had meaning. She’d picked out what she wanted a long time ago but lacked the courage to approach him.

  For one, Rae hadn’t been tatted at all, and Charlie felt weird asking Rae’s husband to ink her skin when his own wife wouldn’t let him do it. For another, Charlie wanted the tattoo very close to a… um… private place, and the idea of Evan Downey’s face that close to her boob was, well… it wasn’t right.

  Then Rae had died and any idea of entering his intimate space and asking him to tat her in an intimate place went right out the window. Getting someone else to do it was out of the question. Evan was the best.

  None of which she could tell him, so she said, “Never got around to it.”

  Another dab of blue, but this time, he ran his finger along the V-neck of her shirt. “Where.”

  “Um…”

  The finger dipped past her shirt, skimming along the top of one breast.

  “Here,” she breathed, moving her left hand and resting it high on her right rib cage.

  He lifted the hem of her shirt, grazing her bare stomach with his knuckles. Then his hand replaced hers under her shirt, dangerously close to her breast—that was, as it turned out, not encased in a bra.


  His eyes continued burning into hers, much the way the palm of his hand burned into her skin. “What.”

  She sucked in a breath, her thoughts scattering to the wind. Closing her eyes, she saw the image she’d long wanted immortalized on her skin. “A camera.”

  “Lift your arms.”

  “Evan.” A whisper. “I’m not wearing a bra.”

  That smile grew more insidious. “Perfect.”

  She laughed his name a second time, but not out of humor, out of terror. And lust. Lusty terror. Was that a thing?

  “Let me see.” He spoke with intensity, and while looking right at her.

  As if entranced, she lifted her arms to do as he asked, squeezing her eyes closed as she felt the material lift, the room’s cool air hit her breasts, and finally the sweep of her long hair as it swished between her shoulder blades.

  She’d sensed he wasn’t near, and when she popped her eyes open, she saw him drawing the blinds on the three windows in the room. Then he closed the studio door.

  They were alone. Her throat constricted as she realized there had been a fantasy in the back of her head since he’d moved here, and it involved this very scenario. Them alone. Her naked. His hands on her body.

  He approached, his eyes flitting over her, and she had to resist the urge to cup her large breasts to hide them. What was she doing?

  What are you doing?

  “You’re beautiful, Ace.” He dipped his fingers into the paint—all four fingers—and traced them down her body, slicking multiple colors in long lines between her breasts, down to her belly button, and over her waist.

  Her breathing went shallow. “Evan.”

  “Gonna help me out?” he asked, mischievous glint in his eye.

  “Sorry?”

  He shook his head. Slowly. “No apologizing.” He took her hand, kissed her palm, then directed her to the palette dotted with paint colors. She stroked her finger through the yellow and lifted it to his face. He shook his head again, grabbing her wrist. “Not me. You.”

  “Me?”

  He pushed her fingertip to her nipple and drew a cool circle around the tightened bud. “You,” he repeated.