Evy’s eyes ducked under the metal table and nearly popped out of her head. “Oh. My. God. It is tattooed!”
A bashful grin snuck across Ben’s scruff. “Told ya. You owe me fifty bucks.”
Chapter Eight
Evy crossed her legs and took deep breaths to slow her rushing adrenaline in the dim living room light. She picked a piece of fuzz from her jeans, trying not to let her mind wander off on its own because it might never come back if it did. Whatever Dean had to say, one thing was for sure, he didn’t want to say it over the phone, which could only mean it was bad. Probably real bad. Her heart told her they were free while her gut insisted Megan had decided against letting him go.
Evy stared at a ladder bookshelf leaning against the wall, her faraway eyes running their fingers over the glossy spines of romance and vampire novels, wondering what her next chapter held, wondering if she would get her happily ever after or lose him in forever. Like Rose lost Jack on the Titanic. Evy winced with the understanding that, in real life, sometimes things just don’t work out. But the sooner she came to grips with that the better. She had a new business to help run and the fallout from some crushing breakup could be devastating, not just to her but Brooke and Ben as well. What happened to Shaun broke her heart and the thought of it happening to her sister made her sick.
When the cavernous breaths didn’t work, she tried a long drink of cab instead. Her eyes quietly scoured the apartment, searching for loose wrappers or balls of tissue she might have missed. After this morning’s embarrassing bombardment of unexpected visitors, she was taking no chances. Her eyes hovered on the flickering flame of a candle on the coffee table, mortification worming through her nervous system just thinking about this morning. Megan must have been overjoyed catching Evy wearing old leggings and puffy eyes with her hair sticking out like Medusa. First impressions were everything and there was no going back with that one. Just the same, she was determined to try. Not for Megan’s sake but for Dean’s. She had cleaned her apartment from top to bottom, straightened her hair, and thrown on the tightest tank top she could find. It was time to break out the big guns. Literally.
She adjusted her bra, staring down at the curvy girls inside. Her hands gave them a lift from below and let them fall back into place with a controlled bounce. A long breath escaped her, making the girls sink further. Even Megan’s boobs were bigger, the one arena Evy could usually compete in. In grade school, the other kids had called her and Brooke the Bosom Twosome.
A knock on the door scared the crap out of her. She set the wine glass on the coffee table and nearly spilled it, got to her purple fuck me pumps and sashayed across the living room, telling herself she looked hot as hell. She peeked through the peephole. Dean stared back, stealing her breath and confidence in one fell swoop.
She smacked her lips, shook her hair and opened the door. His cologne waited for no invitation, storming her senses and sending tingles prancing across her skin.
“You look beautiful,” he said softly, staring at her with that look in his eye.
She grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him inside, shutting and locking the door behind him. “So, how’d he take it?”
Dean turned to face her and paused before speaking. “She didn’t tell him.”
Evy’s hopes crashed to the floor, splattering around her heels. “Why not?”
He released her perplexed stare, unable to handle the weight of those emerald jewels. “He bought us a house.”
Soft jazz spilled from an Mp3 dock on the ladder bookshelf, filling the silence between them. Evy’s heart beat fast, outrunning the piece’s lethargic tempo. The room tilted slightly to one side. She forgot to breathe.
“He did what?”
“Trust me, I was just as shocked as you are now.”
She shook her head violently and held up a hand. “Wait, how does a city alderman afford to buy you a house?”
“He said his father left him some investments a few years back. Apparently, the guy liked to dabble in software, which explains the size of Clay’s house.”
Despair claimed Evy’s eyes. Her shoulders slumped in the soft light. “No.”
He took her hand. “Evy, we’ll get through it. We’ve come this far.”
She pulled her hand back. “How?”
“That house changes nothing,” he said, following her into the kitchen.
Evy kept her back to him, staring at the fridge through watery eyes. “I knew something like this was going to happen. I just knew it.”
“Hey,” he said, wrapping his arms around her from behind and burying his face in her hair, breathing her in. “It’s just a minor setback, we’ll figure it out.”
She discreetly brushed a tear building in her eye before it could fall. “There will always be a minor setback waiting for us, Dean.” Her eyes focused on a curled picture of her and her best friend Niki from back home, attached to the fridge by a magnet in the shape of a dachshund. The two of them wore sunlit smiles with Chicago’s Navy Pier in the background, a time when things had been so much simpler. “Does she still plan on telling him?”
He hugged her tighter. “Yes.”
“When?”
His hot breath ran across her ear. “In a day or two. She said she couldn’t do it with that smile on his face, that he was two inches from Heaven.”
Evy rotated her head a quarter of a turn, arching an eyebrow.
“Bastard was pretty proud of himself, but she will tell him,” he whispered in her ear. “She knows it’s the right thing to do.”
“Do you really believe that, Dean?”
“I have to.”
Her stomach muscles tightened when his hands slid up over her breasts. She squirmed free from his grasp and clicked her heels across the tiled flooring.
“Everything will work out.”
She stopped and turned to face him. “I’m sick of everyone telling me this will work out! So far, nothing has worked out. This whole thing is like a bad Lifetime movie.” Evy paced back and forth behind the couch, doubtfully shaking her head as she went. “This whole thing is bullshit.”
“She is going to tell him. There’s no other option, and if she won’t I will.”
Evy stopped her purple heels with her back to him.
Dean came closer. “This is almost over,” he said softly, wrapping her in his arms again. “We just have to hold on for a little longer.”
She turned to face him and looked up into his eyes. “It shouldn’t be this hard.”
“It won’t be much longer.”
“Where’s she at now?”
“Megan? She’s at the new house. I told her I was picking up some of my stuff.”
Evy held up a hand, her mouth hanging wide open. “You’re already living there?”
“It’s fully furnished. There’s no excuse not to.”
She shoved him in the chest and stormed across the living room. “I can think of a few!”
He rebounded and followed her. “I’m sleeping on the couch. There’s no sense rocking the boat. Not now. I want her to talk to him, to be there to calm him down. Once he realizes this is never going to work - once he sees it in her eyes – he will lose his drive. I guarantee it.”
“And when does she plan on talking to him?”
“Soon.”
She gazed out a window, her arms folded over her chest. “Why didn’t you tell me about the bald guy?”
A grimace sliced through him. “Because I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Well, that didn’t work,” she laughed.
“You don’t have to worry about him.”
She turned to face him, on the verge of laughing like a crazy person. “Shaun said he kicked your ass.”
Dean’s brow folded. “He didn’t kick my ass,” he scoffed, throwing his hands on his hips, pulling back his suit coat and revealing the slim-fit button down hugging his carved out abs. “For your information, the bastard sucker punched me.”
“And who does that, Dean? Next time
it could be a gun.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Really? Shaun seemed to think he was former CIA.”
“Navy Seals,” Dean murmured sheepishly.
“Whatever!”
“Possibly the mafia.”
She threw her hands out. “Oh great!”
“Maybe a trained assassin.”
Her arms fell to her sides with a light slap, her voice lowering. “This isn’t funny, Dean.”
The touch of a smile pulled at one corner of his mouth. “I know it’s not. Well, some of it is. Depends on the light.”
Her legs moved before she knew what was happening, his cologne drawing her closer. “None of it is funny.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed one time as his eyes devoured her face.
She found his eyes, her chest heaving beneath her top, the rest of the world fading away. She shook her head, determined to hang on to the rest of the world for a minute longer. “What if he followed you here?”
“He didn’t. I wasn’t followed. As far as Clay and Ryder know, they think I’m going along with the plan. Their guard is down and that’s the way we have to keep it.”
Evy studied his face, the words slowly sinking in. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Did she walk around your hotel room naked?” she asked without preamble.
His face soured. “What? No, she knows better than that.”
“Does she, Dean? Because she sure didn’t seem to know it on the phone the other day,” Evy took a step back and he pulled her to him.
“It wasn’t like that.”
Her eyes thinned, interrogating his facial features from top to bottom for signs of deceit. Someone tromped across the living room above them. Evy took a grave breath and held it. “Did something happen in Hawaii?”
Dean stared blankly at her, pulse racing. “No."
She lowered her voice to a cold whisper. “Is there something you want to tell…”
He planted his lips on hers, stifling the divisive words from coming out. She pushed against his chiseled chest and tore her mouth to the side, gasping for breath. “You’re married.”
“Quit talking,” he replied, taking her face in his hands and looking into her eyes. “For ten minutes, just quit talking.”
Her gaze softened, a coy grin playing on her lips. “That all ya got?”
He opened his mouth to reply and she pressed her lips to his, wrestling his tongue into submission. Evy pulled away again, her chest rising and falling as she chased her breath.
“What’s wrong?”
She swallowed hard, her hand finding her chest. “This is adultery.”
He pulled her against him, devouring her with his hungry eyes. “God knows the truth,” he whispered, kissing her hard.
Evy’s feet left the ground during the explosion around them. She pushed against him as his lips nibbled an ear and trailed down her jaw. Her breath quickened when his mouth found the soft spot in her neck. The one that drove her crazy. The one that would break her will at any second. Hey eyes squeezed shut as he gently tugged at her skin with his teeth and sucked her into his mouth. Bursts of white light pulsed against her field of vision as his hands lifted her shirt and seized her breasts with single-minded grasps. Any resistance she had left faltered completely when his lips found an erect nipple. He sucked the dime sized appendage into his mouth, whisking his tongue around it like it might be his last chance. She threw her head back and moaned softly when he bit down, curling handfuls of his hair into her fists. His breath came in hot strokes across her breasts as he moved on to the other nipple, as eager to explore it as the first.
“Stop,” she begged, pulling at his hair. “This isn’t right.”
He pushed her back onto the kitchen table, knocking a silver napkin holder to the ground. Light green napkins seesawed through the air like confetti as Dean unbuttoned her jeans and yanked them to her ankles. She gasped as he dropped to one knee and dove in lips first, kissing the inside of her thighs until she trembled against him.
Dean slipped her heels off, his lips trailing dangerously close to the growing wet spot in her red lace panties.
She curled his hair into her hands, the flutter of butterflies in her stomach, and spoke in a heated whisper. “Dean, this is wrong.”
He freed her legs from their denim shackles and pushed her knees back. Evy’s breath hitched, watching his tongue make her panties even wetter. He pulled the lacey fabric to the side and stared at her shaved skin with wild wonder, the kitchen light illuminating every inch of her silky body. His eyes rose to find hers glittering with heat.
Her breasts heaved. “We should stop,” she said faintly, her eyes betraying her every syllable.
She inhaled sharply when his finger slid inside. “Oh my God,” she groaned, grabbing his hair with one hand and the table with the other.
Dean sent his tongue in next, circling her clitoris with skilled precision. Evy pulled her knees back and rested her feet on either side of him on the table. With full access, Dean plunged deeper, taking greedy licks that made her entire body shudder with spasms. She leaned her head back and let him have his way, each stroke of his tongue triggering explosions inside her head.
When she couldn’t take it anymore, Evy pulled him up by the hair and unzipped his jeans in the blink of an eye. Her hand sinuously slipped inside the hole and came back out with his cock. Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of his hardness, a knot of need tightening in her gut. She looked up into his feral eyes, stroking him until his breathing became erratic. Her gaze lowered to the throbbing mass in her hand. She licked her lips, ready to pull him into her mouth, when he pushed her back onto the table and slid inside of her. It all happened so fast, she barely had time to cry out.
“Dean!” she panted, gripping the sides of the table with bloodless knuckles as he pressed against her, his jeans still on.
The table legs squeaked against the floor with each aggressive thrust. Dean pushed her tank top and bra over her breasts so he could watch them quake beneath his punishing force. Evy wrapped her legs around him, leaving no obstruction in his path. He bent over her, resting his hands on the table, watching her face as it jerked up and down beneath him. “So beautiful,” he murmured.
Evy groaned, raking her fingers down his chest.
He tore off his shirt without slowing, the table protesting his thundering drive, her hands running the cuts in his six-pack.
“Baby, I’ve missed you,” he said, lowering his mouth to hers.
She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him in deeper with her heels, kissing him with a passion only he could command. The floor shook beneath them, the room spinning in slow circles. They were the only two people left on the planet and, suddenly, nothing else mattered. Seconds melted together as they, once again, became one.
Dean slowed down, wanting to savor the moment for as long as possible no matter how difficult that was. He plunged deeper, reaching down between her legs.
Evy squirmed to get away but his hold was too tight. Her breath lodged in her throat. Her head whipped to the side.
Dean gritted his teeth, tendons tightening in his neck. He could feel she was getting close. Evy threw her head back and cried out to the ceiling as he gave her every scrupulous inch. He took her face in his hand and directed her gaze back to him, veins bulging in his biceps.
Her fingers traced the cuts in his hips, her lungs burning with desire. Her entire body tensed, teetering on the edge of bliss. She looked him in the eye and called out his name as the most spine tingling orgasm she had ever had rippled through her like an electric current.
“Evy,” Dean grunted, his unrelenting cock ballooning to twice its size just before he exploded inside of her. Her muscles tightened around him as he continued pumping, emptying his fulfillment into her with pulsating bursts. Her abs constricted with the wave of ecstasy washing over her.
Dean thrust forward one last time before collapsing on top of her.
His ragged breath tickled her ear. The room slowly came back into focus. She pulled him tightly against her and they shared a comfortable silence, collecting their breath, one heart beating against the other. When he tried to pull out she pulled him back in with her legs.
“Not yet,” she whispered.
He dove into her green pools, his arms shaking against the table. “God, I missed you.”
She flashed a pretty smile. “I missed you, too.”
Dean brushed hair from her face and tenderly stroked her cheek, savoring the moment for as long as possible. The rest of the world could wait. Evy held onto him, wondering what it would be like if they could just carry on like a normal couple. Would they make something to eat next? Maybe order pizza and watch a movie snuggled together on the couch? Turn their phones off and do it again?
Dean kissed her gently on the cheek and pulled out. Evy moaned her disapproval but smiled when he wrapped her in his arms. His breath was warm and smelled like cinnamon.
She cuddled against him, soaking in his heat. “This is nice.”
A car drove by outside, muffled bass bumping from its sound system.
Dean leaned on an elbow and the kitchen table groaned. He stared at her under the light, admiring her smooth skin. “So…waffle dogs for breakfast?”
“Yeah,” she replied, a playful grin on her lips. “Your waffle dog.”
He rubbed her arm. “I hope you have plenty of syrup.”
Evy’s face wrinkled. “What?” she laughed.
“I don’t even know what that means.”
She pulled at his chest hairs. “You are such a pervert.”
“Me?” he laughed. “I’m not the one with a vibrator named Sparky.”
She gasped, staring at him with a sparkle in her eyes. “I don’t have a vibrator name Sparky!”
“Not what Brooke says.”
They burst into a love drunk laughter that gradually faded into a reticent moment preceding the inevitable. She knew he couldn’t stay. Not yet. An image of the two of them shipwrecked on an island flittered through her mind - just them and the sun, living off coconuts and crabs, no one else to get in the way.
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