Ah, give and take. I like this, and I get her now. Evie is an equal rights girl. She’s no one’s sucker and will only give as good as she gets.
“That sucks. My mom was a single mother with no money, so I get where you’re coming from. I stuck to white shirts and jeans though, and worked to buy good shoes that would last.”
She chuckles and snorts at me.
“Tough guy in school, huh? You’d have hated me. I was all about the style and wearing something that made a statement. It was what I had, and I became really good at it. That helped me when it came time to apply for college the next year, and two of my teachers helped me.”
Yeah, I read the stuff they’d sent on her behalf. It’s a compliment worth preening over, the way those two women went to town on her college application and pushed for her future.
“Nope. Not tough or a hard ass or anything you’re thinking, Evie. I hate to admit it, since brooding in a white t-shirt and jeans would make me cool, but I was pretty popular despite my circumstances—and scrawny.” I laugh, remembering my mom and her love of cabbage stew.
I only really bulked up after I hit my last year in high school in preparation for the Army. The truth is…I don’t have any shitty, angsty stories to commiserate over from my childhood. We were poor, but my mom was a great parent and I had a happy life.
Until she passed the year I enlisted.
And of course, my ex.
“Well, that’s not bad since I was a popular shit, too.”
“Yeah? Okay. So you chose design for shitty reasons, but you were happy. What came next?”
“Oh nuh-uh, Peters, this is not the free information center. In my world, we pay for that stuff, and my currency of choice is deets. Tell me something else, oh late bloomer of the angst phenomenon, what happened next with you? You went to the Army…”
“My mom had a heart attack at work while I was in boot camp.”
“Oh God, that sucks. I’m so sorry.”
“Nah. It was okay. Not a surprise. She wasn’t all that healthy to begin with, but she refused to slow down. That was Mom. She didn’t cotton to the crap the doctors were spouting, and she also refused to let me try and quit so I could look after her. She was proud of what I’d done with my life, and that was all I needed. Her usual motto was try, try hard, so that if you do fail, you can at least do it with dignity.”
“Man oh man, that’s a good one.” She breathes, stroking my palm absently. “My motto was: You can only fail if you acknowledge not succeeding.”
That makes me rumble out a laugh because I can see that about Evie. She’s a never-say-die, keep-on-truckin’ kind of person. It’s one of the many things I’m trying hard not to like about her, because the truth is, she’s actually a really likeable woman, nothing like the princess I pegged her as.
She may look like one, what with her beauty and clothes, but she’s cool, too, and I hate that. I’d rather have a pain in the ass on my ass than have to force myself not to see all her good qualities.
“Okay, so after that I graduated early since I took the accelerated program. Not that I was a super genius or anything, but I worked hard because I was so passionate about getting into college to pursue my dreams. Turns out that was a mistake since it gave my fosters the opportunity to say “job done.” They waved me off without a tear and cleared out my room for a new foster kid.”
“Christ.”
“Nah, it was okay. Jericho came for me not long after I left home and was basically homeless. He paid the other half of my tuition the school wasn’t footing and set me up in my dorm early. Don’t know how he pulled those strings, but I had a roof and food and a future, so I was lucky.”
She squeezes me again and I know it’s my turn, a turn I don’t want because I hate talking about that bitch and the way I once felt.
“I was married. I told you I was popular in school? I had a high school sweetheart and married her before I got shipped out. I loved my wife, a lot, and spent those first two years in bliss. I was living the dream. I had someone to go home to. Someone who I thought loved me.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah, huh. I only realized after eight years of shitty marriage that she wasn’t all that great. I came home from one of the last tours I was serving to find her in bed with her boss—my bed.”
Her whistle is low and whispers through the room, and I shake my head to dispel my mood.
“What happened?”
“What happened?” I snort. “I was a soldier. I kicked that bastard’s ass but good and lit into her with a vengeance, and then divorced her ass. Of course, she got the house I’d been paying for, but that was a small price to pay.”
Especially since I was desperate to get rid of her by then. The things she accused me of still leave a bitter taste in my mouth, and I haven’t been that man since I walked out of the lawyer’s office.
She called me a deviant, a pervert, yelling that she was always alone but it was preferable to some of the stuff I did to her in bed when I was on leave. If I’d known for even a second that she wasn’t into that stuff…
Would I have not married her? Would I have pulled off the love blinders and seen that what I’d chosen wasn’t for me? I still can’t say since I was still living the try, try harder motto.
Part of me knows I would have tried to change to fit her, and that is just demoralizing because why should I have? I loved her, cared for her, sacrificed for her—and she was not worth a minute of it.
If I hadn’t caught her, I’d probably still be married and living in a nightmare.
“She sounds like a bitch. I say good riddance to that hag and onward and upward, my friend,” she mumbles, her voice going soft and sleepy.
She falls asleep not long after that, and surprisingly so do I, my mind and body relaxed and oddly at peace for the first time in a long while.
Chapter Seven
Evaline
Monday morning sucks balls, as I wake to the feel of strong arms wrapped around me and heat pressed to my back. I also get some morning wood action that leaves me all tingly between my legs and fighting not to wiggle closer.
That part was good and all dreamy, as I lay there and just drank it in, enjoying the sensation of not being alone and having someone hold me through the night.
The sucky part happened after, like maybe two minutes after I started basking, because Blaze must have woken to realize that he was snuggling me, and the man vaulted out of bed as if I’d been on the verge of molesting him.
Talk about a boner killer.
He didn’t even bother to say a word before walking out, leaving me alone, feeling weirdly vulnerable and all kinds of impishly pissed because, damn, it knocked my pride when he chose to slam into the bathroom to take care of his…well, I assume he took care of business since his dick was not in sight when he came out all fresh and scowling.
What a butthead.
I had to shower later, wondering if he’d stood in that very same spot and stroked certain parts, and that got me so revved I haven’t had a good thought since dressing.
I guess sexual frustration and a huge crush on my surly protector will do that to a girl, even an eternal optimist like me.
See? Bad morning. Suckiest Monday morning ever, considering Mr. Blaze Peters hasn’t said but two words to me except to snarl that I shouldn’t tell anyone he’s here or what he’s doing here as yet.
“And how exactly should I hide you when Kimber and Giselle get here! You’re a tank, Peters, a fucking tank on legs!” I yell, huffing around my third cup of coffee.
“I’m going out later after Gus gets done with the alarm and all the security we’ll be setting up. Once that friend of yours gets here, Merle will call me and I’ll make tracks. You’ll be safe. There’s safety in numbers, and you won’t want me hanging around while you’re working anyway. Just don’t tell anyone I’m here.”
“Why? I don’t get why it’s such a secret.”
“Because I don’t want them talking about it is why.
If your attacker is planning to come back here, I want that fuck surprised by me. I also do not want your friends asking me a million questions, and for fuck’s sake, I’d rather have my nails ripped out than hang around while you fit a model. I’m only human.”
As Sheldon would say, BAZINGA!
That is a direct hit right in the soft and cleanly waxed area where my vagina once resided. Is he saying he is fully capable of not wanting me, but a hot model is like kryptonite?
Feeeeeeelings.
“Fine. You skulk around all you want, super-secret military grunt, and I’ll do what I wanted to do in the first place and ignore your ass. Just by the way, I am hot. No, shut up, intelligent people are talking here. I am hot. Hot enough to wake up with that freaking tree trunk you call a cock wedged in my butt.”
I’m not yelling, much, as I stomp past him and clunk my cup down in the sink. But dammit, I want to. He’s not exactly the nicest person to be around, I have found, and he makes surly sound like a boxful of rainbows as well.
Me, I’m a morning person—a happy, smiling, chirpy morning person. He is not. Why he’s so peeved right now is beyond me, and honestly, I don’t care just as long as he fucks off.
Except that I so don’t want him to because I want him close. Closer. Closer. Closer. So close that I can get a peek at the part of him that was trying to storm my gates this morning.
And you know what? I will have him. I think, hope. I just need to find a way to get him.
Now that I know him a little better, I just like him, you know? He’s like me in a way. He experiences loss, but he just keeps going. I’ve had a good life. I can’t say different at all because I know so many other kids had it worse; Jericho just to name one.
My fosters may not have been the big-love kind of people, but they provided for me at all times and never made me feel unwelcome. Jericho got to live with the biologicals through eighteen years of misery, going without and hating them every step of the way.
So yeah, I’ve had a good one, and for that reason I can relate to Blaze more than he thinks. We’ve both had okay lives, and we’re okay with that, not complaining, just moving on.
He’s a little more of the gloomy mover on-er whereas I’m more of a bright attitude, pot-of-gold type of girl, but hey, no one’s perfect.
For that reason, I just drop my bad mood and feel a smile quirk at my lips as I load the dishwasher and wipe the counters down one last time. Before I turn back to him—and only because I am human and need a little bolstering before meeting his mood head on—I take a deep breath and remind myself of all the good things in life.
Like Blaze coming out of the bathroom in a towel, water stroking the hella hunky abundance of tight muscles leading down to his very impressive sex.
Licking. Sucking. Stroking.
I keep thinking good and happy thoughts about the surly ass and feel my sex respond and moisten even as I breathe deeply and tack on a smile.
Of course, he’s suspicious immediately when I turn and smile at him, but I could give a crapolla. I want him. After a long drought and only work to keep me occupied, the truth is that I need him.
I want sex, good sex with dirty words, sweaty, hot melding of flesh, and maybe if I’m lucky, a little freak to make it everything I like about sex. I want hotness and a slaking of the desire I felt from the first minute I laid eyes on him yesterday.
Casual. Easy. Something to break the ice between us if I’m to be stuck with him for the next five days and counting.
Mostly, I just want to feel for once like I’m not alone, and I’ve decided Blaze Peters may as well fill that role since the likelihood of my having any sex after Jericho locks me down is less than negative ten.
“Why are you smiling at me?”
I walk closer and he shifts away, avoiding the hand I reach out to run along his chest. I did some research last night, mostly in the form of reading up on this erotic website. That lasted, oh, five minutes before I got grossed out by some of the stuff people are into.
I’m not averse to dirty, kinky sex. My last boyfriend, the one and only time we boffed, was no angel, and believe me, he had some of it going. Sure, he wasn’t all that great, but as far as sex goes, I was not unhappy with the results.
He really liked my boobs and did some stuff that still features in a few wet dreams or vibrator sessions. No, that’s cool. I am, however, not into some of the weird shit some people are into.
Never, never in my life did I once imagine that some chicks like face-sitting. Grossage. On a whole ‘nother level since, me, I do not relish the thought of a guy’s balls smothering me.
Nasty.
The backdooring? No judgment, it’s just not for me since I view that chute as a one-way zone. Not trying to be crass or anything, just saying. The other stuff…
That cranked my engine, and I would have so been into it if I hadn’t passed out on a dime. I must have been really tired for that to happen since I can go a good eighteen hours a day before I conk out.
But, whatever, the point is I want sex, good sex, hot sex—with Blaze. And I aim to have it if the oaf would just succumb to my charms.
“Oh Peters, Peters, Peters. This sexual tension is way too thick, and I do not see us getting anywhere until we address it, so let me just say that I am totally hot for you and I would not be at all averse to some action. No, don’t start barking just yet. Listen. You and me, we’re stuck with each other for a few days. We should use that to our advantage and enjoy life.”
I don’t even blush when I say this because I am not embarrassed. I want him, a lot, and I will have him, so it’s not like whatever he says is going to be a rejection, not really. I’ll just have to revise and come at him from another angle is all.
Blaze swallows, and I see his fists clench as he plants his feet and glares down at me.
“You’re Jericho’s sister.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So, he’s my friend, and I won’t betray him that way,” he growls, making my mouth twitch again.
I have to suck my lips in just to withhold a giggle and shake my head in commiseration, as if I really do feel for the dilemma he’s in. I don’t, not one whit, since Jericho is currently probably having the time of his life with Cleo. Why should I be denied just because he’s got a stick up his ass about what his little sister can and cannot do?
“Betray him? First of all, that is a total crock. The man is a horndog and we both know it. If he wasn’t with Cleo, he’d still be chasing tail and not giving a damn about brothers, honor, or any of that bullshit guy code you’re spouting at me.”
Blaze grunts at that, and I nod sagely when he closes his eyes and lets out a sigh.
“Yeah, you agree, I can see it since we all know Jericho and we know that’s true. Look, if you had a sister, he’d do her and tell you to butt out of it. I’m his sister and I love him, but the guy has a seriously skewed set of double standards when it comes to me, and I won’t have it. So, I want sex. I’m not asking you for a lifetime commitment here, Peters, and I sure as shit do not hanker for a ring and matching towel sets either.”
“Goddammit, I’m working here, and I don’t fuck the client. Not ever.”
“Technically, I’m not a client since I’m not paying you. Technically, you’re paying me through Jericho since you’re paying back a blood debt. Just if you want a different way to view it. And no, that does not make me feel all whorish or anything because all I’ll be getting out of it is your surly ass and some screwing.”
Blaze blinks at my reasoning and cocks his head, his eyes narrowing at me. I can almost see the gears churning in that head of his, and the sight makes me sigh in defeat.
The man is just searching for a viable, inarguable excuse not to be with me, and if he’s working this hard at it, I can already see the writing on the wall for this inning.
Strike one, Evie. Batter up, baby.
He finally sighs, long and loud, all put upon as if the thought of sex with me is a burden, and I feel my lip
curl a little at the man’s stubbornness.
“You’re not my type. Don’t snarl at me. I don’t mean you’re not sexy or attractive because you are, Evie, you’re just too soft for me. I don’t do making love or that feelingsy bullshit women like you go for. I fuck. That’s it. I have one night, maybe, with women who know the score and move on.”
Jesus, what a man whore. I’m not disparaging him unkindly here. I am no hypocrite or judgmental asshole like most, but I do not understand the logic some men work with.
Sex should be about mutual pleasure, in and out of bed, not some random thing that is cold once the coming is done with. I may not be all into the romance right now, not completely at least—I will not tell him I want cuddling or talking until after the fact, heh—but I am into sharing.
This won’t lead anywhere probably, but we can at least be friends and have some fun while we’re stuck with each other.
“You’re such a dick, Peters. Look, I’m not asking for a whole lot here. Some fun together, maybe a movie and popcorn night, and then we’ll part ways. If we do it right, we can avoid awkwardness later on when we have to see each other through Jericho. Just think about it.”
He doesn’t bother to reply, just turns on his heel and leaves me alone in the kitchen to finish cleaning up with my thoughts swirling around in my head.
Thoughts that make me livid…and sympathetic because it is blatantly obvious to me that Blaze is still scarred from his marriage and he’s using it as a safety net in his dealings with women.
Darn it. I so suck at this whole unravel the bad boy thing and, to be honest, I don’t really want to. I prefer to let sleeping dogs lie and just take what I can from a situation before moving on.
With him, I’d have to peel the freaking onion first, and I am so not in a place for the tears I know would follow.
THE WATCHERS: 6 Military Romance Bundle Page 36