by Brynne Asher
He gives me another squeeze and my body heats—the silk like wool on a hot summer day. “Then how about I list all the things you lied about last night.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. There’s really no reason to dredge up the past.”
“Where do I start?” He ignores me and his eyes drop to my chest. His hand pulls through my hair, feeling its way down my side, landing low on my hip. “First, you lied about how much you loved my ass.”
“I did not,” I gasp. Of course, that’s not a lie. He has a great ass. Addy told me he plays lacrosse in his spare time, so maybe that’s it. It’s muscular and, when he bends over behind the bar to reach for a bottle of wine, it’s downright perfection.
I let out a whimper as his index finger circles my nipple before making its way up to my collar bone. Hot on my skin, his touch drags back down between my breasts, parting the material where it barely hangs on.
“You did.” He looks back up to my face. “That’s a weird thing to lie about, little dandelion.”
“Please, don’t call me that,” I whisper.
“Why?” His voice dips to match mine and I think he’s going to lean in to kiss me, but he doesn’t. I yelp when his hands come to my hips and he plops me up on the counter next to my double cheeseburger that’s getting cold. “Did you lie about that, too? About the power of the sun, youthful joy, and … what was the last one?”
My breath catches because I’ve totally screwed myself and I’m ninety-nine percent sure I spilled all my secrets last night. Secrets I haven’t told my best friends—not even Addy.
“Oh yeah.” He spreads my legs and steps between them, running his hands up the sides of my bare thighs. “Long-lasting happiness.” His hands continue upward, pulling my kimono with them, and my eyes close at his touch.
“All lies,” I breathe and my eyes fly open when he reaches the sides of my bare ass. The only thing between us is the light Asian silk I bought the last time I went to Chinatown. Its watercolor-hued threads are woven into a floral print with birds and a peacock.
He squeezes my ass cheeks and doesn’t take his eyes off mine. “You’re a naughty little liar.”
Pulling my ass to the edge of the counter, he leans in to kiss me at the same time. I grip his shoulders to hang on and can’t stop myself from wrapping my legs around the backs of his thighs as I teeter on the ledge. But I shouldn’t worry, he holds me tight as he devours my mouth.
“You’re bare under this.” Unlike me—lying about not lying—he murmurs the truth against my lips before asking, “Do you have a headache?”
With his hands on my ass, I have no words. My head might be spinning from what he’s doing to me, but the only thing that aches right now is below my waist, pressed against his erect cock.
I forget about everything—about all the time I’ve spent avoiding him and my father who abandoned me when I was little but now seems to be hell-bent on finding me—and throw caution to the tequila. I shake my head.
“You’re really not going to answer any of my questions?”
I can’t help but like the way he feels and my body hums. My words are clipped and thoughtless, just like the current state of my brain. “I told you—boring. Nothing to tell.”
He pulls his head back and looks at me. His eyes roam my face first, then down to my body that he’s completely taken over with his touch.
“I can’t just leave you here like this, can I?” he asks.
Spinning in a whole new way that has nothing to do with the tequila, I look up and my only answer is my heels digging into the backs of his thighs and my fingernails into his shoulders. If he leaves me like this, I’ll be forced to let the cheeseburger go cold and head straight for my vibrator.
I swear, his whiskey eyes darken before he leans in and his lips return to mine, a hypnotic pull so strong, it makes it hard to deny him.
I feel the pull of the silk tie that’s precariously holding on as if its life depends on it, causing my kimono to fall open.
“Fuck.” He looks down between us, his eyes dragging heavily over me. “You’re more beautiful than I imagined.”
He cups my breast again, this time skin-to-skin. Running his hand down the center of my body, never letting go of my ass with his other. When his index finger runs so lightly through my sex, it’s the sweetest pain I’ve ever experienced.
I need more—so much more.
Never did I think I’d be here with Evan Charles Hargrove III. It doesn’t matter how much I’ve secretly dreamed about it.
“So wet.”
When I open my eyes, he looks from his hand to me as he slides a finger inside while his thumb brushes my clit.
“You were fighting this, Mary. Been fighting me off for so long—but no more. As of this moment,” he presses on my clit, making me moan, as if he needed to do more to get my attention, “this is happening.”
I ignore all the reasons that dance through my head as to why I've done everything in my power to ward off Evan's advances. I forget about the scum of the earth man who’s back in Tennessee looking for me. Instead, for once, I listen to my heart. To the one, selfish reason that should never cancel out all sense of reason—I want him. I want him now more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
I spread my legs farther.
As he watches, his tongue wets his lips in that way that secretly drives me wild. “There you go.”
He plunges two fingers inside me—then three and, it feels so good, my head falls back. I have to let go of Evan to support myself on the counter. Arching into his touch, I chase my orgasm like a wild woman. He circles my clit with firm, slow strokes, bringing me close but not giving me nearly enough.
When I try to move against his hand, desperate for more, he lightens his touch. “You’re fucking perfect. All this, just for me. Tell me that you get it.”
I open my eyes and tip my head to look at him. Sitting here, bare and spread before him as he stands there fully dressed finger fucking me, I nod and my answer comes anxious and needy. “Yes. All yours.”
“Finally,” he utters before kissing me hard and turning his attention back to my clit.
This time, he’s all business, working me into such a state, I only faintly hear myself call out when I come. My ears ring and my toes tingle as my body convulses against his hand. I feel his thick arm round my back to support my weight as he wrings me dry, leaving me in a limp pile of mush held tight to his body.
I sit in his arms, recovering, as the world comes back to me, my current state of nakedness hitting me as my senses sharpen. He strokes my hair, my back, my ass.
At the most inopportune time, my stomach audibly complains and I feel Evan smile against the side of my head.
Needing to change the subject to absolutely anything besides my past and the life-altering orgasm he just gave me, I ask, “Is that a Diet Coke?”
“Been watching you for what feels like forever. What else would I bring you?” He fists my hair, pulling my head just enough for me to see nothing but his golden-brown eyes. “No more tequila for you in the near future. And Mary?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m picking you up tonight. Be ready to talk.”
I shake my head. “Tonight’s poker night.”
He pulls me in tight. “We’ll skip.”
If I go to poker, I don’t have to talk to Evan. “No. I can’t let Addy down. If we skip, it’ll mess up the table.”
He sighs. “Fine. I’ll pick you up. We’ll talk after poker.”
I’ll leave early for Addy’s so I’ll have my own car, make an excuse to leave, and head straight for Mexico.
I smile. “Sounds good to me.”
5
KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT AND MY CLOTHES ON
Mary
I’M NOT QUITE sure how poker night came to be, but after I bonded with Addy the first time she sat in my chair at the salon, she insisted I attend. It’s become an odd cluster of her employees and me.
Actually, they’re all pretty normal a
nd I’m the odd one, but I’ve always been on the outside looking in. It’s not fun but after spending thirteen years bouncing around the foster care system, I know exactly what I am—a charity case. Never a family member, yet included out of sheer obligation. I am friends with July and all her sisters and the Maysons did everything they could to take me into their fold. But, by the time this happened, I was so used to being on the outside, it was hard to allow myself to be included. It was the “it’s not you, it’s me” thing.
Everything is my father’s fault. Every-freaking-thing.
I hate being a charity case and I certainly don’t need Evan nosing around in my business.
Evan has proven to be hypnotic. I knew if I gave in, this would happen. I curse the moment I was weak and agreed to dinner. I was ignoring him like a champ—like the C-list rock star that I am. He teases me and I bite back with my words. He shoots me his sexy, private smirks and I roll my eyes. His private touches to my arm, hip, or the small of my back always earn him an elbow to the ribs.
He treats me like the secret he visualizes naked and I treat him like the enemy.
But he doesn’t have to visualize me naked anymore after he swooned my robe right off of me this afternoon.
The last thing I need is to be held hostage by Evan at poker night.
But Evan proved how sly he is by reading my mind. I’m on my way out the door forty-five minutes early to avoid him but here he is, sauntering up the stairs to my second level apartment.
“You trying to skip out on me?”
I have no excuse so, for the first time since I was drunk last night, I tell the truth. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
He has no response besides taking the two steps separating us and reaching around, placing his hand on my ass at the same moment his lips hit mine, reminding me he had me very much naked on my kitchen counter just a few short hours ago.
He’s standing on the step below me and we’re eye to eye. “We could skip poker. I’ll order dinner and you can talk with your mouth full.”
I shake my head. “No. Addy is expecting me—us. You know how Morris feels about not having enough players at the table.”
“Okay. I’ll wrap up the game early, but after that you need to be prepared to talk.” I tense when my phone vibrates where it’s tucked in my back pocket. And since that’s where his hand is resting, Evan feels it, too. “Do you need to see who that is?”
I take a step back, which means taking a step up, and almost trip. He reaches out to steady me as I silence my phone. “Nope. I can check it later.”
He stuffs one hand into his pocket and extends the other to me. “Then let’s get this done so we can get out of there.”
I don’t take his hand. I sidestep him and speed down the stairs like the maniac I’ve turned into over the last twenty-four hours.
I DON’T DRINK anything at poker. Addy’s new hot-guy neighbor, Crew, shows up and looks like he wants to devour her. Everyone could see it, so Evan doesn’t have to work hard at wrapping up the game early.
Everyone bows out early and when we get back to my apartment, I don’t even have to fake how tired I am. My hangover has wiped me out along with worry about why July has called me three times in the last two hours but, because a certain man has butted his way into my life, I haven’t been able to take any of her calls.
I look over at Evan, who makes my small living room seem even smaller, and realize there’s no way he’s leaving anytime soon. I drop my purse on the sofa. “I’m going to change. Help yourself to what little is in the fridge.”
He lifts his chin and takes the three steps to my kitchen. I hear him pop open a can of something as I shut myself in my room. I fall back on my bed, close my eyes, and wonder why my life can never be simple. I’m always clawing to keep up and, now with my dad looking for me and Evan pursuing me, my brain is on a never-ending merry-go-round. All I want to do is jump off and take a break from the dizzying ride.
Maybe I’ll just lie here for a minute. If Evan wants to talk to me so badly, he can wait.
I grab my pillow. Just five minutes to rest my head will surely give me the willpower to deal with him.
And by deal, I mean keep my mouth shut and my clothes on.
6
ACCIDENTAL ALLIES
Evan
“WHAT’S TAKING SO long? You cleaning out your closet in there?”
I’m standing in front of a wobbly bookcase filled with books and ridiculousness. It’s wallpapered with inappropriate bumper stickers, cut-out memes, and raunchy cartoons. She’s got the entire cast of the Harry Potter bobble head collection. I’m pretty sure there’s about a hundred other figurines and, as I inspect her rag-tag collection of paperbacks, it looks like Mary has a penchant for smut. Every cover is well used and shows more skin than fabric.
I take another drink of my Diet Coke, which is about all she has in her refrigerator, and turn for her bedroom. “Mary. It’s really gonna hurt my feelings if you snuck out the window.”
I knock on her door and get nothing, then put my hand on the doorknob and turn it. It’s not like I didn’t see everything this afternoon when she practically wrote me a formal invitation to make her body sing.
How ironic is it that I got her naked in her kitchen but every time I see the woman in bed, she’s fully clothed and dead to the world. At least tonight she isn’t drunk and I shouldn’t be surprised she’s out like a light. She yawned all through poker and her eyes still looked like she was on the tequila struggle bus. Her hair, that I can’t stop fixating on, is pulled out of its tie. In a mess of colorful waves, it floats behind her in freezeframe. She’s perfect.
I lean onto the doorjamb and take in her tiny frame curled into a pillow where she lies sideways across her small double bed. Her room is even more eccentric than her bookcases. She’s got beads hanging in front of her windows, a million pillows are stacked in the corner, and her floor is covered in clothes and shoes.
Mary is messy. And I love it.
She’s filled her world with as much color as she puts in her hair and I have to fight my cock from swelling from just being here. I want to learn everything there is to know about her.
I want to wake her up, have her talk to me, force her to trust me, and then make her come again, but with my tongue this time. I want to do all kinds of things but I know I need to prove myself to her first.
Her purse rings from the other room and I pull her door shut so it doesn’t wake her. Digging through her bag—which is as messy as her bedroom—I unearth her phone through loose mints, tampons, and crinkled receipts.
There’s a picture of Mary with a blonde on the screen. They’ve got their arms around each other with their lips puckered into a kiss for the selfie. Weird. All the screen says is July.
I slide my finger across the screen. “Hello?”
I get nothing before a female voice snaps at me. “Who is this?”
“Evan. Who is this?”
She doesn’t give me her name. “This is Mary’s number and has been for years. Where is she?”
Whoever this is, she’s protective of Mary. I can tell she’d jump through this phone and strangle me if she could.
I sit down on the old sofa covered in throw blankets and stretch my legs out, propping them on top of the chipped coffee table. “Mary’s asleep. Who’s this?”
“But, it’s not even ten o’clock there. Mary’s a night owl. Why is she asleep, why are you there while she’s asleep, and why are you answering her phone?”
I lean my head back on the sofa. “That’s a lot of whys.”
“I’m not shitting you. I know Mary’s at home because I just tracked her on Snapchat. If you don’t tell me who you are right now and why you’re there, I’m gonna call the police. Or you can just wake her up and put her on the phone so I know she’s okay.” She takes a breath and rethinks her demands. “In fact, do that. Wake her up and put her on the phone.”
She sounds about as threatening as a kitten. “I’m not waking her. She’s
tired. Are you the one who’s been lighting up her phone last night and tonight? She won’t answer it around me.”
“Wait.” The woman pauses and her voice turns just slightly less frantic. “You’re the date from last night?”
“Depends. If she had good things to say, then, yes. If not, I have no clue who she went out with last night.”
Her tone turns nosy. “Your name is Evan?”
“Yeah and just to finish off the Spanish Inquisition, my last name is Hargrove, I work for Mary’s friend Addy at the winery, and just to calm your ass down, I’ve never been arrested. Taken into custody? Sure, once in high school when I was stopped with two kegs in the back of my car. But I got out of it.”
That earns her a small laugh. “Is your uncle a police officer, too?”
“Nope. But my dad sits on the city council so he can make sure no one builds a big-box store next to our property.”
“Interesting.”
“Trust me, it’s not. Who are you?”
“I’m Mary’s best friend, July.”
I lift my head up and frown. “Your name is July?”
“Yes, we’re a family of months. I don’t know how else to explain it other than my parents have their own brand of crazy and fly that flag proudly. It was nice chatting with you but I need to talk to Mary and I needed to do it hours ago.”
“I want to talk to her, too, but she needs the sleep. I’m not waking her.”
She sighs. “I don’t know why, but there’s something about you … even all the way from Tennessee, my gut tells me to trust you.”
“Your gut would be right. Maybe you and I should cut out the middleman and have a chat while my sleeping mermaid catches up on her beauty rest.”
She says nothing, but I hear her shifting the phone. Finally, she asks, “You’re a friend of Addy’s?”
“Yeah. A friend and an employee. It’s how I met Mary.”