And two: He’d recently confessed to her that he didn’t want to get married. Ever. And she’d promised herself a long time ago that if she was going to do the whole relationship thing—which she wasn’t anymore; she’d sworn off men six months ago—but if she wanted a relationship, she would do it all in the right order. Dating, engagement, wedding, honeymoon, then maybe a kid or two a few years down the road, once they were settled. Exactly the opposite of what every woman in her family had done. She’d seen her mother and sister both go through enough men to start their own football teams, and she wanted no part in that. It was either the whole shebang or nothing at all.
So, yeah, Preston had been right to end things. It still stung, but he’d been right.
She sighed and shook off his grasp. “Okay, Preston. I’m sorry for being bitchy. You know how I get when I’m forced to wear a dress and be social.”
He gave a slight wince at the swear word and glanced around. Hah. Some things never change. She rolled her eyes, pretending that his distaste for cursing wasn’t somewhat adorable. She always used to tease him about it.
“It’s a nice dress,” he offered. “Let me guess, Shelby bought it?”
She nodded and picked up her beer. “When I told her I’d been invited to a wedding here, she went all fashionista on me. Even forced me to go shopping and try shit on. I barely managed to talk her out of buying me a sequined prom-bomb in feisty fuchsia.”
This time he did a better job at hiding his wince with a smile. “Wedding? Me, too. Well, in a way. I’m vacationing with a friend who’s in wedding a party. Popular destination isn’t it? I’ve seen several brides since I got here. Anyone I know?”
“Cam’s brother got hitched.”
His smile didn’t slip, but his face tightened the way it always had whenever Cam came up in conversation. “And how is Camden? I heard through the grapevine that he left MPD to become a private investigator.”
The way he said “private investigator” suggested he thought about as highly of the profession as he did a wad of chewed gum on the bottom of his loafer. Not that she could really blame him for his disdain. She’d had a similar reaction when Cam first told her his plans to leave their tight-knit homicide squad. Still, she felt the need to defend Cam and his brothers.
“Wilde Security is actually doing quite well.”
“So I’ve heard,” Preston said. “The Pruitts are old money. I’m sure they paid the Wilde brothers handsomely for clearing up that whole stalker incident earlier this year.”
“And they ended up with a son-in-law in Jude Wilde,” she pointed out.
“Which I’m sure Colonel Pruitt was absolutely thrilled about.” The sarcasm in his statement was thick enough to cut with a chainsaw, suggesting Colonel Elliot Pruitt was not a-okay with the marriage, although he seemed happy enough when he walked his daughter down the aisle. But even if he’d been putting on a front for the benefit of the wedding guests, what did it matter? Eva liked Libby well enough and Jude was like a little brother to her, but their family drama was none of her—or anyone else’s—business. Between her mother and Shelby, she had enough of her own drama, thanks.
Time for a subject change. “So where’s your friend?”
“Doing the wedding thing. I flew down on a whim yesterday without RSVPing, so I’m left to entertain myself for the evening. Shouldn’t you be at your wedding?”
“Cam had to leave for a few minutes. I’ll go back when he returns. Until then…” She lifted her drink in a silent toast. “Bottoms up.”
“You always could put away alcohol like no woman I’ve ever met.”
Part of her wished that had been a dig at her lack of femininity so she’d have an excuse to be snotty and dismiss him, but his tone of voice painted it as a compliment.
“Thanks.” She scanned the bar, mentally urging Cam to hurry up. She was over making polite conversation. Of course, once he got back, she’d have to go make polite conversation with the wedding guests, so it was really a lose-lose kind of night.
She knocked back the rest of her Guinness and caught the bartender’s attention for another. She slid Cam’s drink in front of her and decided to put the fresh one in its place.
Christ, where was Cam?
As if her thoughts conjured him, he appeared in the doorway, holding the door open for one of Libby’s bridesmaids—the one he’d escorted down the aisle after the ceremony. With streaky brown hair and big blue eyes, she was the kind of gorgeous woman who made beauty look effortless. Her blue wrap dress accentuated a body that probably made men drop to their knees in front of her and pledge their undying devotion. Cam was certainly falling all over himself to help her through the door. Because, God forbid, she might break a nail if she had to open the damn thing herself.
Whoa.
Eva shifted her gaze away from them and stared into her pint, watching the foam slide down the side of the glass. Where had those bitter thoughts come from? So what if Cam wanted to hold the door for the woman. So what if he flirted a bit. So what if he wanted to fuck her. As a matter of fact, good for him if he did. Eva couldn’t recall the last time he’d been on a date and the hand and lotion routine was probably getting as old for him as her vibrator was for her.
Heat flushed under her skin at a vivid mental image of Cam naked, splayed out on a bed with his head thrown back against a pillow, his chest heaving with each breath, his skin sweat-slicked, his hand closed around his cock, sliding up and down…
Double whoa.
Did the bartender turn off the A/C? Must have because it was getting really freakin’ hot in here, and it absolutely had nothing to do with the completely verboten thought of her best friend naked, giving himself a hand job. She snatched up her beer and gulped it, trying to cool her parched throat.
The scent of Cam’s favorite cinnamon gum surrounded her as he touched her shoulder, and she gazed down at his hand in a daze. She never noticed the size of it before—wide with a dusting of dark hair over the back. His long, tanned fingers engulfed her whole shoulder and she was in no way considered a petite woman. If anything, her shoulders were too wide from years of religious lap swimming. But as his fingers tightened in concern and she felt his leashed strength, she realized just how small she was compared to him. Despite all of the hours she spent in the gym, he could still hurt her without breaking a sweat if he wanted to. She suddenly hated him for that fact of biology almost as much as she was fascinated by it.
“You okay?” he asked.
She opened her mouth to answer, but no sound emerged. Oh. Yeah. Breathing was a good thing. She exhaled softly so as not to draw attention to the fact she’d been holding her breath, but his eyes narrowed and zeroed in on Preston over the top of her head.
“Linz,” he said with a distinct chill in the curt greeting.
Shit. He thought Preston had upset her. If he only knew where her thoughts had truly been…
“Wilde,” Preston said in the exact same cold tone, and then silence descended. The two men locked stares in their own private game of chicken. They’d never liked each other, and the end of her and Preston’s relationship had meant the end of any semblance of civility between them.
Eva returned her attention to her beer and the TVs, fully intending to ignore them both and leave them to do their macho thing, but a flash of blue fabric out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned on her stool to see the bridesmaid standing beside Preston, her blue eyes tracking from Preston to Cam and back. The woman’s beauty was even more stunning up close than it had been from across the room. Next to her, Eva felt like a kid playing make believe with her mother’s clothes and make-up.
“Oh, for godssakes.” The bridesmaid finally leaned between the men and held out a manicured hand in greeting. “If I wait for one of these He-men to introduce me, we’ll be standing here all day. I’m Lark Warren, Preston’s fiancée.”
The seat dropped out from under Eva’s ass and the room started a sickening whirl. Her stomach clenched
as pain cleaved open the wound in her heart that had just barely healed.
“Fiancée?” she heard herself ask, but her voice sounded muffled like she was whispering through the roar of a waterfall.
“It’s all very recent.” Lark looped her arm through Preston’s and gave a dazzling smile. The ring on her finger caught and reflected the dim light from over the bar. “We’ve only been together about eight months, but when it’s right, it’s right.”
Eight months? Eva shut her eyes at the wash of fresh new pain, bitter and ice cold. Their relationship had ended only six months ago.
He’d cheated.
No wonder he’d wanted out. It had never been a case of him not wanting to marry—he just hadn’t wanted to marry her.
Cam’s hand left her shoulder, slid around her waist to keep her upright, and somehow, that gave her the fortification she needed to open her eyes and face Lark again.
The woman who was everything she wasn’t.
Chapter Four
Goddammit.
Cam tried to catch Lark’s gaze and motioned for her to ix-nay the marriage talk, but she continued to blithely crush Eva’s heart into dust with each innocent word out of her mouth. He didn’t think she was intentionally being cruel. She just had no fucking idea that the woman sitting across from her in stone-faced silence was once hoping for that ring, that wedding, and a ridiculous fairy tale happily ever after.
Goddamn Preston Linz.
Eva’s chest started heaving. He had no doubt she was on the verge of either punching something or breaking down and, shit, she wouldn’t forgive herself if she did either in front of her asshole ex. Cam wrapped his arm tighter around her and tucked her against his side, offering what little comfort he could. She was like an icicle beside him, cold and so very fragile.
She stared at her ex, but the hurt and betrayal Cam knew she was feeling was buried so far under the ice that nobody else saw it.
At least Preston the Bastard had the grace to look ashamed. He stood up so fast, his stool scraped across the floor. “You should get back to the reception, honey.” He tugged on Lark’s hand. “I’ll be upstairs when you’re done.”
Coward. Cam’s fingers curled into a fist and he worked to loosen them, although the ball-less, lying, cheating jackass deserved nothing more than to lose a few teeth—especially since he was now scowling at the way Cam’s arm wrapped protectively around Eva. Like he still had any right to her at all. Hah.
But that flash of jealousy gave Cam an excellent idea. He shifted behind Eva and wrapped his other arm around her, pulling her back against him and nuzzling her hair before breathing in her ear, “Play along.”
Her spine stiffened, but only for a split second before she caught on to his game. She relaxed against him and reached back to tangle her fingers in his hair in a possessive way that all but screamed, “Mine!” The gentle tug at his scalp sent blood rushing southward.
Damn. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all.
“Congratulations,” she said to Lark, and give the lady an Oscar because she sounded genuinely happy for the couple. “Do you have a date set? I’ve always wanted a spring wedding myself, but if someone doesn’t ask me soon, we’re not going to have time to plan.”
Cam summoned up his most indulgent smile. “I’m working up to it.”
“Oh my God,” Lark said. “I had no idea you two were a couple.”
“We’ve kept it quiet.” Eva dropped her hand from his hair to stroke her fingers affectionately back and forth over his forearm. “We used to work together and our relationship wasn’t exactly condoned.”
“But now that I’m no longer with MPD, there’s no need for secrecy anymore,” Cam added and watched Preston do the mental calculations. The guy’s eyes bugged as he realized that, according to their fictional timeline, Eva had been “cheating” on him at the same time he had been seeing Lark behind her back.
Yeah, pal, how do you like that little taste of your own medicine? Going down hard, isn’t it?
“I need to go,” Preston said. “I have a bit of work to do and Lark, shouldn’t you be getting back to the wedding?”
“You’re right, I should.” She smiled and lifted her face for a goodbye kiss.
Cam sure as hell didn’t want Eva seeing that, so he spun her seat around to face him and did the first thing that came to mind—he dropped his mouth to hers.
He almost thought she’d shove him away. Maybe punch him for good measure. But she didn’t. In fact, she didn’t offer any resistance at all. She looped her arms around his neck and threw herself into the kiss with the same ferocity that she did everything else. It was the kind of kiss that promised x-rated fun in his future, and the semi-erection he’d been fighting all day demanded instant attention. A distant part of his consciousness noticed Lark dragging away her very dismayed fiancé—but then he didn’t give a damn anymore and shut his eyes, melting into the kiss and giving as good as he got. Eva’s tongue met and parried with his, fighting for dominance, and a thrill rippled through him. Going to bed with her wouldn’t be sweet or gentle. It would be more like hand to hand combat, with each of them fighting to come out on top.
It was exactly what he’d always wanted from her.
Wait. What was he thinking? This kiss was a ruse. It wasn’t real. He was simply doing her a favor, being a good friend by helping her make her ex jealous to soothe her wounded pride.
Fuck, he really hated being stuck in the friend category.
Cam opened his eyes to stare down at her. It took another moment before Eva realized he’d stopped participating in the fake kiss and she pulled away, a question in her caramel colored eyes.
“They’re gone now,” he said by way of explanation, his voice far rougher than it should have been for a friend.
“Oh.” Her lips, wet from the kiss, parted on a soft exhale and his cock jumped, pressing painfully against the fly of his shorts. He needed to reach down and adjust things to make it more comfortable, but—well, this was Eva. He’d spent the last five years hiding this kind of reaction from her, and the last thing he wanted was to draw attention to it.
She dropped her hands from his shoulders and spun toward the bar. “Okay, that was weird.”
Cam winced. Kissing her had been a lot of things, but for him, weird was nowhere on that list. “Yeah. Weird. Right.” He sat down on the stool beside her and took the opportunity to do some below-the-belt adjusting. “I need a shot of something strong. Want a shot?”
She nodded, but wouldn’t look at him. Goddammit.
Cam told the bartender to surprise them. Neither he nor Eva said anything more until two blood-red shots landed in front of them a few minutes later. In unison, they picked up the glasses, clinked the rims, tapped the bottoms on the bar, and downed the contents in their usual ritual. Cam caught a nasty whiff of the concoction as he raised it to his mouth, but by the time he realized it was essentially alcoholic hot sauce, it was already down his throat. It scorched his esophagus like liquid fire laced with chili peppers and he gagged.
“Oh, what the fuck was that?” Eva gasped, sticking out her tongue and breathing like a Lamaze student.
Tears leaked out of Cam’s eyes and he made a grab for one of the glasses of water the laughing bartender set down in front of them. The water did little to cool the nuclear explosion in his mouth, and he couldn’t form a reply.
“It’s called a Prairie Fire,” the bartender said.
“Shit,” Cam managed after gulping down most of the water on one breath. “Why didn’t you warn us, man?”
The bartender shrugged. “Entertainment. You wanted a surprise.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at a list of twelve shots scrawled on a chalkboard. “And not many people order off the specials list.”
“They don’t, huh?” Eva fished an ice cube out of her glass and slid Cam a challenging sideways glance as she crunched it. Like that, the weirdness of the last few minutes evaporated and she was Eva, his former partner and best friend, a
gain.
And he knew that look.
“No.” He held up his hands. “We’re not going there.”
“Oh, I’m so going there. Betcha won’t try another special.”
Cam grumbled. Growing up with a twin, two older brothers, and one younger, dares had been a way of life. He’d lose his man card if he ever backed down from a bet, not to mention get razzed from within an inch of his life—and Eva knew this, too. Damn woman.
But…she was laughing now, which meant she wasn’t thinking about Preston Linz. She was angling for a distraction, and if he had to kill his liver to keep her from beating herself up over that guy, then so be it. “What kind of bet are we talking?”
“Fifty bucks. We each pick three shots for the other and the first to refuse one loses.”
“Fine. Do your worst.”
“I plan on it.” Eva studied the list, then ordered a Four Horsemen at the bartender’s recommendation. The shot look innocuous enough when it arrived. Just a squat glass with dark, goldish-brown liquor in it.
Eva frowned at it, apparently disappointed that it wasn’t flame red and reeking of hot sauce. “That doesn’t look so bad.”
Yeah, easy for her to say. She wasn’t the one drinking it. Any shot called the Four Horsemen had to be damn near apocalyptic.
Cam fortified himself before picking up the glass. He raised it in a toast to her, tapped the bottom on the bar, and with a shake of his head at his stupidity, he knocked it back. And shuddered.
“Oh. Oh, fuck. It’s like lighter fluid.”
Eva grinned. “Your eyes are tearing up again.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, but the glare lost some of its effect since it squeezed a few tears out to roll down his cheeks. He wiped them away with the back of his hand and banged the glass down with a triumphant thunk. “Go ahead and yuck it up now. You just wait.”
Wilde for Her (A Wilde Security Novel) (Entangled Brazen) Page 3
