by Liz Crowe
She opened the door and tiptoed in. There was a note on the vanity in Austin’s handwriting.
Gone out for a run and some coffee. Will meet you guys at the diving boat. Behave. Or not. Your choice.
Evelyn dropped, seemingly boneless, into a chair, smiling at the sight of Ross in the shower, shampoo rolling down his perfect body. She trailed her fingers across her breasts, watching him prop his hands on the wall as the water sluiced across his shoulders and back.
Dear Lord, was there a woman on the planet luckier than her? She doubted it very much.
To her pleasant surprise, Ross turned around to face her, his hand wrapped around that giant dick, which was as hard as a rock. His blue eyes met hers, flipping a newly discovered erotic switch in her head. She dropped her fingers lower and started stroking herself as he did the same. She bit her lip, pinched her nipple, and watched his hand move up and down the extreme length of his dick. Shocked at her capacity for the ongoing orgasm-fest they’d been enjoying, her face flushed hot and her clit hardened under her finger. She moved faster, spreading her legs so he could see her.
He smiled and moved his own hand faster, which made her tingle all over. The orgasm caught her by surprise. She shivered and stretched on the huge leather chair in the over-the-top bathroom in this incredible paradise she found herself inhabiting.
“Oh, God.” She sighed, staring at the Italian tile ceiling over the tub. “Yes.” She closed her eyes.
“Now that is one of my favorite words.” Her eyes flew open when a deep, raspy, familiar voice filled her ears. Ross stood in front of her, water droplets beaded up on his perfectly sculpted chest. “But not quite good enough.”
She smiled, threaded her hands into Ross’ thick golden hair and propped one foot on his shoulder as he zeroed in on her still-pulsing sex. His hands worked their way up and cupped her breasts, flicking at her nipples. “Agreed,” she said. “Let’s see if we can do a little better.”
She sucked in a breath at the smell and feel of him, the musky unmistakable scent of him filling her senses as she tugged him up so he loomed over her. Her eyes prickled with tears.
“What’s wrong, lovely Evelyn?” Ross kissed her cheeks, her nose, and her lips, deepening his kiss in a way that blocked everything from her consciousness.
“I think… I… Oh, please, yes,” she sighed when he penetrated her, moving slowly, rolling his hips, pressing deep then retreating so he could do it all again. “Oh, Ross,” she said as she angled her hips, and opened her mouth to his kiss once more.
“I’m not gonna last long,” he gasped into her hair. “You had me pretty worked up just now, naughty Liebling.”
She grinned and moved her hips faster, meeting his every thrust, loving this and him and… No. She couldn’t love them both. She just loved this. All this glorious, amazing attention. Because it was short-lived. They’d part ways in a few days and he’d go back to his life in California, likely bedding his fair share of women.
Evelyn froze at that, literally stopped moving mid-thrust.
“Oh, shit,” Ross grunted and closed his eyes as the orgasm made him groan and fill her body. “Oh…wow.” He opened his eyes and stared down at her, then his brow furrowed. “What? Did I hurt you? I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget and go too fast.”
She frowned at him, trying to make her voice work. “You… You have other girls, right? Out in California?”
His double-take was so comical she giggled, then winced when he pulled out of her. She lay, sprawled and sticky, and so jealous she would swear she could see green at the edges of her vision.
Ridiculous, Evelyn. The man owes you nothing. He’s just a plaything. The three in your stupid, selfish threesome.
He ran a washcloth under warm water, squeezed it out, and pressed it between her legs. She let him, still unable to form coherent sentences and afraid to try lest she sound like a crazy person. He stroked and cleaned her gently, then pressed his lips to her belly. She held him close, biting back tears as best she could.
“You are my one and only,” he whispered so softly she could barely hear him. “No other woman compares to you, my Evelyn.”
She blinked. He’d never called her that. Only Austin called her that. She pulled him up so his face was level with hers and cradled his bearded cheeks between her hands. “I’m marrying Austin,” she said, not sure why she was did so. “I mean…this is… I don’t want it to get weird.”
He opened his mouth at the same time as the bathroom door flew open, revealing Austin in his swim trunks, holding a cardboard cup of coffee. “What’s going on in here, kids?” His voice had that strange, sharp edge to it. As if he wanted to sound nonchalant and blasé and not as jealous as he actually was. Evelyn’s skin pebbled and her pulse raced at the sound of it.
Ross rose to his feet, still naked, the warm cloth dangling from one hand. “I have to leave,” he said, his voice clogged with emotion. “I was just saying my goodbyes.”
Austin’s eyes narrowed as he glanced at Evelyn who didn’t even bother to hide the fact that this sudden goodbye involved them having sex without him knowing about it. It was a rule, if an unspoken one. Evelyn always checked with Austin if she and Ross were going to engage in any foreplay or intercourse.
Until today, of course.
She sighed and got up, found her robe, and wrapped herself up in it. When she put her hand on Austin’s arm, he flinched and glowered at her.
Great. This was exactly what she didn’t want or need in her life. Time to give up this particular fantasy because the real world has officially come knocking at the door. But he seemed to relax after a few seconds.
“Go? Why? We have this place for three more days.” He put a proprietary arm around Evelyn’s shoulders.
“Brad called,” she said, making it up as she went along, realizing that Ross really should go if they were going to let go of this nonsense with everyone’s egos, psyches, and emotions intact. “He needs Ross back. Some emergency.”
“Ah,” Austin said, squeezing her tighter. “I see.”
“Yes, so,” Ross said, brushing past them. He grabbed his suitcase and started tossing his stuff into it. His face was flushed, his eyes bright.
This, Evelyn thought, was bad. This had to stop now.
He zipped it up, put on his jeans and a T-shirt and shoes then met their gaze. Neither of them had moved and Evelyn could sense Austin’s rapid heartbeat against her side.
“Well, thanks for the vacation, Austin,” Ross said, holding his hand out.
Austin glared at it, then down at her. “So, this is it?” he asked.
She nodded. “It’s best, I think. Don’t you?” She pressed her lips to his cheek. “I love you, Austin. You know that. Don’t make this awkward and risk your friendship over it.”
Austin swallowed hard, shook his head as if to clear it, then dragged Ross forward into a huge group hug. It was warm and comforting and made her happy. But she knew it for what it was. Austin’s way of saying, ‘No more. She’s mine. I want to keep you as a friend so this has to stop.’
Ross stepped away from them, rubbing his lips and blinking fast. “I’ll call you,” he said as he practically ran for the bedroom door. They stood together amid the mess of the nights before, not talking for a long time after that.
Chapter Twenty-Three
One month later
“I have to go back to the brewery.” Austin tossed the mail onto the kitchen counter. “I gotta figure out what the hell is wrong with the—” He stopped and stared at her. Evelyn sat gazing out of the huge wall of windows onto their yard as the snow fell. She had her hair pulled up, exposing the long line of her neck.
She chewed at her lip, a line of worry between her beautiful blue eyes. Austin blew out a breath. Dear God, but he was a lucky man. In love with the woman of his dreams, albeit one who did not always make things easy.
He leaned on the counter a minute before she noticed him. He grasped the improbability that the two people he loved most
in the universe were both emotional cripples. He grasped it and welcomed it because he understood he had provided them with the emotional catalyst they both required. Even if the thing with Ross had ended on a somewhat ignominious note.
His fault, he knew, but something she’d sensed and ended for them before it went pear-shaped. Ross had faded as Austin knew he would. The guy could switch it off and on like a light bulb, thank God.
Evelyn had a photo of the three of them in her hand. The one snapped when they’d received their award at the festival that weekend. Tears dripped onto it. He took it from her and knelt between her knees, laying his head in her lap.
“Where have you been?” She threaded her fingers through his hair. “You need a haircut. Dinner’s ready. I was just tired all of a sudden. Jesus, I could use a nap.”
He pulled her to her feet. It took all he had not to lay her back on the couch and take her right now. “I can’t shake this cold or flu or whatever…” She looked up at him. “Oh shit, Austin, I’m late.”
“Late for what?”
She frowned. He gripped her arms as panic stole across his psyche.
“Don’t be obtuse,” she ground out.
They’d been putting in long hours together, pushing their staff to its limit, he knew. But no one complained. He’d started the company on a basis of emotional ownership for all his employees, giving them leeway to make decisions and take on projects well beyond the norm. So far it had worked great.
But now that they faced a year filled with financial uncertainty, he’d been short with everyone, stressed beyond belief. Evelyn sucked in a breath and he knew she was trying hard not to cry. “Sorry. I’m just tired.”
“No, I’m sorry. How late? I mean, what? Oh, hell.” He sat, staring at her. They’d spent a long vacation between Christmas and New Year with Ross in Mykonos, a long stretch of sun, surf, food, beer, and some of the most amazing sex he’d ever experienced. Until he’d caught them post-intercourse that morning, and he’d been about five seconds away from punching Ross into oblivion before the whole thing had dried up and drifted away leaving nothing but intensely erotic memories in their wake.
There had not a condom in sight for the days they’d spent together, either.
The fact that Evelyn might very well be pregnant thanks to Ross and not himself penetrated his exhaustion.
Kids were not part of his personal agenda and never had been. Something about having a child with Evelyn made his ears ring with a fresh round of anxiety. God damn but it was shitty timing. They couldn’t…or shouldn’t. He sighed.
She stood, and he put a hand on her stomach, trying not to let the exhaustion and stress make him say something really stupid. She sighed and let him hold her for a second. “I don’t know. It’s probably stress, anyway.”
He led her to the bedroom and tucked her in, then sat, watching her drift off. His heart clenched with delight, worry, and terror all at once. His cock stirred, giving him a different message. Struggling with the urge to wake her, fuck her, own her all over again, knowing she’d not protest, he stood, adjusted himself and turned off the light.
He did need to get back over to the brewery. Truth was, he had to keep busy. Nervous energy forced him to action nearly around the clock. Knowing the best thing would be to crawl into bed with her and get a decent night’s sleep, he ate standing up, then drank yet another cup of coffee. Ignoring the funny buzzing in his fingertips, he chalked it up to lack of sleep and too much caffeine. He headed back out into the wintry night.
Evelyn sat in the dark room, hand on her stomach, her heart doing flips in her chest. The snow fell, quiet, col, and beautiful on the other side of the giant window. She watched it, not realizing she’d fallen asleep again until the phone buzzed by her ear nearly two hours later. She fumbled for it, knowing, the second she answered it, it would be bad news.
“It’s Dad.” Austin’s voice was muffled. Evelyn sucked in a breath. “He’s dead.”
“Oh God, honey, where are you?”
“Heading to their house. He just dropped to the floor. Massive heart attack.”
Thoughts of funerals, plans and of what would be expected of him now made Evelyn clench her jaw. But she had to be supportive. “Okay. Um, do you need me to do anything?”
“No. I’ll—I’ll be home soon, I hope.”
She lay back, absorbed the overwhelming turning point of this moment then called Ross.
“Wow,” he exhaled. “That is not good news at all.” His soft German-tinged English made her smile in spite of her stress.
“No, it’s not, Captain Obvious.”
“Captain whom?”
She stood and started pacing the bedroom. “Never mind. Sorry.”
“Well, what happens now? What about the family business?”
Evelyn sat, her legs shaking with stress. “Well, funeral and stuff first. After that, who knows?”
“Ja.”
They sat, quiet. Until she finally told him she should go. “Thanks.”
“For what, my love?”
“For being you.” She hung up and climbed into the shower, figuring sleep could wait.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Austin stood by his mother, greeting everyone, doing all the right and proper things one does at the funeral of a patriarch, a pillar of society, a guy who managed to take his own father’s business from small to colossal in one generation.
It was, in a word, brutal.
His mother rose to the occasion, all social energy and putting on a good face. He watched as she greeted the governor’s wife, the mayor of Grand Rapids, and pretty much every single successful businessman in the Midwest.
His parents’ marriage had been a farce as best Austin could tell, from the moment he’d been able to sort out such things. His mother started drinking every day at five, and his father had had a string of affairs with younger women for years. But they’d stayed together.
He put a hand to his head, which had started to pound in an ominous way. The last three days had been the worst kind of nightmare between dealing with his mother’s incessant demands on his time and the ritual of handing over something like thirty thousand dollars to throw a funeral. When his revived efforts to locate Brock failed, it sent him even further down into a spiral of frustrated regret.
Evelyn had been amazing. A rock of stability. He smiled, catching her eye across the room as she sat with the brewery staff. He’d told Ross to stay on the west coast, that they’d catch up after all this necessary family drama subsided.
“Valerie!” The sound of his mother’s delighted high-pitched voice made him shiver with annoyance. He turned and saw her, the woman who’d been his girlfriend and lover for the better part of three years before he’d met Evelyn. Their history went back even further, since they’d grown up together, vacationing with their families on Lake Michigan and down in St. Bart’s. She’d been his prom date their senior year, when they’d clumsily surrendered their virginity to each other before parting ways for college.
She smiled, her face no longer a mask of anger. And he relaxed.
Every hair Evelyn possessed stood on end at the sight of that rich bitch Valerie Masterson with her arms around Austin. Their easy familiarity did something ugly to her nerve endings. She averted her gaze, trying to pay attention to whatever conversation was swirling around her from the brewery staff. When she chanced another look, Austin was smiling, his hand on the woman’s arm still. The expression on Valerie’s face was one any normal woman with a hot boyfriend, fiancé, or husband would recognize immediately. It made her suck in a breath and rise to her feet.
At that moment, Evelyn caught Austin’s mother’s eyes on her. The evil smirk on her face-lifted countenance sent a clear message just before she hooked one arm under her son’s elbow and the other under Valerie’s and led the two of them into the crowd.
Evelyn stood in the middle of the circle of chairs, her face on fire. “I have to go,” she said to everyone and no one. The group stared at
her. She stumbled past them, around the clots of famous, rich and otherwise important people in the room and found the front door.
“Evelyn.” The sound of her name froze her in place. She turned and came face to face with Virginia Fitzgerald, in all her glory. Evelyn figured she must have left Austin and Valerie somewhere so she could come seek her out. Virginia was herself an heiress to an automotive fortune on the east side of the state, and had married the wealthiest man in Michigan. The sum total of Austin’s parents equaled this woman now, however. His life, the one he’d spent the majority of his years living, was one more familiar to Valerie Masterson, and Evelyn knew it. The old, long-buried self-loathing came roaring up, familiar and evil and loud in her ears.
Panic bloomed in Evelyn’s chest as she caught herself actually missing the elder Fitzgerald’s neutralizing presence.
“Dear.” The woman’s simpering face made Evelyn want to smack her, hard. “Thank you so much for coming.”
Evelyn gulped. “Of course. I’m…so sorry for your loss.”
The woman stepped closer. Chanel No. 5 nearly choked her as Austin’s mother put a scrawny hand on her wrist. “We must have lunch. Once all of this unpleasantness is over. I do want to get to know you better.” She made a point of staring straight at Evelyn’s engagement ring.
Evelyn gaped at her. Virginia’s face was open, guileless. She let herself relax. “Um, sure. I mean, next week is sort of…”
“Thursday after next. At the club. Eleven-thirty? See you then.” She pressed papery lips to Evelyn’s cheek then glided away, already greeting more people, leaving Evelyn to stare after her, amazed, furious and flabbergasted by the way the woman had railroaded her with minimal effort.
She took a breath and tried to find Austin, dreading the moment she’d find him with Valerie still dangling from his arm. The whole thing felt off to her now, and not only because of the obvious segregation in the room between the brewery people and everyone else. She bit her lip then headed back to her seat, surrounded by Fitzgerald Brewing staff. Awkward tension suffused the room.
