My brow furrowed, because from where I was sitting, Evie didn’t get shit out of it. Eric was the one who got the picture-perfect trophy wife, all the while living a lie behind closed doors, which he would’ve done with or without her. All she got was trapped in a loveless relationship. “What the hell did you get out of it?”
“Security. I got the kind of life I never had growing up.”
“Yeah, but at a whole fuckton of sacrifices. You were willing to give up your life, your happiness, for someone else?”
“I didn’t give up my happiness…”
“Can you honestly tell me you’re happy with him? You’re happy in your life?”
She shook her head and looked at me, her eyes so heavy and sad, exhausted. “I haven’t been happy in a very long time, Riley. I didn’t think this made much of a difference. It was the best option I had, and it’s not all bad.”
I reached out and grabbed her hand, holding it between mine. “What do you need to be happy? What do you want?”
EVIE
His words settled over me, sank into my bones. It was something I hadn’t ever really let myself contemplate, but now that Riley was asking it, I faced the question I’d never truly considered. The question that would only ever bring pain, because to say what I’d want to make me happy would be admitting what made me sad, what made me ache, and I’d been trying for so long—years—to forget it, to push it back, bury it. Force it down and leave it in the past, where it belonged.
“I don’t know,” I said, averting my eyes and glancing out the window.
Riley reached out and gripped my chin between his forefinger and thumb, giving me no choice but to turn and face him. “That’s bullshit.” He leaned forward, staring straight into my eyes, and lowered his voice. “Now tell me what would make you happy.”
I blew out a breath, read the sincerity in his gaze, and let myself go down the path I’d avoided for so long. “I want to be safe.” Above anything, I always, always wanted to be safe, and I hadn’t truly been safe for so, so long. “I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder anymore. I want to be free to be Evie, not Genevieve. I want to be able to go into whatever kind of career I want, instead of one I hate simply because it will keep me under the radar. And I want to feel content and comfortable, be able to afford a nice life—not anything lavish, like I have now. That’s so much more than I ever needed, but I want to be comfortable.”
I’d managed to get that all out without even a single lie. Lying had become second nature for me, something I’d been doing for so long, it always surprised me when I was able to talk about anything involving my life and manage not to weave the truth and lies together into a convoluted version of what my reality was.
Riley was quiet for a while until he finally asked, “What about love?”
His question startled me enough that I could only blink at him in response. When I finally found my voice, I asked simply, “What?”
“Love,” he repeated. “That wouldn’t make you happy?”
Shaking my head, I dropped my eyes, not able to maintain contact with him. Because in them, I saw a thousand possibilities I’d lost when I’d walked away from him. “It’s not a matter of whether or not it’d make me happy. It’s a matter of whether or not I think it’s even a possibility for me.” I glanced up at him then, at the boy I’d loved so long ago, the boy I’d given my very soul to. The boy I’d walked away from. “I had it once. I don’t think it’s in the cards for me to have it again.”
Chapter Fifteen
RILEY
Through unspoken agreement, we’d migrated to opposite ends of the loft, spending some time alone after our talk—or as alone as we could be in the wide-open space. After the sun had set, we’d ventured out to the grocery store down the street, grabbing a few bags of things. I’d managed to toss a box of condoms in when Evie hadn’t been looking, because now that I knew the truth behind the Eric façade, I wasn’t going to back off. Not when I heard the absolute truth ringing in her voice when she said she didn’t think love was in the cards for her again. She honestly believed that, and I wanted to prove her wrong.
Evie was in the kitchen, boiling some noodles for spaghetti, the sauce from a jar already heating in a pan on the stove. It was easy and quick—and being cheap didn’t hurt, either. I sat on the couch while she stirred the pasta, pretending I wasn’t watching her, when in reality I couldn’t take my eyes off her, remembering all the times she’d done this for us in the past.
In the years we’d been together, she’d spent most nights at my and Gage’s place, all of us migrating there after whatever shit we’d gotten up to after school. Seeing her being so domestic after watching her on the streets, taking no shit from anyone, was something I’d craved. Mostly because I’d known I was the only person to ever see that side of her. It proved just how comfortable she was with me. Just how strong our connection was.
And seeing her like that now, especially after she’d landed me on my ass only hours ago through sheer will and force of her body, was sexy as hell.
“What’re you staring at?”
Her voice snapped me out of my thoughts. Unashamed, I shrugged. “Your ass.”
She snorted, turning around again and giving me another view of her spectacular backside. Now that I’d had her, had been inside her, it was taking everything in me not to go up behind her, reach around and cup her tits, kiss her breathless, take her to the bed and sink deep inside her body. But she’d pulled back since our talk, and as much as it was killing me, I wanted to respect that. I just didn’t know how long I’d last before I snapped.
“Well, stop staring and come eat,” she said, setting plates down on the counter and dishing up. I stood from the couch and headed into the kitchen area. I grabbed forks while she piled one of the plates with heaps of noodles and sauce, then put a more respectable amount on the other plate.
I grinned at her and grabbed the one she’d barely put anything on. “Feeling hungry tonight?” I asked, gesturing to the other plate still in front of her.
She rolled her eyes, but a smile flirted at the corner of her mouth, and I wanted to see her truly smile. The smile I hadn’t seen in so long—the one where her beauty mark would disappear in her dimple, and I’d get a surge in my chest because I’d been the one to make her happy. Getting Evie to smile—truly smile—had always been like sinking the eight ball on the break. A little bit of luck, a little bit of skill, complete satisfaction. I could still remember the first time she’d turned that dimple on me. I’d felt like I won the fucking lottery.
After I had both our plates, I walked over to the couch, waiting as she trailed behind me with two bottles of beer, the necks clutched between her fingers. Once she was settled, I set the plate she’d dished up for herself in her lap, then took the bottle of beer from her with a tip of my head and sat on the other end of the couch, facing her.
It was quiet as we began to eat, but even with the silence, I studied her.
Without looking up at me, she said, “You’re staring again, and since I’m sitting on my ass, that’s not what has your attention.”
I finished chewing the bite of spaghetti and then took a swig of beer. “I was just thinking about what it used to be like, when we were in high school. You remember when you’d cook like this for me and Gage?”
She stared at me for a moment, her eyes darting between mine, then she averted her gaze. “Of course.”
After long enough of her not saying anything else, I filled in the silence. “We were ungrateful assholes then, probably never saying thank you, but I always loved when you did it.”
She huffed out a laugh and rolled her eyes. “Why? It wasn’t like I was a gourmet cook. We ate boxed mac and cheese or ramen or sandwiches on stale bread.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It wasn’t so much what you made, but that you were making it, period. It felt like I got this glimpse of Evie that no one else would ever see. Where you let down your guard.”
It was subtle
, the way she tensed, but I could see it. And it made me wonder just how much of her I’d ever actually seen.
When we’d been so young, I hadn’t ever considered why she spent so much time at our place, just happy my girlfriend was able to be there as often as I wanted. Now, though, I couldn’t help but wonder what kept her there. “Why didn’t you ever want to go home back then?”
If the tension in her shoulders was subtle before, now it was like Mt. Everest rested on them. Still, she played it off, shrugging those stiff shoulders. “Rather hang out with you guys than my parents. I was a teenager. Isn’t that pretty standard?”
That wasn’t the truth—not the whole truth, anyway—but if there was one thing I knew about Evie, it was that people didn’t get her to do what she didn’t want to do, so I didn’t push. Instead, I finally voiced the question that’d been eating away at me. “How could you just disappear?”
She cringed, the pink in her cheeks deepening. “I’m sorry, Riley. I know Gage gave you his reasons for keeping it from you. As for me, I thought it would be better if we had a clean break.”
“Better for who?”
Her eyes darted between mine, trying to read something in them. What, I didn’t know. With a sigh, she said, “For both of us.”
Shaking my head, I took another bite of pasta and said around it, “Just more bullshit. When are you going to learn that I know you better than anyone? Five years might have gone by, but I can still read you like a book.”
EVIE
He could, too, and that was what I’d always been worried about, one of the many things that had kept me up at night. Because if he could read me, then surely he’d know, surely he’d find out the truth. And then how would he look at me? Would he see me differently? See me as tainted or dirty? See me as a liar or a tease? See me as someone other than Evie, his Evie?
I couldn’t handle that. Not from him.
With everything he’d been through in the years I’d been gone, everything I’d put him through, he deserved this portion of my truth. I could give him this much. Nodding, I said, “You’re right. That is bullshit.” I swallowed down the unease creeping up my throat and pushed through. “I thought it’d be easier for me. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t move on with a new life, if I knew you were still waiting for me. And I know you would’ve waited. I didn’t want that for either of us.”
He stared at me for a long moment, calculating, always scrutinizing, and then he tipped his head in my direction. “Fair enough,” he said before he took another deep pull from his beer.
And then he let the line of conversation drop, though just like he knew me, I knew him equally, and as such, I was absolutely certain this wasn’t the end of that. He might not bring it up today, or tomorrow, but he’d be thinking about it. And when the time was right, he’d ask me again. It was inevitable.
“You mentioned Eric doesn’t know anything about your past. How’d you manage that?”
I shrugged, relaxing back into the couch, thankful for the reprieve, for as long as it’d last. “It was easy. I studied the profile Aaron had created for me inside and out. I used it for so long, it became mine. It was me, despite how false it was. Instead of breaking and entering or getting in fights, I was going to gallery openings and sipping champagne because Genevieve was an art buff. Hell, I minored in Art History just to keep up the façade. I changed the way I dressed, the way I looked, the way I carried myself. Gone was the girl who scrounged for information for a living and knew how to fight; in her place was someone who got weekly manicures and tried the latest shade of lipstick. It was my new reality, and it was easier to feed that to him than to saddle him with the truth.”
Riley studied me, watching me with appraising eyes. “And what’s he going to say now? You don’t plan to keep this from him, do you?”
“I guess it depends on how it all plays out. If I’m dead at the end of it, there won’t be much point in worrying about what I’ll tell him.”
His shoulders went taut, his jaw clenched as tightly as his fists as he pinned me with hard eyes. “Jesus Christ, Evie. Don’t say shit like that.”
“Riley, I’ve been living like this long enough to know that tomorrow isn’t a guarantee. Anything can happen from one day to the next.”
“Anything can happen, except when you’re with me. No one is getting to you when I’m here. No one is getting through me. I’d have to be dead first.”
His eyes were hard, his voice strong and confident. He believed the words he said. If it came down to it, if there was a situation where my life was in danger and Riley was there to stop it, he would. At the cost of his life.
And that was exactly what I was terrified of.
RILEY
The thought of someone coming for her filled me with an all-consuming rage I hadn’t felt in years, not since I’d learned of Evie’s death. Not since I’d set out to keep as many corrupt businessman off the streets as I could … in whatever way I could. I knew it was an unconventional way of going about it—aligning myself with criminals to do some good, any bit of good I could—but it’d been all I’d known. And now that my truth had been shaken, now that I knew what actually had gone down on that boat … that it hadn’t been a corrupt businessman to take Evie’s life but the very man who I’d aligned myself with, who I worked for, it filled me with a regret so intense I nearly couldn’t see past it. How doing the one thing I’d been good at—the only thing I’d ever known—was like spitting on Evie’s grave.
The feelings swirling around inside were more than just the rage I felt at the idea of someone getting past me and getting to her. That very thought filled me with a terror I’d only ever known where she was concerned.
She’d always been able to bring out the purest, most undiluted reactions from me.
Evie let the conversation drop, standing up and putting her dish in the sink, tossing her empty beer bottle in the trash. Then she came and collected mine, all the while I sat, a hundred different scenarios flipping through my mind on everything that could possibly happen. Someone from the Minneapolis crew finding us, Aaron being tortured until he gave up our location, having Frankie slip in undetected and getting to Evie while I was sleeping. All of it, every instance, had my heart pounding heavily in my chest, my muscles tight with fear and anxiety. Not for me, but for her.
Always for her.
When she came back to the couch, I didn’t let her sit down, instead reaching out and grabbing her wrist, tugging her to stand in front of me. She stumbled, a squeak of protest leaving her lips. She steadied herself with a hand on my shoulder, her head tipped down toward me, her brow furrowed. I could spend hours right here, just looking at her.
But right now, I needed more than to just look. I needed to feel. Needed to remind myself that she was okay.
I let go of her arm and reached up, gripping her hips. She’d slipped back into her tight cotton pants and a fitted long-sleeve T-shirt after taking a shower earlier, and I wanted them gone. I wanted those pants that hugged her ass so spectacularly around her ankles while they rested on my shoulders. I wanted that shirt across the loft, out of the way so I could feel her smooth skin under my hands.
I pulled her closer to me, situating her between my spread knees, and leaned forward, resting my forehead against her stomach. All that stood between me and her skin was a shirt, a thin piece of cotton, and it didn’t take much at all to lift it with my thumbs, and then my lips were on her. Her skin was smooth like silk, and she smelled like heaven. I brushed my lips back and forth against her, just the barest of whispers, but she felt it. I knew she felt it, because her stomach fluttered under my touch, goose bumps covering her skin, and her hands tightened on my shoulders.
“Riley,” she breathed. “What are we doing?”
I glanced up at her, meeting her hooded eyes with my own. “Exactly what we both want to.”
Chapter Sixteen
She didn’t say anything, didn’t tell me to stop, and I couldn’t help myself any longer. I leaned fo
rward again and let my tongue taste her, licking a circle around her belly button, then trailing down to the waistband of her pants. I wanted them gone, wanted to feel every inch of her bare before me. I wanted to taste her pussy, sink inside her again, make her scream. She didn’t protest when I hooked my thumbs in the waistband and tugged down enough to expose those tiny fucking shorts again, blue this time. She didn’t utter a plea for me to stop when my hands kept going, pushing her pants over her hips and down her legs, didn’t stop me when, once they were pooled at her feet, I went to work on her panties, shoving them down as well.
I kissed a path across her abdomen, down to her hips, getting closer and closer to the tiny strip of hair leading to her pussy. Despite having tasted her only hours ago, I wanted it again. I wanted to lie back on the couch, make her straddle my face, and lick her until she screamed. Evie had always liked to be in control in the bedroom, and I hadn’t minded. Hell, what seventeen-year-old guy would? But doing that, eating her out, had been when I’d always felt in control, even if she hadn’t been the one on her back. She took what I gave her, never able to direct the speed, the movement, and I’d fucking loved it.
Now, though, I wanted something more than those tiny scraps she used to give me. In the last several years, I’d realized that while being bossed around once in a while could be hot as hell, I preferred to be the one in control. But I also knew that Evie had given me something earlier when she’d let me take her up against the wall, so I’d give something back to her. I’d do it her way this time.
Just like I knew she would, she got impatient with my teasing and yanked her shirt over her head, then leaned forward and reached for mine. I didn’t put up a fight as she tugged it from me, then straddled my thighs, pressing her knees into the couch and reaching into my running pants to pull out my cock.
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