Her face grew warm as she thought of the other kind of moaning she’d done this morning. He noticed. And pointed it out.
Brushing his knuckles along her cheeks, he said, “Never forget that sound, Ace. Stained my brain in the best way possible.” Not the gentlemanly type, he also pointed out, “Your face is red. Don’t want that, either.”
She palmed her cheeks with her hands to cool them, which didn’t help because her hands were warm from the hot coffee mug.
He took hold of her wrists and hooked them around his neck, turned her on her chair, and positioned himself between her parted legs. Her fingers were in his hair and her thighs were clamping his, and her heart was racing against his torso.
Tipping her jaw with his thumbs, he brushed her lips with his before the long, slow slide of his tongue entered her mouth. She melted into him, tasting coffee, tasting him, and never wanting the kiss to end. How long had she wanted to kiss Evan Downey? How jealous had she been the night she watched his son and he came home from a date with a girl who didn’t deserve him?
Not that Charlie deserved him. But this was a fantasy.
A fantasy…
That ended too soon.
He finished her off with a few soft, damp presses of his lips. “Get a shower and get dressed. We’re leaving for the Starving Artists Festival in an hour.”
Her eyes went to the wall clock though she didn’t register the time. “Do you and Asher have something today?”
“Yeah.”
“I can… I mean, you can go without me.”
He pegged her with a look she interpreted as one part confusion, one part unhappiness.
“No, Ace, we’re hanging out this week.”
“ ‘Hanging out’?”
He turned toward her again. “Yeah.”
What did that mean? “I have to work this week.”
“We’ll hang out when you’re not working.” He crossed the kitchen and started down the hallway. “I have to get a few things together for the festival. You have an hour.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A slightly cool breeze blew in gray clouds that looked like they might bring rain. Luckily for Evan, he and Asher were under a tent, and the library had provided them with plastic bags so the kids wouldn’t have to subject their freshly signed copy of The Adventures of Mad Cow to the elements.
Asher was uncharacteristically quiet today. Evan thought at first he was hungover. After the signing wrapped and Mrs. Anderson’s two teenage lackeys were breaking down the tables, he asked him what was up.
“Nothing,” Ash grunted. He reached for a cigarette and lit it, pulling in a drag and sifting his gaze across the crowd. Evan watched, and because he’d been watching, he noted the very second Ash’s mouth went flat and his eyes went hard. He followed his buddy’s gaze across the park where Mrs. Anderson stood talking to Gloria.
He’d bet a million dollars it wasn’t the elderly librarian who’d caused Asher’s scowl.
“Shit, man,” Evan said.
“Shut up.”
“What happened?”
He crushed his cigarette under his boot heel and then picked up the butt and dropped it into a not-nearby trash can. Evan waited, arms crossed, but Ash didn’t come back. Instead, he walked across the festival and straight toward Salty Dog.
Looked like today, beer-thirty started at two p.m.
* * *
Evan had had about as much time with his friends as he could stand.
When Gloria showed up at Salty Dog, it was obvious she’d come with a chip on her shoulder. Charlie sat next to him and they each sipped their drinks while watching Ash and Glo passive-aggressively snipe at each other.
When they parted, it was awkward, not that those two noticed. Asher was ignoring Gloria, spinning his glass in one hand, and Gloria was examining her nails.
“Well,” Charlie said from the passenger seat of Evan’s SUV now. “That was fun.”
“Whatever you say, Ace.”
“Sarcasm,” she pointed out.
He pulled into his driveway and she hopped out of the car and took off down the edge of the street for her house.
“Where’re you going?”
“Home.” She walked backward toward her house. Away from him.
Dammit. This hadn’t been the plan.
He started after her, ready to toss her over his shoulder and take her into the house. Then he’d command her to take off her clothes and show her what she’d nearly missed out on with this duck-and-run maneuver.
“Come over in twenty minutes?” she called to him.
He stopped advancing and studied her grainy figure in the dark, unsure he’d heard her correctly. “Yeah?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
The word was quiet, but affirmative. He’d take it. He turned on his heel and walked to the house. Before she got too far to hear him, he called out, “Fifteen!”
In ten minutes he showed, unsure what to expect, but with a condom or three in his pocket.
Hopeful? Yeah. Hell, yeah.
At her sliding door, she was sitting at the desk, lamp lit, robe on, clicking something on her computer. Her face glowed in the soft light emitting from the screen. Instead of knocking, he lowered his arm and watched her.
Watched her delicate fingers work the mouse, the way she licked her bottom lip and dragged her teeth over it as her hazel eyes tracked the screen. His chest tightened, in a different way than usual. Sure, he noticed her physical attributes each and every time he saw her. But this…
This was new.
This was want in a different way. Want that combined their old relationship with the new. He wanted to be her friend. To sit on the couch with her and watch a show like when she came to stay with him and Lyon in the past. To laugh over a card or board game like when she and her jagoff ex used to come and visit when Rae was alive. To hold her hand and walk with her down the shoreline. And make love to her. Not please her until she didn’t feel badly about him touching her, but have her willing and ready and wanting him back. Calling his name on a high cry with him inside her.
That’s what he wanted.
He hadn’t been sure how to get it, so he’d been trying what he thought might work. But tonight… if she invited him over to talk, he’d be back at square one. Maybe the best tactic was to be her friend until she came around.
Then she lifted her chin and met his eyes, and he felt the impish smile curl his lips.
Nah, screw that. He was seducing her.
She swished to the door in her flowery robe, pulling the belt tight. There were no other lights on anywhere in the house, only the glow of the computer screen.
“Hi,” she said as he stepped inside.
“Hi.” He looked around. No lit candles. No soft music. No sign she’d invited him over for anything other than hanging out. He lifted the belt on her robe and dropped it. “You look ready for bed.”
Her eyes slid to half-mast, her lashes sweeping low over her cheeks, then up as she flashed him with—God help him—bedroom eyes. “I am.” The most sultry, sexy smile twitched her lips as she tugged the belt, opened the robe, and let it puddle at her bare feet.
He nearly dropped to his knees in praise of what lay before him.
Black lace. A lot of it. Her bra was the tiniest bits of fabric cupping the bottom half of each of her breasts—the top half bursting from the cups as if on display. Her panties were not like panties at all, but a tiny triangle hiding… not much of anything. True, he’d seen every inch of Charlie naked, but this… this was different.
Because she was ready.
He came to her in two steps, tipped her jaw with both hands, and kissed her hard.
* * *
It was happening.
She was doing it.
Finally taking what she wanted.
What she wanted… was Evan.
Charlie knew this in her bones, in her heart, in her head. She was ready and the reason she was ready was in thanks to the lesson taught to her tonigh
t. Taught by the most unlikely person to give one.
Asher Knight: A cautionary tale.
Tension had run high at Salty Dog. Asher had some sort of minor self-destruction when Gloria went to the ladies’ room and Evan went to pay the check.
Ash had angled his head to Charlie and rolled his eyes. “She’s pissed at me.”
She was sure of this, but to be polite asked, “How can you tell?”
“I can tell.”
“What happened?”
“You don’t wanna know.”
“I do.”
Asher had watched her for a second before opening his mouth. “She’s not a girl you sleep with one time, Ace.”
She’d raised her eyebrows in surprise at that comment. First, because Ash never called her “Ace,” and second, because she wondered if he meant he didn’t want to sleep with Gloria only once, or if he meant he had slept with her and wanted to sleep with her again. Seemed rude to ask, so she hadn’t.
“You’re not, either,” he pointed out.
Torn between offended and flattered, she’d bitten her lip.
“You’re a keeper,” Ash continued. “Evan’ll want to keep you. He’ll fight to keep you.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the bar. “He’ll pay the tab.”
“You paid Glo’s tab.”
“Evan will be paying your tab for a long time, sweetheart. I know him.”
“I’m not… we’re not…”
She hadn’t been able to finish her sentence truthfully. She was and they had. Maybe not “all the way” but they’d done plenty together that crossed the invisible, but very real, line between friends to lovers.
“I’m not good at it like Evan is.”
She’d bitten the other side of her lip, unsure what “it” was until Asher spoke again.
“The keeping part. The fighting for someone part.” He’d pulled the cigarette out from behind his ear and gestured to his tattered jeans and tight black T-shirt. “Not a catch, Charlie.” With the cigarette between his lips, he muttered, “A mess,” then lit it and dragged in a breath.
“You’re not a mess,” she’d said, though he kind of was. But he wasn’t an unsalvageable mess like he’d suggested. “Just because you’ve never succeeded at keeping someone before doesn’t mean you can’t.”
His voice gravelly, he asked, “What about you, Charlie? You embracing this thing between you and Ev?”
“I didn’t… I wasn’t talking about me.”
“You sure as hell were.” She shook her head again but he leaned close. “You’re scared as shitless as I am. Don’t pretend different.” His voice had dropped low, then lower, as Gloria strode up behind him and took her seat.
His mouth widened into a false grin. “You look dead sexy tonight, Charlie.”
She’d blinked at Glo, who shot Ash a glare. Charlie thought for a second the other woman would stand and leave. Instead, she hooked her purse over the chair and snapped her fingers for the waitress. “Two shots of Jack,” she ordered, then grabbed the young girl’s arm before she left and corrected, “Hell, just bring us the whole bottle.”
Charlie’s eyes had gone to the glass of wine she hadn’t finished. Evan’s beer bottle was half full.
“Drinking to forget, sweetheart?” Ash had prodded Gloria.
“Yeah,” she’d answered. The waitress arrived with a bottle and two glasses. Glo poured the shots and slid one to Asher. “And so are you.”
Charlie considered the scene the entire ride home, finally admitting to herself that while it wasn’t fun, it sure was educational.
She wasn’t a mess like Asher, and she wasn’t as stubborn as Gloria. And she refused to advance blindly, ignoring signs that clearly read: BRIDGE OUT.
Although with Evan, it was more of a YIELD sign. But Charlie would no longer hold up the STOP.
So when she’d invited him over, she’d done so with a clear, sober head, and a willing spirit.
Now that his hands were sliding along her waist and pulling her close, his tongue diving into her mouth, she was a million percent sure she’d chosen wisely.
He tasted like toothpaste, and she liked that he’d cleaned up to come over here, that he’d anticipated seeing her, kissing her. Though from the look on his face when she stripped, he hadn’t anticipated seeing her in the skimpiest undies she owned.
She’d found the lingerie stuffed into the back of her sock drawer, purchased long ago and since forgotten. Shoved aside for sturdy, but pretty, cotton—the most practical choice for a woman not currently having sexytimes with anyone.
“Ace,” he muttered almost reverently against her neck. He swept her hair off her shoulder and kissed it, giving her a full-body shudder. “You steal my breath away.”
Another kiss. More shuddering.
The warmth of his palms slid the chill aside. The only sounds his firm, suctioning lips as they moved over her skin, and her own erratic heartbeat. She swallowed thickly, nervous for reasons she didn’t quite understand. He had seen her naked before. More naked than she was now.
When he pulled his head up to look at her, a few strands of her hair stuck to the stubble surrounding his lips. He tugged them away. Those lips grinned. A salacious, sexy grin revealing his dark intent as clearly as if he’d said it.
Then he did.
“This time, Ace, you come with me inside you.”
She gulped.
He pulled her close, brushed the tip of her nose with his. “Foreplay later, yeah?”
Oh yeah. She nodded.
“Say it,” he whispered.
“Foreplay later.”
“The other part,” he demanded.
Gathering every ounce of courage she had, she whispered, “I’ll come with you inside me.”
That must have been what he wanted to hear. He lit her up with another deep kiss, slanting his mouth and digging his hand into her hair. At the same time, his other hand traveled to the small of her back, moved to her ass, and squeezed.
“You’re ridiculously sexy.” He tongued her neck.
So was he. She clung to him, afraid she might lose it before they got to the bedroom. Her breathing had become so quick and hectic, she worried she might have to employ a paper bag soon. She hoped she could relax enough to enjoy herself—that he enjoyed himself.
Oh no.
What if he didn’t enjoy himself?
New worries shut her body down like a nuclear power plant on high alert. Sirens blared in her head. The low buzz that had fanned through her limbs began to ebb.
Evan sensed this. His head came up. “Ace?”
“Um…”
Come on, pull it together!
“Charlie?”
“I need a drink,” she whispered, pushing his shoulders away.
He tightened his hold on her waist.
“No, Ace,” he stated firmly.
Too late. The panic was already creeping in. The worry over her performance… or lack of good performance, taking over her thoughts.
“Just a little something…” She continued pushing against him. “Wine. A shot of rum…”
“No.”
Russell hadn’t always been satisfied after. Sometimes he hadn’t been able to keep it up during. If losing interest in the middle of sex wasn’t a testament to how poorly she performed in bed, she didn’t know what was.
Granted, Evan wasn’t Russell, but—
“Ace, dammit, look at me.”
She did. A muscle in his jaw flickered, at the same time his turquoise eyes went soft. Soft and warm and accommodating.
“Want you sober as a nun.” A whisper, followed by a gentle kiss. “Hands in my hair, gorgeous.”
She pointed toward the cabinet that held at least one bottle of wine. Blessed wine.
“Don’t want anything between us.”
“No?” she asked quietly. But was that really possible considering there was at least one unspoken entity between them?
He hugged his arms around her. “Hands in my hair.”
“Hold on.”
She held on.
“Now, kiss me.”
She closed in on him, stiffly. She had to forcibly loosen her limbs to lift to her tiptoes and do as he requested. When she placed her lips on his, she waited for him to take over. He didn’t. So she kissed him lightly again. He held her to him and kissed her back, but only returned the same amount of pressure she gave.
She waited, her lips over his.
He waited, too. Waited for her to take control.
She went for it. Sliding her tongue along his bottom lip, she gripped his head and closed her mouth over his. He opened for her and she dipped into his mouth, savoring the taste of him, and liking how he held back enough to give her free rein.
When she deepened the kiss, his hold on her body tightened. His hands went to her bra, unhooked it. She briefly took her hands from his hair to allow him to drop it to the ground, but returned her fingers instantly to the silky strands giving her purchase where she had none.
She was afloat. Bobbing in the low tide of her imagination, the place where the sandbar dropped off between fantasy and reality. His thumbs went to her nipples and brushed them until they pebbled, then one of his hands dipped past the flimsy lace barrier of her panties and into her wetness.
A low groan of approval sounded in his throat. The next sound that left her lips was a returning groan of her own.
Eyes and hands still on her body, he wheeled her backward into her office, past the desk and the bookshelves littered with photography books and various papers, and to the couch against the wall.
“My bedroom’s—” she started to say.
“Too far,” he finished, coming down on top of her on the couch. Fusing their mouths, he tasted her, sending her brain into the clouds. Somehow through the veil of lust shrouding her, she registered the scratch of the lace as her panties slid down her legs, the cool press of his fingers at her center.
He dropped his forehead on hers. “Ace, my God, you’re fucking killing me.”
Though her eyes widened with shock at his words, she secretly loved that he’d said that. Or maybe she loved how he slipped along her folds while he’d said that. Her eyes fluttered shut.
Bringing Home the Bad Boy Page 17
