Who the hell is Leslie O’Brian?
Evan had no idea.
What he did know is that Charlie was jealous enough to stake a claim on him tonight, thinly veiled as an accusation she hadn’t been able to follow through with. And what that meant was, she was close.
What he also knew was she tasted like absolute heaven. From her minty lips and skin smelling of apples, to where he tasted her now—this. This was the best taste of all.
Better than the taste of her on his tongue were the sounds she made. Soft mews mixed with breathy pants as she kneaded his head like a content kitten. Better still? He was going to be inside of her in a few short minutes.
She was close. A high-pitched squeak made its way from her throat as she arched her hips and thrust against his face.
A few short seconds, he mentally corrected. Quickening his pace, he snaked a hand up her torso and reached for a nipple. He squeezed and she bucked. He knew what his girl needed.
Seconds later, she rewarded him with a long, low groan of satisfaction, her ass cheeks tightening on the bed. She came for so long, his tongue started to get tired.
But he was no quitter.
He stopped when her pulling on his hair turned to pushing and she was practically whimpering. He climbed her body and found her still moaning, flat on her back, arm thrown over her eyes, breathing deep and slow.
The room was dark, but he could make out the perfect outline of her large breasts, her flat stomach, smooth, round hips, and her glistening sex.
Didn’t take him long to get hard. He pulled off his shirt with one hand at the same time unbuckling his belt.
“Ready, baby?”
“Mmm,” came her incoherent response.
“She’s ready,” he muttered, kicking his shoes to the floor, stripping off his socks. He climbed over her again and removed her arm. “Ace.” He kissed her closed eyes. “Wake up, baby. Work to do.”
“Sleepy,” she whined.
“All you gotta do is hold on.”
“Mmph.”
Damn. She was out. Out out.
He couldn’t keep from smiling. He tugged at the covers she laid on top of. “Ass up, Ace.”
“No.”
“Gotta tuck you in, baby,” he said, tugging the covers again.
Then they were yanked from his hand and he faced a suddenly wide-eyed and very alert Charlie Harris. “What if I want you?”
His lips spread into a grin. “Second wind?”
She nudged him back and slung a leg over his hips. “Now.”
Astride him, she positioned him at her entrance before sliding down onto his shaft slowly. Before they made a mistake, he needed to remind her he didn’t have a condom on.
“Ace.”
“The pill, baby,” she said with a grin.
His hands froze on her hips as he allowed himself to savor the feel of being inside her without anything between them. She was on the pill?
“Yeah?” he blew out as she took the rest of him.
She nodded, leaned over him, and kissed his mouth. “Yeah.”
His eyes went to her breasts as she started to move. “Fuck yeah,” he groaned, enjoying the 3D view of her plush, pink nipples. Her hands on his chest, she moved off him. He caught a nipple in his mouth as she sat down on him again.
His hands went to her lower back. She rose and fell again, this time taking her nipple from his lips. The marked change her breathing told him she was getting off on this as much as he was about to.
Like a wave, she rolled, cresting into him, her belly rubbing into his stomach, her thighs liquid around his. Then she ebbed, pushing back onto his cock and dragging a harsh breath from his lungs with the movement.
He had no idea how long this went on, how long he kept his palms at her back, encouraging her every movement as he wound tight as a spring inside her. Soon, though, her breathing shifted and he knew she was going to come again.
And he wasn’t letting her work her way through it.
Holding her close, he rolled with her, staying inside, and laid her on her back. He thrust forward and she let out a sharp “oh!” which he took as encouragement. He thrust again and was awarded with another shout.
Loud. He liked her loud.
“Like that, Ace?”
“Harder,” was her reply.
Gladly, he obliged, riding her hard, her nails abrading his back, her shouts of ecstasy in his ear while his own release built to a deafening crescendo.
“Yes!” she cried. “Harder!”
Unbelievably, he went harder, until they were both sliding in the sweat created from their efforts. Her legs were crossed at his back, and she tipped her head back, crying out and clutching him tight. He followed her over, his breath stuttering from his lips.
He dropped his face into her hair, turning his head when it damn near suffocated him. Slowly, he came up from the moment, surfacing with a haze rivaling any alcohol buzz he’d ever experienced.
That’s what it was like with Charlie. She was easy to get drunk on, to take in through every form possible. And like an alcoholic, he wanted her night and day, every morning, until he’d binged so much he ached and shook for her again.
She saturated his bloodstream, muddled his mind, and made dealing with life easier in every single way.
At the party today, he’d felt happiness that Lyon, who’d made friends already, was fitting in so well. Happy that Charlie was here to see it.
His next thought was that Rae was missing it.
Normally, Rae was his very first thought. Today, his first thought was Charlie.
It took the twelve-minute car ride home to solidify what he hadn’t been able to solidify before. He hadn’t decided when—or how—to break the news to Charlie.
Evan pulled out of her pliant body and she made a quick trip to the attached bathroom. When she came in, a sexy smile tipped her lips and she fell into bed. Fell into him. He caught her, propping himself on one elbow to arrange her hair and then tug the blankets so they covered their naked bodies.
She snuggled into him, her butt against his hips, and he wrapped an arm around her waist and cupped one of her breasts in his hand. Nose buried in her neck, he laid and listened to her breathing, until it grew deep and slow. A sound he’d grown to learn was her falling asleep.
When he was sure she’d zonked out, he kissed her neck lightly. She didn’t move.
“Love you, Ace,” he whispered.
Then he fell asleep, waking in the morning with a numb arm, a breast in his hand, and a smile on his face.
Peace.
After four long years, he’d finally found it.
* * *
“Still okay?”
Charlie sucked in air through her teeth. “Yeah.”
The buzzing needle stopped and Evan leaned over her, his turquoise eyes filled with concern. “Ace.”
She opened her eyes, her skin tingling. “I’m good. Promise. This hurts more than I thought.”
“I can stop.”
“No.” She clasped the arm holding the needle marking her skin. “I want it finished.”
He lowered his warm lips and kissed her before giving her a small, proud smile. “Okay, baby.”
This morning, after hangover hash, which as it turned out was just as delicious when she wasn’t hungover, Evan led her to the studio for a surprise. Evidently, he’d risen sometime in the night and had drawn an entire page of tattoo ideas for her to choose from.
An entire page of cameras. She’d chosen her favorite and he tweaked it with the changes she requested, then he laid a long, wet kiss on her and led her to the reclined chair in the corner.
The tattoo was relatively small, and only a black-blue outline, but it was perfect. A simple, iconic front-facing camera, the tops of two evergreen trees rising behind it.
He wiped a towel along her tingling, practically numb skin, and the buzzing needle stopped.
“Done, Ace.”
Holding her shirt high, she admired the artwork on
her body.
His mark on her body.
And he’d enjoyed doing it, she could tell. After instructions on how to care for her new ink, he walked her down the beach toward her house. She rolled up her T-shirt and examined the artwork through the plastic wrap he’d taped to her skin.
“Ace. Sun.”
“I know! I had to look one more time.”
At her porch, he stopped, pulled her against him, careful not to palm the sensitive and newly tattooed area high on her ribs under her breast, and kissed her. “Picking up Lyon, then we have to run a few errands. The Wharf for dinner?”
Her lips curved into a smile. “Mmm, seafood.”
He grinned again, his dark lashes throwing shadows on his cheeks.
Gosh. Had she ever been this happy?
“Lotion,” he instructed, pointing at her tat. Then he rolled her shirt down and mumbled, “Only time you’ll see me pull your shirt down.”
With a final, but thorough, kiss, he turned toward home. She stood on her porch watching his confident swagger. She watched until he was halfway down the beach, then, under the shade of her porch, first making sure he wasn’t looking, she rolled her shirt up, admiring Evan’s handiwork again.
The area was a little red and swollen, but so beautiful. Custom. Precisely what she’d asked for.
A man’s tall form stepped around the corner of her house. Thinking Evan had come back to warn her of the perils of exposing her tat to the elements too soon, Charlie opened her mouth to promise this was the last time.
It wasn’t Evan.
Two years had passed since she’d seen the man. His hair was a touch more gray than she remembered, and if his pronounced gut was any indication, he was carrying at least twenty extra pounds.
Her formerly relaxed, drenched-in-happy body went rigid as she took in his scowl.
Self-consciously, she covered her body with her shirt and addressed her ex-boyfriend with a delayed, but no less surprised, “Russell?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Charlotte.”
Russell Hartman. In her backyard.
In shock over that fact, she mumbled, “What are you doing here?”
He turned his head and studied the direction where Evan had disappeared with a shake of his head. “Charlotte,” he repeated as if exasperated.
She used to hate when he did that—looked down on her. He did it often during the six years they’d dated. Now that they were no longer dating, she didn’t like it any more than she used to.
There was a certain amount of ice in her tone when she spoke next. “You could have called.”
“I did call,” he accused. “You didn’t pick up, so I drove over.”
Right. Her phone was inside.
“Dare, the boys, and I are staying north of the pier, and I wanted to show my family the dock and the wall of evergreens.”
Dare, as in Darian. The boys. My family. Each of those words was a shard of glass he had no problem pushing into her skin.
He also could have shown them the “wall of evergreens” from the other side of the lake.
“I was calling to ask if you’d mind if we parked in the drive and walked down there,” he said, sounding defensive while encroaching on her territory.
She opened her mouth to tell him “no,” that he and his family could go to non-private property, when his next words struck her speechless.
“Never did I expect to find you with your tongue down Evan Downey’s throat.” He shook his head as shame cascaded over her like a bucket of icy water. “I always knew you were too close to him, Charlotte. I never liked it, but I kept that to myself.”
He hadn’t. He’d reminded her every chance he got.
“Evan Downey,” he repeated, this time with enough accusation to stir a jury.
Her heart plunged despite her attempt to keep from overreacting. She crossed her arms, not out of defiance but to prevent the quake working its way through her body from visibly shaking her hands.
Russell helped himself onto her porch. He’d never physically hurt her before but it didn’t keep her from backing up as he approached. On even ground now, he could literally look down on her. And he did, talking to her with judgment and disgust prevalent in his tone. “How could you, Charlotte? How could you be so cavalier with your best friend’s husband?”
That was completely unfair. Unfortunately, it was also completely true.
“He has a son.”
The anxiety flitting through her veins didn’t make thinking of a sensible retort easy. “I love Lyon.” She hated the defensiveness in her tone. Hated more that she felt tears building in her throat. All her reasons for kissing Evan Downey tumbled in her head, but if she said them out loud, she’d sound more defensive. And would give Russell more ammo for the Shame-O-Matic weapon he’d toted all the way over here.
I love Evan. I love to watch him paint. I love the way he paints me. I love the tattoo he gave me. I love everything about him.
But the words clogged in her throat, her self-confidence ebbing in Russell’s presence.
“Lyon loves you, too, Charlotte,” Russell confirmed softly. That truth was made harder to hear when he followed it with “Lyon loves you as Aunt Charlie, not as a replacement for his mother.”
Her blood matched her tone, turning to ice. He’d zinged her with her biggest fear, her biggest worry. “I’m not trying to replace Rae.” That was true, too. She straightened her shoulders and found her strength. “You don’t have any right to show up here uninvited and cast judgment on something you don’t understand.”
He was unfazed. “What I understand is that rather than put her kids through the heartache of watching their mother shack up with a man”—he gestured to himself, then threw an arm wide—“Darian and I got married by a justice of the peace.”
How self-righteous was he?
“You shacked up with me,” Charlie reminded him.
Tilting his head, he stepped closer, his body blocking out her surroundings. “Charlotte, honey, you didn’t have children.”
“You didn’t want children.”
“I didn’t want children with you, Charlotte, no.”
Ouch.
She put her hand to her chest, the sting of that blow finding its mark.
“I dated Darian for… a while.” For the first time, his gaze flitted to the side and he didn’t look in her eyes. He looked at his feet. “I never told you this, but those last three and a half months when you and I didn’t sleep together…”
She really, really didn’t want to hear the rest of that sentence. He let her have it anyway, making sure he looked in her face when he delivered the news.
“I didn’t sleep with you because I’d already met and fallen in love with Darian. I wasn’t willing to cheat on my future wife.”
Charlie’s jaw dropped. He’d… cheated on her? For three and a half months while they were dating? She had no idea. None. He’d played her for a fool. And what a fool she’d been.
“You cheated on me?” she asked numbly.
“I didn’t, since technically I wasn’t sleeping with you at the time. I was sleeping with Dare. I would have been cheating on her if I took you to bed.”
Nausea roiled her insides. Amazingly, he shook his head in disgust. Aimed toward her. She tried to reroute some at him, refusing to let his self-righteousness go further, but as usual, he said something next that rattled her scrambling brain.
“It’s like I don’t know who you’ve become. My Charlotte wouldn’t move in on her best friend’s family and try to take what was once Rae Lynn Downey’s. In a church. In front of God, Charlotte. You stood witness at her wedding!”
“She’s been gone for four years!” It wasn’t what she wanted to say, it just sort of popped out. She went with it. “Everyone has moved on. You’ve moved on,” she managed to get in. “Evan has moved on.”
“Has Lyon moved on?” Manufactured sorrow etched his features. “Forget all about his mom, did he? Did Ev
an forget about the wife he once pursued doggedly while ignoring your teenage affections?”
Right then, she hated herself for having ever shared that tidbit with him. He’d kept hold of it over the years, waiting for the right moment to hit her with it. He’d loaded a slingshot and aimed for her heart.
“He didn’t choose you then. Why now?” Russell continued. “Did he suddenly forget all about the woman he made a child with? Did he forget the first woman he fell in love with? Did he forget the woman who bore his son, Charlotte? No, I don’t think he has,” he answered himself.
“It’s not about forgetting Rae.” She grappled on to the statement like a lifeline. She was onto something. A point. The truth. Russell had muddied the truth since he’d arrived, but she finally had something concrete to latch on to.
“It’s not about forgetting her,” he agreed.
Agreed. Which muddied her mind after all.
“Forgetting her is impossible, Charlotte. No one can forget a woman as vivacious and alive as Rae Lynn. And a man does not forget the love of his life for someone… else.”
In his own special way, he reminded Charlie she was not as vivacious, or as alive as Rae—even in her death. He solidified what she secretly knew he’d always believed. Charlie was forgettable. And as much as she wanted to rail against it, this, too, sounded true.
Her sister had forgotten her. Her father had forgotten her. And Russell, after he’d met Darian, had most definitely forgotten her.
How long until Evan did the same?
The hold she had on her earlier point slipped. So did her shoulders.
“You’re seeing what you want to see. You want Evan, and he’s desperate to have a woman in his life again. He’s using you, Charlotte.” Russell flicked a hand at her body. “Not your fault, darling, you are only using your best assets.”
“Get out,” she warned, her voice low. A quake rattled her bones, but she refused to break down in front of him. She could crumble inside. In peace. Away from his poison-tipped barbs.
“Not your fault,” he repeated. “No man, no matter who he is, can resist those hips.”
Her arm moved on its own, pulling back to land a sharp slap across Russell’s face. Eyes angry and teeth bared, he snatched up her wrist before she made contact.
Bringing Home the Bad Boy Page 27
