With a sigh, she leaned back on one hand and slurped her coffee.
‘I won’t fool around with him when you’re not around,’ she conceded and replaced the cup between her legs. ‘I probably wouldn’t have anyway.’
He wanted to believe her, but he remembered too clearly the hungry pinch of her teeth on her lips when Seth had beckoned her forward. Hell, he remembered what it had done to him.
He bumped her knee with his, and when she didn’t smile he did it again.
She gave him a slap. ‘Stop. Stop.’
‘Stop what?’ He succeeded in wiggling his foot under her ass, and with a squeal she grabbed her coffee cup and made her escape.
‘I’m going to get pissed and stay pissed at you one of these days,’ she threatened, though her grin was far more forgiving than her tone. She bobbed on her bare toes and pointed a finger at him. ‘Talk to Seth as soon as possible. Before there’s a next time – unless you want me to do it.’
‘No, I’ll do it.’
‘Man to man?’
He snorted. ‘Right, over beers down at the nudie bar while we groom our chest hair.’
‘Don’t make fun. That’s how I’d do it. I’m getting in the bathtub until it’s time to go to bed.’
‘You’re not coming back?’
Evie spun around on the threshold. ‘You still have to work.’
‘I don’t have to.’
‘You really mean that?’
He wished he did. If he took off work for no reason and left everyone short-handed, he’d feel like an asshole. With a groan, he shook his head.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Thought so.’ She blew him a kiss and vanished, and Ryan scrubbed his fingers through his hair.
He wished he had her ability to just take things as they came to her.
Sure. Fuck the landlord. Come on my girl while he’s deep in my ass. Then I’ll get up, have some coffee and maybe a frozen waffle, go to work, and tonight do the same thing all over again. Tomorrow morning, hit repeat. Life is good, isn’t it?
He swung his gaze to the window left ajar, and instantly decided to put off talking to Seth until he had had some time to process. He’d do it when he got home, or maybe tomorrow.
And he’d hope Seth kept his distance, too.
‘Excuse me, but when does the next tour begin and will we be seeing the premier’s private commode?’
It wouldn’t have been the most inappropriate question put to her on these tours. Last week someone had asked where the members of the legislature took the prostitutes they brought in for quickies. The tone was helpful, though. Evie would be able to proffer her fake smile to the comedians and apologetic looks to the tourists who had just come off a cruise ship.
She glanced up, smile fixed on her face, and when she saw Seth she laughed.
‘If you knew how many times I heard stupid questions like that, you wouldn’t think you were such a funny guy.’ She banged on the reception table, straightened the stack of leaflets she had been counting and gave him a long look. ‘You here for the tour?’
‘Can’t I be interested in local politics?’
Evie leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘No one is interested in local politics, not even the politicians. They’re just winging it until they can claim their pensions.’
Seth flashed a wicked grin. ‘I always used to think I was like a politician. I’m on call all hours, I have to sit and listen to the most nonsensical complaints from every one of my tenants, and every so often I get someone accusing me of being a crook and it lands me in court.’
‘Maybe you should run for office.’
‘At least I’ll get that pension.’ He glanced around, and his expression turned serious. ‘So, where’ve you been?’
‘Around,’ she said, and cursed Ryan in her head.
It had been three days since they’d had their encounter, and he still hadn’t talked to Seth. In fact, when they were having a quickie that morning he’d shut the damn window and his dirty words came in a low growl instead of the sharp clicks off his tongue that filled the room, like he didn’t want to risk the possibility that Seth might hear them, like their landlord would be stupid enough to assume they just weren’t home.
‘You’re avoiding me,’ Seth replied, and, hearing the slight hurt in his voice, Evie was awash with guilt.
She sighed and glanced over her shoulder at the security guard standing on the other side of the metal detectors, then back at Seth. ‘I didn’t have a tour this last hour, and the next one isn’t scheduled for about a half an hour. You want a private tour, and we can talk?’
Seth nodded, and she led him up the stairs. She poked her head into the throne room where some maintenance men were fiddling with the lighting, pointed out a library that hadn’t been functional much since the advent of the Internet, and then led him to the speaker’s gallery where she closed the door behind them.
‘What can I say?’ she asked, spinning around as she approached the speaker’s chair. ‘Ryan is being a weirdo, as usual.’
‘Weirdo, how? And can I…’ He gestured to the seat nearest to him, its label designating it the seat of the member for some backwater riding.
She nodded and leaned against the edge of the desk.
‘He’s insecure. Like, really insecure,’ she went on. ‘I shouldn’t be talking to you about this, but I know you won’t buy any excuses.’
‘He’s jealous.’
‘It’s a little of that, but I think the bigger picture is that he’s a perfectionist. He had in his head exactly how this would go down. We’d meet someone, we’d have a good time, and we’d end up with a regular fuck buddy on speed dial. Now he’s sort of…well, he likes rules, and I think he’s having a hard time figuring out how to work this out.’
Seth chuckled. ‘The boy wants control.’
‘He’s not like that,’ she said quickly, and Seth held up a hand.
‘Not over you, over me. He wants to make sure I walk the line as far as you’re concerned.’ He paused and seemed to chew on his next words before speaking. ‘Evie, I don’t want to offend you or anything, but I’m not interested in having a romantic relationship with you – with either of you.’
Her nervous laugh danced around the large space. ‘Should I be offended?’
‘I hope not. I just want to be clear that I have rules, too. It’s just sex. I’m not ready for an uncomplicated relationship, let alone a complicated one.’
The man practically cringed as he spoke, and fresh guilt washed over the old that she had even put him in the position of having to experience it. She worked to shove it away. There was no sense in trying to be gentle now.
‘I’m not interested in you that way, either. No offence. I’m with Ryan, and I want it to stay that way. We’re just being adventurous.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you both can handle it.’
‘I hope we can,’ she said quietly, and after a moment she said what she was really thinking. ‘I hope he can.’
‘Are you still worried he’s going to come to another revelation?’
‘I’m trying not to. Honestly, I believe you when you said I was off the mark there. I’m wondering now if he can really handle this emotionally.’
‘You were sure before?’
‘I thought I was, but that was back when he felt he was pulling the strings.’
Seth took a deep breath and stretched his legs out in front of him, then shook his head.
‘It can be a one-time thing, you know.’
‘I don’t want it to be, and neither does he.’
He smiled a crooked smile. ‘And neither do I. So…I guess I need to have a talk with Ryan.’
‘You can come up tonight after six o’clock.’
He shook his head. ‘I think I’ll surprise him at work.’
Evie’s mouth fell open. ‘That will probably end very badly, you know.’
‘I don’t want you there when he and I have our chat, and I thin
k it’ll go better if he doesn’t have time to think about it too hard. Unless you want to tie him to your bed frame and open the window for me, or else I jump him in the elevator, work it is.’
She held up a hand. ‘All right, but if he blames me you have to sit on him until he cries for mercy.’
‘I was planning on doing that anyway at some point,’ he said slyly and got to his feet. ‘By the way, I never had a chance to say what an event the other night was.’
Evie couldn’t come up with the words to express her agreement, and so she just let the giggles spill from the pit of her stomach. ‘Why did you leave without saying goodbye?’
‘One, you were both out like a light. Two, I was in such a hurry to get upstairs I forgot to let Marco out and I could hear him howling at the window. Three, I didn’t want the awkward wake-up any more than you did.’ He frowned at her grin. ‘What?’
‘I never noticed before, but you do the same thing that Ryan does. Counting things out.’
‘You think it has some deep meaning or something?’
She shook her head. ‘Probably not, but it is interesting that you share a quirk like that. Kind of makes me wonder what else you two have in common that I haven’t uncovered yet.’
‘If we’re lucky, you’ll have lots of opportunities for that sort of thing.’ He came close, closer than a mere acquaintance would, and his gaze went to her mouth. ‘And honey, just because I don’t want to marry you doesn’t mean I couldn’t spend days in bed with you, with or without Ryan.’
For just a moment she thought of how Ryan might react if he was there to see Seth’s big paw sliding under her jacket and over the curve of her hip, and an idea struck her.
‘You know what I’d like?’ she said, settling against his sinful body. ‘I’d like to spend some time with you, just you and me…while Ryan sits back and watches, and then I’d like to watch the two of you together.’
Seth pressed closer and slid his hand lower to squeeze her ass. ‘You’re a kinky girl, Evie Potter. It’s always the ones you least expect.’
‘I’m a good girl,’ she purred, and with a groan Seth retreated.
‘I don’t want to be the guy who ends up on the news because he can’t keep his dick in his pants in a government building.’
‘Trust me, you wouldn’t be the first,’ she joked, but took her own step back. ‘I guess I’ll be seeing you around again – and if Ryan gets mouthy with you, don’t bust up his lip or anything. I kind of like his face the way it is.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it. He is the prettiest thing in the building.’ He gave her a swat on the ass and a chaste kiss on the cheek. ‘See you around.’
‘I hope so.’
As soon as he was out of the room, she leaned against the desk and groaned.
God, why couldn’t it just be that simple? Why couldn’t Ryan just take it like it was? No-strings sex with someone they both liked and who liked them?
But she knew what Ryan was like. She’d known it before getting into this situation to begin with. It had taken them for ever and a day to actually go from neighbours and friends to something else. She knew how hard it was for him to say what she knew they had both been bursting to say for a long time, and she also knew how badly he needed some foothold on things.
She’d give it to him, for now, and she’d cross her fingers that giving him a harder push, in the form of a six-foot man in scuffed work boots and the whiff of WD-40, would be just what he needed.
Mrs O’Hearn had been quiet all morning since coming back from the seventh floor. She was a dainty woman of about 85 who, in spite of being subjected to a battery of tests all day, made sure she put on red lipstick and a bit of blush. When she returned from her tests, wiped off her makeup with the towelettes she kept by her bed, then rolled over on to her side, he knew that the invasive procedure she’d just had was more humiliation than she could stand.
She said nothing when he pulled aside her curtain just slightly and spoke softly, asking to take a little blood instead of announcing that’s what he intended to do, like some of the other nurses. He drew the curtain behind him and said nothing as he did his job, and his heart broke a little when he saw the tears pooling in her crow’s feet.
His intention was to leave her to regain her dignity, but as he was packing up his blood kit to leave she spoke to him.
‘Are you married, or something like it?’
Ryan smiled. ‘Something like it.’
‘Man or a woman?’ she asked, then met his surprised look without apology. ‘You can’t tell these days.’
‘Woman,’ he said. ‘Her name is Evie, short for Evelyn.’
‘You don’t hear names like that any more these days. I’ve got four grandchildren, and one of them is named Dove. Help me to sit up, would you?’
Once her bed was elevated and he’d propped a pillow behind her, Mrs O’Hearn dabbed a tissue around her eyes and mouth, and Ryan pulled his phone out of its holster.
‘Want to see a picture?’
A few taps later, he held his phone out in front of her and she peered at the snapshot of Evie he had taken a few weeks earlier. She was doing her nails on the sofa, feet tucked under her and hands fanned out as she tried to dry the purple lacquer, a sheepish smile on her face.
Mrs O’Hearn smiled. ‘She’s pretty. You going to marry her?’
Ryan laughed as he replaced his phone. ‘We’ve only been dating for three months.’
‘You should marry her,’ she said, and reached for her lipstick. ‘If you don’t, someone else will.’
‘That’s not a very nice thing to say.’
‘It’s true. When I was her age, younger even, I had my heart set on this one man who kept dragging his feet. The longer he waited, the less crazy about him I was. Then someone else came along and I was crazy about him, and he didn’t wait, so I married him instead.’
‘And left the other guy heartbroken?’
‘He had to settle for second best,’ she said, and opened her compact.
Ryan shook his head and collected his blood kit. ‘You think you’re up for something to eat soon?’
‘Famished, and bored to tears. My granddaughter is bringing in her computer so I can watch some movies.’
‘You can have the television hooked up.’
She clucked her tongue. ‘And pay ten dollars a day? I’ll sit and wait, thank you.’
‘Cheapskate,’ he teased, even though he agreed that the prices were excessive. ‘If you need anything, just buzz me.’
A few minutes later he sat down at the nurses’ station and prepared for an hour of constantly interrupted data entry, and as he checked his work email he chuckled as he thought of Mrs O’Hearn.
Marry her. He loved how matter-of-factly the edict had been delivered. He amused himself with the thought of meeting Evie at the door and declaring his love for her with a proposal. Evie, my darling, even though we’ve only been dating for a few months and we just had a spectacular threesome with the man downstairs, let’s get married. She’d screw up her nose, give him a light smack in the mouth, tell him to stop being a smart-ass, then ask him what sort of take-out he was up for tonight.
He had little doubt that Evie was the girl of his dreams and the idea of spending the rest of his life with her made him want to bounce around and smile, but marry her? He was too twisted up in wanting to be with her all the time to think of anything beyond just getting his arms around her and squeezing her so tight she giggled breathlessly.
He supposed that at some point they’d need to address the future, but now definitely wasn’t the time. Not when he could still press against his chest and feel where she had bitten down while she was coming that morning, and when he could still detect the ghost of Seth’s hand clamped on the back of his neck.
Suddenly restless, he told Margaree at the workstation behind him that he was making a coffee run. The last thing he needed was more caffeine, and so once he was down there he went for sweet and salty with some peanut-butt
er cups.
Coming off the elevator, he jolted and nearly dropped his stash. Seth was squeezed into one of the metal-framed chairs alongside the wall.
His stomach instantly churning into a whirlpool of acid, Ryan mustered what he supposed passed for a smile.
‘What’s up? I hope you’re not here to tell me my apartment flooded.’
Seth didn’t laugh or even smile as he managed to get himself out of the chair. He tucked his hands in his pockets and gave Ryan a long, serious look before raising his brows.
‘Just thought I’d check in.’
‘At my workplace?’
‘You’re avoiding me.’
Spoken as a fact rather than an accusation, leaving Ryan’s tongue twisted. Had there been some anger or annoyance in that tone, he would have responded in kind. Instead he found himself laughing nervously as he sought a quick explanation.
None sufficed. He had no excuses.
Before he could offer some stammering reply, Seth stepped forward. ‘Is there somewhere we can go to talk?’
Ryan raised his stash. ‘I’m just getting back to work.’
‘It won’t take long.’
For fuck’s sake.
Ryan resisted the urge to roll his eyes, knowing how bratty that would make him seem, so he glanced down the corridor beyond Seth, then gestured for the other man to follow.
‘Margaree, I need to have a quick talk with my landlord,’ he told the other nurse as he passed her her coffee. ‘Is it all right with you if I break now instead of at three?’
‘Sure,’ she said. Her gaze went to Seth and her smile turned hungry. ‘Hi, I’m Margaree.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ Seth said quickly, either oblivious to how the nurse was eye-fucking him or uncaring. Ryan was inclined to believe it was the latter.
He dropped his treats on the desk and led Seth down the hall. There were no empty rooms and he didn’t care to have a conversation in the toilet, so they ended up in a family room. Ryan had never believed that the soothing pastels and calming watercolours had any effect on a family in grief, and now they sure as hell didn’t stop his stomach churning as he closed himself in with Seth.
The landlord made himself at home, dropping on to the love seat and taking up almost all of it. Ryan took the chair and wiggled around for a few moments trying to get comfortable before leaning forward with his hands clasped.
Cross My Heart Page 12
