Embracing Everly (14 page)

A low growl erupted from Mick’s throat as he rolled over and pulled me on top of him. My belly pressed against his hard stomach, his cock and his piercing pulsated beneath me so much that I could feel how much he desired me. Slowly, I lifted up a notch and positioned myself wondering at the last minute if I was making the right choice. Wondering if that barbell would hurt or feel good? Wondering what I’d do if he lived up to his was ‘one and done’ lifestyle. Mick’s eyes bore into mine and I saw a flicker of emotion as he waited for me to decide. He was letting me take charge in deciding if it was something I really wanted.

I did want this.
I had wanted this since the first time he called me Angel. I lowered my body down inch by inch, kissing the corners of his mouth. He gasped right along with me as I sank lower, his piercing feeling oddly out of this world, like nothing I’d felt before. His hands cupped my face, his mouth grazing my lips, nipping my bottom one as he moaned. As I rocked slowly against him, his mouth caressed my lips, my ears, my chin, my eyelids, until they found their way back to my mouth.

“Ev,” he whispered my name, as his hips rotated. He continued to thrust inside of me. With one sweep of his arms, I was lying flat on my back with Mick capturing my lips as he picked up the tempo. He plunged his tongue inside of my mouth capturing my cries, as I broke apart all around him. “Fuck, Ev, I’ve got to pull out.”

Not a second after his warning, Mick pulled out, his orgasm blanketing my stomach before he fell beside me and pulled me into his arms. I was too weak and too tired to move. Mick grabbed several tissues from his nightstand and cleaned my belly, the whole time with a smile plastered on his gorgeous face. The lack of sleep and the amazing sex was enough to knock me out like someone had drugged me. My eyelids heavy, I closed my eyes with a smile on my face, resting in the crook of his arm, hoping I didn’t make a huge mistake. A mistake that would claim my heart and leave it shattered in a million jigsaw pieces.

I COULDN’T SLEEP.
I was tired as all fuck and for some reason sleep was evading me. And I was pretty sure that reason was the little blonde who fell asleep so fast; I didn’t have the heart to move her. I sat up and scanned the room to see a few paper trails regarding Angel that I needed to hide. Carefully, I slipped her off of me and tucked her under the blanket. I turned off my computer and cleaned my desk, stuffing everything back inside the manila folder Dawson had given me. Once I felt at ease I allowed myself to glance back at her sleeping form. The scent of her coconut and flowers lingered on my skin, my fingers, my lips, and I found I liked it. Almost too much. About as much as loved seeing her in my bed.

It had been a very long time since any girl had captivated me enough to want more than one round. There was just something about her that made me feel different, better, and I wanted that feeling to last longer. I’d never been lucky in the love department. Hell, I wasn’t sure I even wanted it.

I grabbed my pack of smokes off the desk and headed out to the patio to light one up. I barely had my ass in the plastic chair when the door creaked open. “There you are. You know that shit will kill ya?”

I pulled a drag in nice and slow, and watched the smoke dance in the air as I blew it out. “Yep,” I said with a nod.

“Are you tired?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“You feel like coming back to bed?”

“Angel…” I began to warn her, but she cut me off.

“You said one time. I’m not asking for sex, just comfort. I like to snuggle.”

I shook my head.
Snuggle?
I could think of a hell of a lot of better things to do than that, but at the same time snuggling sounded kind of nice with her. “Not a good idea. I like you, Ev. I need this to be just friends with us. What we did shouldn’t have happened.”

Even as it came out of my mouth, I knew if and when she tried to seduce me again, she’d win hands down. Now that I had one taste, it wasn’t gonna be enough.

“You were serious? I thought… I don’t know what I thought.”

I flicked my butt over the railing. “You should go.”

“Mick?” I heard the question in her tone. She didn’t believe me. She knew that I wanted her and wouldn’t fess up to it. “But, I …” she started to plead with me. I made love to her. I did. For the first time in my pathetic life, I made love to a woman, and I could see it in her eyes that she knew I was a lying bastard.

“Don’t say anything you’ll regret, Everly.”

“But,” she closed her eyes, like she was thinking of her next move.

“We agreed on friends and one time. No hating me for doing just that,” I reminded her.

“But, I like you, like you.”

“I like you too, Angel; that’s why nothing else can happen.”

She leaned against the rail, defeated. “I don’t understand. When two people like each other, they date.”

I had to do it. I had to rip off that fucking Band-Aid. I hated it, but I had to. I couldn’t piss off Dawson. I couldn’t be the man I knew she was looking for and deserved. My heart actually hurt like hell as I forced myself to look into those broken eyes. “Everly, I told you before that I don’t date girls. I fuck them, and that’s it. One and done. That’s all this was. You asked me to do you a favor, and I did it.” The last line had me cringing even as I said it, waiting for a slap across the face that I deserved, but it never came.

I got up, unable to deal, but she followed and plopped down on my bed, mouth open, shaking her head from side to side, biting the pink polish off her nail as she thought. “You did me a favor?” She asked as tears sprinkled down her cheeks. “You’re such an asshole. You had me fooled. Well, shame on me once, right?” She stood and came directly in front of me. Her open-palmed hand smacked me clear across my cheek, stinging like a bitch, but I took it. “I guess you won after all.”
And there it was the inevitable chick smack across the cheekbone.

I waited until I heard the door shut. My fist slammed into the wall, causing the sheet rock to break apart, leaving a small hole in its wake. “Fuck!” I screamed. My knuckles dripped blood all over the carpet. I yanked open my bottom drawer to the desk to pull out a first-aid kit to wrap my hand. I had no idea how to recover from this. How to watch her without talking to her, without bedding her?

The last woman I wanted in my life, not sexually, but just as much, killed my trust in most people. Nothing like being abandoned by your own mother to fuck with your head and then there is my beloved twin who was no better. Neither one of them gave a shit about me. And it changed me. How the hell could it not?

After several beers and hours of contemplating how to handle my feelings for Everly, I decided it would be best to just keep an eye on her like promised, because if something happened to her, it would gut me. She was every man’s walking dream. She could find someone to replace me in a matter of minutes if she wanted to. I just had to remember that. I was replaceable. Even though I hated thinking about another man touching her, slipping inside what I wished could be mine, or someone else waking up beside her. In the end I knew I wasn’t worthy of someone like her. She could do so much better than a punk with a criminal sheet and no family to offer her. I had to let her go.

IT HAD BEEN
two weeks of radio silence since I broke my cardinal rule of not bedding Everly and she was back to her old self, or at least the show she was putting on had me believing it. She sang at work and I could still hear her singing in her apartment at night. Although, her choice of music was still old school, she found a new artist to tap into. Night after night, I heard her sing a Peter Gabriel song at exactly midnight. So each time the clock struck twelve, I sat on the floor with my head against the wall, listening to her sing, “In Your Eyes.” I think it was meant for me to hear, but no way in hell would I ever ask. It was selfish and juvenile, but there was something about the words to the song that had me believing she was reaching out in the only way she knew how. Regardless, I’d take anything, even those sappy words from the song, words she was letting me have. Words I wished I could say back.

Dawson’s call had me leaving my post in the back of the Loving Cup watching her sing. I ducked out the back. “Yeah,” I answered.

“Got word from her dad to keep an eye out. As in keep a damn good eye on her.”

“Why? What happened? I asked, and I hoped to God he couldn’t hear the sheer panic in my voice that I was doing a shitty job of hiding.

“Nothing concrete, but there’s been some chatter that his office picked up on. The Reapers are using code, but they think they might be sending someone from another charter to check for her, see if she really exists.”

“Maybe I should nab her and bring her home?” Silently I hoped he agreed, and ordered me to haul her ass to the clubhouse where I knew she’d be safe. And untouchable. Where I could watch her and not worry.

“Not yet. Thomas doesn’t want to freak her out. It might be nothing. They keep talking about Tarheels. It’s the state name, so Thomas has a friend in the CIA listening in further. I’ll update you as soon as I can.”

“Okay and Dawson, one sign of bad mojo and I’m taking her.”

“Yeah, kid, you do that.” The silence on the other end made me aware he was gone.

I lit up needing the nicotine to calm my nerves. A couple of frat boys walked by making snide remarks about the odor, but moved on inside. I stubbed my butt out before I finished, blowing out the remaining smoke as I exhaled, thinking of Everly. I needed to get her to forgive me for this to work at all. How the hell could I protect her if she wouldn’t look at me, or talk to me?

Once inside, I took my seat in the back where I left my leather jacket to find those same guys right beside my spot, talking smack about my Angel.
My?
When did
I start thinking of her like that?
As she sang some Fleetwood Mac, my thoughts raced to all the times we had been together, alone, just talking. Back to that night. The night she officially owned my heart. In my mind, I flashed back to her pink nails, her pink toes wrapped around my legs as I thrust inside her, and even though I knew she owned me before that, that was the moment she became mine. When she went to cry out my name, as I was bringing her over the edge of sanity. I stopped her, wanting to inhale all the emotions I’d been feeling with a kiss so primal I felt it deep in my soul. A soul that had been black and tainted for as long as I could remember. A soul that was being cleansed by just her presence.

A DOZEN WHITE
roses were sitting by my front door when I got home from work. I hadn’t spoken to Charlie or Mick for over two weeks. I was fine blocking Charlie and his stupid, petty text messages about wanting me back, but Mick was harder. Harder because he was the first man to make me feel truly loved and cherished while we had sex. It was crazy I knew that. He promised no heartstrings, no attachments, and that love was an emotion he didn’t know how to do. He was wrong. He did, because you couldn’t fake that shit; I felt it deep in my gut. And my gut was almost always on target. My gut failed me when it came to Charlie I will admit, but with Mick everything felt different—we clicked. But for some reason he kept pushing me away, and none of it made any sense.