Snake Charmer (Diamondbacks Motorcycle Club Book 2) (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

“So who is he?”

Eve looked up sharply. Alan had been pleasant almost throughout the whole dinner, making conversation and letting her enjoy the food, which was indeed worthy of some of the best restaurants out there. He asked the question point-blank, catching her entirely by surprise in-between spoonfuls of a to-die-for dark chocolate mousse.

“Excuse me?” Eve blinked, genuinely confused.

“You heard me,” Alan said. He was looking at her sternly, his green eyes dark and suspicious. “Who is he?”

“Who?” There was simply no way Alan could have found out about Lind, but Eve’s heart began to race nonetheless.

“The man who was with you while you were gone.”

Eve put her spoon down slowly. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “There was no man.”

“I think there was.”

Eve watched him carefully. His handsome features were set in determination. She knew then that Alan wasn’t going to budge. “Why?” she demanded. She forced herself to keep her emotions in check. If she flared up, she would only let him know that she did indeed have something to hide. “What makes you think that?”

“You disappeared for a month,” Alan said, “then you came back and you were a whole other person. Yes, I’ve noticed,” he added when she gave him a surprised look. “This other Eve is distracted and acts like her life is a too-tight dress. You’re distracted. You hate your job…” He hesitated. “You hate me.”

Eve winced inwardly. She wasn’t in love with Alan, and she had not even been attracted to him since Lind, but she didn’t want to hurt him. “I don’t hate you,” she said, and it was the truth.

“You don’t love me, either.”

“Well, do you?” Eve retorted. She bit her lip as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She had never asked that question out loud. She had always known that their engagement was a convenience engagement, but neither of them had ever admitted it.

Alan’s green eyes flashed angrily. “What’s that supposed to mean? I asked you to marry me, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Eve admitted. “But did you do it because you love me, or because it’s the logical thing to do?” The damage was done; she may as well get it all off her chest.

“I want to marry you because I’m in love with you,” Alan said, anger laying somewhere underneath in his voice.

Eve met his unnecessarily outraged look straight on. “Don’t lie to me, Alan.”

“How dare you?” he suddenly exploded. He stood abruptly to his feet. “You disappear into thin air for a month, and then you come back and accuse me of not loving you!
Me
? Not loving
you
? I’m not the one who ran away, sweetheart.”

Eve stared at him in dismay. She had not be prepared for this outburst. “What are you getting so angry about?” she said after a moment’s shock. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Are you?” Alan retorted. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Eve, but you’re moody as hell. Wherever you were for that whole month, it seems to me like you wish you were back there. And I’m a lot of things, but I’m not stupid. Now,
who is he
?” The question was asked through gritted teeth.

Eve had never seen the jealous side of Alan before, and she had to admit that she wasn’t a fan. She stood, too. “There was and there is no one,” she said, her voice and eyes hard. “I think you should leave now.”

Alan watched her carefully for a few still, furious moments. “Very well, I’ll go,” he said in a dangerously controlled tone of voice. “But this isn’t over, Eve. You’re hiding something, and I don’t like it.”

Prickled, Eve drew herself up to her full height. “Frankly, Alan, I could not care less what you like right now.”

For a moment, he seemed on the verge of vomiting all of his anger forward, but instead he held himself back. He turned and stormed out of the kitchen. A few moments later, Eve heard the front door open and close. Suddenly terrified that he would change his mind, she sprung forward and hurried over to lock it, turning the key angrily as far as it would go. She leaned back against the locked door and took a few deep breaths to get her own anger back under control.

She didn’t bother to clean up in the kitchen. Instead, she turned off all the lights and went to bed, hoping for an uninterrupted, oblivious sleep.

CHAPTER FOUR

She came with a gasp and a cry, barely aware of Lind still thrusting into her; she was just too lost in her own pleasure to notice anything else. It came to her in waves, intense and all-consuming. Her whole body was on fire with that pleasure.

She had barely entered the aftershocks phase when Lind came, too. He shuddered and tensed against her with the strength of his release, and then he went limp against her. Instinctively, Eve reached up and wrapped her arms around him.

She didn’t know how long they stayed like that, perfectly still and entangled. Finally, Lind moved and broke the spell. He pulled back and out of her. Then, he rolled off of her and back onto the mattress. When he turned to look at her, he was grinning from ear to ear, and his impossibly blue eyes were sparkling.

“Well, that was something.”

Eve woke with a start. Lately, she had been waking up like that from any dreams involving Lind, and the reaction was particularly violent whenever she would wake from dreaming of their first time together. It was far from a nightmare, of course, but it also did not bring her any comfort. In fact, dreaming of Lind only intensified the pain.

She lied in bed and focused on breathing slowly and regularly, fighting to bring her galloping heart back under control. Her eyes were full of tears that she refused to let fall. For the umpteenth time in the past four months, one week, and three days—(but who was counting?)—Eve found herself wishing that she could just get Lind Addams out of her mind—preferably for good.

CHAPTER FIVE

Her breasts were phenomenal. Plastic, probably, but still. Besides, pretty much all about her was fake, from her platinum blonde hair and her pink-and-red lacquered fingernails, down to her eyelashes. (Nobody could possibly have eyelashes that long. It just wasn’t natural.) She was tacky and vulgar, but Lind didn’t care. Fake boobs or not, she was a tigress in bed, and she was his for the night.

He didn’t remember her name, but he didn’t much care about that either. He rode her like there was no tomorrow, and he let her ride him, too. Her curves were soft, and her body was toned in all the right places. She came with a loud, unabashed cry. Lind came, too, but it was more of an unbidden physical reaction than the result of any real pleasure. It was a reflex, nothing more; he didn’t particularly enjoy it.

When all was said and done, he sent her away with a few bills and a pat on her butt. He didn’t even bother to get out of bed. Once she was gone, he lay there and stared at the cracked ceiling. Idly, he thought he should probably get someone to fix that before the whole thing crashed on his head.

Things were swimming around him. He felt like he was living in a perpetual daze, and he wasn’t entirely sure it was all due to the drugs. He wasn’t even quite sure of what it was that he was taking—some coke here and there, a few pills. They gave him a rush, at first, but now even that exhilarating effect was beginning to last less and less. It was driving him mad. Could he really be
that
depressed that even chemically-induced exhilaration would be trampled by the gloom of his feelings?

He hated this. He hardly recognized himself, and he knew the others weren’t quite happy with what he was doing either. He wasn’t lucid. Most of the time he was kept out of any significant operation due to his being a loose cannon—unpredictable and unreliable. He knew it was only a matter of time before they voted him out, and he was well aware that the only reason why that had not happened yet was because of his brotherly bond with Alec. But he knew Alec wouldn’t be able—or willing—to protect him much longer. His best friend’s patience was running incredibly thin, and Lind didn’t blame him.

Still, he couldn’t get around to blaming himself either. It was all Eve’s fault. She had entered his existence for a short few weeks and left him lonely, confused, and, he had to admit it, heartbroken. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. God knows he tried, too. It was because of her that he was doing what he was doing—trying to lose himself in the detached embrace of other women and fighting his crappy reality with drug-altered perceptions.

None of it was working. Orgasms were a physical reaction that he couldn’t control or enjoy, and the drugs only enhanced the intensity of all those feelings that he was so desperately trying not to feel.

Seeing as he was obtaining the opposite effect of what he was trying to achieve, he knew that he should probably stop with the drugs and the random fucks. But he didn’t know how to do that either. Since Eve left, Lind had been feeling like he didn’t know how to do anything anymore. All he seemed to be able to do was think about her. Anything else seemed dull. All the things that had brought him pleasure before simply left him feeling empty. He couldn’t wrap his head around it. He always thought he would never fall, not him. Not for a woman. But he did. He had fallen so spectacularly that he didn’t know how to get up again.

Lind tried. He tried very hard at first. Then, at some point, he had stopped trying. These days, he just floated. He didn’t know what was worse: the emptiness he felt whenever he tried to engage his body and mind with something else that wasn’t Eve Robinson, or the searing pain he experienced whenever he found himself thinking about her. The memories were the worst.

***

A loud and persistent knocking at the door tore Lind away from his depressing musings. He thought too often about his first time with Eve, and every time he did it tore him apart just a little more and the pain got just a little harsher.

The knocking continued and he lay still, trying to decide whether he could be bothered to answer.

“Lind, I swear to God, if you don’t open this door, I’m gonna tear it down myself!” Alec’s voice roared from outside.

Lind sighed heavily. Anyone else might eventually have given up and gone away, but not Alec.

“It’s open, you jerk!” Lind called out with a rough voice that he hardly recognized as his own. When was the last time he had drunk anything that even resembled water?

Not one to be told anything twice, Alec barged into the room. He looked around and scrunched his nose in disgust.

“It smells like cheap beer and even cheaper whore in here,” he declared matter-of-factly.

Lind snorted, not even attempting to get off the bed or cover his nakedness. “Whatever you say.”

Alec watched him sternly. He walked back to the door that he had left open and closed it with a slam. Then, he rounded back on Lind. “Get up.”

“Why?” Lind asked laconically. “Is there an operation you suddenly want me for?”

Alec’s gray eyes narrowed in warning. “Don’t give me that shit. You’re the one who got yourself out of the game.”

Lind grunted. He got up groggily and fumbled around for his boxers. He almost fell, as he put them back on.

“What did you take today?” Alec asked.

Lind snorted. “Fuck if I know,” he muttered, looking around for his clothes.

He must have been sporting a particularly lost expression on his face, because Alec collected his jeans and t-shirt from the floor and handed them over without a comment.

“You’re coming over to my place for dinner.”

Lind looked up from the pants’ zipper—which suddenly seemed to him like a very complicated device—and stared at his friend in surprise. “Really? You’ve come to deliver a dinner invitation?”

“It was Linda’s idea,” Alec said sincerely. “Me, I would’ve much preferred to deliver a punch. You’re seriously starting to piss me off.” He looked around once again. “I mean, for fuck’s sake, man! Can’t you do this shit at your own place?”

“No way I’m bringing a whore to my place and letting her know where I live.”

“So trashing the club’s headquarters is okay?”

Lind rolled his eyes. “The headquarters are hardly trashed. Just this one room.” He grinned.

Alec did not look amused. “Clean yourself up. I don’t want you smelling like booze and sperm around my kids.”

Lind snorted. “Whatever you say.”

Alec ran a hand slowly across his face and took in a long breath, clearly trying to keep his temper in check. “Get yourself into the shower. Then, we’re going out.”

Lind frowned. “Is it dinnertime already?”

“No, you misfit. We’re getting you some black coffee, and we’re getting you cleaned up
before
dinnertime rolls along.” Alec glared murderously at him. “I don’t care what Linda says, you are
not
setting foot in my house looking and smelling like that.”