Snake Charmer (Diamondbacks Motorcycle Club Book 2) (8 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Eve couldn’t remember the last time she had sat in café, just enjoying her time there. She thought it might have been back in college, when she would go to the cafeteria to study. Now, she had gotten back in the habit, and she was loving it. What she loved even more was that it was Lind sitting across from her, sipping black coffee.

Eve didn’t know much about overwhelming, all-consuming feelings. She had heard about them, but she had never experienced them for herself. Until now. She relished the overwhelming, all-consuming qualities of the bubbling joy brought on by simply spending time with a man she was in love with, for a change.

Back when she was trying to nurse her broken heart by attempting to drown it in work that she hated, Eve had dreamed about this kind of ordinary. She had dreamed about the everyday things. She had wanted nothing more than to do something absolutely meaningless with Lind, like hanging out drinking coffee. She had dreamed of building an everyday life with him. They were building it now, slowly but surely, and they were doing it together.

Togetherness was also something Eve wasn’t quite familiar with. She was used to being able to count on herself only. She didn’t think the relationship she’d had in the past could be counted as emotionally mature. She was learning now how to be in one, and she was enjoying this learning curve immensely.

She wasn’t surprised to discover that Lind wasn’t that much more experienced when it came to sharing himself on an emotional level. He had spent his whole life guarding himself against others. Eve had, too, albeit in a different way. The result was that they were both learning, and she liked that they were both out of their element and finding their way together.

“What should we bring tonight?” she asked, her thoughts shifting to that night’s dinner. Everyday life. She loved it.

Lind looked at her as if she had just asked him whether they should go to China. “What do you mean?”

“To your friend’s house,” she clarified. “What should we bring? Do they drink wine?”

Lind shrugged. “I guess. But you really don’t have to bring anything, you know?”

“I want to,” Eve said. “It’s only polite.”

Lind grinned. “Whatever you say, princess,” he teased.

“Jerk,” she said, punching his arm playfully and instantly leaning over to sweeten the blow with a kiss.

Lind kissed her back as passionately as it was decent to do in a public place, and then he finally released her. “Red wine is fine,” he said as an afterthought.

Eve nodded. “Good.”

She felt a pang of nervousness at the thought of the night that awaited them. Alec was finally out of the hospital. Lind had mended his relationship with him, as well as with the rest of the Diamondbacks, so much so that he had admitted to them that he and Eve were now a tentative item. As a result, Alec had invited them over to their house for dinner.

Lind shifted in his seat, and that’s when Eve realized that she may not be the only one to be anxious.

“Are you nervous?” she asked.

Lind grimaced. “A little,” he admitted.

“Should
I
be nervous?”

“You? Why should you be nervous?”

Eve shrugged. “Well…your friend isn’t exactly the easiest person to get along with.”

Lind laughed. “Don’t mind Alec, sweetheart. It’s all an act. He’s a good guy, really.”

“Oh, that much I noticed when he ran after me to try and prevent me from getting killed despite him not liking me very much,” Eve said with a smile.

She was surprised at how easy the words came to her mouth. For weeks she had been unable to go anywhere near the subject of what had happened with Gary; the whole thing still gave her nightmares. But she knew that, in order for them to move forward, she had to force herself to move past it. So, she had begun to talk about it, and now she even found herself making jokes. She took it as a very good sign.

“Are you worried they might not like you?” Lind asked.

Her eyes widened. She hadn’t even thought about that. “
Now
I am.”

“Sorry,” Lind offered, grinning. “Don’t worry; they’re going to love you.”

Eve took a long sip from her latte. “I hope so,” she said, frowning worriedly.

Lind gave her a reassuring smile, and she instantly felt calmer.

God, but she was hopeless. She had never been so smitten in her whole life. Everything about Lind drove her crazy. It wasn’t just about his perfect body, or his impossibly blue eyes, or his killer smile—all of which admittedly did not hurt. It was
everything
about him. It was his character. It was his sensible nature, which he hid so carefully but never carefully enough. It was his hotheaded side. It was his sharp mind and his sense of humor. He had plenty of it, and it was a refreshing kind of humor that never failed to make her laugh. She loved that about him.

Not for the first time, Eve found herself wondering how she ever lived without Lind. She tried to imagine her life without him in it, and she failed. It had only been a few weeks since she had kicked Alan out of her life, but she was already loving the small bits of routine they had managed to establish for themselves. She proud of them both for doing that.

She loved their brunches together. She loved sitting with Lind in small cafés and having long conversations over a cup of caffeine. She loved watching movies with him at night, curled up together on her white couch. She loved it when they slept together without doing anything else; she loved the new intimacy of it. She even loved doing boring things like going grocery shopping with him. With Lind, even that task was never boring.

She loved everything about Lind Addams, and she was never going to let him out of her life ever again. With him, she could be herself. She wasn’t entirely sure who she was, now that her whole life was turned upside down, but Lind was helping her figure it out. And Eve loved him for it.

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CHAPTER ONE

According to some people, sex is overrated. According to some people, an asexual relationship is the utmost expression of self. According to some people, the level of intimacy that develops within an asexual bond is the highest, more profound form of love that one can experience in a lifetime.

Not according to Eve. According to Eve, the importance of sex could not be stressed enough. She made the huge, spectacular mistake of underestimating the vital importance of sex in a relationship before, and she was never going to make that miscalculation again. It was very hard to imagine life without Lind’s body. Without them lying skin to skin, flesh to flesh. Without Lind’s touch. Without his deep, passionate thrusts. Without his breathtaking kisses.

It was very hard to imagine an existence devoid of her hands running all over his glorious body. Without her nails scratching down his muscular back. Without her giving in to him so utterly and completely that it took her breath away every time.

Eve had had a nearly asexual relationship with her ex-fiancé, but that was due more to the relationship being unfulfilling on all levels than to a real lack of interest in sex. Well, that wasn’t exact: she had been uninterested in having sex with Alan. Whenever she had forced herself to do it, it had been a sterile and unsatisfying affair.

But Lind was no Alan. Lind could make her want him just by walking into a room.

Sex may be overrated for some people, but those people had never met Lind Addams. Eve was currently lost in his embrace, and she wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. There was something about Lind’s bedroom skills that defied language. Add to his natural talent the fact that they had been dating for almost five months now and he knew Eve’s body by heart, and you had quite the explosive mix.

Sometimes Eve wished he weren’t this skilled. No one had ever made her lose control the way that Lind did, and it made her feel vulnerable and exposed in a way that, once the afterglow dissipated and rationality returned, she wasn’t sure she liked.

But there was nothing rational about sex with Lind. It was raw and physical, and there simply wasn’t any room for thought. Her mind used to wander whenever she had sex with Alan. Not so with Lind. With Lind, Eve couldn’t think about anything but whatever he was doing to her.

Presently, she was lying on the large Persian-like rug in Lind’s living room, as he took her with powerful thrusts that wracked her whole body. The thing about Lind was that he didn’t just make love with his pelvis; he did it with his whole body. Even as his hips pushed forward and back in a crazy, ardent rhythm, his mouth left love bites on the flesh of her throat, and his teeth delivered gentle pricks to the sensitive skin there. One of his hands pressed down on her hip, keeping her pelvis in place and at his mercy, while the other found Eve’s hand and entwined their fingers together.

Because that was the other thing about Lind, he never fucked her for the sake of it. He always seemed to strive for an emotional contact.

Eve squeezed his fingers tightly and arched up against him, relishing in the sensation of having him inside of her. Five months down the road and her body still responded to every single one of Lind’s touches and movements, as if it were the very first time. Eve loved the automatic reflex in her body that caused her to clench down on him as soon as he would enter her. It was as if her own body was telling her that this was a man she had better keep close.

She rode the exhilarating waves of his hunger; the tide created by their bodies surging and swelling in an all-consuming rhythm. They came together, as they so often did—sometimes out of luck, and sometimes because Lind would delay his orgasm in order to accompany her in her climax. This ride had been so wild that Eve didn’t quite have the strength to hold him afterwards and just lay there underneath him, panting as though she had run a very satisfying marathon. Lind remained still too, both of them simply relishing the closeness of their bodies to one another.

Eventually, Lind moved out of her and off of her. He lay on his back on the mattress, his features sporting a blissed-out expression that Eve was sure mirrored her own. He turned his head to look at her and smiled a content smile.

“Good morning,” he greeted, his voice rough with lack of use and sexual satisfaction.

Eve smirked and snuggled up close to him, biting the side of his neck playfully. “Morning,” she said, inhaling his scent. He smelled like sleep and sex, and the combination was better than any cologne.

Lind encircled her shoulders with one arm and began absently playing with her long golden-blonde locks. “What are you going to do today?”

Eve thought about it. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment. “I’m probably just going to walk around, have a ‘me’ day. Maybe I’ll go to the movies.” She stretched languidly.

It was the first time, she realized, that she didn’t feel all that guilty about planning a lazy day. A month ago she had finally found the courage to quit her real estate job, which was almost literally sucking the life out of her. Try as she might to get back into it, setting unbelievably rich people up with mansions in Malibu or the O.C. just didn’t give her the thrill that it used to. With Lind’s support, she had finally reached the decision to quit and allowed herself to take a few months to take it slow and figure out what she wanted to do in life.

It had not been an easy transition. Eve came from a rich world herself, but she was a hard worker; she wasn’t used to slow days. She wasn’t used to stopping and giving herself time. For the first few weeks, she had felt like she was being lazy and spoiled, even if the savings that were allowing her to take this time off were in her bank account solely thanks to her own hard work. But as time went by, Lind’s support for her decision finally began to sink in, and she began to realize that she not only deserved the chance to figure her life out, she owed it to herself.

Eve had embarked on a journey of self-discovery, and it brought with it a freedom of choice that she simply didn’t know what to do with. Her life’s circumstances had chosen her path for her, and she had let them. Now, it was time to reclaim the choice for herself.

“Sounds good,” Lind said, interrupting her reverie. “Any movie in particular that you’d like to see?”

Eve shrugged. “Nah. I’ll just pick between whatever the theaters have to offer.”

Even something as little and ordinary as going to the movies by herself was a big deal to Eve. It was something that she loved to do. It was a couple of hours carved out just for herself that made her feel independent and never failed to recharge her batteries. And yet, for the longest time, she had denied herself that luxury for fear of what anyone who knew her might think if they saw her eating popcorn in front of the big screen all by her lonesome.

But that was the old, insecure Eve. The new Eve couldn’t care less. After finding the strength to break things off with Alan, Eve had promised herself she would take better care of herself. She would strive to do things that made her happy, no matter what anyone might think.

It was a new, electrifying kind of confidence that Eve was just learning to get to know and explore. It had always been within her, she realized, but it was Lind who had given her the strength to unbury it. Whatever happened with him, she knew she would always be grateful to him for that.

She pulled herself up on her elbows and leaned down to kiss him—swift but intense. “I’m going to fix us some breakfast.”

Lind’s impossibly blue eyes lit up. “French toast?” he asked hopefully.

Eve laughed. Sometimes he could be incredibly child-like in his enthusiasm for the little things. “Sure, baby.”

He grinned happily and rolled out of bed with renewed energy, delivering a playful smack to her butt on his way to the bathroom. A moment later, Eve could hear the sound of the shower water running.

She stretched some more to work the last remnants of sleep out of her body and left the comfort of the sheets. She slipped into Lind’s t-shirt that lay discarded on the floor. It smelled like him—cigarettes, cologne, and just a hint of sweat. It was a masculine smell, a solid smell. It had nothing to do with the smell of the corporate men Eve had before, all expensive cologne and sedentary life.

She made her way to the kitchen and immediately opened the window above the sink. Fresh air hit her, and she inhaled deeply. She waved at Mr. Sandborn, who was placing one of his beloved plants, freshly watered, back on the living room’s windowsill. The old man waved back and gave her a bright smile before disappearing back inside his house across the street.

Eve walked up to the battered radio on the kitchen’s counter and turned it on. The soft rock of Lind’s favorite morning station soon filled the kitchen, and Eve let the songs lead her in the dance of making breakfast. She moved in a fluid rhythm, knowing perfectly where everything was in Lind’s kitchen by now.

As she put on a fresh pot of coffee to brew, the fluid quality of her movements hit her, and she suddenly realized that this was a routine. Having sex in the early hours of the morning. Lind taking his shower. Eve making breakfast and listening to music as she cooked. She was around enough and did this often enough that even Lind’s neighbors were recognizing her.

The notion that they had reached a level of intimacy where cooking dinner in his kitchen while he showered was seen as the most natural thing in the world filled her with both exhilaration and anxiety. She may be struggling to leave the old Eve behind, but it was still part of her, and both the old and the new Eve were prone to ask themselves:
Where is this going
?

Eve tried not to obsess about the question too much, but it would pop up in her mind occasionally. It certainly popped up now, as she dipped the bread into the eggs and put it all in a pan.

Where is this going?

They rarely—if ever—discussed their relationship. There was a mutual acknowledgment of the fact that they were both treading in an entirely new territory, and they were both doing the best to find their feet with as little damage to the other person as possible. They actively tried not to rush things or push each other, and Eve knew without even having to ask that having “The Talk” would send Lind running.

“It smell delicious in here.”

Eve looked up to see Lind enter the kitchen wearing nothing but his jeans. She swallowed hard. Any exposed inch of his body always had that effect on her; it made her mouth run dry. She hoped that effect would never wear off, no matter what routines they settled into.

She gave him a smile as he walked up to her. “It’ll be ready soon,” she said.

He wrapped both arms around her from behind and kissed her neck, his wet hair tickling her skin. He inhaled deeply. “You smell like butter,” he rumbled against her nape. “If I didn’t have to go to work, I’d take you again right here in this kitchen.”

Eve felt a surge of renewed passion and quickly squashed it down. “Alec will have both our hides if I make you late again,” she said.

Lind grunted a protest, delivered a bite to her neck, and finally released her to go pour the coffee.

Eve thought it was very
Sons of Anarchy
-esque, the way Lind worked as a mechanic at the garage Alec had inherited from his father, but she had soon learned that the Diamondbacks hated the comparison, and so she refrained from bringing it up. Still, it didn’t stop her from smirking to herself whenever she thought about it.

  Spotting the grin on her face, Lind rolled his eyes. “You’re picturing Charlie Hunnam again, aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” Eve conceded, as she turned off the stove and began to serve the French toast. “He sure is hot.”

Lind snorted, as he took the steaming mugs to the table and took his seat. “I don’t understand why you’re wasting your time fantasizing about some actor when you have a real life biker at your disposal.”

Eve placed a full plate in front of him and brought her own breakfast to her own seat across from him. “For the same reason you fantasize about Scarlett Johansson whenever you watch
Avengers
.”

“Hey, that’s not the same thing,” Lind said with a teasing grin. “I don’t have a real life superhero at my disposal.”