Embracing Everly (17 page)

“I can stay here forever and never leave,” I hummed more to myself than him, but felt the kiss he placed on the top of my head as I lie there with my head on his chest.

He smacked my ass playfully. “Next time. I made a promise, and I plan on keeping it.”

Confused, I sat up, tilting my head trying to recall our conversation, but came up short. “What promise?”

He smiled as his fingers slipped through my hair tucking the strands behind my ear. “Go get your polish.”

My mouth dropped open. “You really want to paint my nails?”

“Yeah, Ev, go get your stuff.”

I continued to stare blankly at him. “What?”

“I don’t know how I feel about you painting my toes.”

He sat up, scooting me to the side. His hand slowly slid down my leg until my foot was in his hand, his fingers tapping each toe. “Feet and toes are ugly most of the time. But, these, Angel, are fucking sexy. And when you paint them it makes them even more appealing to me. So, go get your nail stuff and let’s do this.”

Well, when he put it like that. I raced to the drawer in my bathroom and picked out a new color. Quickly, I grabbed a cotton ball and erased the remnants of the pink shade I’d been wearing forever. I was ready for a change.

Mick was sitting up with his boxers back on when I got back to him. “Here you go.” I handed over the polish, a Q-tip and my mini pedicure kit. I shook the bottle to start.

“Give me that,” he tried to steal it from me, but I held it up high.

“I’ll start.” I pulled my leg up, tucking my knee under my chin and used careful strokes to paint my big toe. I peeked up to see Mick looking sullen. I moved just enough to rest my leg over his thigh. “Here.” I handed him the polish.

“Blue, huh?”

“Not just any blue.” I tipped his hand up to read the label. “Teal the Cows Come Home blue with sparkles.” He didn’t say anything he just began to do precision work, even using my nail pusher thingy from my kit to swipe away some excess paint that had gotten on my skin.

“I didn’t peg you for a professional nail artist.” His eyes glanced up but refocused on my toes a heartbeat later.

“I have a twin sister who used to have sleepovers, and they made me play with them when we were little.”

I jolted up hearing something personal. “I didn’t know that. What’s her name? Where is she?”

He frowned, but his hand kept going as he moved to the other foot. “Mary Catherine and she’s in Ireland.”

“Oh, well what’s she like?”

This time his hand stopped, but he didn’t look up. “Look, I don’t want to talk about my family.” He lifted my foot and blew on my toes.

“But, I’m interested. You know so much about me, I feel like I only know a piece of you. A very good piece.” I ran my foot over the bulge in his boxers, “but not enough.”

He placed my foot down and swung my legs over the side. “I don’t like to talk about my past because I don’t want the present me to be judged for it.”

I shook my head, watching him stand to get dressed. “I don’t get that. Why would I judge you? I wouldn’t.”

“Ev,” he leaned down and pecked my lips with his. “Not today, okay? I told you more than most people.”

“Okay,” I agreed because I could tell by his somber demeanor it was most definitely a taboo subject for him. “Where are you going?”

“Pasta, remember? Get dressed.”

So that’s what I did, but the whole time I wondered what he was hiding from me.

SEEING HER SPREAD
eagle, my face between her thighs was like drinking a bottle of Jack and letting it go straight to my head. I’d been with so many girls in my day, but she had the nicest, pinkest, perkiest, sweet one I had ever seen or tasted. But then again, maybe it was because I liked her so much and was biased. I had gone over with the intention of taking her out to dinner, but when she answered the door wet and only wearing a robe, I couldn’t think of anything else but getting a taste of her. And then it got personal, and I couldn’t do personal, not yet.

I took her for pasta to her favorite place once we were able to get dressed, toes dried and off her couch. She didn’t want to go away for Spring Break, which was fine with me. She wanted to write a little more, and she had a few gigs at a bar across town that had called her up last minute. She was psyched. Me? Not so much. Different drinks, different atmosphere and different people to contend with. I hadn’t heard shit about the Reapers from Dawson other than there was some chatter, but nothing to really go on, but I remained vigilant in my duties.

It was Friday night when my phone buzzed. Without being too obvious, I took a peek to see Dawson’s number flashing on the screen. I hit ignore, knowing there was no way in hell I could take his call right now and slipped it back into my pocket. “You sure you want to wear that? What was wrong with what you had on before?” I asked as I watched her getting ready. I’d been pretending to thumb through a magazine, but could barely rip my eyes away from her succulent little figure as she dodged back and forth from one room to the next.

Everly was slipping into a tight as fuck dress, the color of her blue eyes with a pair of high-heeled boots that stopped at her ankles. She stared at my reflection in the mirror, watching without answering me. When she finally did, she sounded pissed. “Are you going to start?” she snapped.

I shook my head. “Nah, babe, you just leave little to the imagination with the shit you wear to sing. I know it’s for the money and all, but damn, Ev.”

She sauntered over until she was bent over, her long hair flowing around her angelic face. I leaned back waiting for her to go off on a tangent, but then she smiled. “Stop being jealous. I come home to you and only you.”

“You bet your sweet ass you come home only to me.” I hauled her down beside me as she giggled, pleading for me to stop until I ceased tickling her. I looked down into her eyes, and I didn’t know what the fuck came over me, but the words slipped out. “Damn, I think I might love you, Angel.”

Everly froze with tears instantly brimming her eyes. “Do you mean that? Or is it just heat of the moment kind of thing?” Her eyes burned into mine and as much as I wanted to deny it, rescind the words, I couldn’t. She had me. At first it went right by me and straight over my head. I never thought I would say these words out loud to anyone. I was constantly looking for my next lay, or forcing myself to deny the attraction I had to her. But she fit like a perfect glove, and I was finally looking at her, at us, not through some window watching my life go by.

My lips caressed hers ever so gently, tasting the strawberry lip-gloss she applied just before she came out of the bathroom. “I meant it, baby. I love you,” I whispered into her mouth. There I said it. It was out and done. And as much as I had always hated the tender term, ‘baby,’ I found it fit her. Fuck Dawson. Fuck Charlie the douchebag. Fuck my shit family who hadn’t tried to reach out for the last six years. Fuck everyone. I wanted to keep her. If that meant breaking down like a pussy, snuggling and all that shit she wanted, so be it. She was the best damn thing to happen to me in a long ass time.

My phone buzzed again in my pocket. I ignored it knowing I’d call him as soon as I got a free minute. “Mick…”

“I don’t expect you say it back, Angel. You asked, so I told you. It’s fine.” I kissed her quickly and leaped up from hovering over her, feeling uncomfortable all of a sudden.

“Hey,” she called, pulling me back down by my hand. “I wasn’t done with you.” I waited knowing she was probably going to say it back to me out of obligation and not mean it. That was one of the things I hated about the word; people tossed it around with no consideration of how much it might mean to another. With love comes trust and those two never have panned out in the past, so I didn’t expect it to now. But, I could hope.

“Mick, I can almost see it in your eyes. The disbelief if I say it back, but I do. I do love you. I think I started the night you helped me with the CD’s, and I knew for sure when we were alone in the back of that cop car. That’s when I really knew I felt something for you. I was afraid to tell you, or let you think it because you always preached about being single and stuff. You know you’re the only man who has ever held me all night long? The only man to make me feel so alive, and wanted—completely alive and wanted, Mick. And you’re also the only man who makes me want better for myself because you believe in me and my music, and I love you so much for that.”

I studied her, my hands skimmed down until they rested on the curve of her ass. “Do you really need to go to work after that cute little speech?”

“I do.” She planted a quick kiss on my nose. “I’ll come by after and sleep at your place tonight?”

“Yeah, okay” I sighed, hugging her tighter.

“What?” She tossed her arms around my shoulders.

“Just thinking if you’d notice if I slipped out and took the spark plug out of your car.” She giggled, and I loved the sound of her as she buried her face in the crook of my neck. Her warm breath was making me want more, but knowing it would have to wait. “I got some stuff to do, but I’ll be here waiting for you. Or, I could drop you off, and then swing by to grab you later?”

“Well, Mick around the age of three I received my big girl panties and am quite able to do things all by myself,” she teased.

I pinched her ass, leaving my hand resting on her cheek. “I don’t like you in that parking lot at night. Have someone walk you out, Angel, and yes, that’s an order.”

“Okay,” she pushed off me and I hated the feeling of her leaving the protection of my arms. “I’ll see you soon, stud.” She blew me a kiss and then grabbed her bag to leave.

It took me almost half an hour to gather my thoughts before I found myself staring down at my cell knowing I needed to make the one call I dreaded. I debated on telling Dawson about Angel and me the whole time. How would he react? Would he freak the fuck out like I initially did when I realized what she had meant? Would he stand behind us? Would he pull me from the job? That was the most crucial of questions that I couldn’t seem to shake. I didn’t want to leave her.

My phone vibrated in my hand taking the decision away. I swallowed and cleared my throat several times. “Yeah.”

“Irish, I’ve called four fucking times over the last hour and I want to know why you didn’t pick up? I just got home from a job to find a message from Everly waiting for me, and it’s almost a week old. What the hell is going on? Is she okay? Why is she calling?”

This was news to me. “Dawson, slow down, man. Back up a sec. Ev called you when?”

I could hear him sifting through papers through the phone. “Last Sunday, the twenty-first. Thomas must’ve given her the club number and Beth took the message not knowing to call me.”

“She’s fine, Dawson. She’s singing right now. She dumped the dude after the beat down she gave his car. I’m keeping a close eye on her.”

“So, she just called me out of the blue?” I could hear the suspicion in his voice.

I shrugged forgetting he couldn’t see me. “I guess. I could dig for you? We’ve um… become close friends, so I could find out.”

Silence on the end of the phone had me closing eyes waiting for the incoming lecture, the screaming, and the threats. “How close?”

I cleared my throat. “I don’t know, we hang out and watch movies after she gets back from work sometimes,” I lied. There was something in his voice that had me on edge, and I couldn’t risk caving and coming clean with him just yet.

“And this kid she broke up with, any threat?”

I laughed into my cell. “Nah, he’s a pussy. What about her dad? Have you heard from him?”

“Once. He’s down deep. He has a few contacts that are keeping him engaged in what’s going on up here. Reapers have been quiet and busy, so that’s good news.”

“Yeah, it is. How much longer until Thomas is able to reach out to her?”

“Man, no clue. I’m going to call her back in the morning and see what’s up.”

“Yeah,” I paused, running my hand through my hair wondering if she’d tell him anything about us. Her mentioning me to Dawson could be a tragic mistake. One I couldn’t even discuss with her.

After a few more details about the other men and a few more questions about Everly, he finally disconnected the call.

Fuck! Somehow I had to convince Everly not to mention my name to Dawson in any other form besides friendship. Since I had zero experience in the “love” department, I wasn’t even sure how to tackle the subject and only hoped I didn’t piss her off, questioning my feelings for her.