“I thought you were moving to Washington,” he pressed.
“I am,” I said warily—was he really letting me off the hook that easily? “My mom is planning a wardrobe shopping spree as soon as I get to town. And my dad emailed listings for about a billion possible condos.”
I was smiling like an idiot, and I was damn sure that I was trying too hard.
“So what’s this with Black?” he asked, destroying my fantasy that he’d dropped the subject. “Just one of those good girl/bad boy flings?”
“What the hell, Kevin?” I’d intended my tone to sound sharp—the perfect
fuck off
exit point for this conversation. But instead, it came out tired and a little wary.
“I still care about you. More, I worry about you.”
I held up a hand. “This isn’t a conversation we’re having.” I had to move. Had to get out of there. But when I started to walk away, he grabbed my arm. I shook it free. “Jesus, Kev—”
“If you don’t get out, I don’t know that I’ll be able to pull you out.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snapped. Not exactly a lie, but not the truth, either.
“You know,” he said. “Because I already told you, and I told you more than I should. He’s bad news, Angie. And so are Cole August and Tyler Sharp. Stay away from them.”
My heart was pounding so hard that I could barely hear my own words through the thrumming in my ears. “You know what, Kevin? I’d like to say it was a pleasure running into you, but that would be a huge lie. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find my date.”
Except I didn’t go find Evan. I moved out of the main room into one of the smaller adjoining rooms, then leaned against the wall, closed my eyes, and concentrated on breathing as I tried to get my shit together.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I’d known almost from the beginning that the stuff Kevin said about Evan was probably true. That there was illegal shit going on in the background. And, hell, hadn’t Evan almost—
almost
—even confessed as much to me? And, damn me, hadn’t the possibility made me hot? The possibility that Evan was pulling one over on the FBI made him larger than life. Exciting. Sensual. Thrilling.
But now—
Now with worms like Larry approaching me and Kevin hounding me—
Oh, god, now it all felt too real. Too scary.
I remembered the twisting, nausea-inducing fear when I’d been arrested. No, not fear.
Terror.
The knowledge that everything I’d worked for and loved could be ripped away from me in an instant, pulled out from under me and replaced with bars and a cold floor and the eyes of the world looking hard at me and knowing that I screwed up.
I didn’t want that for Evan—not for any of the knights.
Even more, I didn’t want it for me. Didn’t want the risk of being forced to testify. To sit in a small room with questions tossed at me. And didn’t want the risk that someone I loved would be yanked away from me.
Loved.
I squeezed my eyes tight, pushing the thought away. Breathing deep. Trying desperately to keep myself from coming completely undone.
A soft tap on the door frame had me almost jumping out of my skin. I opened my eyes and whipped my head around to face Evan.
“What’s wrong?”
I managed a watery smile. “That obvious?”
He moved to my side. “I know you.”
“So does some guy named Larry.” I watched him as I spoke, saw the tension run through him. “He gave me a message. I’m supposed to tell you to back off.” I sucked in a breath. “Will you tell me who he is?”
He said nothing for a minute, then he lifted his hand, displaying his knuckles. “I mentioned him before,” he said. “He’s one of the assholes who was messing with the girls.”
“Oh.” I thought about that, then decided not to press for more. Whatever was going on under the surface, Evan already knew about it. And I didn’t see even a hint of fear in his eyes. I did, however, see a spark of anger as he reached out and gently stroked my cheek.
“He scared you.”
“He was creepy,” I admitted. “But I’m okay now.” I looked in his eyes and realized it was true. As corny as it sounded, I was okay now because Evan was beside me.
“I saw you talking to Kevin.”
“Lucky me.”
“Everything okay there, too?”
I nodded. What was I going to say? That I’d realized I was terrified for him and, oh, by the way, I might be falling in love with him, too? I settled for, “Yeah. Everything’s fine. He saw me talking to Larry, too.”
I met his eyes, and though he only nodded, I knew he understood my unspoken message:
Be careful. Please, please be careful.
“What else did he say?”
“He said that he missed me.”
“I see.” I saw the vulnerability in his eyes, and I had to bite back a gasp as a sudden realization shook me. Evan might be everything that Kevin accused him of. He might be dangerous as hell. But right then, I had the power to hurt him.
I reached out and brushed my thumb over his lip. “I told him that I didn’t miss him at all,” I said.
He held my eyes for what felt like eternity. I saw relief there. And I saw what I wanted to believe was love.
After a moment, he blinked. “I need to take care of something,” he said gently, and though I didn’t ask, I had a feeling that Larry was the reason for this change in plans. “It shouldn’t take long. Wait for me at the boat?”
My smile felt watery. “I think I’ll go home instead,” I said. I wanted to be on familiar ground with my thoughts.
Evan eyed me cautiously. “You’re sure everything is okay?”
I leaned close and kissed him hard and slow and deep. “Everything’s fine. My dad emailed over a bunch of pictures of condos. I should look at them, you know.”
His expression hardened. “Sure. He’s probably expecting your reply.”
“Come over later?”
“As soon as I can.”
“Good,” I said.
“I’ll have Red take you home. I’ll ride with Cole.”
The drive only took a few minutes, and I was up the elevator, in the condo, and pouring a glass of wine in less than an hour. There was a message from Evan on my phone, and I realized he must have called in the short span of time when I had no service in the elevator.
“Change of plans. I have to fly to Indiana to take care of a few things, but I’ll be back tomorrow. Have a good day at work. I’ll be thinking of you.”
I carried my wine to bed and repeated his words in my head. I’d be thinking of him, too. About him. About threats and crimes and the FBI. About Washington.
And, yes. About flying.
I stayed awake as long as I could, fighting sleep. For the last few days, there’d been no nightmares. But tonight, without Evan beside me, I knew that they would come again. Salt-water scented dreams punctuated by the hollow screams of my sister. Dreams that reached out and grabbed me from sleep, so pernicious that they even followed me to work the next day where I sat, bleary-eyed at my desk, and tried to focus on Kat’s voice, tinny and thin over the phone.
“Kevin’s a prick,” she was saying. “He’s just flashing his badge around so he can feel like a badass.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” I’d told her about Kevin, but not about Larry. “But I don’t want to think about Kevin at all.” I sighed. “I still haven’t heard from Evan today. I need a distraction. Want to grab a drink? Flynn’s working tonight. We could go harass him at the bar.”
“Sounds like fun. See you there around eight?”
“Perfect.”
I left a message for Flynn as soon as I got home from work telling him to expect us that evening. And then, since I had a couple of hours to kill before I changed and headed to the saloon, I decided to take a sketchpad and a glass of wine and head up to the patio.
I was sketching Evan’s face from memory when the intercom on the bar buzzed, followed by Peterson’s cultured voice. “Mr. Black is here. May I send him up?”
I pushed the button to reply. “He’s here? Or he’s on the phone?”
“He’s standing right in front of me.”
My pulse quickened. “Send him up.” I stood and started pacing. I was so damn eager that I felt like a fool. He’d been gone less than twenty-four hours, and I felt like he’d been away for a year.
In other words, I had it bad.
In other words, in about a week, I was going to be royally screwed.
Dangerous.
Yeah. Evan Black was as dangerous as they came.
I heard him push open the door, and I sprinted that direction, only to skid to a stop when he emerged, looking relaxed and windblown and sexy as hell.
I wanted to stand there and soak in the wonder of him. I wanted this moment, when it was just the two of us, and no secrets and no threats.
Then he held out his arms and I collapsed into them, overwhelmed by the sudden, inescapable feeling that this was like coming home.
Except it was only an illusion.
I knew the surface of his secrets, but only what he’d revealed to me and only as an allegory. And while I’d been telling myself that was okay since I was leaving—that it was for the best, even—the truth was I wanted more. I wanted so much more.
Because I’d realized that it wasn’t the fantasy I’d spun about Evan Black that gave me that thrill I craved so much—it was the man himself. His presence, his humor, his tenderness. Even his secrets.
And all I wanted in that moment was to know him. To really and truly know him.
“What is it?” he asked, stepping back to take a good, long look at my face.
I half-laughed. What was it I’d said? That he saw me? Apparently, I’d been dead on the money with that one. There was no keeping things hidden from this man.
I wanted to beg him to tell me his secrets, but I was desperately afraid that if I asked he would say no. And I didn’t want to face that, not right then. Not when he’d just walked through my door.
And so I kept my own secret, hiding my real needs behind a false smile. “It’s nothing,” I said. “Just that I didn’t expect you tonight, and I already have plans with Kat and Flynn at the pub. But I can break them.”
“Don’t do that. I’ll go with you. Cole wanted to grab a drink tonight anyway. I’ll tell him to meet us.”
“Yeah?” I couldn’t help my smile. It felt so nice—so
normal
—to be planning an evening out with friends. “What about Tyler?”
“Tyler thinks that you and I are a bad idea.”
I nodded, my chest feeling unwelcomely tight. I loved Tyler like a brother and hated this feeling that I was disappointing him somehow. “But Cole doesn’t?” He sure as hell hadn’t been the picture of support at Destiny.
The corner of Evan’s mouth quirked up. “He thinks we’re a bad idea, too. But he also knows you’re leaving soon. He said we might as well get each other out of our systems while we have the chance.”
“I see.” My stomach felt like it was filled with rocks. “Well. There you go. I always knew Cole was a smart guy.” My smile felt wobbly. “A fling before Washington. Almost sounds like the name of a really bad movie.”
I tried to force a grin, but Evan’s expression was entirely humorless. He reached out and gently stroked my jawline. “It won’t ever happen, you know. It’s not possible that you would ever be out of my system. You could walk away right now, and even if I never saw you again, I would always hold you tight inside me.”
The rocks dissolved, and I felt lighter than air. I couldn’t seem to form a proper response, but when I lifted myself up on my toes and pressed my lips to his, I think he understood. His mouth tasted like mint, and though it had only been one night, I missed him like crazy. I didn’t even want to think about how I was going to survive in Washington. If nothing else, I supposed Congressman Winslow was about to get himself the best damn employee ever, because I was going to dive so deep into my work that I didn’t have time or energy to think of anything else, not even the man I was falling in love with.
I trembled in his arms, finally acknowledging the thought I’d tried to ignore at the art exhibition. I’d fallen for Evan Black years ago. But I’d fallen in love within the last few days. When I had to leave, it would be a different kind of fall altogether.
“Hey,” he said, breaking our kiss and then dipping his head to brush his lips over the tip of my nose. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“That I want you inside me,” I said.
He glanced at his watch, then back up at me. His smile was slow and sensual and completely melted me. “What time are we supposed to be at the pub?”
“Do you care if we’re late?”
“Hell no,” he said.
“Then it doesn’t matter.” I pressed against him. “We should go down to the bedroom.”
“We should,” he agreed.
“I don’t want to move.”
“Then don’t.”
“I want it hard,” I said. “No talk, no niceties. Just you inside me five minutes ago.”
“Jesus, Lina,” he growled, then scooped me up so that my legs were around his waist. We were only a few feet from the kitchen area, and he plunked me down on the countertop, yanking my skirt up in the process, then ripping his jeans open so fast I was surprised the buttons didn’t pop. I spread my legs, wanting him, unable to wait even another second, and then reached down to try to fumble out of my panties.
“No,” he said, and as I tilted my head up in question, he reached out and tugged the crotch of my panties roughly to one side. He thrust two fingers inside me, so hard and fast and deep that I cried out, and then he moved in between my legs, his cock positioned now where his fingers used to be. I was already soaked, but as soon as I looked down at where our bodies were joined—at the way he was moving inside me and the way my body was drawing him in—I got even wetter still.
“Harder,” I demanded as he pistoned against me, his hands on my hips holding me in place even as I leaned back, bracing myself with my hands on the counter. “Yes, please,
more.
” I’d lost the ability to form a coherent thought. I was need only. I was desire.
And then—faster than I could ever remember coming in my life—I burst into a wild flurry of molecules, everything I was melting into everything that was Evan.
“Baby.” He sighed, his body still trembling against mine as I clung to him.