“I said the same to Leigh.”
“Good.”
He said no more.
She waited again.
He still said no more.
Evangeline again filled the silence.
“Okay, then, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, Evangeline.”
With that, she heard the disconnect.
She stared at her phone.
It wasn’t like she didn’t expect a fight. A wild ride. Ups. Downs. Steps forward. Steps back.
But after last night, first sitting held in his arms in his lap at the Honey like they’d done it thousands of times before, then being pulled into his arms in her bed, she thought …
It didn’t matter what she thought.
She needed to stay strong.
She was getting in there.
She knew it.
And she’d come to know that Branch was worth the ups. The downs. The wild ride.
The fight.
She just needed not to give up.
thirteen
Evenly Matched
EVANGELINE
At nine o’clock Tuesday night, Evangeline heard the kitchen door open.
She was sitting in her couch, back to the door, not exactly watching the fourth episode of True Detective.
She looked not over her shoulder toward the kitchen door, but down to her phone that was sitting on the seat of the couch beside her, which she activated.
The text string came up.
Saturday at 6:23 p.m.: Not going to make it. Tomorrow.
Sunday at 5:40 p.m.: Tonight’s not good. Tomorrow.
Monday at 6:57 p.m.: Tonight won’t work. Tomorrow. Seven.
That day at 7:47 p.m.: Be late. Around nine. All right?
She hadn’t answered.
Because she was a woman.
A woman who met a man who, in his way, had told her the score.
Okay, she’d changed that score.
But fuck it, he didn’t fight too hard.
And he’d done some adjusting of that score too because it was him that staked his claim with the Damian incident.
And he blows her off for work (understandable), twice (understandable) but then he blows her off not giving any reason, again twice. And then he texts, already late, to say he’s going to show at nine at night on a Tuesday?
She looked at the time on her phone screen.
It was nine thirteen.
And after all that, he shows even later.
She looked back to the TV.
She saw out of the corner of her eye Branch enter the room. He stopped and she kept watching the TV so she didn’t see what he was doing or what he was looking at.
He took his time before moving to the armchair that was angled toward the TV beyond the couch and he sat on its arm.
“You didn’t lock the door, Angie.”
Was he serious?
With that, she looked at him.
God.
Why did he have to be so gorgeous?
“You need to lock the door,” he pushed, face inscrutable but nevertheless alert and watching her closely.
She looked back to the TV.
“You’re pissed,” he muttered.
He was a sharp one.
She said nothing.
He let the silence linger before he broke it.
Speaking quietly, he shared, “I needed time to clear my head.”
“You have my number,” she replied, still looking at the TV. “You could share that. Just like that. ‘Evangeline, I need some time to clear my head.’ You can speak the words or text them.” She faced him and finished, “It’s been intense, I know, Branch. I was there too. So I’d get it and you know I would.”
“I know you would and I shared it just now.”
She wasn’t playing that game.
She grabbed the remote, paused the program, tossed the remote aside, then looked back to him.
“I like you,” she stated baldly.
He winced and looked to the side.
God.
Branch.
“Sorry that hurts, Branch, but I like you,” she kept at him. “You’re handsome and you’re honest and you can be funny and you can be sweet and you’re strong and protective and possessive and your alpha tendencies are all kinds of hot and you make fabulous enchiladas and you’re fucking amazing to play with. I love how you put yourself in my hands. I love how you react to me. I love how much you can take, how you let me be free to let go, how you trust me with you, how I can trust I can let go with you and we’ll both get something beautiful out of it.”
He looked back to her but made no reply.
“I get what this is,” she informed him. “I told you, Aryas made it clear. Even so, that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to like you. Enjoy being with you. And I do. With both. But I’m a human being. I can’t stop myself from feeling something for you, and to return the honesty, even though I sense you can’t hack it, because of feeling that, hoping for something more. And more honesty, even though you’re not stupid so I’d guess you already know, I pushed that. And even more honesty, Branch, I might have been muddying the waters but you did your own muddying, holding me in your lap at the Honey. And with all this honesty I’m giving you, you should know, I can’t stop myself from feeling, and I also can’t stop myself being a woman, and not only knowing I deserve some respect, but demanding it.”
“I respect you, baby,” he said, the words soft even with his gravelly voice so they were also sheer beauty.
“Don’t be sweet,” she whispered, the hurt filtering her tone, damn it, and she saw him wince again when he caught it. She shook her head. “My fault, Branch, I signed on, literally, to be your unpaid Dominatrix whore. But to give you more honesty, with that, I’m not sure I can hack it.”
“You aren’t my whore,” he ground out, face now hard.
She tipped her head to the side. “No?”
“No,” he clipped.
She sat still and waited.
Damned waiting.
It had only been four days but she was fed up.
She wanted to be strong, not to give up on him, but four days of hurt and worry that he had four days to coat that marble with more ice, or worse, he was going to vanish from her life, was four days too many.
God, why had she even started this?
She’d known from the beginning there was a bigger chance at failing than succeeding and with every minute she spent with him, she knew there was more and more to lose.
So maybe she should cut both their losses.
“I think maybe—”
“That woman who I told you about, she was mine.”
She snapped her mouth shut.
“She was not my first girlfriend,” he held her gaze direct, “she was not my first Mistress. But she was my first real one of both. We lived together for two years but were together for four. We broke up. Strike that,” he spat out the last two words in a way that had her, already alert, go straight to wired. “I broke up with her and she didn’t want it. It hurt both of us. She was sure we could work it out. I was pissed about I don’t know what the fuck but whatever it was it wasn’t worth digging my heels in. I dug my heels in. She could be petty, something I know now we could have worked on because she was young too, younger than me, and to make me pay, she answered an ad from a sub. By the time he caved her head in, he’d taken out three others. Not Dommes. Prostitutes, escorts. But she was his last. They caught him after her. He’s on his fourth appeal on his wait to get injected.”
This was like a story out of a book.
A sad one.
Tragic.
Brutal.
It couldn’t be real.
But looking into his eyes, she knew it was real.
“Branch,” she whispered, her heart squeezing.
“I have fucked and been fucked by a lot of women but I’ve only had one relationship that mattered. I loved her, Angie. We had a lot of good times. But when life settled in and
it wasn’t all just good and easy, I didn’t have the tools to pull my shit together and grow the fuck up. Met her when I was twenty-three, she was twenty-one, lost her when I was twenty-seven, she was just twenty-five. I’m now thirty-eight and I’ve lived with being young and stupid and proud and stubborn and what all that meant to her for a long time.”
She turned to him, lifting a leg on the couch and started, “Honey, you didn’t—”
“I’ve fucked and been fucked by a lot of women,” he repeated, speaking over her. “And not one, not even her, gave me what you do and I do not only mean the way I love how you fuck my ass or switch it raw.”
Evangeline held her body still as she felt a tickle slip up her spine, doing this also holding his gaze.
“I got so much baggage, honey, not just her, I’m just scratching the surface,” he whispered. “You’re so tiny, it’d crush you.”
She felt tears sting her eyes.
He wasn’t damaged.
She didn’t know what he was. She’d never seen it.
The only way she could describe it was that he’d been destroyed.
“Please, Branch—” she began to whisper back.
“What I’m saying is, I like you too. But I can’t give you dick. Only this. Only what we got now. But Angie, you gotta know, for your sake, for yours only, when I feel I gotta disappear, I gotta do that … for you. And if you can’t take what I have to give, just take what we have and enjoy it while we’ve got it, then it’ll fuckin’ kill, but for you, right now, I have to walk out that door.”
“I don’t understand,” she said softly.
“I can’t explain and that’s for you too.”
She put a hand on the couch and leaned toward him. “I might be small, handsome, but don’t let that fool you.”
He shook his head. “Just know I know what I’m doing and know it’s not for me, because if I was the motherfucker I could be, I wouldn’t give this to you. I wouldn’t warn you. I’d take, and when the time came, I’d leave. But you’ve got your warning, honey, and it is what it is and that’s all it can be. So what’s it gonna be?”
Evangeline stared in his eyes and gave him her own warning, “I know what it’s going to be, Branch, but you need to know I’m not going to stop trying to break through.”
He nodded. “I get that. I’ll take it. Because I’m not the motherfucker I could be, but I am the one I am. But just to say, baby, you fight that battle, you’ll lose.”
“I’m stubborn.”
It almost looked like he was going to smile.
“Think I got that.”
She continued staring into his eyes and promised, “I’m going to make you happy.”
“I know.”
She felt like an arrow pierced her heart, her body actually jerked with it.
She was giving that to him already.
But they were still having this conversation.
“I’m still going to walk away,” he told her gently, confirming her thoughts.
Eyes locked, they both fell silent.
It was again Branch that broke it.
“So what’s it gonna be, Angie?”
She saw him, not hiding he sat tense, waiting.
He didn’t want her to tell him to go.
And at the same time, he did.
“You’ve thrown down the glove, Branch,” she informed him.
Sadness filled his eyes.
She hated to see it.
But by damn, she was going to obliterate it.
“Be smart, baby,” he whispered. “And be stronger than me because I don’t have it in me to walk out that door. I’m here because I couldn’t stay away. Four days I’ve been fighting the pull that’s you and,” he tossed up a hand to indicate himself sitting on the arm of her chair, “I lost. You say I’m protective but now I’m telling you, you have to protect yourself. You’ve gotta tell me to go.”
She ignored his entire speech.
“And I’m picking it up.”
He closed his eyes and looked away.
She sat still and silent.
He opened his eyes and looked to her.
“That wasn’t smart, Evangeline,” he said, still whispering.
She didn’t reply.
Something moved over his face that twisted the tip of the arrow, tearing a hole, gaping.
“Because I’m weak, because I’m a motherfucker, and because you’re all that’s you, I need more so I can have it when I don’t have you so it isn’t me that’s going to save you … this time,” he shared.
Good.
Fucking excellent.
Perfect.
Evangeline got up and walked to him.
He kept his seat but tipped his head when she got close.
She put both hands to his cheeks and dipped her face to his.
He was so long, her feet were bare, but even standing with him sitting, she didn’t have far to go.
She loved that.
And she loved that he’d given her time.
Because she was going to take it.
And then she was going to do what she told herself she’d do from the very beginning.
She was going to guide him to that edge, the one he wouldn’t go near, the one that was farther than he would allow himself to see, and she was going to take them both over.
She slid her nose along his, tipped her mouth like she was going to kiss him, but held back.
He let out his breath and she felt it against her lips.
Almost as good as a kiss.
But not quite.
“Thank you for my warning. Thank you for more honesty,” she whispered. “I hurt for you, what happened to your woman. I hurt for her. Even if it means I’d never have you, I wish I could erase that so I could erase the pain it caused, that pain that still lives in you. But as crazy as it may sound with how hard that had to be to share, how hard I know it was to hear, I still thank you for giving that to me.”
She stroked his cheeks with her thumbs and slid her nose up the side of his and down again, continuing to stare into his eyes.
“But if you need more, baby, I’m here to give you what you need,” she murmured. “I get the score. Don’t you worry. But don’t you underestimate me either. Because I get what I want and if I want you, in the end, you’re going to give yourself to me. And it’s not just that. It’s also that if you want me, and you’re right here, you’re back, you said it yourself, you couldn’t stay away, so I know you want me, and that means I’m going to give myself to you too.”
He put his hands to her hips, gliding them up, over her waist until he closed his fingers around her ribs.
“Not a smart decision but you’re a smart woman, Angie. You know the score. And in any game evenly matched, no one ever knows which side will win.”
“Then we’ll see.”
He looked like he didn’t want to say it but he still muttered, “Yeah, we’ll see.”
She couldn’t help but smile.
The ice of his eyes instantly melted.
And seeing that, she thought, God, he has no clue.
But some surprises were good.
And when she took him over the edge, his surprise was going to be a doozy.
She rested her forehead to his and slid one hand up and into his thick, soft hair, stroking it, and the other one she slid down to his neck.
“Now, there’s some world rocking I’ve been intending to do, and I’m annoyed at it being delayed, so my advice, big boy, is not to make me wait any longer.”
“Angie—” he murmured.
She gripped his hair in a loose hold. “Your game, Branch. My rules. Agreed?”
His gaze stayed fixed to hers.
“Don’t hate me when I’m gone.”
God, she was going to have to go all-in, even more all-in than she’d been, to get him out of whatever that hellhole was where he lived in his head.
And she would do it.
Fuck yes.
She’d do it.
“I
won’t, because unless that happens under mutually agreed circumstances, you’re not going.”
It was then he tipped his beautiful lips, touching them to hers, at the same time wrapping a strong hand around her neck.
She froze.
And against her lips he demanded, “Promise me or I walk out that door.” He gave her neck and ribs a squeeze. “Don’t hate me when I’m gone, baby. I can’t have you the only way I’ll have you when I’m gone knowing I did that to you. So promise me.”
He played dirty.
She could too.
She gentled her hold on him and gave him the truth.
Because he wasn’t going anywhere.
“I won’t hate you when you’re gone, Branch.”
He studied the look in her eyes before his forehead rolled against hers with his nod.
She took him back to her earlier subject.
“So, are we agreed?”
“We’re agreed…” He let his fingers drift along her jaw before he dropped his hand to curl his fingers at her hip and he tensed them in as he finished, “ma’am.”
Game on.
She closed her eyes, slid her lips to his ear and stroked his hair.
“Sit on the couch, Branch, and get comfortable. I want to finish watching this episode.”
He slid a hand into her baby doll tee, ran a finger under the waistband of her faded jeans from spine to hip and he replied in her ear, “Yes, ma’am.”
Yes, he was going to play dirty.
But she could play dirty too.
If the game was worth winning, she could do anything.
And without knowing how she knew, deep inside her heart she still knew Branch was worth winning.
She lifted away, letting go, and stepped away so his hands would drop.
They stared at each other another second before he straightened from the armchair and did as he was told.
Evangeline grabbed the remote and moved into the couch.
Not in her corner.
She laid on her side, settling her head on Branch’s thigh at the juncture of his hip.
He didn’t hesitate to put his fingers in her hair, gliding it off her neck, then back, stroking.
It felt amazing.
Yes, he was going to play dirty.
She hit “Play” on the TV and muttered, “I’m farther than you got but you’re going to have to suck it up.”
“I’ll live,” he muttered back.
She grinned, curled her hand in front of her on his thigh and watched the program.