Then he pushed his hand under her, wrapping his arm around her, and pulled her into his body even as he rested some of his warm, heavy weight on her.
Her head had fallen naturally to the side so Branch took what she unwittingly offered and slid his lips up her neck to her ear.
“You play dirty,” he whispered.
Evangeline felt a lazy grin curve her lips.
She turned her head.
He lifted his and she caught his eyes, the look in them what she felt through her whole body right down to her bones—languid, sultry, dreamy. Spent.
Who knew it felt that good to take a plunge, land and shatter?
“Pretty little thing,” he muttered, his eyes moving over her. “Never prettier than when you come, though. Never seen anything that pretty. Now I’ve felt it, never felt anything that pretty either.”
He’d been kissing her.
Finally kissing her.
But he’d been watching.
God.
Hot.
She slid a hand up the ridged scars of his back, under his lat and up his chest to rest it on his jaw.
“You aren’t pretty when you come,” she told him. “You’re hot.”
His lips quirked, another almost-smile, before he shook his head.
Then his eyes grew serious. “What am I gonna do with you?”
“Well, you aren’t going to fuck me again anytime soon,” she replied, ignoring the serious that stayed and the concern that filtered into his gaze as she spoke. “Because you’re a battering ram and my nether regions need a break. At least until tomorrow.”
The concern fled, another lip quirk with a brow lift. “Nether regions?”
“Nether regions.”
“You said pussy when I was fucking you,” he pointed out.
“You were fucking me,” she retorted.
“Right, so you can slip a tail up my ass before you strap it but you can’t say ‘pussy’ when I’m not fucking you?”
She lifted her head, her lips against his, her gaze holding his, and whispered, “Pussy.”
His hips flexed into hers as his eyes flared.
She pulled back half an inch, sliding her hand to his neck and stroking his jaw with her thumb.
“My big boy likes dirty talk,” she murmured.
“Your big boy likes everything you do to him.”
She smiled at him.
His eyes dropped to her mouth and he muttered, “Especially that.”
“Branch?” she called.
He looked back at her.
“I win,” she whispered.
Humor and frustration and gravity warred in his eyes, right there for her to see.
Not hidden.
In full view.
Yes.
She’d won.
“That’s game, Angie.” His arm around her held her closer even as his mouth warned, “You haven’t even won a set, so be careful, honey, don’t think you’ve won the match.”
She said nothing.
Just smiled at him.
His fingers tangled deeper into her hair as his eyes warmed.
God, no clue.
All she had to do was smile at him.
And it was match point.
Every time.
fourteen
A Good Man in Her Life
BRANCH
The next morning, Branch walked into Evangeline’s bathroom while she stood, wearing nothing but a pair of dark purple, lacy underwear, her hair wet but still curly, the ringlets springing back as it dried. She was bent over the basin to put her makeup on.
He felt the view of her round, sweet ass in his dick and reminded himself for the fifth time that morning that he’d given it to her.
She understood the game. She was aware of the stakes. He’d laid it out straight and she’d made her decision.
He reminded himself of that but he still knew he was a motherfucker.
He slid the mug of coffee on the counter beside her and watched her in the mirror as she looked down at the cup then up at him, also through the mirror, her lips curving up.
“Thanks, honey.”
He didn’t feel that in his dick.
He felt it somewhere else.
Tara had called him sweetie.
She’d also called him slave.
He hadn’t gotten off on “slave” since and had been relieved when Evangeline didn’t use that word.
He preferred “handsome,” “baby,” and being her “big boy.”
And he preferred “honey.”
The first time Evangeline had used it—knowing that endearment didn’t have anything to do with how they played, it was just a sweetness about her that she gave away—and like everything that was Angie, it dug right into his soul.
In the four days it took for him to try to pull his shit together, attempting to come to terms with the fact that the best thing for her was never to see him again so he should stay the fuck away, and failing spectacularly in that endeavor, he’d also struggled with the fact that he liked her “honey,” her “handsome,” her “big boy” and everything else more than what he’d had with Tara.
That felt like a betrayal of Tara, her memory and the history of them.
But Tara had not been an experienced Mistress. They’d been learning the life together.
And the sweet feel of Evangeline in his lap, the brilliance of her smile, Branch knew it wasn’t about time passing so the intensity of what he and Tara had had faded.
Angie didn’t dig in about stupid shit. Angie didn’t bicker.
Angie listened.
Not only that, Angie didn’t fall apart when she hit the hard and then panic, that making her hackles rise and her mouth open to say shit she didn’t mean because she was scared. This meaning he’d be right there with her, and things would escalate to a place they couldn’t pull them back.
No, Angie got what was important—like him treating her with respect and not just as his Mistress, and her finding a way to break through because they both knew this was something different, something special. And when their shit hit the hard, she didn’t back down or panic. She listened and communicated.
What they had was good. What they had was worth developing. What they had, he knew, if he was a different man and these were different circumstances, he wouldn’t be the one to break it off when the going got tough. He wouldn’t find reasons to dig in. He wouldn’t feel down deep the frustration that, even with the good, something wasn’t clicking.
So the past four days he’d struggled with understanding that maybe it wasn’t youth, stupidity and stubbornness that led to his ending it with Tara.
It could be, if he and Tara both had given it more time and grown up, they would have found where they needed to be.
It could be, the man he was, he needed an Evangeline.
“Got something on your mind?” she asked softly, taking him out of his thoughts.
Standing behind her wearing just his jeans, Branch focused on her in the mirror to see her very focused on him.
He didn’t give her his thoughts. She had enough ammunition to wage her war already, a lot of it he’d given to her. He didn’t need to give her more.
Instead, he gave her other thoughts.
Turning at her side and leaning his hip against the basin, he looked down at her direct.
She tipped her head back and gave him her gaze the same way.
“You took me there and it was pretty much an impossibility for me not to go right where you took me instead of doing what I should have done. But that’s beside the point. It’s also a piss-poor excuse. The discussion should have been had when I asked for what I wanted, and I should have started it. It’s too late now but just so you know, as a requirement for Aryas to do his thing for me…” He let that lie, knowing she’d get what he was saying and she did. So when she nodded, he went on, “I gotta get tested and do it at the Honey just like a member. I’m clean. No worries with taking me ungloved.” He lifted a hand and tugged at one of h
er curls before he finished, “You let your membership lapse, but are you still—?”
She interrupted him. “I’m clean, Branch.” She then turned fully to him and put a hand on his stomach. “There’s been no one since Kevin and I’m on the Pill.”
He was glad to know she was clean and protected.
But although he’d already guessed it, the other wasn’t great, especially for her. She had a libido that equaled his.
“Bet that sucked for you,” he muttered.
She pressed into his stomach with her hand as she leaned her body into his, grinning up at him. “Yes, well, the drought is over.”
“Yeah,” he replied, and it fucking was.
Being inside her …
She could spank his ass, fuck it, suck his cock, jack it, all of that magnificent.
But the feel of her pussy was unparalleled—tight, hot and so wet. It had been heaven thrusting inside her last night.
Even so, that was something else that had been dragging on his mind that morning.
“Have you ever…?” he began.
Branch didn’t finish even as she tipped her head to the side and asked, “Have I ever what?”
“Nothin’,” he muttered, looking down at her coffee and then to her. “Gotta get on the road, Angie. You cool with me taking another travel mug?”
“I have five thousand two hundred and twelve of them, so yeah, I’m cool.”
He felt his brows rise as his lips hitched. “Five thousand two hundred and twelve?”
“Okay, maybe about five thousand one hundred and ninety-seven of them.”
“Right.”
“So take what you need,” she offered.
That was Evangeline, always giving him what he needed.
Damn, he thought.
“Cool,” he said.
She leaned closer. “I’ve got a late showing tonight. Probably won’t be home until seven thirty, eight. You should get yourself some dinner. I’ll grab something somewhere along the way. But, handsome, I’d like you to meet me here at—”
“I’ll have dinner ready when you get home, honey.”
She shut her mouth and her eyes warmed.
She thought she had him.
But Branch intended to give her as good as he had it in him to give for as long as he had it in him to give it to her so he could leave her with what he needed to leave her with when he was gone. Good memories with a sub who did it for her, ending her drought, and more, a man who gave a shit about her and she got to do that too in a safe place that would set her up to trust whoever came next.
It might make him even more of a motherfucker than he already was and he couldn’t even think on the idea of her moving on with another guy.
Branch had had a gun to his head on a variety of occasions and managed to hold his shit, but for the life of him, he knew, even with a gun to his head, for a shot to be with Angie, he couldn’t do anything else.
She rolled up on her toes, her hand not at his stomach catching him around the back of the neck and pulling him down.
He was going to have her mouth again, not because it was clear she was intent on taking his.
He was going to take hers.
He bent to her, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her soft, little body into the curve of his, and he kissed her, tasted her with his tongue, took his time and drank his fill.
When he broke away, she was gazing up at him, eyes soft and vague, not quite like when she’d come but not far off, and just like everything with Angie when he knew he shouldn’t, he couldn’t stop himself.
That look, he took her mouth again.
She’d melted in his arms and had a hand clenched in his hair when he broke away again and forced himself to say, “Really gotta go, baby.”
“’Kay,” she murmured.
“Text me when you’re on your way home.”
“All right.”
“Later, Angie.”
“Later, Branch.”
He let her go and moved away, doing it swiftly. If she called him back, ringed his cock with her lipstick, planted her jewel up his ass, he might not go at all.
He had a travel cup of coffee in his hand and was walking down her drive to his truck at the curb when he noticed her neighbor pulling out and he glanced that way.
Normally, Branch would avoid eye contact. To stay safe but also to do the jobs he took, he needed to be vapor. You couldn’t be vapor catching anyone’s attention. Eye contact was still contact and Branch didn’t make contact with hardly anybody.
But the way the woman was waving at him and the fact that she was Evangeline’s neighbor, he couldn’t be a dick and ignore her.
So he caught her eye, jerked up his chin, noting her big smile, and then he looked away and kept walking to his truck.
He got in, secured his coffee, belted up, started her up and turned around in Evangeline’s drive, knowing as he rode down her street he should drive on and keep driving until he hit Alaska, he was well away from her and the way he knew he’d fuck up her life.
He didn’t do that.
He drove to his condo to change clothes as he’d showered with Angie.
And then like he had since he’d moved to Phoenix two years ago, he took on his day.
* * *
Branch sat in his truck in the parking lot, watched the man walk into the smoke shop, and he wondered not for the first time at the extent of people’s stupidity.
First, how the guy hadn’t spotted Branch’s tail, he didn’t know. He’d been following him in the same vehicle on and off for the last week, doing it less and less cautiously because the man was clueless. Branch could actually tailgate him and the guy was so deep in his own world, he’d have no idea.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
If he was skimming off the top of a guy like Fred, Branch’s client—and although a good client, he was very much not a good guy—Branch would not be walking in broad daylight into the front door of the business owned by the dude who was assisting him in doing this.
Then again, if he was one of Fred’s boys (not that he’d ever be one of Fred’s boys), he’d never consider skimming off the top. Fred would have his balls. Literally. He collected them from morons who he felt deserved to be liberated from that part of their anatomy and kept them in jars of formaldehyde in his office.
Seeing this the first time he’d been contacted to discuss a job had made Branch think twice about taking said job.
Since Fred not only didn’t blink at his fees and his strict demands for autonomy, he also paid bonuses if the job was done quick and clean (which was the way Branch worked), he’d taken the job and several since.
But now he wasn’t watching the door to the smoke shop thinking of having to go to Fred, sit in an office where there was a lit shelf behind Fred’s desk holding five jars filled with men’s testicles.
He was watching the door to the smoke shop upending his phone in his fingers, and again, and again, wondering if he should make the call he wanted to make, and if he did, which one of the three men he could call that he actually should call.
If he made the call, Aryas was likely out.
He didn’t know if the man was back in town and this conversation should be face-to-face.
However, if he had this conversation with Aryas, other things might be communicated that Branch didn’t want communicated, these things could be interpreted erroneously, and that could cause future problems.
So in town or not, Aryas was still out.
Erroneous things he didn’t want communicated was why he couldn’t call Olly either.
“Shit, fuck, shit,” he muttered. Eyes remaining on the door to the smoke shop, he engaged his phone and muttered in it, “Call Barclay.”
The phone did its work and rang three times before Barclay answered, “Yo, bro. You been MIA so long, thought you’d dropped off the face of the earth.”
“I haven’t,” Branch replied.
“Seeing as I’m talking to you, I got that,”
Barclay said, laughter shaking his words.
Listening to it, it wasn’t the first time Branch wished he’d had even a little bit of the life that Barclay led.
Life was just good for Barclay and he let that show. The guy was honest but cool about it, even if what he had to share could be prickly. He had a great sense of humor. He liked what he did. He had good friends and a goodly number of them (not surprising with how he was). And he laughed a lot. His business partners could often drive him up the wall, but other than that, life was good and he didn’t take it for granted. He was appreciative and he had no problem putting in the work to keep life just that way.
Branch hadn’t thought about having a good life, not since Tara’s had been taken.
Since then, he hadn’t looked into the future. He hadn’t considered the idea he should be content with his present. He hadn’t hoped or wished for anything.
He’d just been breathing.
Branch stopped thinking about that shit and asked, “You got time to have a beer tonight?”
“You and Olly meeting up?” Clay asked back.
“No.”
Another sucking void of silence.
Although Barclay reached out to him every once in a while, usually to include him in a beer he was having with Ol, Barclay and Branch had never had a beer together, sharing time on their own.
And clearly, Branch suggesting this surprised Clay.
“So you got time?” Branch pushed. “There’s somethin’…” Fuck, how did he say it? “Got a question about something and thinking you’re the go-to guy on it.”
“Well, yeah,” Barclay replied tentatively. “I’m free. Sure. I’m cool. You got a question and I can answer it, I will. You wanna hit PV Tavern?”
That was their usual place, a bar in Paradise Valley that wasn’t trendy or up its own ass. It also wasn’t a dive, it wasn’t all about sports and it wasn’t all about bikers. It was quiet. And it wasn’t a firefighter bar so Olly could get a break from his brothers who were brothers but that didn’t mean he wanted to spend every waking minute with them.
“Not PV,” Branch answered.
He gave no alternative because he knew no alternatives. He met the guys irregularly, not habitually, to throw back a few and watch the game. He didn’t unwind sitting at a bar, sharing the shit of his life with a bartender. He didn’t go on the prowl, positioning himself someplace for the sole purpose of evaluating the women in his sights to decide who he wanted to take home and fuck.