Linc believed Eva when she said she’d never let herself become obsessed with any man, including Emmett. Even if he’d seen her obsessively researching his cousin online…
And why did he care?
It shouldn’t matter to him even if she were still hung up on Emmett. But somehow it did matter.
The woman sitting in front of him now, typing away on her laptop like he wasn’t even there, while wearing an Anti-Social Butterfly T-shirt wasn’t the type to believe in fairytales.
She wasn’t a woman looking for a relationship. She didn’t even seem to want to make friends outside of Poppy and Olivia.
That was fine. He was like that himself. He had enough socializing with his family. And as for women, it would be silly to tie himself down to one in a serious relationship at this point in his life. Right? He preferred solitude. His own company over that of others…
Why did that thought ring false in his own head all of a sudden? Maybe because his head had been spinning since this damn will clusterfuck started.
Time to get his mind off Emmett and Eva’s feelings, or lack thereof.
When he pushed all the clutter out of his mind, he realized he was hungry, amazingly enough. He hadn’t been sure he’d ever feel hungry again after the kick to the gut Wyatt delivered to them all—that his investigator had a lead on Emmett’s location and he could be as close to them as the next state.
Thinking about his lowlife cousin returning to Bitter End was enough to turn Linc’s stomach for a couple of reasons. But if he’d learned anything in the Army, it was to eat when you were able, because who knew when the opportunity might come again. Food was as good a distraction as any, so…
“You hungry?” he asked Eva, whose attention had been lost to her computer screen once again.
“Always,” she returned without looking up.
He smiled. She was a good eater. She didn’t shy away from carbs or anything else.
“How about I go downstairs, grab us both something, and bring it back up here so you can keep working,” he said, feeling like he needed an excuse for his plan to eat with her in private.
“Good. Don’t forget French fries. And a cupcake. And coffee.”
So she did hear him when he talked to her while she was on the computer. Or perhaps it was just selective hearing. Apparently food based selective hearing.
“All right.” He nodded, not pushing his luck by asking anything else. He’d figure it out on his own.
He left the door unlocked, not trusting her to actually hear him and let him back in when he returned with the food. By then he figured she’d be too far down the rabbit hole and in an unbreakable trance.
He was wrong.
Linc opened the door, take-out bag of food in his hand, and found Eva’s eyes on him, wide with excitement.
“Sorry. Did I frighten you?”
“No.” She could barely control her smile, which caused him to frown.
“What happened while I was gone?”
It hadn’t been that long. Fifteen or twenty minutes maybe. Just long enough for Rosie to grill them up a couple of burgers and pack it all up to go. And Eva definitely hadn’t been in this mood when he’d left.
“I found something,” she said, still looking like she was bubbling over.
“Okay. Would you like to enlighten me?” He put the bag down on the table and folded his arms, waiting.
She latched her teeth onto her bottom lip and his gaze inevitably followed. He shouldn’t be looking at her mouth. He really shouldn’t imagine biting on that lip himself.
“Not yet,” she said with a cringe.
That wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. At least the surprise knocked him out of his foolish lust filled fantasy about Eva’s mouth.
She was… odd today. Or, odder than usual. He could feel the energy coming off her in waves. He’d seen it before. Had felt it himself. After battle, when the adrenaline high hadn’t dissipated yet and the excess energy had nowhere to go.
Eva looked like that now. Like she was riding a wave of adrenaline from whatever she’d found on her computer—her battlefield. But unlike his wartime experience working as part of a tight unit, Eva wasn’t a team player. She was a loner. And she wasn’t sharing.
“Um. Okay. So, uh, we’ll eat then?” he suggested.
“Yeah. Let’s eat,” she said with a smile that he was sure had nothing to do with the hamburgers and French fries inside the bag.
Eva made short work of the food he laid out on the table. She must have been hungry since she even moved her laptop to eat.
Conversation was in short supply, but he didn’t mind. Theirs was a comfortable silence. They’d spent enough hours together in silence recently he was well used to it.
“You done?” she asked.
He raised his gaze from the half-eaten cupcake he’d gotten for himself. A match to the one he’d gotten her.
“Why? Are you kicking me out?”
If that were the case, the cupcake was coming with him. Now he knew why she was obsessed with them. They were fucking delicious. He might have to switch up his usual order of hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream.
“No. I’m not kicking you out.” Eva stood, shoving her chair back so she could round the table and make her way to him.
Frowning, he leaned farther away from the table as she planted one hand on his chair back. When she raised one long leg and stepped over him before settling in his lap facing him, his eyes widened.
“This okay?” she asked.
“Uh. Yeah.”
What the fuck was going on?
He could guess and if this were anyone other than Eva, that guess might be correct. But this was Eva. She didn’t even like when Poppy and Olivia cornered her for a group girl hug. Yet here she was sitting on top of his rapidly growing hard-on.
“Good,” she said, her lids heavy as her eyes dropped to his lips before she moved in on his mouth.
Apparently, riding that adrenaline high had gotten her horny. And she’d found an outlet for all that energy. Him. And damned if he wasn’t going to let her use him for whatever she wanted.
She leaned in. He expected a kiss as rough and tumble as Eva. What he got was gentle and slow. A kiss that deepened until it tugged at him right down to his core.
He tasted the combination of sweet icing and cinnamon cappuccino as she plunged her tongue against his, causing an ache deep inside that only she would be able to satisfy. He gripped her hips and pressed her harder against him.
The beautiful friction bordered on pain as he pressed against the unyielding stiff denim of his jeans.
She pulled away from the kiss as her hands bracketed his face so she could level a stare directly into his eyes.
“This means nothing,” she said, intense and so close to him he felt the warmth of her breath.
“Fine with me.”
“Less than nothing,” she reiterated in a breathy voice.
“I said fine.” He was done arguing. He’d agree with anything she said at the moment.
With her gyrating against him, keeping him in exquisite agony, it was obvious they were both on the same wavelength here. Where they weren’t, was on the bed. But he could remedy that.
He stood, taking her with him, his hands braced on her ass as she wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed.” His answer was moot since they were already there. He sat, then flopped backwards onto the mattress with Eva over him.
“I didn’t agree to this,” she said, even as she straddled him, her core grinding against his hard length.
“The fuck you didn’t.” He snorted.
She was the one who’d kissed him. And she was the one currently reaching between their bodies to unbuckle his belt, even as she argued with him.
When she reached inside his jeans and gripped his length, he didn’t have the mental capacity to form words so it was good she seemed to be finished arguing.
“No one can know we did this.”
“Mm-hm,” he agreed as she pulled off her pants and tossed them to the floor. He noticed she had no underwear on beneath them and groaned that they’d eaten dinner together while she was commando. It was probably good he hadn’t known that then.
“Not your brothers,” she said, as she lined up his cock with her entrance.
“Definitely not,” he agreed.
That would be the last thing he needed. Ethan would tease him forever and Wyatt would give him that judgmental look he’d perfected so well.
As she lowered herself over him, thankfully she seemed to have run out of rules. And Thank God for that, because all he could concentrate on was the wet heat of her surrounding him.
But shit, it felt too good. He wasn’t going to last long. Reaching between them, he planted a thumb on her clit, hoping to get her off before he finished.
“Stop. I got it.” She swatted his hand away, braced her hands on either side of his head and started to ride him like he was a bucking bronc and she was the state rodeo champion.
Eva was being Eva, even while he was buried inside her. Bossy as ever, and he knew he shouldn’t be surprised. But he was surprised when her breaths came faster, and her cries got louder.
Was she about to…
As his body tightened, ramping up to end this in spite of his trying to hold back, Eva slammed down, taking him ball’s deep, before she ground against him, rotating her hips in slow circles.
Her head fell forward, her hair hiding her face but he didn’t need to see her. He heard her. Felt her. As her body gripped his length, pulsing with spasms that matched her ever increasing cries there was no doubt. She was coming around him and it was freaking amazing.
When her cries and the spasms finally slowed, he was ready to explode. Flipping them both over, he braced above her on shaking arms.
He was barely sane but he had enough common sense to ask, “Should I pull out?”
Yeah, they should have been using a condom this whole time but it was a little late for that regret.
She shook her head. “No. We’re good. I got that covered too.”
He nearly cried with joy.
Letting loose with all he’d held back until now, he pistoned into her, hard and fast until he exploded inside. He collapsed managing to land next to her rather than crush her beneath him.
The apartment felt like a sauna. He wasn’t sure if that was from the exertion or the radiator, but he was too spent to move more than to wipe the sweat out of his eyes.
They lay there silently next to each other for a while. Long enough both of their breathing finally returned to normal.
He was just wondering if she was ever going to speak to him again when she said, “This meant nothing.”
“We’ve already discussed that. Yes. Nothing,” he agreed. So did his cock, he noticed as it started to reawaken.
She noticed too. “God, you’re getting hard again already.”
“It seems so,” he said as he wondered if she thought that was a good thing or a bad thing. With Eva it was always a coin toss.
“So, um, since this means nothing, it won't matter if we do it again. Right?” she asked as she rolled on top of him.
“Won't matter one bit,” he said as he ran his hands from her hips to her waist while she straddled him once again.
Her, here, over him like this was almost enough to quiet the voice inside him calling him a liar.
Didn’t matter? The hell it didn’t.