Bringing Home the Bad Boy (Second Chance #1)(56)

This was new.

This was want in a different way. Want that combined their old relationship with the new. He wanted to be her friend. To sit on the couch with her and watch a show like when she came to stay with him and Lyon in the past. To laugh over a card or board game like when she and her jagoff ex used to come and visit when Rae was alive. To hold her hand and walk with her down the shoreline. And make love to her. Not please her until she didn’t feel badly about him touching her, but have her willing and ready and wanting him back. Calling his name on a high cry with him inside her.

That’s what he wanted.

He hadn’t been sure how to get it, so he’d been trying what he thought might work. But tonight… if she invited him over to talk, he’d be back at square one. Maybe the best tactic was to be her friend until she came around.

Then she lifted her chin and met his eyes, and he felt the impish smile curl his lips.

Nah, screw that. He was seducing her.

She swished to the door in her flowery robe, pulling the belt tight. There were no other lights on anywhere in the house, only the glow of the computer screen.

“Hi,” she said as he stepped inside.

“Hi.” He looked around. No lit candles. No soft music. No sign she’d invited him over for anything other than hanging out. He lifted the belt on her robe and dropped it. “You look ready for bed.”

Her eyes slid to half-mast, her lashes sweeping low over her cheeks, then up as she flashed him with—God help him—bedroom eyes. “I am.” The most sultry, sexy smile twitched her lips as she tugged the belt, opened the robe, and let it puddle at her bare feet.

He nearly dropped to his knees in praise of what lay before him.

Black lace. A lot of it. Her bra was the tiniest bits of fabric cupping the bottom half of each of her breasts—the top half bursting from the cups as if on display. Her panties were not like panties at all, but a tiny triangle hiding… not much of anything. True, he’d seen every inch of Charlie naked, but this… this was different.

Because she was ready.

He came to her in two steps, tipped her jaw with both hands, and kissed her hard.


*


It was happening.

She was doing it.

Finally taking what she wanted.

What she wanted… was Evan.

Charlie knew this in her bones, in her heart, in her head. She was ready and the reason she was ready was in thanks to the lesson taught to her tonight. Taught by the most unlikely person to give one.

Asher Knight: A cautionary tale.

Tension had run high at Salty Dog. Asher had some sort of minor self-destruction when Gloria went to the ladies’ room and Evan went to pay the check.

Ash had angled his head to Charlie and rolled his eyes. “She’s pissed at me.”

She was sure of this, but to be polite asked, “How can you tell?”

“I can tell.”

“What happened?”

“You don’t wanna know.”

“I do.”

Asher had watched her for a second before opening his mouth. “She’s not a girl you sleep with one time, Ace.”

She’d raised her eyebrows in surprise at that comment. First, because Ash never called her “Ace,” and second, because she wondered if he meant he didn’t want to sleep with Gloria only once, or if he meant he had slept with her and wanted to sleep with her again. Seemed rude to ask, so she hadn’t.

“You’re not, either,” he pointed out.

Torn between offended and flattered, she’d bitten her lip.

“You’re a keeper,” Ash continued. “Evan’ll want to keep you. He’ll fight to keep you.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the bar. “He’ll pay the tab.”

“You paid Glo’s tab.”

“Evan will be paying your tab for a long time, sweetheart. I know him.”

“I’m not… we’re not…”

She hadn’t been able to finish her sentence truthfully. She was and they had. Maybe not “all the way” but they’d done plenty together that crossed the invisible, but very real, line between friends to lovers.

“I’m not good at it like Evan is.”

She’d bitten the other side of her lip, unsure what “it” was until Asher spoke again.

“The keeping part. The fighting for someone part.” He’d pulled the cigarette out from behind his ear and gestured to his tattered jeans and tight black T-shirt. “Not a catch, Charlie.” With the cigarette between his lips, he muttered, “A mess,” then lit it and dragged in a breath.

“You’re not a mess,” she’d said, though he kind of was. But he wasn’t an unsalvageable mess like he’d suggested. “Just because you’ve never succeeded at keeping someone before doesn’t mean you can’t.”

His voice gravelly, he asked, “What about you, Charlie? You embracing this thing between you and Ev?”

“I didn’t… I wasn’t talking about me.”

“You sure as hell were.” She shook her head again but he leaned close. “You’re scared as shitless as I am. Don’t pretend different.” His voice had dropped low, then lower, as Gloria strode up behind him and took her seat.

His mouth widened into a false grin. “You look dead sexy tonight, Charlie.”