Until the Tequila (The Killers #3.5)(8)

“Finally,” he utters before kissing me hard and turning his attention back to my clit.

This time, he’s all business, working me into such a state, I only faintly hear myself call out when I come. My ears ring and my toes tingle as my body convulses against his hand. I feel his thick arm round my back to support my weight as he wrings me dry, leaving me in a limp pile of mush held tight to his body.

I sit in his arms, recovering, as the world comes back to me, my current state of nakedness hitting me as my senses sharpen. He strokes my hair, my back, my ass.

At the most inopportune time, my stomach audibly complains and I feel Evan smile against the side of my head.

Needing to change the subject to absolutely anything besides my past and the life-altering orgasm he just gave me, I ask, “Is that a Diet Coke?”

“Been watching you for what feels like forever. What else would I bring you?” He fists my hair, pulling my head just enough for me to see nothing but his golden-brown eyes. “No more tequila for you in the near future. And Mary?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m picking you up tonight. Be ready to talk.”

I shake my head. “Tonight’s poker night.”

He pulls me in tight. “We’ll skip.”

If I go to poker, I don’t have to talk to Evan. “No. I can’t let Addy down. If we skip, it’ll mess up the table.”

He sighs. “Fine. I’ll pick you up. We’ll talk after poker.”

I’ll leave early for Addy’s so I’ll have my own car, make an excuse to leave, and head straight for Mexico.

I smile. “Sounds good to me.”





5





Keep My Mouth Shut and My Clothes On





Mary





I’m not quite sure how poker night came to be, but after I bonded with Addy the first time she sat in my chair at the salon, she insisted I attend. It’s become an odd cluster of her employees and me.

Actually, they’re all pretty normal and I’m the odd one, but I’ve always been on the outside looking in. It’s not fun but after spending thirteen years bouncing around the foster care system, I know exactly what I am—a charity case. Never a family member, yet included out of sheer obligation. I am friends with July and all her sisters and the Maysons did everything they could to take me into their fold. But, by the time this happened, I was so used to being on the outside, it was hard to allow myself to be included. It was the “it’s not you, it’s me” thing.

Everything is my father’s fault. Every-freaking-thing.

I hate being a charity case and I certainly don’t need Evan nosing around in my business.

Evan has proven to be hypnotic. I knew if I gave in, this would happen. I curse the moment I was weak and agreed to dinner. I was ignoring him like a champ—like the C-list rock star that I am. He teases me and I bite back with my words. He shoots me his sexy, private smirks and I roll my eyes. His private touches to my arm, hip, or the small of my back always earn him an elbow to the ribs.

He treats me like the secret he visualizes naked and I treat him like the enemy.

But he doesn’t have to visualize me naked anymore after he swooned my robe right off of me this afternoon.

The last thing I need is to be held hostage by Evan at poker night.

But Evan proved how sly he is by reading my mind. I’m on my way out the door forty-five minutes early to avoid him but here he is, sauntering up the stairs to my second level apartment.

“You trying to skip out on me?”

I have no excuse so, for the first time since I was drunk last night, I tell the truth. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

He has no response besides taking the two steps separating us and reaching around, placing his hand on my ass at the same moment his lips hit mine, reminding me he had me very much naked on my kitchen counter just a few short hours ago.

He’s standing on the step below me and we’re eye to eye. “We could skip poker. I’ll order dinner and you can talk with your mouth full.”

I shake my head. “No. Addy is expecting me—us. You know how Morris feels about not having enough players at the table.”

“Okay. I’ll wrap up the game early, but after that you need to be prepared to talk.” I tense when my phone vibrates where it’s tucked in my back pocket. And since that’s where his hand is resting, Evan feels it, too. “Do you need to see who that is?”

I take a step back, which means taking a step up, and almost trip. He reaches out to steady me as I silence my phone. “Nope. I can check it later.”

He stuffs one hand into his pocket and extends the other to me. “Then let’s get this done so we can get out of there.”

I don’t take his hand. I sidestep him and speed down the stairs like the maniac I’ve turned into over the last twenty-four hours.





I don’t drink anything at poker. Addy’s new hot-guy neighbor, Crew, shows up and looks like he wants to devour her. Everyone could see it, so Evan doesn’t have to work hard at wrapping up the game early.

Everyone bows out early and when we get back to my apartment, I don’t even have to fake how tired I am. My hangover has wiped me out along with worry about why July has called me three times in the last two hours but, because a certain man has butted his way into my life, I haven’t been able to take any of her calls.