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It would be easier to tell her to go. Easier not to try. Easier to just stay in my life the way it was without changing anything. To shut myself off from anyone causing me that kind of pain again. That would be the easy thing to do.
But Andrew had made me promise that if she came to me, I would listen. And I knew that Evie would agree. The easiest way wasn’t always the best way in the end. We were both learning that. Sometimes you had to walk the hard route, the route that didn’t have any signs. The route that could hurt you.
So I looked at my mother, at her hopeful face, and I sighed.
“All right,” I said. “Come in.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Two Weeks Later
Evie
Even after everything, I still liked to punch Nick Mason.
“Come on, Evie,” he said. “Hit me harder.”
We were at the boxing gym. We’d been here for an hour, sparring—sort of. Even though I’d upped my game, our version of sparring consisted of me hitting him, and him not hitting me back. He refused to do it any other way.Find some other guy to hit you,he’d told me.I’m not fucking doing it.
So, fine then. I hit him.
Not in the face. No way was I aiming for that gorgeous face of his. But his hot, muscled body was fair game. We dodged around the mats as I aimed for his chest, his shoulders, his stomach. He was faster than me, and I only landed some of the hits I aimed at him—and the ones I landed he ridiculed as too soft. His taunts just made me work harder, and we were both covered in sweat. My arms were shaky and my legs were rubber. I felt freaking amazing.
I positioned my feet and jabbed him again, almost getting his pec. He raised a glove and blocked me, our gloves smacking. “Better,” he said. “Maybe.”
I straightened, scrubbing my forearm over my sweaty forehead. “You’re such an asshole,” I said, panting.
“I know,” Nick said. “It turns you on.”
“It doesn’t.” It totally did.
“Right, redhead.” He glanced back over his shoulder, where the gym had emptied out behind us. It was closing time, apparently. The other guys had gone and an old guy was turning out the lights.
I’d had no idea we had to go. But Nick wasn’t moving. The old guy turned out a few more lights, then gave Nick a nod—which Nick returned—and walked out the front door, locking it shut behind him.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“Workout’s over,” Nick said, his voice deceptively casual. He used his teeth to rip the velcro off his right glove.
“He just closed the place and locked us in,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, he did.” Nick dropped his glove and started on the other one.
We were completely alone in the place now. The lights above our mats were the only lights on. It should have been creepy or weird. Instead I watched Nick drop his other glove, and I felt a hard shiver of anticipation. He was planning something. I didn’t know what it was, but I had the idea I was going to like it.
Still, I kept my voice calm, like this happened every day. “So how are we going to leave?” I asked as he stepped forward and undid my glove. “If the place is already locked, and all.”
“Spare set of keys in one of the lockers in back,” Nick said. “We’ll lock up behind us when we go.”
“Uh huh,” I said. “And since we’re done working out, what are we doing between now and leaving?”
“What do you think?”
The shiver of anticipation came again, harder. Oh, I liked this. He dropped my first glove and started on the other, and I just watched him. There was nothing I liked looking at more than Nick Mason. He was all muscles and scruff and bad-boy tattoos, all sweaty and mischievous and dangerous, and he was all mine. All mine.
Six weeks we’d been doing this. Playing a sort of game that was fun and hot and, underneath, deadly serious. I was managing a bakery now, working hard and long hours and loving every minute of it. I spent all day with breads and pastries and the people who loved them, and so far I was happier in my career than I’d ever been, because I’d stopped worrying about what people thought. I just went to work and came home happy, smelling like pie crust and sugar.
And on my days off, like today, I got Nick. All to myself. We played—we sparred and we talked and we took shots at each other. And the sex—oh, my god, the sex. Sometimes I thought I could spend a week locked in a room, doing nothing but having sex with Nick, and it still wouldn’t be enough. We were daring and creative and sometimes wild, and the back and forth we did beforehand always added to the foreplay. With Nick, I always had to work for it. And it always paid off.
