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I heard the girl standing next to me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the tower of strength sitting across from me. “I think we need another few minutes,” Evelyn murmured, smiling up at the girl after telling me the worst thing I’d ever heard.
It all made sense in a way it didn’t before. His overprotectiveness, the way he took care of her. He’d always blamed himself. He’d always felt like he ruined her life.
“How do you do it?” I choked out.
“How do I do what?”
“Get through something like that? Eve… shit.”
“You just do. You bury it way down deep inside of you because you’re too ashamed to ever tell anybody your own father tried to kill you.”
Saying I was sorry would only be trite. What good did it ever do, anyway? I couldn’t take away the years she’d lost thanks to that piece-of-shit sperm donor. “You are the strongest person I’ve ever known.”
“Please don’t do that,” she whispered through a shaky smile. “I’m not trying to be anybody’s hero.”
“I’m not trying to insult you. I mean it. I didn’t know there were people like you in the world.” She was still holding my hand, so I lifted hers to my lips and kissed it.
“Now that we got that out of the way… let’s eat.” She squeezed my hand one last time and winked before turning her attention back to her menu.
* * *
“So what you’retelling me is, you were too hungry earlier, and now you’re too stuffed?”
“Why didn’t you stop me?” she whined once we reached the penthouse before groaning and patting her stomach. “All that French toast.”
“Right. Like I would ever tell you what to do. Like I don’t know better by now.”
“I’m so full.” She staggered to the bedroom and flopped back on the bed. “I don’t think I’ll ever eat again.”
“Yeah, just like I always used to tell myself when I was hungover that I would never drink again.” I plopped down next to her, then laid on my back like she did. “I could’ve gorged myself, but I saved room for you.”
“That’s because you’re always thinking with your dick, and I was thinking with my stomach.”
“When you’re right, you’re right.” I rolled onto my side, and for a while, it was enough just to look at her. She was even more beautiful than she had been before we left for brunch, the most exquisite thing I’d ever seen. She had gone through shit I couldn’t imagine and was still swinging.
If only I had the balls to put into words everything that was brewing in my heart. “You know,” I whispered, teasing her collarbone with my fingertips where it peeked out from over the collar of her T-shirt. “We’re only going to have use of this great, big bed for so much longer. We’re wasting precious time.”
“Thinking with your dick again?”
“Again? That implies there’s a time I’m not thinking with it.” She rolled her eyes, but I cut off her laughter with a kiss that tasted like coffee, syrup, and cinnamon.
God, she was perfect. From the way she challenged me to the way she instantly met my desire with her own in moments like this. One second she’d give me shit for being a horn dog, and the next, she’d practically claw me to pieces, trying to get closer to me.
“I need you,” I groaned out, and truer words had never come out of me. I needed her so much that it terrified me and made me want to run and hide. Because I knew, didn’t I? I knew damn well what could happen to a man when he handed himself over to a woman. I knew the stinging pain of betrayal. I told myself I would never go through it again.
But something about her kiss and the way she cradled the back of my head in her hand as we took our time exploring each other gave me hope. It brought me peace. This was what I had been missing out on all my life.
She moaned into my mouth once I worked my hand under her shirt and dipped inside the cup of her lacy bra to massage her breast. She thrust her hips upward and moaned again, rolling onto her side so our bodies were flush. The contact against my growing erection made me gasp, but it was the hand she used to cup and stroke me through my jeans that left me shaking, needy, determined to spend the rest of the day worshiping her.
This goddess.
This fucking warrior.
I didn’t hear it. The chime from the elevator. I was too busy savoring Evelyn’s moans as I devoured her neck, working my way down to her chest while she opened my fly and reached inside.
I didn’t hear the footsteps, either.
I heard nothing until a sharp voice echoed through the room. “What. The fuck. Are you doing?”
