A firm hand touched my back, brushing along my waist before settling on my hip.I could feel the heat of all five fingers splayed wide, seeping beneath my skin, trying to settle deep within me.I melted into him without meaning to.It was a struggle to listen to Lexa speak when my mind was shutting down and my other senses became hyperaware of everything…him.
“My name is Reid Barker.It’s a little complicated.The short version is, my parents were broken up when my mom gave birth to me,” Reid explained quietly, his breath teasing across my ear and neck as he leaned closer to speak only to me.
I felt a tumbling sensation in my belly.Like I was free-falling.
Straight into him.
He rubbed his hand in a slow circle before giving my ass a squeeze.I blinked up at him, biting my lips together to hold in a moan.
As if he knew my struggle, he winked down at me before continuing to tell me the story of why he was named Reid.“Mom didn’t think she would ever see my dad again, so she gave me his name in the only way she could think of at the time.When they eventually got back together, she refused to change my last name from Barker because, one, she didn’t want me to be called Reid Reid.And two, she wanted my grandfather’s last name to continue on.”
“Kids can be mean.Even cruel at times.I bet she didn’t want you to be bullied at school.”I didn’t know why I was defending his mother’s reasons for not changing his name.She wasn’t there to argue her point of view.Plus, she’d wanted her son to have a piece of his father, even thinking the man wouldn’t be a part of their lives.That had to mean something—I just didn’t know what.It wasn’t as if my parents had ever given me a reason to think they cared about anything but themselves.
Blue eyes sparked down at me in a way that screameddanger, while simultaneously hissinghot.I almost squeezed my thighs together in search of relief from the sudden throb between my legs.
“Not sure anyone would ever have the balls to bully Reid, but it’s cute she thinks it’s possible,” someone, I thought it might have been Delaney, commented.
But I was too enthralled by the color of Reid’s eyes to know for sure.He was so close, all I saw was those irises, that glacier blue which had lines that seemed to glow when the light hit them just right.
“Yeah, my mom is a true angel in disguise.You can’t tell me differently.She’s gonna want to meet you, sweetness.Real soon.”
“Okay,” I whispered, because I kind of wanted to meet the woman who’d birthed this man, who had cared so much about his name.A mom who loved her child.That seemed like a fairy tale to me, yet I knew it existed.
“Yeah?”He smiled, causing his eyes to brighten, the startling blue beautiful with his sun-kissed skin and dark hair.Up close, I noticed he had some gray sprinkled in.Why that was an even bigger turn-on, I had no idea, but the awakened slutty-kitty between my legs might as well have been purring for him.
Damn it!
I was worried about Evie falling for the stupid—albeit hot—bloodhound, but apparently I needed to figure out my own crush before I started trying to give my sister advice.Because as easily as I saw my twin falling for Chance, I may have already jumped straight into something a helluva lot more dangerous with Reid.
It was too easy to let go and just fall straight into him.All I’d wanted was a new life with Evie.Looking for a relationship outside of that was never on my radar.Love was too unpredictable.Too…scary.
But when I was looking into Reid’s eyes, I felt no fear.For the first time in a long, long time, I felt safe.
Reid
I could practically see Everly mentally warringwith herself.She was having an inner battle, but I could feel her defenses lowering.Slowly, but surely.
As soon as I sensed her giving in to the inevitable, I latched on and promised myself I would never have to let her go again.Control no longer meant anything to me.There was no reason to even attempt to rein myself in.Not when it came to my woman.
Mixed into the white noise of the chatter around us, I heard Dad and Matt messing around.Without having to look at my father and uncle, I knew they were eating up the show Chance and I had undoubtedly performed for their amusement.
Introducing Everly to my mom was something I was ready to do then and there.My dad, however, was not someone I could just dump on the woman I intended to spend the rest of my life with.He was mischievous as fuck, and I didn’t trust him or his brother not to stir up shit.
Mom first, then Dad.Slow, gentle baby steps so I didn’t scare the fuck out of my future wife.
Which meant I needed to get her the hell out of Hannigans’ sooner rather than later.“You want an early night?”
“Evie isn’t ready to leave.”
“I didn’t ask about her.I’m asking you.”
“I’m not leaving my sister in a bar by herself.Especially not when she has some bloodhound literally sniffing her.”She shot Chance a look that would have withered him on the spot.If he’d been paying attention to her.But he didn’t seem capable of looking away from Evie.
Everly was right, though.He did keep sniffing Evie.More like he was breathing her in as if he were taking hits of pure oxygen for the first time in his existence.Evie kept leaning into him when he would dip his head to inhale her scent deeper.It was impossible to miss the shuddered breaths she took in response or the way her cheeks glowed a pretty pink.He murmured something to her that I couldn’t hear, and she responded with a soft, secret kind of smile.
Whatever switch Evie had flipped in my cousin, it had done a one-eighty on him.This was a side to him no one had seen before.
“Your sister doesn’t appear to be ready to leave, but she’s safer in this bar than anywhere else in the county right now.Lexa’s husband is the sheriff.”
