Claire threw the magazine at me, catching me on the jaw with the spine. “Baxter! Don’t shock the new girl! She blushes easily.”
And, indeed, Evangeline was blushing even harder, if that was possible. “This conversation has devolved rather swiftly, I must say.”
I just laughed. “Babe, this conversation hasn’t even gotten started.”
Her perfectly arched eyebrows lifted. “That sounds…worrisome.”
I laughed even harder, because it didn’t seem as if she was trying to be funny, but rather she really was just that…conservative, shall we say. “You have no idea. We’re not very politically correct around here. We’re wildly inappropriate as a rule, we drop F-bombs with horrifying frequency, we drink a shitload of booze on the regular, and we make fun of each other as a lifestyle. If you’re easily embarrassed or shocked…well, babe…you’re in for a hell of wild ride if you’re gonna hang with us.”
“I just…I wasn’t trying to impose or…” she trailed off. “Become the new girl, or anything. It all just happened so fast. I don’t even remember where the B and B I’m staying at is located. It’s been a heck of a long day, and I’m still a little shaken up by what happened, and…”
Dru poured a healthy measure of red wine into the glass she’d been drinking from when we arrived. “The Badd brothers have a way of sucking us poor, innocent, unsuspecting good girls into their dark and dirty orbit. Just how they are. You’re here, you’ve had our booze, you’re wearing my clothes—you’re in the gang now, babe. Better buckle up.” She handed the glass to Evangeline and gently nudged her back down onto the couch. “Don’t worry, between Mara, Claire, and me, we’ll take care of you.”
Evangeline took a big sip from the wine. “This is overwhelming.”
“Isn’t it? And this isn’t even everyone. Bast, Brock, the twins, Luce, and Xavier are all still downstairs working the bar.” Claire reached across me and stole the glass of wine from Evangeline, took a sip, and handed it back. “So. Evangeline. What brings you to Ketchikan?”
She tipped her head to one side. “Well…honestly, I needed to get away from…ah…everything, I guess. Ketchikan was recommended to me by one of my father’s drivers as a remote but nice getaway, and it’s certainly far away from anywhere my father or Thomas might look, so…” She shrugged. “Here I am. As far away from Father and Thomas as I can get, on short notice.”
“So you’re running away?” Claire asked.
Evangeline blinked, hesitating. “Sort of?”
“Fair enough,” Claire said. “Can we go back to you turning down some kind of proposal from this guy Thomas? That sounded like a fun story.”
Evangeline let out a breath. “It’s really not.”
“That sigh says differently,” Claire says. “I’ll trade you stories, if you want. How Brock and I met, for the dish on you and Thomas.”
Another of those sighs, during which Evangeline stared into the ruby liquid in the glass. “Fine. But you go first. I need more wine if I’m going to talk about Thomas.”
Dru tipped the rest of the bottle into the glass, and then glanced at Claire. “There’s another bottle over the fridge. And some whiskey for the boys. Since we’re having an impromptu party in my living room, we might as well make it a proper party.”
In short order, glasses of wine and whiskey were passed around, except for Mara, who sipped on sparkling water.
Evangeline kicked her feet up on the coffee table, crossed her arms over her breasts, keeping her wine clutched in one hand as if holding on to it for dear life. Her thigh and hip were touching mine, and she was slowly leaning into me, letting her shoulder rest against mine. I held still and let her decide on contact, because I didn’t want to read into anything, and I sure as fuck wasn’t going to try anything so soon after what she’d been through. I did like the way it felt to have her this close, though. She smelled amazing, like vanilla and flowers and shampoo; she smelled fuckin’ delicious, is how she smelled, and I wanted to take a little taste of her. Start at the luscious, tanned column of her throat and devour my way downward, inch by inch, until I was between her thighs, and had her screaming my name.
And…fuck—I just gave myself a hard-on. Wonderful. She was sitting right next to me, with my sister-in-law on the other side, and I had a hard-on trying to unfurl behind my fighting trunks, which didn’t do much to hide anything, especially since I’d taken off my cup and jockstrap and was rocking my junk commando.
I tried to casually rest my hands with my glass of whiskey over myself to hide things, but judging by the way Evangeline was blushing and studiously staring into her wine and not looking at me, I think it’s safe to say she noticed.
Claire was talking, and I was mostly listening. I shot a sideways glance at Evangeline, and noticed her gaze sliding, inching, and creeping from her wineglass over to me. I moved my hands away, just a little bit, letting the outline of my cock show, just a hint. And yep, her gaze went right to it. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped her wineglass with one hand and her own forearm with the other.
Her eyes flicked away and up to mine, as if realizing she was staring—which she had been—and I caught and held her gaze.
And then I winked, and her breath stuttered.
This could be fun. I’d have to be cautious, but my interested-female radar was pinging like crazy. Didn’t have to mean anything, and wouldn’t, but it could be fun. If there’s anything I’m good at besides fighting and football, it’s corrupting good girls.
And Evangeline du Maurier seemed like the hottest, sweetest, and most innocent of all good girls.
2
Evangeline
What was I doing? Why was I sitting here with these strangers, getting tipsy, and thinking about talking about Thomas? Inevertalk about Thomas. Not with anyone. I mean, my friends at Yale knew about him, knew his limo, knew who he was, but they also knew I didn’t talk about him. They just didn’t get it—they couldn’t understand why I would avoid a wealthy, influential, educated, handsome man like Thomas. If they’d known about his marriage proposals, they would have wet their pants with envy. A lot of those girls, as smart as they were, were suckers for a good-looking man with a fat bank account, robust investment portfolio, and impressive resumé. A man like Thomas? Most of the girls I hung out with would sell their souls to be his wife.
But these people, though? The Badd brothers and the women in their lives? They were…like no one I had ever met in my life. I didn’t have the words to properly describe them.
