Chapter 5 Chance
Chance
Combing my fingers through my still-wet hair, I knocked on the door of apartment four. I tried to keep it light, but it was more of a booming sound that was loud enough, it had several other tenants opening their doors.
“Oh hey, Chance!”
Gritting my teeth, I ignored the woman who walked out of apartment three and knocked on my girl’s door again.
Nothing.
Pulling out my phone, I checked to see if she’d texted me back since the last message I’d sent. Five minutes ago.
Again, nothing.
All day, I’d been glued to my phone, mentally begging her for a crumb of attention.
Other than one picture she’d sent me to confirm she hadn’t wrong-numbered me, she’d been silent.
Like a love-sick puppy, I’d gazed at her on my screen all day.
I set the selfie she’d sent me as my wallpaper and lock screen.
Unable to think about anything but her turned a task that should have only taken a few hours into a day-long job.
I had to stay until it was finished since we were on a tight schedule for the project.
It was either stay over or come back at the crack of dawn the next day.
I already had plans for how I was spending my Saturday, and they had nothing to do with work.
First, I was going to find Evie, get my fill of her decadent scent, and then kiss her like I’d been aching to all day.
From there, I wasn’t going to let her go, not for a single fucking minute.
She needed to get used to having me all over her, because now that I’d found her, I was going to be glued to her.
“I just made some dinner. Would you like to join me? I made fajitas. Rory gave me the recipe for all your favorites.”
Me: You better be at Hannigans’, peaches.
“Chance, I asked you a question.”
Glancing at the small blonde, I bit back a sigh.
She was seconds away from stomping her foot and having a full-on tantrum right there.
No doubt, she’d be on the phone to my mother in five minutes, bitching about how I was rude to her.
Something that she should have been used to by now since I wasn’t getting aboard that crazy train.
Casey was always a pain in my ass. She was in her mid-twenties and worked at one of the doctor’s offices in town.
Why my mom adored her was a frigging mystery to me, but I wasn’t going to begrudge her a friend.
If she wanted to get her nails done with Casey every few weeks, I’d hand over my bank card and tell her to get a pedicure while she was at it.
But when she started throwing her new bestie at me, I’d made it clear there would be no matchmaking.
That didn’t stop Ma. A year ago, she’d gone to Reid to get Casey an apartment in our building, as if the close proximity would push us together or some shit.
All it did was confirm for me that the nurse was a spoiled little brat who had never heard the word no in her life.
I wasn’t stupid enough to let my dick get anywhere close to that bitch, let alone think about having a relationship with her.
“I’m not hungry.” I heard her give an annoyed huff before she did, in fact, stamp her feet.
My focus was back on my phone before I reached my truck.
Still nothing.
Frustrating woman.
I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her.
There was a pink Jeep in Hannigans’ parking lot when I pulled in, just like the one I’d seen back at the apartment.
I’d noticed the matching vehicles, and they fit what little I already knew about my girl’s personality.
She looked like a live version of Barbie, with the exception of her hair being on the cooler side of blond.
Like a freaking moonbeam. Her hair, her eyes, her sweet little body, had haunted me all day while I’d sucked on one piece of peach-flavored candy after another.
I needed to pay attention to the license plates of the two Jeeps so I would know in the future which one belonged to Evie. It wasn’t like I was going to stalk her or anything. Unless she forced me to.
Why did my cock get hard just thinking about stalking that gorgeous blond goddess? She was already making me work harder for a taste than I’d ever had to with any other woman. Ignoring my texts all day, making me crave her, twisting me up inside in less than twelve hours.
A wall of noise hit me as soon as I walked into the bar.
People I’d known my entire life mixed in with tourists, college students, and some of the residents who lived outside the town limits.
Several of my MC brothers called greetings or tipped their heads as I passed them.
Automatically, my gaze went to the back, where my dad played pool most nights.
Not surprisingly, he was back there, pool stick in hand, laughing with Tanner.
No matter what he had going on in his life, he always carved out time with his brother.
I knew it was because at one point in time, he’d thought he’d lost him, but that wasn’t something he or Tanner openly talked about.
No one ever brought it up. It was a hard line that not even Bash or Hawk, our Pres and VP, crossed.
Catching a flash of the blond hair I’d been imagining wrapping around my fist all day, I moved toward her. It was crowded as hell in the bar, causing me to have to dodge a few people when I would have rather run them over like a tank to get to the girl who was the sole occupant of my mind now.
The closer I got to her, an alert kept attempting to go off in my head, trying to warn me that something was awry. She was in a dress that hugged her from chest to mid-thigh, her hair falling in soft curls around her face. Her makeup wasn’t overly done, but I already knew I preferred her barefaced.
Exactly how I wanted everything with her. All natural, nothing between us, not makeup, not clothes, and sure as fuck not a condom.
I shoved that thought back, hard. If I kept thinking about how I was going to take her, I’d erupt like a Roman candle right in the middle of the crowded bar.
That internal alarm kept trying to pull my focus, shouting to pay attention with each step I took toward her.
She picked up her drink and a plastic pitcher of what must have been margaritas from the looks of it.
She said something to Jack, which pulled my gaze to him for a moment, needing to make sure his monster wasn’t too close to the surface.
Jack was family. I knew he wouldn’t hurt a woman, but when it came to Evie, I couldn’t help the desperate urge to protect what was mine.
As she turned, I stopped, waiting for her to notice me.
I took the time to run my eyes over her.
She moved differently from what I remembered of that morning.
Less reserved, maybe. I wasn’t sure, and it began to nag at me, like an itch I couldn’t scratch.
Because this girl was the exact image of the creature I’d been unable to stop thinking of all day long. Yet…
Where was that all-consuming need to touch and taste and mark?
It was silent inside me, and that felt wrong.
Because I knew Evie was my one. She’d unlocked the beast in my head, the one that hid inside all Reid men until they met the person who became their everything. One look, one little whiff of her enticing peach scent, and I was gone. Obsessed. Possessed. Whatever the fuck. Evie Adams was it for me.
Maybe I was just tired.
Her amazing eyes lifted from my chest, traveling slowly up to my face. I saw the smile begin to form, the way she started to melt ever so slightly.
But then our gazes locked, and she blinked, confusion causing her nose to scrunch up, no recognition shining back.
Equally confused, I tried to shrug it off.
“You being a good girl, peaches?” I asked, lowering my head, moving in to press my lips to her forehead, already inhaling—aching to pull her scent into my lungs, to have that small part of her inside me.
Only to stop when I didn’t get so much as a hint of peaches.
What the fuck?
“Did you just sniff me?” she demanded, offended and loud. Not my soft-voiced angel from earlier.
Conversation within a five-foot radius ceased, eyes training directly on us. Attention didn’t bother me, but I didn’t want it on my girl.
But this wasn’t my girl. Was it?
Yes.
No.
Maybe?
Lowering my head, I inhaled again, a little deeper this time, chasing the delicious aroma of peaches mixed with honey. Unreasonable anger exploded inside me when I didn’t find it. “You aren’t peaches,” I half snarled.
“Stop sniffing me, you creepy bloodhound,” Not-peaches snapped back.
She had fire, there was no denying that. All that angry fire wrapped up in a beautiful vessel that matched that of the girl I’d been daydreaming of doing depraved things to that made my cock ache. And yet right then, my dick didn’t even twitch.
It was a total mindfuck.
Where is my peaches?
This girl looked exactly like her. Even her eyes, those amazing, beautiful orbs, were Evie’s eyes. But there was no way in hell this was her. I would have bet my life on it. And from the way she kept eyeballing me, I was risking it.
“Why do you look like my peaches, but you don’t smell like her?” That was the most important question.
“She didn’t tell you she had a sister?” Not-peaches asked with narrowed eyes.
I nearly groaned and took a hesitant step back, realizing I’d unconsciously tried to scent her again, that desperate part of me rattling around like a chained animal in my head. “She did, but…”
“But she didn’t mention she had a twin?” Not-peaches guessed.
Unable to help it, I gave her another once-over, still freaking out that I was looking at Evie, but not her. She was beautiful. Fucking hot. And yet, my skin crawled at the thought of touching her how I wanted to touch my peaches.
This was insane. I’d grown up with Mila and Monroe, two people who were carbon copies of each other.
Only, those two had been night and day in looks once they hit puberty.
Mila started coloring her hair black, and they dressed so distinctly that it was easy to tell them apart.
Having kids had changed their bodies in different ways, making Mila curvier than her twin.
“No,” I responded begrudgingly, angry at myself for not immediately considering the possibility of Evie being a twin and a little pissed at this copy-paste version of my girl. I could already tell she was going to be a pain in the ass.
Fire flashed through her eyes, looking like a pyro dancing in those pretty irises. “Did you give her the chance to tell you, or were you too busy sniffing her?”
“I…” Cursing under my breath, I rubbed at the back of my neck.
She didn’t have to say it like that, damn it. I wasn’t being a creep. Any man who did that shit in front of me would get a beatdown. I wanted to breathe her in—not her specifically, my peaches. I wasn’t sniffing her like a freaking dog.
Rarely did I feel the need to explain myself, but I sensed this was important.
Not-peaches wasn’t anyone I cared about, but I sure as fuck cared about Evie, and she no doubt cared about her sister.
Even if she was kind of a bitch. Not-peaches was protective of her twin, though, and I respected that.
“All I remember is the desperate need to taste her.”
Not-peaches flung her drink in my face. “Stay the fuck away from my sister.”
I should have been thankful she didn’t throw the damn pitcher of margaritas at me.