9. Evangeline
CHAPTER NINE
evangeline
You used to be my lullaby
Your smile my favorite lie
I would have given you the sky
But all you wanted was goodbye
I yank my arm from Wilder’s hold the second the door closes behind us. My skin hums from shoulder to wrist, like the contact sank through my leather jacket and top and is spreading like a toxin. I instinctively move away from him, deeper into the small room. A few seconds of disorientation later, my eyes finally partner with my brain to tell me where we are.
“Really? A bathroom?”
“It was the closest option.”
His voice is calm. Unnervingly so. Despite that, the rich tone causes an immediate physical reaction. Panic. The walls of the arguably spacious bathroom seem to pulse closer, spiking my blood pressure. Not helping is the fact he’s blocking the door, one shoulder resting on a brick wall painted as black as his heart.
I can’t seem to make myself look at his face, so I focus instead on the fingers he’s currently rubbing against his denim-clad thigh like they’re tainted. The same fingers that were around my arm.
His hand stills, then he shoves up his long sleeves and crosses his arms over his chest. I stare at his muscled, veiny forearms, the golden skin now covered liberally with ink. My roaming gaze snags on a hyper-realistic lighthouse, the artistry as distinctive and familiar as that on the wall in the living room.
For a second, I forget the last three years—forget that he’s a stranger. My mom’s brother, Josh Marshall, is a world-renowned tattoo artist, and Wilder has been begging him to work on his skin since he was eighteen.
A smile quirks my lips. “My uncle finally agreed to tattoo you?”
He shifts against the wall. I risk a glance up to find his gaze fixed on the floor near my feet.
“Yes,” he says shortly. “You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing in my house?”
My smile dies, its echo reverberating in my chest. “I didn’t know it was your house.”
“Who invited you?”
“Michael Dresden.”
He stiffens even more. “Stay away from him.”
I suck in a breath, then release it slowly through my nose. There’s a pinch in my chest, its source the same old wound: my inability to reconcile who he used to be with who he’s become.
“Move. I’m leaving.”
His eyes finally lift to mine. In the soft glow of the vanity’s lights, their green is so dark I can’t see the brown flecks. I’m grateful for the anger in my blood diluting the effect of him actually focusing on me, but I also can’t stop my eyes from roaming, absorbing, seeing him in a way I haven’t allowed myself to for so long.
His body is a man’s now. Broad shoulders, narrow hips, long lines, and lean muscle. His face, too, has lost all vestiges of childhood. He’s haughty and chiseled, almost ethereally beautiful.
I hate that he takes my breath away.
When one of his brows arches up, amusement flaring in his eyes, I wrench my gaze from his annoyingly perfect face.
“Whatever,” I mutter. “You’re pretty but your personality sucks.”
He makes a small sound. Almost a laugh. Then he says, “Michael doesn’t date. He fucks and ghosts.”
Inwardly, I flinch. Outwardly, I scowl. “Don’t pretend you care. Maybe I want to fuck and ghost him .”
His lips curl, a challenge more than a smile. “Do you?”
I throw my hands up in exasperation. “What are we even doing right now? The first conversation we have in three years and we’re already arguing? Clearly we need another three. Or better yet, ten.”
“I don’t want to argue with you.”
He drags a hand through his hair—shorter than when I saw him last but still unruly—and makes a soft sound of frustration. When he looks at me again, my knees go weak.
It’s him .
My friend.
“I saw the show last Friday.” This time when his lips curve, it’s a real smile. “Snuck in the back so you wouldn’t see me.”
Every muscle in my body locks.
“You were amazing, Evangeline. I’m in awe of you.”
I stand in mute shock, my face burning and my mouth open. Wilder pushes off the wall. Two steps bring him to me. I have to crane my neck to maintain eye contact.
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
His gaze roams my face. “I don’t know,” he answers as softly. “I miss you. So fucking much. Do you really hate me?”
I swallow hard. My body burns; my scalp feels like mist. I have a sudden, visceral memory of the last time we were this close. In his childhood bed. His hand on my thigh. Between my legs.
Before I can do something stupid, I force the memory to play to its disastrous end.
“Yes.”
I want to mean it, but I can hear my uncertainty and so can he. His teeth catch his lips, arresting a smile. Slowly, so slowly, he bends forward, caging me against the counter with his hands to either side of me. His head drops beside mine, warm breath cascading over my neck.
I stiffen, paralyzed between an urge to push him away and savor this dangerous moment. My toes and fingers tingle, and I can’t stop myself from sucking in his scent.
“I wish that were true,” he murmurs, my body vibrating with the low words. “God, I wish you hated me.”
“I do,” I choke out.
“Liar.” His mouth grazes my skin above the collar of my jacket. Not a kiss. Worse, almost. He breathes me in, and with every breath, he sucks out more of my sanity.
You drank me dry so slow
I didn’t notice as I lost my glow
The words shoot through my mind like comets, fiery tails dissolving my mental haze. I plant my palms on his chest to shove him back but freeze when I feel him shaking. The world shifts and presents itself from a new angle, one in which he isn’t intentionally provoking me but collapsing against me .
“Please.” His voice cracks. “Don’t push me away. Just for a minute, let me come home.”
My heart pumps painfully against my ribs. There’s something in his voice I’ve never heard before. Sharp barbs and fathomless shadows. Coupled with the trembling of his body, it scares the shit out of me.
My arms automatically wind around him, anchoring tightly and pulling us flush. With a choked groan, he wraps his arms around me in return. His heart thunders against my ear. Every quake in his frame spikes my worry further.
The fact that this is our first hug registers only dimly as I rub his back and massage the tight muscles of his shoulders. Slowly, his trembling abates.
“Fuck, that feels good,” he whispers.
“Wilder,” I say against his chest, “what’s going on?”
His hold relaxes a fraction. “Nothing.”
I try to lean back but he doesn’t release me. “Please talk to me. Tell me you’re okay.”
He sighs, a hand shifting to cradle the back of my head. “I’m okay. A cockroach, remember? Ugly and indestructible.”
I fight the urge to smile. “Grudge much? I was eight when I called you that. Right after you told me I was a toothpick with a cotton ball for a head.”
This time when he shakes, it’s with laughter. His fingers dive into my hair, spreading across my scalp. When he begins to lightly massage me, my knees melt. His other arm tightens, holding me up.
“Does that feel good?” he whispers.
It feels really fucking good. So does his big, hard body, still curled around me like a heated, muscly blanket. I haven’t been held in close to a year and never by someone built like Wilder.
Never by Wilder .
All the things I should be feeling—alarm being the foremost—are nowhere to be found. I feel fuzzy and warm. Oddly safe. A tapestry of colorful patchwork memories surrounds me. Lying in the shade of the sycamore in his parents’ backyard, scribbling in our journals and playing guitar. Arguing about whether place rhymed with decay. Comparing calluses on our hands.
Our first sold out show as Night Theory, the screams of the crowd in our ears as we looked at each other and realized we’d done it. Built something special, something magical , together.
My voice wavers with emotion. “I’m really confused by what’s happening right now. We’re hugging . Is this an alternate dimension?”
I can’t see his smile, but I feel it.
“Never hugging you is now on the list of my biggest mistakes.”
A warm hand encompasses the back of my neck. I shiver as he nuzzles his face into my neck and drags in a deep breath. “You smell the same,” he whispers, a gravelly note in his voice that makes my stomach drop.
The arm around my back flexes, canting our hips together, and the world tilts again. My body wakes up apocalypse-style—boiling seas and giant plumes of fire.
That is not his belt buckle growing harder and bigger against my stomach.
“Wilder,” I squeak.
This time when his lips find my neck, there’s no mistaking his intent. A small, involuntary moan escapes me as he presses a soft, open-mouthed kiss beneath my ear. His hands float down my spine and seize my hips. He lifts me onto the counter, immediately pressing forward between my legs. My fingers dig into his waist as his tongue touches my pulse. I moan again because logic has clearly left the room and it’s been so damn long and holy shit I forgot how enormous his dick is.
The last time his hands were on me, I wasn’t ready for it. My heart was too invested; we were both hurting. I was a virgin and his experience was daunting. He shocked me on purpose to push me away.
I may not be that much more experienced now, but I’m three years older. No longer a virgin. I’m not afraid anymore. My body screams for what he can give me and my head suddenly doesn’t care about the consequences.
“Fuck, I want you so bad.” He nips at my earlobe as one hand dives between our bodies. His thumb circles, manipulating the seam of my jeans against my clit. “Tell me to stop.”
“No.” I gasp. “Don’t st?—”
My voice chokes off as a fist pounds on the bathroom door.
His head whips up and he snarls, “Go away!”
“Wild?” asks a concerned female voice. “It’s me. Are you sick? I’m coming in.”
The doorknob rattles. Wilder leaps backward so fast he collides with the brick wall. Our eyes meet for one second—a second that stretches for years—before he jerks into action, grabbing the door before it can swing open all the way. I glimpse Kendra’s pretty, worried face before he slips out and closes the door behind him.
Over the pounding of my heartbeat, I hear the rumble of his voice.
“I’m fine… She followed me in… Yeah, just some girl…”
My eyes close.
Just some girl.