Chapter 13
OLIVER
“Why are you doing this to me?” Eve glances up, her pace not altering.
A smile touches my lips. That scowl ...
“You know why.”
“You would’ve saved yourself a journey if you’d listened to me Sunday. How’d you find out where I work, anyway?”
“Haven’t you ever googled yourself, doctor?” While Eve had said she was a vet, I’d been surprised to discover she is both a doctor of veterinary medicine and a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. This is no reflection on her—she’s clearly an intelligent woman. It’s just a pity her choice in men seems to make her appear otherwise, myself included.
“Can’t say I have,” she answers without glancing away.
“But you’ve googled me.”
Eve’s cheeks take on a hue that has nothing to do with the damp air.
I remind myself the only reason I’m here is because of Atherton. Nothing to do with her. “I see you have.”
“It was a slow day at work. What can I say?”
If she’s spent time cruising the internet, she might have also discovered how challenging it’ll be for her to remain in the country. Unless you can engage the services of the country’s leading immigration lawyer. Which I can.
“Were you sad to discover I wasn’t one of the devil’s minions?”
“Especially when I read about all those orphanages you built and the puppies you rescued.”
“Saint or sinner.” I sigh. “Romeo or the villain. There are middle grounds, you know.”
“When we’re talking about blackmail?” She slants me a less-than-complimentary glance. “Not in my book.”
“Tell me, what would work, in your book?” Ignoring her bark of laughter, I add, “It’s not like you’ve nothing to gain. You want to stay in London. I can help you. You want your life back. I can help you with that too. Improve it, even.”
“Delusional! How could having you in my life possibly improve it?”
“I could think of a few ways,” I find myself purring.
“Thanks, but I’ll pass.” She swings away, her damp ponytail swishing like an angry kitten’s tail. “I can solve my own problems.”
“Undoubtedly. You’re very resourceful.” She doesn’t bite. “But I could alleviate a lot of the stress.” And not just with sex. “I have connections. The best law team in London at my service.”
“Oh, my Lord,” she says, suddenly affecting the southern tone she’d used at the hotel Saturday evening. “I am just so honored that you’d take an interest in me, a poor, hapless, helpless little woman.”
“Again, there’s nothing helpless about you.” My words don’t sound very complimentary. “With my help, the outcome would be guaranteed.”
Eve opens her mouth, but her response is overcome by chattering teeth. She clamps her jaw together forcefully.
“Serves you right for not getting in the car.”
“Who died and made you king?”
“I’d gladly offer you my crown and my scepter, my rod and my staff, but something tells me you’re not in the mood.”
Nothing.
I sigh. “Life would be much easier if people listened to instructions.” And poorer, too, considering how lovely angry looks on her.
She sniffs, and as she turns, I realize she’s soaked through.
“Stop.” I tighten my fingers on her arm. “Hold this.” Thrusting the handle of the umbrella into her hand, I quickly tug on the zip of the oversize hoodie she’s wearing.
“Hey! Stop that!”
I have it open and one arm free before she can complain with any great effect. Spinning her in the other direction means she almost takes out my eye with the umbrella spokes. “Don’t worry, I’m not trying to get you naked,” I mutter, jerking back.
“I got that memo, thanks.”
“Not in the street, at least.” The sweatshirt dangles from one wrist, and the expression she’s wearing? We’ll call it how rude! But not for long as I strip off my jacket, and her eyes slide hungrily down my chest. They linger in the vicinity of my belt, when she rolls in her bottom lip, rendering it pink and shiny. Bloody hell. If she doesn’t stop looking at me like that, my rod and crown will announce themselves.
“Why do you keep tormenting me?” she whispers.
“Because you think I’m pretty,” I murmur, reaching out to tidy a lock of her rain-frizzed hair, “and I’m nothing if not persistent.”
Her brows knit. “I didn’t say you were pretty.”
“Yes, you did.” I relieve her of the umbrella and lean the handle across my shoulder. I shake out my jacket from the collar, ready for her to slip it on. “On Saturday afternoon you said my lashes were pretty.”
“I was in a state of shock,” she mutters as she turns away. She slides in one arm, then the other. Then her breath hitches as, from behind, I drop my mouth to her ear.
“And on Saturday evening,” I whisper as softly as a curl of smoke, “you said my cock was the prettiest you’ve ever seen.”
“I did—I don’t remember.”
“Liar.” I bite back my enjoyment as she spins and snatches the wet hoodie from my hand. I lift the umbrella, and resuming our positions, we begin to walk again. “Compliments are always welcome.”
“I’m sure you get so many.” Her tone is the verbal equivalent of side-eye as she swishes the hoodie back and forth by her thigh.
“Are you surprised?”
“Such modesty.” She snorts.
“‘You’re so thick. So hard. I want you inside me,’” I utter perfectly pleasantly—as though commenting on the weather.
“Oh my God,” Eve splutters, glancing up at me as though I’ve grown another head.
“Those are the usual. ‘Your cock feels so good’ is also nice. ‘I feel so full, you’re going to split me in two’ is also special to hear.”
“Stop! I get the picture.”
“But ‘Oh, God, your pretty cock. Please, please, I need it inside me’ took things to a wonderful new level.”
“I did not beg.”
“You looked so beautiful, breathless and slightly desperate.” I don’t think I meant to sound so wistful.
“Please stop.”
“ That you never said. Your compliments are my new favorite. My current go-to.”
“Go-to?” Her attention slices my way, a tiny throb of connection joining us for a beat. Her body perceives my meaning, her brain catching up a moment later when she glances away. “This is so inappropriate.”
My feet slow to a stop. “I can thank you for your compliments, but I can’t tell you how I enjoy them?”
“No, you cannot.”
“You’re saying masturbation isn’t a general topic of conversation. We should change that. Have dinner with me.”
“So we can talk about you jacking off?” she splutters.
“If you prefer, I could demonstrate?”
“Do you have a split personality? Because I am seriously beginning to doubt which is the authentic version.”
“Every version of me wants you.”
“Wants something from me, more like.” Tugging gently on my arm, she steers us around a corner. At least she’s not running away.
“I want your help, and I want you in my bed.” And you have no idea the lengths I’ll go to.
“Stop saying that.”
She turns to the pressure on her arm.
“All right.” Taking her hand, I press it to my chest. The air around us is flat and damp, but the space between seems to pulse with anticipation. I angle my head, and her lashes flutter, her cool lips yielding to mine, accepting the brush of my tongue. Rain begins to hammer against the umbrella as her fingers tighten on my biceps, everything around us forgotten. Our surroundings, her resistance, our cross-purposes, all gone. My palm glides over the curve of her hip, taking hold of the heavenly roundness of her arse. I press her to me, soft to hard, her moan so sweet I could bottle it.
“Eve.” Her name is all gravel. “Come home with me.” Fuck my plans, at least for a little while. Just let me worship between your legs. Her lashes flicker open, and a burst of heat floods my veins. Then dissipates as her fingers retract in the space of a blink.
“I wish you’d leave me alone.” Her face is flushed, and my jacket, though huge on her frame, doesn’t conceal the rapid rise and fall of her breath.
“No, you don’t.”
Which is a problem for at least one of us.
“Shut the gate.” Her tone is perfunctory as she strides up a weed-strewn path, taking my umbrella with her.
“ No more kissing ,” she’d said as she strode away. “That doesn’t work on me.” Eve then issued me an ultimatum: she had a client she needed to check on, someone called Nora. I could behave and come along, or I could be gone. Like a lapdog waiting for the right moment to stick my nose between her legs, I followed, finding myself at a rustic-looking gate, fashioned from wooden pallets fixed with hinges and a lock.
I close it behind me as an unholy racket strikes up. Dogs—dozens of them, by the sounds of things—bark a discordant frenzy. They’re either very excited to see Eve or about to tear her apart. I begin after her, running—skidding, thanks to the wet ground and the leather soles of my shoes.
Bloody English weather. Bloody women, throwing themselves in harm’s way—
“Shut the fuck up!”
I almost halt at the sergeant major–like tenor of a woman’s voice.
“What the hell are you doing, setting them off?”
I round a corner to find an older woman, Nora presumably, standing over Eve, who is sitting on the wet concrete, being mauled by a large, fluffy teddy bear. Or a large, fluffy teddy bear’s tongue.
“Eww, Bo,” Eve complains laughingly. “No face kisses—I don’t know where your tongue has been!”
On second glance, the teddy bear appears to be a dog. If my tailor could see the muddy paws on his masterpiece of a jacket, he’d probably faint.
“He hasn’t had his tongue on his nuts. Not since you chopped ’em off,” mutters the other woman—her accent is pure East End, her tone a husky twenty-a-day habit. She has steel gray hair that looks like wire wool and wears faded jeans, the legs half-obscured by black Wellington boots. The woman leans down against the shovel she holds. “If I was him, I wouldn’t give you the time of day.” She pushes a sleeve of her puddle-brown cardigan to her elbow. “What you doing ’ere, anyway?”
“You talking to me or Mr. Bojangles?” Eve asks without looking up.
“I know what he’s doing here. The little shit has escaped his run again. I ain’t never had a dog that could climb fences like a squirrel,” she says. “You, what are you doing here, girl?” Her thick accent renders the word gel . “Why ain’t you on your honeymoon?”
Eve turns my way, her cheeks flushed. If she’s thinking about kisses, I hope she’s remembering mine rather than the dog’s more recent attempts.
“I had a change of heart.”
“So I see.” The woman’s mouth pinches, her eyes skimming over me in an uncomplimentary way. “Change of Heart gotta name?”
“Oliver Deubel.” My name rings across the small yard, and I’m almost certain the woman curses under her breath.
“Oliver, this is Nora.”
“A toff, Evie,” the woman laments. “Where’d you pick ’im up?”
“It was more the other way around.” She murmurs her response into the dog’s fluffy pelt. “Oliver was my escape.”
“Men.” The word leaves the woman’s mouth like bah! “Rich men.” She eyes me like I smell offensive. “His type will bring you no joy.”
I spike a brow. Saturday night was the embodiment of joy. It strikes me that joy might be part of the reason I’m pursuing her. A welcome, secondary reason. I know she feels it. I see it in the ways she looks at me. Even when she seems like she doesn’t know whether to hug or strangle me.
“Don’t I know.” Eve chuckles unhappily. “But don’t let that accent fool you. Oliver here is the salt of the earth. Or was it more salt the earth ?”
My mouth twists, though her assertion reminds me of my purpose today. Why do I find it so easy to become sidetracked by her?
“Anyway, it’s not like that. Oliver here helped me escape.” She smiles sadly as she stands. “Things didn’t go quite to plan on Saturday.”
The woman frowns. “I warned you that Mitchell was ten pounds of shit in a five-pound container.”
“I know you did,” Eve responds in the kind of tone that suggests this isn’t the first conversation of this kind.
“More dick in his personality than I bet he has in his pants.” She pauses as though awaiting confirmation.
“You made that clear too. Try not to be offended,” Eve says, turning briefly my way. “It’s not just men. Nora is an equal opportunity hater. Isn’t that right?”
“People.” She sniffs. “Only good for spare parts.”
“Speaking of parts ...” I push the dog away as he sticks his nose into my crotch.
“Don’t be flattered,” Eve says. “Bo isn’t very selective.”
The older woman’s shoulders jump and fall with her laughter as she shuffles away, only to stop as though remembering something. “What did he do anyway? To make you change your mind?”
“I found out he was cheating.”
“Huh.” The woman seems disappointed rather than sympathetic. “So no leather or handcuffs and stuff?”
“What?”
“Said you needed an escape.” Nora nods my way.
Eve’s nose delightfully scrunches. “Mitch didn’t tie me up.”
She’s definitely disappointed.
“I just left when I found out he was cheating on me. In my wedding dress.”
“A runaway bride?”
“And now the press are hounding me.”
The woman sniffs her disinterest. “Yesterday’s news is tomorrow’s kitty litter. Just don’t bring ’em here,” she says as she turns away. “Don’t want the newspapers knocking on my door.”
“It’s not like I’d do it intentionally.”
“I mean it.” The old woman swings back, pointing her finger at Eve.
“Okay. I get it. Do you want me to put Bo back in his kennel?” Eve adds hesitantly.
“What’s the point?” Nora shrugs. “He’ll just get himself out again.” And with that, she trudges off.
“So, that was Nora,” Eve observes.
“She’s charming.” The corner of my mouth twitches.
“Not even a little,” she says as her lips curve. “But don’t let her gruff exterior fool you. She’s a good person, and a wonderful advocate for anything four legged.”
“And that’s why you’re here, I suppose.”
“Yeah. This has become a labor of love for me. The kennels aren’t exactly to code.” She gestures to the ramshackle buildings off to the side.
“Which would make this a ...” A shambles? A dumpsite? Somewhere in need of condemning?
“An animal sanctuary, though Nora gets no funding, no charity status. It’s privately run, financed by luck, goodwill, and donations. She basically does this out of the goodness of her heart.”
“I can see she has a very big heart,” I reply doubtfully.
Eve laughs. “There’s only space in there for the four legged.” Which seems the ideal opportunity for a three-legged sheep to hobble past. “And those born to walk on four legs.”
Nora has a soft spot for animals, and Eve, while a veterinarian, has a soft spot for both animals and people. I wonder which category you fall into, whispers a dark voice in my ear.
“She seemed to have other interests,” I say, sliding my hands into my pockets and sauntering closer. “Like whether Mitchell is into BDSM.”
“Trust you—”
“—to pick up that Nora has a vivid internal life or that Mitchell is a slave to vanillaism?” I stand so close that if the rain were continuing to fall, it wouldn’t pass between us.
She scoffs.
“He doesn’t know what he’s missing.” Her eyes are all pupil as I take her chin between my fingers. “You’d be such a beautiful little slut for me, bound and on your knees.”
“Just try it.” Her whispered words feather across my cheek. “And you’ll end up like Mr. Bojangles here.”
“Slobbering and climbing all over you?” I’m already partially there.
She tries not to smile. Tries and fails. “Minus your testicles.”
“Don’t knock it unless you’ve tried it.” Releasing her, I draw my forefinger down between the open sides of my jacket. “Just imagine, being helpless to my touch and my praise.”
“While you demand I thank you.”
“For my fingers and my tongue. My pretty cock as I feed it to you.”
“You’re the one with the fetish.” Reaching out, she pokes her forefinger into my chest. My flex is deliberate; the way my nipple protrudes is just good luck, considering the way her gaze remains glued to it. “You get off on being thanked.” Her words are puffs of warm air I want to swallow.
“A gratitude kink?” I purr, spiking a brow. “You should subscribe to my OnlyFans.”
“You have OnlyFans?” Her eyes rise with a mixture of shock and interest.
“Where all good girls get to come, and they thank me for it. Do you know why?”
Eve gives her head a tiny shake.
“Because the pleasure is all mine .”