Chapter 18 Avery
AVERY
I spent the rest of the evening in my room, fuming about the conversation with Dane.
How could he think I was a suspect?
I mean, okay, I was a suspect. Sheriff Crowe had made that pretty clear, even if she hadn’t come out and said it. But that was just a formality. We were all suspects just because we’d been on the property when I’d found Harold’s body.
But to think I’d actually kill someone? For money?
At some point Beck knocked on my bedroom door to tell me they’d ordered Chinese food, but I told him I wasn’t hungry.
Through the door.
So I didn’t have to see his handsome face and remember that I’d kissed Noah by the lake just one day after making out with Beck.
Apparently murder made me horny?
Ugh. I hated this.
I took deep breaths as I paced, replaying the conversation for the hundredth time. He’d been needling me, that was all, trying to get a reaction. But he’d been right about one thing: I had been on the property when Harold was killed or shortly thereafter.
But so had Beck, Noah, and Dane.
And as much as I liked Beck and Noah, it would be foolish — and possibly dangerous — to ignore the possibility that they’d been involved somehow. Because if I was wrong about them, I was living with a murderer or two.
Or maybe even three.
It was after ten p.m. by the time the rumbling in my stomach drove me downstairs. Once again, the house was dark except for the lamp in the second-floor sitting area, the other bedroom doors closed.
I was grateful Beck and Noah hadn’t pushed me to come downstairs earlier. My life had gotten more than a little confusing in the two days I’d been in Blackwell Hollow. I needed a minute, something they seemed to understand.
I descended the stairs, passed the grandfather clock with its rhythmic ticking, and continued down the hall to the kitchen.
There were a ridiculous number of Chinese food containers in the fridge, so I dished myself some veggie lo mein and General Tso’s chicken, threw it in the microwave, and ate it standing up at the island.
And this time my mind didn’t go to murder but to Noah and the mini-make-out session we’d shared by the lake.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been excited by a guy.
Maybe never.
Now I was more than excited by not one but two of them. The fact that they were roommates (friends?) complicated matters, at least in my own mind.
Did they talk about me amongst themselves? Had Beck told Noah after we’d kissed in the foyer? Did Beck know I’d made out with Noah by the lake? I’d already told Noah about Beck, but at what point was I supposed to come clean with Beck about Noah?
See what I mean? Confusing.
I rinsed my empty plate, took one of Beck’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from the cake plate, and hopped onto the counter.
I closed my eyes while I chewed, sighing around the chocolaty goodness in my mouth.
Beck was right: sometimes you needed cookies. I was feeling better already.
Now I just needed milk.
But when I opened my eyes, planning to hop off the counter and go to the fridge, Beck was leaning against the wall, staring at me with the kind of hunger that couldn’t be satiated with a cookie.
And the feeling was mutual. Because Beck was cute wearing an apron, his hands covered in flour. But Beck in gray sweatpants and no shirt?
Let’s just say cute wasn’t the word that came to mind.
His chest was sculpted into peaks and valleys, and now I had a better view of his tattoos, a series of sepia-toned images and words: the words Family and Navarro written in script, an open flame, sun setting over an amber field of wheat, the words flour.
water. salt. time. winding through the montage.
He grinned and a lock of his floppy brown hair fell over his forehead. “Almost caught you with your hand in the cookie jar.”
I held up the half-eaten cookie in my hand. “This seems more incriminating.”
“You’re missing the milk.”
“I was just about to remedy that actually.”
“Let me.”
Before I could protest he took a glass out of one of the cabinets and pulled the milk from the fridge. My gaze was glued to his body, crossed wooden paddles inked onto his upper back, his ass tight under the sweatpants.
I was wet, my nipples hard, hungry for something a lot more dangerous than milk and cookies.
He poured milk into the glass and brought it to me at the counter. When he held it out to me, he was close enough that his hips brushed against my thighs on the counter. His lips were full and moist, and I wondered how the scruff on his jaw would feel against my inner thighs.
He watched while I took a long drink, his eyes locked on my face.
I held out the glass. “Want some?”
He held my gaze. “What if I said I wanted a taste of your cookie?”
My pulse raced at the innuendo in his voice. “I might give you… a taste of my cookie.”
He surprised me by leaning forward and taking a bite of the cookie in my hand.
I watched him chew, his gaze locked on mine, the temptation to lick a stray crumb from his lips almost overwhelming.
When he finished chewing he took the milk from my hand and drank from the glass.
“Well?” I asked.
“It was good.” He set down the glass and took the cookie from my other hand. He put it on the counter and leaned in to murmur near my ear. The whisper of his breath against my neck sent shivers up my spine and made my nipples even harder. “But it turns out that wasn’t the cookie I actually wanted.”
He pressed his lips to my neck and I closed my eyes with a sigh.
“What… what did you want?” I could barely get the words out around the humming in my body.
He dragged his mouth along my jaw. “I think you know what I want, cupcake.”
The heat of his breath on my skin set me on fire, the wedge of his body between my thighs enough to make my pussy pulse with need even though he wasn’t quite close enough for me to feel his dick.
He reached my mouth, but instead of kissing me, which I was desperate for, he looked down at me, lust flaring amber in his brown eyes.
Then he grabbed me behind the knees and pulled me hard and fast against him.