COME WHEN CALLED (Billionaire & Biker Menage Romance) Page 15

  “I like everything about your body.” He reached out and touched her bare ankle, sliding a fingernail over her skin. “When I came into this room and saw you with Ford, it got my adrenaline riled up. Now all that steam’s got nowhere to go. So to be honest, I want to fuck you hard right now, until I’ve got all that extra fire drained out of my system.”

  Evie felt her eyes widen. This man could be as direct as Ford.

  “Do you always talk to women like that?”

  “No.” He dropped his head, his crooked smile turning sheepish. “But I’m having fun. Are you?”

  She laughed, feeling a surge of friendly warmth for the man. “Yeah.”

  “And besides, the way Ford talked about you at the end of our conversation—as upset as I was, it got me heated up in other ways.”

  She looked down, picking at the comforter. “Me too.” Giggling, she covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry. This is embarrassing. I just met you!”

  “Hey now, don’t be embarrassed.” Charley’s voice was gentle. He pulled her hands away from her face. “It’s Ford. That man has a way when it comes to sex. It’s like a super power.” He wrapped his fingers into hers and didn’t let go, their clasped hands resting on the bed between them.

  “Yeah, but I can’t decide if he uses his powers for good or evil.”

  Charley laughed. “Me neither, honey. Me neither.”

  The phone next to the bed blared to life. Evie looked at Charley who shrugged. She picked it up.

  “Hawthorne residence.”

  At first there was silence on the other end and then the laughter started. Ugly, abrasive. Evie hung up so fast she nearly threw the phone to the floor.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “WHO WAS THAT?” Charley shifted quickly to the edge of the bed. He put a hand on Evie’s arm, squeezing.

  “Nothing. Wrong number—just some pervert.” She tried to laugh but it came out all wrong.

  “Evie, you’re shaking!” Charley gaped at his hand on her arm. Shoulders tensing visibly, he stood up, towering over her. He turned his calculating look from her to the phone. He picked it up.

  “Charley please!” She reached for the phone. “Just don’t worry about it.”

  The phone rang again, going off like a bomb between them. She dove for it, but Charley held her off easily with one arm. He clicked it on and held it to his ear. Defeated, she had no choice but to watch it go down. Her stomach sank.

  Charley’s free hand clenched into a fist, the veins popping along his lean and muscular arm. His jaw flexed menacingly and the phone seemed to be in danger of disintegration from his tight grip. He pressed it to his ear as if he wanted somehow to reach through it and murder the person on the other end.

  John.

  This wasn’t happening. How did he find her? And so quickly?

  “I don’t know who you are, but I’ll find out. And I will rip your fucking head off if you call this house again.” The malevolence in Charley’s voice made Evie’s eyes widen. He was a tough guy, but his persona was far more sweetness than savagery. Until that moment.

  “That sounds funny?” Charley barked and then held the phone away from his ear, staring at it. “He hung up. He was laughing.” He turned a black look at Evie. “Evie he knew you. Who was that?”

  Horrified, she couldn’t make her mouth work—and didn’t know what to say if she could.

  “I’m calling Ford.” He started mashing buttons on the abused phone.

  “No!” She jumped to her knees on the bed, knocking the laptop onto the rug with a clatter. She pressed her hand over his fingers on the phone, stopping his dialing. “No. Charley please don’t call Ford.” Her voice was high-pitched, wavering in her panic. She squeezed his fingers and placed her other hand on his chest. His heart hammered under the thin, soft fabric of the tee-shirt.

  “You tell me right now what the fuck is going on. I won’t let Ford be in danger in his own home.” His voice was raw with the strain of emotion.

  “Okay! Okay. I’ll tell you. Just…just…” She pried the phone from his fingers, clicked it off and laid it down. “Sit down. Let’s get this over with.”

  Charley sat stiffly on the bed, the intensity of his concentration on her face causing her to fidget. She picked up the laptop, which appeared to have survived the fall, and tucked her hair behind her ears.

  “What did he say to you?” she asked.

  “He—” Charley clamped his lips shut for a moment before continuing. “He said some mean things about you and said he was going to get what you owed him no matter how he had to get it.”

  Evie shivered. “What mean things?”

  “I don’t want to repeat them.”

  “Tell me.”

  He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at her. “You really have to know?”

  She nodded and he took a deep breath. “He said that being Ford’s whore at work wasn’t enough, that now you had to move in and be his whore full-time.”

  Evie closed her eyes. “What else?”

  “Evie, just tell me who he is.”

  “What else did he say?” She raised her voice, demanding to hear every word John had intended for her. She needed to know what she was up against. Charley fidgeted, his reluctance to repeat the message evident in his tone. “He said, now you understand why he didn’t want to marry you.” He practically mumbled the last part. “That you’re the type of woman wealthy men just use for sex and then pass off to another when they’re done.”

  Evie gasped and bile rose in her throat before she could choke it back. How could she ever have had sex with that man? Scalding tears sprung to her eyes. Charley reacted instantly, scooting to her and engulfing her in his arms. “Don’t cry, Evie.” He rubbed his broad hands on her back, gentling her. “Those things are not true. You aren’t a whore.”

  She choked. “I’m here aren’t I? At Ford’s?” John always knew exactly how to hurt her.

  Charley held her away from him, honest intensity in his chocolate eyes. He spoke deliberately, his tone serious. “I know you’re not a whore because I don’t often get denied. Nine out of ten people, man or woman, would have fucked me on the spot when I offered it the first time.”

  Her mouth dropped open and for a moment she forgot her emotions. He grinned and his eyes twinkled with mischief. Balling her fist, she cuffed him on the chest. Hard.

  “Ouch!”

  “You’re an asshole.” She was laughing through her tears. “That’s your whore test?”

  “No! God, of course not! That’s just my you-have-a-pulse test. My whore test is much more hard-core. I can give you that one if you want. But…” He made a show of looking around the room. “We’re going to need some lube. And possibly some plastic sheeting.” He got up and opened one of the dresser drawers. “Do you have a video recorder with a wide-angle lens? And a zucchini?”

  Now she was in hysterics, collapsing to the bed and kicking her feet in the air, the power of her fear and anger transferred full-force to her belly-laughs. “Okay!” she shrieked. “Okay. I give up.” She wiped her eyes and sat up. “Come and sit down and I’ll tell you the whole story.” She patted the spot next to her but he lay down across the foot of her bed, propping his head on his hand, his tee-shirt riding up again to expose his washboard stomach.

  “Wait.” He held up a hand. “First, what happened with Ford at your work?”

  “Oh, that.” Evie looked down at her fingers, feeling as though she was telling Charley she’d slept with his boyfriend. “We had…oral sex…in the library. I got fired over it,” she mumbled.

  Charley nodded his head. “You both had oral sex? Like he did you and you did him?”

  “Yes.” She hesitated. “Charley, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”

  Charley waved his hand. “Oh god, don’t be sorry! Ford tells me about his exploits most of the time. I don’t have any claim to him. I just wanted to understand. And besides…” The corner of Charley’s mouth pulled up. “It’s hot to
think about.”

  Evie smiled. It was the first time she’d ever remembered having someone make her feel better when she was afraid. She always shrank away from people in times like these, but Charley made it impossible to deny him, just like he’d said.

  She took a bracing breath. She’d never told anyone this story before. “That was my ex-boyfriend. He’s a criminal defense attorney.”

  “He sounds charming, what I heard from him.” Charley smiled, his sarcasm obvious.

  “He wasn’t always like that. He used to be a better guy—I’d like to think he was, anyway. But then he got wrapped up in drugs. You have to put in a ton of productive hours to become partner at a law firm, and apparently John turned to cocaine to help him stay awake and work, sometimes for days at a time. At first he had it under control and I didn’t realize it was even happening. I don’t take drugs, and we didn’t live together.”

  Charley nodded, watching her intently.

  “He lent me twenty-thousand dollars to pay off my student loans.”

  Charley raised his eyebrows in silence.

  “Don’t look at me like that! My interest rate had doubled and I thought… It was stupid, but I thought he’d offered because it was a step toward combining our finances. For a future together.”

  “So that’s the money you owe him.”

  “I still owe him thirteen-thousand, but it’s more than that. I didn’t know the exact dollar amount of the pay-off of my loan at the time, so John gave me a blank check and told me to just fill it out. I did. Only…I didn’t know this, but by then he’d started embezzling money from the firm to fund his cocaine habit.”

  “Ohhh.” Charley nodded. “And that money he loaned you was stolen firm money?”

  “Yeah.” She sighed.

  “And you filled out the check in your own hand-writing.”

  Her shoulders slumped. It sounded so damning in retrospect. “Yes. But when I found out he was stealing, I ended things! And I told him I was going to quit the firm and turn him in.”

  “That couldn’t have gone over well.”

  “No.” Evie chuckled, but it was a bleak sound. “That was the start of my living hell.” As much as she hated reliving the memory, she was surprised how easy it was to talk to Charley about it. “That’s when he told me I’d go down with him—he’d tell them we were partners. So I told him I’d figure it out—make a deal and testify against him—and his whole demeanor changed. His face just…blanked. He went to his file cabinet and pulled out a manila envelope and threw it at me.” Evie shuddered at the memory. “There were pictures of dead girls in it.”

  Charley’s face blackened.

  “It was from the file of one of his clients. It was a big case, all over the media. John handled his defense and the man had been found not guilty. John said, ‘I got him off for raping and murdering those girls.’ He didn’t say he’d gotten him off for being accused of those things. Then he said the man enjoys what he does and owes John a favor.” For the amount of times she’d replayed the conversation in her head, she practically had it memorized word-for-word.

  “Oh my god,” Charley breathed.

  “Yeah.” Evie’s voice had grown unsteady and she gripped her fingers together against the trembling that had started again. “He said he wanted every penny back, plus interest, and that I’d have to stay working at the firm where he could keep an eye on me until I paid him.”

  Charley whistled, long and low. “This guy’s a psychopath.”

  “I know that now. And honestly, I’m sure he wanted the money, but more so he needed me to stay. I was his paralegal and at that point he’d become so dysfunctional because of the drugs that I was doing most of his work for him. He was using my work to hide his secret.”

  “And you don’t have the money to pay him?”

  “No. I wish I did! That’s why I took this job with Ford. To get the money together fast and give it to John.”

  “Is that also why you took up martial arts?”

  She nodded, her mouth curling up.

  “This guy’s dangerous. You need to get the money from Ford.”

  “No!” Evie grabbed Charley’s hand, willing him to understand. “I can’t borrow from one guy to pay back another. Can’t you see? I learned my lesson. I’m going to take care of this myself. I just need more time.” She turned worried eyes to the phone. “But I don’t know how he found me.”

  “Well babe, you’re out of time. You are telling Ford. I won’t let him be in danger in his own house.”

  Evie looked at Charley’s face, feeling her stomach drop. She saw the resolution there. Charley would protect Ford. “Fine.” She sighed. “But he’s going to make me leave.”

  “No.” Charley’s face grew fierce. “If you think Ford would put you out in circumstances like these, then you don’t know him at all.”

  “Okay.” Maybe Charley was right. Hadn’t Ford proved it, taking up for her to John that that night in the library? She felt the tension in her muscles ease. She had no defense against John outside of Ford’s gates. Behind his gates she felt as if she could breathe again, like she had a chance. “Okay. I’ll tell him tonight at dinner.”

  Charley reached out and covered her hand in his. “I’ll be there. I’ll make sure it goes okay.”

  “Thanks, Charley.” She wanted to hug him. She wanted to lie down and curl against him, have him throw an arm and a leg over her and shelter her with his bulk until she felt strong again.

  “Alright, then.” Charley smacked his hand on her leg. “Now pull up those websites. Ford’s right. I am good at picking out what would look good on you.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  FORD HAD BEEN right about a lot of things. Evie had never made a friend as quickly as Charley. He was easy to warm up to—he was like sunshine. Evie had no trouble understanding why Ford kept Charley so close.

  After they’d done all the shopping either of them could stand, they’d wandered around the estate, found some lunch and ended up in the home’s theater, watching old Eighties movies from Ford’s extensive library. Inspired, Charley had jumped up on the couch singing a well-known theme song at the top of his lungs. Evie threw pillows at him, shrieking with laughter.

  “I see we’ve learned to get along.”

  Evie and Charley snapped their heads to Ford, who was standing in the darkened entryway of the theater room, his lanky body leaned casually against the door frame. She jumped to her feet as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t. Charley, quiet now, stepped off the couch, clicking off the movie and raising the lights with the remote. Ford looked back and forth between them.

  “Evie, did you have a fun day with Charley?”

  Evie glanced at the big man next to her. “Honestly, I had one of the most enjoyable days I can remember.” Charley grinned down at her.

  Ford smiled. “He has that effect. Charley, do you better understand why I asked Evie to come here now?”

  “Yes.” His answer was simple, but carried pure honesty, with no hint of swallowed pride given his earlier icy reception of her. Evie’s chest swelled with affection for the big, shaggy-haired man. Her unlikely new friend.

  Ford beamed at them, his dimples making Evie’s knees weak, and shook his head. “You two are noisy.”

  “Sorry, man. I shouldn’t make anyone listen to my singing.” Charley chuckled.

  “Don’t apologize. I liked it. I don’t think I’ve ever come home to noise in my house before. And strangely, it made me happy.” He stepped back and gestured them out of the room. “Let’s go back upstairs then. I have some things for you, Evangeline.”

  Before they entered the great room, Ford pointed Evie toward the stairs, explaining she’d find the things he’d brought home for her up in her room. “I’ve set something out for you to wear for dinner. Please go put it on while I make us drinks.”

  When she opened her new bedroom door, she saw at least seven shopping bags neatly lined up on the floor of her room. She recognized the
name on the bags as one of the boutiques she’d walked by a hundred times in the city while on her lunch break, lusting over the clothing in the window, but not even bothering to go in. Three of her salaries couldn’t clothe her in a store like that.

  New clothes and shoes! She squealed as quietly as she could, hopping up and down on her toes. Maybe this was the best day she’d ever had. And now she got to go spend the evening with two hunky men. She moved to her bed to see what she’d be wearing.

  Laid out on her blue coverlet, she found a sleeveless dress of a silky knit material that draped dangerously low in the front. Evie wasn’t sure it qualified as a dinner dress, but it was certainly not a business-lunch dress. There was also a pair of high, nude-colored leather pumps, and thong panties made of lace so fine it looked like it’d been woven by fairies.

  And for the price it likely cost, it probably should have been.

  The dress was skimpy but somehow still elegant. The pumps had a covered platform, which allowed the shoes to look dressy but ultra-sexy at the same time. Once she’d put the dress on, it was clear why there was no bra with the outfit. There was no way to wear one with the way the dress draped so low. She turned in front of her mirror feeling alluring. The fabric hugged all of her curves.

  She headed to the great room as Ford had requested. Pausing before she turned the corner, she took a deep breath, feeling like she was stepping onstage for a strip routine. Given what Ford had chosen for her to wear, the feeling wasn’t entirely unjustified. Shoulders back, she walked purposefully into the room, her breasts bouncing lightly, nipples hard from the friction of the dress sliding over her bare skin.

  Ford had changed from his work clothes into a loose white linen shirt and tan pants. He looked like Evie’s idea of a dream-man she might find at a tropical resort. He was pouring a drink and talking to Charley when he noticed her come in. Cutting his words off mid-sentence, his eyes widened. He set the drink down with a clatter on the bar and looked back at it, swearing, when it splattered onto his shirt. Evie snickered.