Cross My Heart

A. M. HARTNETT

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Mischief

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London, SE1 9GF

www.mischiefbooks.com

An eBook Original 2015

Copyright © A. M. Hartnett 2015

A. M. Hartnett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008148775

Version: 2015–06–03

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

More from Mischief

About the Publisher

Chapter One

‘Sneaky, sneaky.’

The deep voice coiled around Evie from the darkness. She gasped, her heart slamming against her chest three times before her common sense banished her panic.

It was just Seth.

She leaned against the metal rail of the fire escape and grinned at the man in the window. He wasn’t entirely in darkness: there was a light on in the bedroom beyond, but his living room was unlit and the shadows cast over him made him seem like a devil. Add to his long-haired and bearded appearance the arms darkened by ink, the glow of his cigarette and the black cat draped across the windowsill in front of him, and he might as well have been a devil or a warlock greeting her at the gates of Hell.

‘I thought you quit those.’

‘Where would you get an idea like that?’ he replied with a chuckle. The end of the cigarette glowed angry red as he took a long drag. He blew a stream to her left, stroked the cat with his free hand and cocked his head. ‘I don’t know why you sneak around like this. You can just walk up the stairs or take the elevator.’

‘You know why: I don’t want Mrs Boyd giving me that look. The one that says she knows I’m about to do something sinful under her roof.’

‘It’s not her roof, it’s mine. My building.’

‘As far as she’s concerned, after forty years here it’s her roof and she just lets you own it.’ Evie let go of the railing and bent down to give Marco a scratch between the ears. The feline vibrated and purred as his tail flicked like a small whip. ‘Besides, he leaves the window open for me.’

‘What will you do in the winter?’

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.’

She glanced up. She could see the blue flicker of the television Ryan had no doubt fallen asleep in front of, a beacon calling her to continue her ascent to his bed, to him.

Still, she smiled back at her landlord. ‘Care for a quick drink before I head up?’

Seth shook his head, took another drag, then stubbed his smoke out in the coffee can just outside the window. ‘Can’t. It keeps me awake, and I already have trouble sleeping these days.’

‘Since when?’

He hesitated, and she wished she hadn’t asked. Ryan had mentioned something about the anniversary of Rita’s death coming up. No matter how many times Seth said it was OK, it never felt OK to talk about it.

‘A few months ago I started to notice it,’ he told her. He got up from his chair and hauled the cat into his arms. ‘Must be the hops or something. Though if you want one, I’ll sit with you.’

‘No, I’ll feel bad that I’m getting a buzz and you’re getting insomnia. Maybe tomorrow I’ll come down and we’ll have some tea.’

Seth raised his arm and flattened his hand against the top of the window. ‘Give him a big sloppy kiss for me.’

With a giggle, Evie said goodnight and continued her trek up the fire escape. On the next landing, the one next to her own apartment, she felt a twinge of guilt.

I should have sat with him for a little while, she thought. A drink of Coke or something. Let him sit there and talk and smoke.

Yet as much as she enjoyed their talks, she wasn’t in the mood to sit with Seth. If she had stayed she would be doing something he had told her specifically not to do since she first found out about his wife: pity him.

At the very top of the fire escape, as expected, Evie found the window open. She climbed in and closed it behind her.

Barely midnight and Ryan was already out like a light. Then again, he had been getting up at five o’clock these past two weeks. She envied the money he made at the hospital, but she didn’t envy his hours when he drew the early shift, or those nights when he was on call.

He probably went right to sleep when he got home. She pushed off her sneakers and smiled in the darkness. It was his style to grab a catnap so he could stay up with her until she was ready to go to bed. That was just something Ryan would do, to get some extra time in with her after an evening apart.

She let him sleep, using his shower to scrub off her day as a tour guide. She used his soap and deodorant, too, so she was wrapped up in him when she headed back to the bedroom in only her towel.

Her friend of almost a year – and, she supposed, boyfriend of three months – lay naked on top of the covers with the standing fan at the foot of the bed pointed at his back.

She tossed the towel aside, slipped on to the bed next to him and ran her hand along his back. He was cool to the touch until she reached his neck, where he had been sunburned while sitting on the stoop this past weekend. The breeze from the fan ruffled the overgrown blond hair at the back of his head, calling for her fingers to follow.

He stirred as she snuggled close, lifted his head to look at her with a sigh, then dropped back down on to his pillow.

‘Did you eat?’ he asked, like he always did when she worked late.

‘Earlier, on my break.’

‘Eat.’

‘You know I can’t eat this late.’

Ryan turned over and pulled her hand from his hip to his stomach until she was squashed against his back. ‘You don’t take good enough care of yourself.’

‘Shush,’ she whispered, and loosened her hand from his grip to stroke through the trail of hair along his belly. ‘Any luck?’

‘The usual disappointments.’

Evie walked her fingers lower and chuckled against his shoulder as she found his cock semi-hard. ‘Better luck next time.’

He went quiet for a moment, breathing softly as though asleep as she stroked his shaft, and then he groaned as she rubbed her palm across the slick head.

‘Maybe we should just give it a rest,’ he said, then turned and pulled her leg over his.

Arm crossed with hers, he rubbed two fingers through her nether lips, smearing the moisture that had already gathered there. Evie just enjoyed the attention of his fingers for a moment, closing her eyes and matching his pace with her hand as he tugged the hood around her clit.

‘No,’ she said with a sigh, and wriggled closer. ‘No, we’ve been talking about this for too long. The time to talk is pretty much over, and there’s no going back to before.’

‘I hope you don’t mean going back to being just friends. After this?’ He penetrated her with both fingers, then rose up until she was on her back and she was at his mercy. He laughed through a teasing kiss. ‘That’s not an option, Miss Potter.’

‘And neither is giving up. This was your suggestion, after all.’

‘Don’t give me that. You get as turned on as I do, thinking about it.’

She couldn’t deny that even if she wanted to, though as his thrusts became more insistent than exploratory she didn’t particularly feel like laying blame or taking credit.

She drew her foot along his calf and over his knee, opening up for him.

‘I jerked off when I got home from work,’ he whispered, his lazy smile charming her in the moonlight. ‘Guess where.’

‘I know where,’ she replied, and joined her fingers with his long enough to slick them with her juices. ‘My apartment.’

‘How did you know?’

‘You always jerk off in my bedroom. You have since we traded keys.’

The first time she’d brought to light her knowledge of his penchant for rolling around in her lavender sheets, he’d lit up with embarrassment, even though they’d been to bed a few times together already. He thought it made him creepy; she found it to be a turn-on. In fact, she was a little disappointed he hadn’t been tempted to some solo play in her bed back when they first exchanged keys as friendly neighbours.

Now, his excitement manifested in the throb of his cock against her palm.

‘I like it when you do it in my bedroom when I’m not home,’ she told him. ‘I’d like it better if you send me a video of you doing it.’

‘That goes both ways,’ he said teasingly.

‘How do you want me?’ she asked, like she’d asked every time since that first time they’d gone from being neighbours to something else.

He raised one hand, slipped it beneath her head and cradled her neck as he turned her over completely. Brushing her hand away, he grasped his cock and positioned it where she wanted him, where she needed him.

They hadn’t bothered with condoms since this thing between them had taken a more serious turn, and so as he began to shove deeper she slipped her hands behind him and pushed down on his round ass.

‘All the way, baby,’ she whispered, and hitched her ankles above his ass. ‘I want to feel every inch.’

‘Christ,’ he said in a groan. He didn’t have to say anything more. He’d already said it.

Christ, all those months I spent tugging my own dick when I could have been in bed with you.

He built his possession slowly. Evie wrapped her arms around his neck and rocked in tune with his first slow, tantalising thrusts. Hands moved to her hair, slowly stroking at first before he closed his fingers against her scalp. His kiss mimicked the momentum he built with the thrust of his hips, until she moaned around his insistent tongue and bucked up for more.

‘This isn’t how I want you,’ he murmured into the corner of her mouth, and in a quick roll he reversed their positions. His grin was silver in the moonlight as she looked down upon him. ‘This is how I want you. I love watching you while I’m making you come.’

‘You making me come,’ she said with a pout as she rocked back and forth over his cock. ‘I’m the one on top. I’ve got all the power.’

‘I’m not falling for that,’ he said, then hissed as she rose up. He clamped down, following the trajectory of her hips, and held her in place as he fucked hard and deep and fast.

He stopped suddenly, leaving only the tip in. Breathless and gasping, she let him have his victory. She held his gaze and ran her hands along his forearms, then bit down on her smile as the hairs stood up in the wake of her fingertips. The novelty of fucking Ryan never got old. Every damn time, she had a moment like this when she was so giddy to be with him she thought she’d burst.

‘I’ve got something you’ll like,’ he murmured, then reached under his pillow. ‘Ta-da.’

‘Oh, that’s my favourite,’ she cooed as he uncapped the little tube of lubricant.

The scent of menthol spread between them as he rubbed a small dollop around her clit, then licked his fingertip and dropped the tube on to the floor.

His hand hovered. ‘Do you want something else?’

‘No, just you,’ she told him. He was so damned good with his fingers that she couldn’t bear to waste a drop of that stuff on the buzzing tip of a vibrator.

Ryan pushed up on to one elbow and used it for the leverage of his slow thrusts as he worked the lube around and around the fleshy hood and the hardening bud beneath.

‘That’s my baby,’ he whispered, then let his words settle over her as he strummed on her clit.

He knew what he did to her when he called her his baby, and she knew what it did to him to say those words. As the months went on, this thing they had kept evolving, and his pet name went from a saucy barb to get her going to a sinful endearment that had slipped into their everyday banter.

How did you sleep, baby? See you after my shift, baby. Pick me up some coffee cream on the way home, baby? Right there, baby, keep doing it just like that. Lie back and let me come in your pussy, baby.

Evie rocked slowly as not to overtake him, but let the sounds of pleasure fill the bedroom. Not too loud, though. Here in Ryan’s top-floor apartment she didn’t have to worry about her noises carrying downwards. If they had been in her apartment, Seth would find himself privy to every moan Ryan invoked and every creak of the bed. There was no one downstairs but the fish she had fed that morning, but noise still carried.

To Ryan, it was a challenge to make her pant and beg, and so as he raised his hips and thrust harder, he rubbed half-moons around her clit.

‘I hate it when you work late and I have to wait for this,’ he murmured, and after a quick glance over her shoulder at the television he lurched up.

In the time it took to draw a sharp breath, Evie was on her back with her head crooked against the end of the bed. Ryan reached aside for the remote and cursed as he mashed the buttons with his fingers. The soundtrack in the room went from sitcom laughter to alternative rock, and the blinking lights coming from the concert stage on the television made the room flash with false lightning.

Cock arced just above her pussy, Ryan loomed over her, white light flickering in his eyes as he worked her fat clit with one hand and penetrated her with the other.

Evie could fill a notebook with the things she did with Ryan that made her feel so good she could have wept, but this was by far her favourite. There was nothing mystical about the way he used his fingers. There was no magic sparking from the tips and he was no sorcerer. He was just good at getting her off, laughing at her attempts to stay anchored as he worked her inside and out.

She pressed the balls of her feet into the mattress and thrust her ass up to meet him, but as the moans poured out she clamped her hands across her mouth.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked, stopping so quickly her whole body juddered with the sudden absence of the torrid thrust of his fingers.

She gulped a deep breath and lifted her head. ‘The window’s open. Seth is down–’

‘Then let him shut his window or listen to me getting you off,’ he hissed. ‘If he doesn’t like it, he can write up a warning and slip it under the door. If you want my opinion, he’s probably down there with his cock out.’

Ryan dropped to his knees and hauled her to the edge of the bed. Slinging her legs over his shoulders, he spread her slippery lips apart and sealed his mouth around her soaked mound. His tongue picked up where his fingers had left off. Evie covered her mouth again, but as he went to the knuckle once more and his shoulders rolled, her lungs couldn’t take it.

She grasped the bedding around her head and tried to suck in one deep breath, just one, but she couldn’t do it. There was too much desperate energy moving through her body. She took short puffs and expelled them in cries that pitched higher each time until she forgot all about the open window and the man sitting and smoking not far below.

Ryan’s flicking tongue and the lube he had smeared upon her made a devastating combination. Opening up completely for him with her feet pressing into his shoulders, she turned her grasp on him. Two fists in his hair, she ground up, pushing and pulling as hard as she could. Ryan could take it. Hell, he’d want more if she could give it to him – she’d left her mark on him more than once: angry red streaks over his shoulders and down his back, criss-crossing his ass, complemented by teethmarks when she could get her mouth on him.

The rough stuff only spurred him on. Ravenous moans and splutters exploded from between her legs, then vanished in the pulsing red tornado he’d created. She meant to push him away as she became hyper-sensitive, but her body wouldn’t obey, instead bucking up for more.

It was Ryan who relented. Evie finally got her deep breath, only as a gasp as he rose and turned her over. He pushed her leg until she was sprawled out and bent at the knee. His shadow eclipsed her from the glow of the television, moving like a demon against the canvas of the bed as behind her its flesh-and-blood counterpart filled her.

One hand on the bed alongside her head and the other on her neck, Ryan shoved fast and deep. Just like she knew how much he could take, he knew how much she could take, and how much she wanted.

‘That’s my bad girl,’ he said, words coming ragged from all around her, and then close and sinfully quiet. ‘I think not-so-deep down you like the idea of Seth hearing how much you love this.’

She’d forgotten about the open window. She dragged a bunch of duvet to her mouth and sobbed into it as the fat length speared her over and over.

‘Maybe the next time you come up that fire escape you can bring Seth on up with you, and we can give him the live show. Or maybe…’

He laughed and pinned her as her feverish mind filled in the rest. Pushing through the reddish-black fog was the picture of Seth sitting in the cheap club chair in the corner of the room, tattooed chest bared like it had been when he’d been retiling the foyer in the heat of the previous summer, rubbing himself through the boxers that had peeked from the waist of his shorts.

She forced the vision away and quickly replaced her landlord with the blurred outline of some other man, some faceless intruder they’d one day take to bed, who leaned forward with a grin at Ryan’s slow withdrawal.

Ryan’s sly chuckle was swallowed by a moan as he slammed into her again. It was as though he could see through her skin, see the thump-thump-thump of her heart; he matched it with his thrusts, the slight sting of his damp belly against her ass and the pulse of every pass of the head over her G-spot.

It didn’t take long. Once he abandoned his hold on her neck and grasped her hips, Evie spat out the duvet and grasped the edge of the bed. Unlike hers, with its massive iron headboard that knocked the wall to the rhythm with which he rode her, his bed was a low platform that withstood lust’s fury. She saw stars bursting before her eyes as he fucked her. She tried to push up but couldn’t gather the strength against his, and so she simply bowed to him, ass up and face down, and fought for breath as he pumped her to the finish.

His grip would leave bruises. It always did when they played at his place and didn’t have the aid of restraints tied to the head- and footboards to keep her under his thumb.

She welcomed the nip of pain as she felt his strength flooding out of her. It didn’t matter which way he twisted her up when they were together. No matter what he said, whether his words were soft and coaxing or frothing through his teeth, in the end it was Evie who was victorious.

She did this to him, and as he shuddered she wanted the entire world to know.

She whimpered at his last shallow thrusts, then shuddered at his retreat. He crashed next to her, flat on his back, forearm draped over his eyes.

After a moment, when she was ready to slip into sleep, his voice broke through the veil.

‘You need to eat.’

Evie giggled and rolled awkwardly on to her side. ‘Stop already.’

Pushing up on to his elbows, Ryan peered down at her with a grin. ‘Not even leftover egg rolls?’

She dragged the duvet over her shoulders and burrowed deep. ‘Will you get them for me?’

‘What do I get in return?’ Evie lifted her head and screwed up her brows, and Ryan vibrated with laughter as he scrambled from the bed. ‘Is that how it’s going to work? I give you a good ride and you expect me at your beck and call?’

‘No, the rides come with no conditions, but if you insist on crawling up my bum about not eating then you should have the decency to at least fetch my food for me.’

Face covered, she half-dozed as she listened to him first in the bathroom and then in the kitchen. She wasn’t tired, just rendered lazy. Working until nine on Thursdays was always a challenge, with little time to unwind before her body’s regular bedtime, and she’d finally wised up and taken Fridays off in exchange for having the Thursday-evening slot for the rest of summer.

Ryan, on the other hand, had to be out the door at five in the morning, though she didn’t feel guilty about him staying up with her. You could hang him on a hook behind the bathroom door and he’d be out cold. He took the bus so he could grab a few more winks on the commute and had mastered the power-nap on breaks.

She didn’t budge on his return. She stayed bundled up as he set the dish of egg rolls on the nightstand alongside two glasses of juice, and she breathed in the distinctive greasy smell that could only be found deep-fried into Chinese food, as he dug into his nightstand until he produced a barbecue lighter.

‘As I was saying, maybe we should give it a rest,’ he said as he gave the lighter three unsuccessful clicks.

Evie closed her eyes and buried deeper. ‘And I said no.’

‘Just a week to shake off some of the frustration.’

He finally got the thing to work and lit the candle on the nightstand. Almost immediately the smell of cinnamon and cloves mingled with the food aroma.

‘Is it just me, or do they all come in two varieties?’ he grumbled as he crawled into bed with her. ‘Dumb as shit, or creepy and middle-aged.’

‘That’s pretty much my experience with online dating, period,’ she joked, then put up a fight for the blankets, giggling until he won his section of the duvet. With his knees wobbling against her ass, Ryan succeeded in making the bed as uncomfortable as possible for her. She sat up and gave him a smack on his bare chest. ‘Fuck off! I’ll eat!’

Grinning in the flicker of the television and candlelight, he made her a seat out of her pillows and one for himself.

‘So?’ he asked, tucking his hands behind his head. ‘Just a little break.’

‘That will last for, what, two days before you start pacing the floor. Then you’ll be right back in front of your computer.’

His smile widened. ‘You think you know me so well.’

‘I do know you so well. You’ve been doing the same thing since we started this search.’ She scuttled closer into his warmth, then reached for the food. ‘You have no patience. You can barely stand the wait when you bid on eBay. Just…settle down.’

She took a bite and offered him one, but he refused, instead pushing her hair from her shoulder and nuzzling in.

‘We could hire someone,’ she said quietly. He made a small disapproving sound as his mouth continued its trek. She tried to shrug him off to no avail, and so she tried not to smile as she took another mouthful. ‘I was on this website today before I went to work.’

‘I don’t want an escort,’ he said, and when she shrugged him off again he backed off and shook his head. ‘I know the site you’re talking about. It was still in my browser history when I got home. You know what I saw when I looked at that site? Guys who would put their dick in anything for a buck, on camera and off.’

‘They’re not all like that, and you have to admit there were some pretty hot guys on that site.’

‘For ninety dollars an hour. You have that kind of money?’

‘We only have to pay for it once, and it means we’d be in charge.’

Ryan shook his head, and in the television light she saw annoyance set briefly on the straight line of his mouth. ‘I don’t want to pay for it, just like I don’t want to go out to a club and just pick someone up. We’ve been through this.’

‘Then you’re just going to have to be patient.’ She finished off her eggroll and set the plate back on the nightstand. ‘It’s kind of cute how worked up you are.’

Groaning, he reached past her for the second eggroll. ‘I don’t want to be cute. You can be the cute one.’

‘Fine, you can be the neurotic one.’

Evie watched him eat, his eyes on the television. He wasn’t ignoring her. He was deep in thought again, asking himself whether they were making a mistake.

She wondered if he really was so transparent. Had she always been able to read him so well? She couldn’t remember. It seemed unreal that there had been a time when they had been mere strangers. The first day she met Ryan, nearly mowing him over as she rolled a dolly carrying a bookcase into her apartment, she’d felt a click that knocked her back. She remembered thinking, there you are, as though they had merely been separated rather than seeing one another for the first time.

In hindsight she could have sworn she’d seen the same on his face, but she couldn’t be sure. Since they had become lovers, she didn’t trust her view of the past. It was all tinted by the now. When she thought of sharing the elevator with Ryan in the weeks after she moved into the building, she only saw the soft eyes looking at her like she was the only person in the world who mattered.

Watching him now, Evie wanted to pull him down and wipe the worried pucker at the corner of his mouth with a kiss. He was too serious too often, and if he didn’t feel as though he was accomplishing anything he’d wind tighter and tighter.

‘Let me do it for a little while,’ she suggested, even though she knew the answer. ‘I can make my own profile and we can compare notes.’

‘No, that would get even more freaks and their dick-pics. Hand me my drink, would you?’ When she obliged, he wrapped his free arm around her and pulled her close. ‘Maybe it’s just a stupid fantasy and it’ll never happen.’

He stopped to take a drink, then rested his head upon hers.

Distracted or not, she liked moments like these when there was nothing but his silence and warmth. She closed her eyes and turned her nose into his shoulder to breathe in the mixture of damp skin and his deodorant.

‘We could make a new profile,’ he said after a moment. ‘Both of us, and make it very clear what it is we want and what we don’t want.’

‘You’re already doing that.’

‘And half the messages I get are from guys who just want to fuck me and haven’t even bothered to look at my profile or noticed that we’re a couple.’

He squeezed her as he set his drink next to her plate, then patted the bedding down, looking for the remote. He killed the television and scooted down, pulling her so close they shared the same pillow.

She pushed aside a fair streak of hair from where it fell over his forehead. ‘What makes you think it would be any different if we were both in the profile?’

‘Most people click based on a picture. I do. Right now all they see is my bare chest, so anyone looking for a couple might scroll right on by if they just see a man. We’re putting it right out there what they’re getting. If anything, it will cut down on the amount of time I waste talking to guys who just want to get on my dick for an hour.’ Evie said nothing, and Ryan pressed his forehead to hers. ‘What?’

This wasn’t the first time she’d entertained this thought, and she liked it about as much now that it was on the tip of her tongue as when it was buried like an arrowhead in her gut.

‘It might be easier that way. I mean, if you meet with him alone the first time. Just a one-on-one session.’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ he said quickly and sharply, then took a deep breath. ‘You’ve got to be there. I won’t do this without you. It’s for both of us.’

Beneath the covers, Ryan pushed his thigh between hers and cupped her ass. ‘You know this is as much about you as it is me. If I just wanted a fuck, I could get one in about five minutes. I want something more. I want you.’

There, another spark of words on the tip of her tongue. She wanted to say those three words so badly she felt them swelling in her chest until she burned.

Yet she didn’t. She wouldn’t say it unless she was sure he’d say it back. The thought of letting those words free to wreak havoc without knowing for sure that Ryan would be there to rescue her was terrifying. Instead she put the force of those words into a kiss, twining her leg around him and struggling to rise up over him.

‘I want you, too,’ she whispered, and paused to be sure that she’d said those words and not the other words. He pushed his fingers into her hair, the sting as possessive as the hard mouth against hers.

His grip remained unrelenting after she’d mounted him, and it spurred her to ride him as hard as he had ridden her. His eyes shone fierce in the candlelight, and she tried to imagine that gaze flicking over her shoulder to the man whose fingers linked with Ryan’s in the tangle of her hair.

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