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Cross My Heart
AM Hartnett
Dangerous, but worth the risk?Evie and Ryan are selective. Not just any man will do. After weeks of trying to make a connection online they finally extend an invitation that outs their sinful search to their widowed landlord, Seth. And then Seth reveals a secret of his own: he’s more than eager to become his young tenants’ playmate.In spite of the explosive dynamic the threesome find in bed, Ryan’s insecurities bubble to the surface. He wanted a lover who wouldn’t hurt Evie, but as he watches his woman writhe with the ecstasy another man gives her, it becomes clear that Seth isn’t the one Evie needs to worry about leaving with a bruised heart. Sharing the control in bed was the easy part. Losing control of his emotions could destroy what he has with Evie.
Cross My Heart
A. M. HARTNETT
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Mischief
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
www.mischiefbooks.com (http://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 (#uecdc15bd-ef47-59dd-ba95-dcc07ab8372f)
Title Page (#u62d0bd66-e9b5-55c1-a17f-60a3b5e9dd9d)
Copyright (#ub48931af-9126-54de-aecb-e5f462da9a38)
Chapter One (#u86c7fdf5-80f4-5efa-9c4f-c75d449c1844)
Chapter Two (#ubf861072-129e-54d0-9ad8-0d34605c8f04)
Chapter Three (#u85220c48-7d43-5e25-a524-4b38021d4d2f)
Chapter Four (#ucb25701a-d53b-51d1-8e8f-18f0129e81e3)
Chapter Five (#u36d26622-6ef9-5f5a-8979-c1fc0a97e141)
Chapter Six (#uc6b1b056-7de7-5213-beda-2624194afbee)
Chapter Seven (#u1f9cc6ea-63bf-5e9c-bcac-41f42596e95b)
Chapter Eight (#u76352158-4f21-54f1-93a3-b3f1530d3ee9)
Chapter Nine (#u62ca0f3e-14e1-5fc2-8476-f8a9f6c60fbd)
Chapter Ten (#u713772f1-a778-56c9-8ddd-bb6ebdab294b)
Chapter Eleven (#u3523621f-d8a5-58ba-accc-c5e11f50e430)
Chapter Twelve (#ue7c0e823-64c0-5597-80fb-042b35cd41f2)
Chapter Thirteen (#u3e23137d-abe0-5a7b-84d5-863246652dc7)
Chapter Fourteen (#u739fdb60-bab3-514a-b927-8bf36b6a3cdd)
Chapter Fifteen (#u9174c0b0-7cc3-5b4e-a785-4743dc0f95a4)
More from Mischief (#u34f7e5b4-22db-5e63-a35c-16df5da6ffe7)
About the Publisher (#u834710ac-17e6-5b20-bcba-17b7fd32c229)
Chapter One (#u71371f5a-3dad-573d-95ad-c07e56f00e3d)
‘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.
