Page 31 of Shielding his Legacy
The trooper’s displeasure was obvious. “You drive safe.” He headed back toward his police car.
“Oh, my God, I’m so embarrassed!” Eva said, clearly overwhelmed and trying to disappear across the seat.
The headlights behind them moved away as the officer hooked a U-turn, and Gavin pulled back onto the road, feeling well and truly chastised for the first time since Sister Mary Groves had caught him making out with the captainof the cheerleading squad in the stairwell at Our Lady of Lourdes.
He shot a quick glance at Eva, and raised his voice to be heard over the baby’s fretful whimpers. “You okay?”
“Oh my God,” Eva said again in a horrified chant. She twisted around to look behind them. “Is he gone?”
“Yeah.”
She climbed over the seat to tend to the baby, and he couldn’t help the mental image of her breasts leaking milk that immediately popped into his mind. Eva had just given him the best blowjob of his life, but he was no closer to getting his need for her out of his system than he was a year ago. On the contrary, his list of things he wanted to do with her continued to grow.
Abby’s cries stopped abruptly, his truck filling with a rhythmic suckling noise he desperately tried to ignore, but it was no use. He’d had a taste of the physical pleasures that awaited him in the playground of her body, and he wanted her even more now than he had before.
Surely it wasn’t a bad thing to lust after the mother of your child. The phrase nearly stopped his heart mid-beat.The mother of his child. The too-young-for-him, stunningly beautiful Eva, who was too innocent, too loving, too good. But that hadn’t stopped him from taking her to bed or ruining her life, or from waking in the night to steal something even more precious.
Suddenly, he could see with suffocating clarity all that he’d taken from her, how the entire trajectory of her life had been changed by his desperate desire, and still he wanted more. It would never be enough, no matter the price she had paid. The dragon was alive and well and living inside him, a beast who cared only for himself and primal satisfaction.
He rubbed a trembling hand over the scruff of his cheek. Lusting after her would drive him to take her to his bed, where he couldn’t protect her from the monster living inside his very soul. And as long as that was true, the best thing he could do for Eva was to get as far away from her as possible. He’d already come too close to crossing that line. If it hadn’t been for the baby awakening at the cabin, or his current lack of protection, he would have crossed it already.
Eva and their daughter deserved a beautiful life, the most perfect life he could imagine. He wasn’t good enough for them. Fixing his mouth in a tight frown, he tried to promise himself he’d keep his distance, knowing he shouldn’t touch her again. But the lie wouldn’t come.
He was powerless where Eva was concerned, and he would do anything he could to be close to her.
17
Eva entered the convenience store while Gavin pumped gas. She was on a mission to find chocolate and coffee, though she longed for a tall, fancy latte with salted caramel and whipped cream, the likes of which she hadn’t fully appreciated the last time she’d hit a coffee shop in New York City. The concoction was her one true vice, and not something she was willing to forgo while she was nursing—though she had cut back considerably.
She looked around with a sigh.Beaner’s Gas & Sip’s offerings weren’t likely to hold a candle to a real coffee shop’s selection. Picking out a chocolate bar speckled with bits of toffee, she opted for a bottled cold brew and found Gavin’s Mountain Dew, then headed to the register.
There below the counter was a selection of condoms. She sucked in her cheeks. She’d never bought condoms before, and she’d be lying if she didn’t admit to being uncomfortable and unsure of their various… features.
She shot a sideways look at the cashier, a middle-aged woman with a thick torso and unnaturally black hair,wearing a red T-shirt that saidBeaner’sin yellow cursive lettering. The cashier looked back at her with dead eyes. “Help you find something, sweetie?”
“No,” Eva said too quickly. Looking uncomfortably around the store, she saw there was no one else in the building. She turned back to the woman. Her nametag saidDebbie. “Uhm, quick question.”
When she didn’t continue, Debbie raised her eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“These, uh…” her voice trailed off as she pointed at the condom display. “These…”
“Condoms.”
“Right. Condoms. Is there one in particular you’d uh… recommend?”
Debbie’s raucous laughter came out in a shocking bark, her face transformed with mirth. “There all the same to me, sweetheart. Except maybe the ribbed ones, though that was never my thing. If God meant for dingdongs to have speedbumps, he would have put them on there himself.”
“Right, of course.” Eva put her best amused expression on her face, wishing she was dead. “But other than the…ribbed ones, they’re all kind of the same?”
A flash of kindness crossed the older woman’s face. She leaned over the counter and reached for a small red box, dropping them by the register as she straightened. “Can’t go wrong with these.”
Eva paid for her purchases and tucked the box into the pocket of her jeans before heading to the truck. That was embarrassing as hell, but at least Debbie had been nice. And now, if she found herself pinned beneath Gavin and that glorious cock, they wouldn’t have a built-in reason to put the brakes on.
Climbing into the front seat, she’d just buckled-in whenthe screen of Gavin’s phone lit up from its holder on the dash. It was a text from someone named Marina.
GOT YOUR MESSAGE YESTERDAY. I WAS HOPING YOU WOULD CALL. LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU’RE BACK IN TOWN SO WE CAN GET TOGETHER.
Yesterday?
