Page 19 of EverGreene
I stood in front of her, unmoving, with my hands on my hips.
“Seriously, V. I’m really needing that to be a Kermit imitation and not your real voice. Because I don’t know whether my vagina is ever going to be able to recover again if it’s not.”
In a fake huff, I threw my hands up in the air, snatched my shirt from the floor, and prepared to storm out of the room, when I was stopped by Ever grabbing my arm. “I’m sorry,” she said, still laughing but also a touch concerned she’d offended me. “Please. Don’t go. If that’s your voice, we’ll work around it. Can you learn sign language?”
Through my mask, I attempted to give her the most stern look I could, failing miserably.
“Was that your real voice?” Ever grew serious, her face falling even more when I failed to respond to her. “Oh, fuck. V, I’m so sorry. I swear, I—” A slight laugh, disguised with a cough, was enough to tell her I’d been joking. “Touché,” she said, her shoulders relaxing as she crossed her arms in front of her. “I may have deserved that.”
I nodded, tugging my shirt back on while noticing Ever’s face falling slightly as the fabric covered my body.
“You’re off the hook tonight. But if you expect anythingmore out of me, you’re going to have to actually speak to me from time to time.”
I shrugged my shoulders, tacitly agreeing with her terms while also mentally calculating how to carry them out. I’d hit her with the best impression I had in my repertoire. Sure, I could do a passable Porky Pig, but I knew if I ever wanted to have sex with Ever again, I couldn’t whip that one out on her. Porky had a lot of things going for him, but rizz wasn’t one of them.
From out of the corner of my eye, I caught Ever removing her pants and placing them in a hamper. The plain t-shirt she wore was long enough to barely cover her ass, and I let out a shaky breath, silently praying for visions of my grandmother in a thong to keep my dick at bay.
“Just because you can do a spot-on impression of the Muppet who is arguably the most sexually desirable of them all doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind. After I fall asleep, you see yourself out. Got it?”
I gave her a thumbs up and motioned to the light when Ever slipped into her bed.
“Yes, you can turn the light off.”
After flipping the switch, I fumbled over to the bed, lying down behind Ever and cautiously fitting my arm around her waist, holding her close to my body. If I were being honest, I was exhausted and could have easily fallen asleep if I closed my eyes, which meant that I absolutely had to keep them open.
“V?”
“Mmhmm…”
“Thank you. Even though everything you’ve done so far has been one huge red flag, and I probably should be on the phone with 911 reporting my stalker in my home instead of curled up in bed with him, I really do appreciate what you’re doing for me right now. Assuming you don’t kill me, of course.If you murder me in my sleep, consider this expression of gratitude rescinded.”
I squeezed Ever’s arm as I lay in bed, listening to her breaths oscillate between barely audible and the heavier sound of sleep, until they eventually favored the latter. To avoid waking her, I waited a few minutes longer before I slowly withdrew my arm from around her body. Carefully, I sat up and lifted my mask just enough to expose the lower half of my face, leaning down to kiss her shoulder before I slipped out of her bed, locking her front door behind me when I left her house.
Chapter 7
Ever
“It’s bad enough you and I have to share an office together, do we really need to walk to this meeting together, too?” I sighed, locking eyes briefly with Loche, who lumbered next to me on our way to the conference room. “I mean, people may begin to talk and all.”
His smug smile grated on my nerves. Like an itch at the bottom of my foot while driving, he just kept getting more and more irritating, demanding my attention when I refused to give in. “What’s wrong? Don’t want to make the others jealous?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, you’re mid at best. I just don’t want people to think I don’t have standards.”
“Mid?” He snort-laughed. “Keep telling yourself that, Nevermore.”
I gritted my teeth at the nickname—a play on my name he’d given to me shortly after I started at the firm.
“Besides,” he continued, “I see the way you look at me from your desk.”
“How’s that? Disgusted? Like I’m cursing God for thrusting me in the forced proximity trope from hell with the world’s most annoying nepo baby?”
Loche winced the way he always did whenever the topic of nepotism came up in conversation. It was a low blow on my part, but neither of us had ever been particularly fond of taking the high road.
“You know the look I’m referring to. The one you get every time I put my glasses on to read over case law. It’s hot, right?”
Shit. He wasn’t wrong. I don’t know what it was about a man in glasses, but those wire frames just did something to me. Frankly, I blamed Clark Kent for giving me unrealistic expectations. Because not one single man in glasses I dated in the past had ever also been a muscle-bound superhero from another planet. Although plenty of them had been faster than speeding bullets.
“I’d rather gouge my eyes out with a letter opener than ever look at you again. In fact?—”
