I flip over to my secure server and do a search on the Vinemont holdings. Ah. She’s trying to buy back a piece of her family’s estate. One it just so happens I own. I grin at the screen. It seems I have several things little Evie wants.
Closing my eyes, I see her bent over that table, her dress hiked up, her body arching. She wants me. And she fucking hates that she wants me. I lean back in my chair and relish the memory of her. She knows who I am, what I’ve done—and yet. And yet. It’s twisted as fuck, but it turns me on even more to know she wants my cock almost as much as she wants me dead.
I start to unbuckle my belt for a one-handed stroll down memory lane with Evie when my phone pings with an incoming text. I groan and check it.
Sin: Did you handle it?
Lucius: I was about to, but you interrupted.
Sin: This isn’t a game. I need to know that you have Evie under control.
Lucius: I have her. Go play house with your little family. Let me do what I do best.
Sin: Stand around with your dick in your hand?
Lucius: Fuck you.
Sin: Stella says dinner tonight at seven.
Lucius: No. I need to stay in the city. I can’t make it tonight.
Sin: It’s your funeral.
I toss my phone beside me. Fuck. Dealing with Sin is one thing. Having to catch hell from his wife is something entirely different.
After finishing my glass, I get up and pack all my shit. Looks like I’ll be spending the night at my place. It’s probably a good idea anyway since I haven’t disposed of Leonard yet. No rest for the wicked and all that.
I start to head out, leaving the city for the swampy countryside, but my car seems to guide itself around the French Quarter and right to the high-rise where Evie is staying. I can’t see her from the street of course. She’s high above me. What is she doing up there? I know she’s home. The tail I put on her apprizes me of every move my little vixen makes.
Is she scared? Turned on? Both? I have half a mind to park and go on up to her floor. To ring her doorbell, and if she opens for me, charge in and give her what she needs. What I need. I want her more than I should. My hand goes to the bruise again, the spot where she almost pierced my black heart.
And then I drive on. Because Evie is just one of many problems I have on my plate. Even so, she’s the one that occupies me for the entire drive back to my home parish and the Vinemont estate. The house I grew up in still stands at the end of a long row of oaks. It’s traditional, beautiful, and full of ghosts.
“Uncle Lucius!” Little Teddy flings open the large front door and jumps into my arms the moment I make it to the top step.
I catch him and carry him inside. “You’re heavier than last time.”
“I’m a big boy now,” he says proudly. “Mommy said I can go shooting with her tomorrow.”
“Is that so?” I kiss his blond head and put him on his feet. “Bow or gun?”
“Both.” He grins. The eyes of his mother, the cleverness of his father, and even a touch of innocence from his namesake, my brother Teddy.
Toddler chatter comes from down the hall, the twins Rebecca and Renee having a spirited conversation.
This house was never filled with sounds like this when I was young. So much life and love and joy in these formerly-dreary halls. It’s almost like a completely different house, but then again… I stop and look at the portrait of my mother that graces the back of the foyer. This house may have changed, but it still has its echoes of pain.
“Food’s ready!” Stella strides down the hall with a platter of barbecued chicken and delivers it into the dining room.
My stomach growls. I suppose I hadn’t had much for lunch. No time for it, what with all the threatening and dry-humping I did with Evie. There my mind goes again, back to that slip of a woman with a heart full of anger.
“Do you see this?” Stella asks Sin.
“I see you.” He reaches for her and pulls her into his lap at the table.
She sighs and leans against him. “No, I mean your brother. He’s got stars in his eyes.”
“Not at all.” I take my usual seat at the table and blow a kiss to the twins. They giggle and babble to each other.
Sin strokes his hand along Stella’s arm, and then across her chest where her vine tattoos snake from beneath her top.
“Gross.” Teddy bounds in and plops down next to me.