Prohibited (Tulsa City Sinners #1)

28. Evie

Chapter twenty-eight

Evie

Evie stood on the back porch, staring out at the trees of the orchard. This time of year, the air was scented with the honeyed-rosey smell of apples. At the end of the days at The Orchard, the men all came in after their long labors in the field, smelling of sweat and sunlight and apples.

It was so hot at night that most of them had taken to dragging their mattresses out into the fields and sleeping under the stars with the cicada lullaby to send them to sleep, rather than sleeping in the oppressive, sweaty confines of their small cabins on the land.

Evie had spent the last two nights sleeping alone in the carriage house. Alex stayed with Lindsay, and god only knew where Ryan disappeared to.

She hadn’t seen them so much as look at each other since their night of shared, intense passion. Alex smirked at her when she caught his eye. He touched her more often now, too, fussing with her hair. Her collar. Her fingers. Outward indications of a developing possessiveness that frightened her and simultaneously sent fire through her veins.

She thought about him often. The smell of him. The feel of his mouth on hers. The way he licked her blood from her with such rapture, such reverence. The way he’d said, “Hurts, doesn’t it?” after shoving his fingers into her ass.

And Ryan’s echo of that question reverberated through her too, reminding her of the ecstasy of that raw moment. Witnessing them together.

Ryan had avoided her entirely, which stung slightly, though she didn’t blame him. Things were complicated. He’d heard out her side of the story with stoic grace, but that didn’t mean that he’d forgiven her. And just because he’d allowed himself to be totally overcome with lust and give in to his desire to fuck her didn’t mean that there was anything between them.

Still, her body ached for his. The way his cock fit so perfectly against the back of her throat. The way it fit inside of her. The acute pleasure of reliving their coupling was hers to cherish and she had revisited the experience often the last couple of days, alternating it with her memory of him in the garden shed. The innocent sting of desire that had ignited between them.

How different he was then.

How very much the same.

The men were all out in the fields now, laboring to harvest the apples. At the hottest part of the day, they left their task and sat under the trees, drinking water and applejack and eating hunks of bread and Tootsie Rolls to stave off fatigue. When the heat lowered just a touch, they went back out to finish their work. The sky before her was stretching unbroken between the descending night and the unspoiled landscape, birthing a sunset the color of freshly spilled blood. It ripped across the sky and billowed outward, stretching its gory arms impossibly wide to encompass the drowsy, gradually darkening land.

The men would be back soon.

The taste of butter lingered in her mouth, along with the bitter, strong black coffee she’d had a short while ago. She lingered a while longer on the porch, hoping for the smallest hint of a breeze, but none came. Boredom was a chronic state these days. Though she tried to read, she couldn’t settle her mind enough to do it, and she alternated between napping and playing cards with Lindsay, and wandering around the outside of the house, thinking about what came next.

She froze for a moment, certain that she’d heard the clicking of a car engine. A current of anxiety shot through her. The sound made her stomach squeeze. The fear that Walter would show up here was constant now. That he would find her.

But wasn’t she supposed to want to be found?

Troubled, she shook it off and turned back toward the house. When she stepped into the kitchen, she was surprised to discover Ryan and Alex standing and facing each other across the kitchen, talking in low, heated voices. She looked at each of them and felt fire leap from her as her eyes moved from a deep sapphire blue pair looking back at her to a brilliant, glowing blue that skipped away when they met hers.

The room was full of a thick, heavy silence as she crossed between them, making her more and more eager to leave with each second that passed.

Their heated conversation continued behind her, though she didn’t dare linger and eavesdrop. For her sake as much as theirs.

She did everything she could to be as unobtrusive as possible. Since arriving at the Orchard, there had been no mention of locking her up. There had been no more threats. The uncertainty was debilitating and she lived with the constant fear of Ryan coming to his senses and locking her in the storm cellar as he promised to do the night Lindsay was shot.

She was halfway down the hall when the front door opened. A tall, pale woman with a beautiful, angular face and a long shock of bright red hair staggered into the house and closed the door behind her, pressing her back against it. A haunted, wild look possessed her as she stood and stared for a moment like she was in shock.

“A-Are you alright?” Evie said, starting toward her.

The young woman looked at her, eyes wide, and she stood up straight, backing away.

“Who are you?” the young woman said in a voice that shook.

Heavy footsteps sounded from the kitchen.

“Saoirse,” Ryan said, surprise in his voice. “Where the fuck have you been? ”

“Saoirse?” Lindsay called from down the hallway.

She backed away from all of them, shaking. Her breaths came faster and faster and her face began to fracture.

Ryan went to catch her by the arms. “Saoirse, what–”

“Don’t,” Saoirse said, yanking her arms away.

Ryan held up his hands and backed away, looking baffled and even a little bit hurt.

“Saoirse,” he said in a steady voice that was clearly meant to calm her. “What’s happened?”

Then there was the sound of the front door opening, a wave of deep voices and the scraping and pounding of boots at the front door. It all stuttered to a halt.

“Saoirse,” Malcolm said, sounding both relieved and irritated. “Where–”

Like a feral, frightened animal, Saoirse bolted past all of them until she reached Lindsay’s room and slammed the door shut behind her.

The sound of her crying and Lindsay talking to her softly came muffled through the door. Ryan and Malcolm gave each other mystified looks. Alex’s face was set into a grim look as he stared at the door, likely wanting to follow her but having the sense not to.

The men began to whisper between them.

“What do you suppose–?”

“Never seen her like this–”

Every maternal and nursing instinct Evie had told her to go down the hallway to Lindsay and his sister. The thought made her a little squeamish because she didn’t know the young woman at all, but she also didn’t want to stand out in the hallway, anxious and useless.

“I’ll just go see,” Evie said to them quietly. They all looked at her and nodded, arms folded. Hands on hips. Eyes on the floor. Eyes on the walls.

On quiet feet, Evie went to the door and knocked softly. “It’s me, Evie,” she said. “May I come in?”

She was met with the low, jagged sound of Saoirse’s voice. Words she couldn’t make out. Lindsay talking very softly. Then he said, loud enough for her to hear, “Come in.”

She opened the door slowly. Moved slowly. Saoirse was curled up next to her brother, head pressed into his chest. His good arm was around her. Just the posture of her body illustrated her pain. Evie closed the door slowly behind her and then leaned against it.

“I’m Evie,” she said, advancing very slowly toward Lindsay and his sister.

“Evelyn?” The girl sat up like a bolt and stared at her with such an intense look that Evie couldn’t help but take a step backward.

“Yes,” she said, a little uncertain of this reaction.

“He kept asking about you,” Saoirse said. She got on her knees and gripped the iron railing until her knuckles turned white. “‘Where is Evelyn? Where is Evelyn?’”

The words coming out of Saoirse’s mouth made her blood run cold. “Who kept asking?”

“Have you been hiding this woman?” Saoirse said, whipping around to look at her brother, eyes snapping .

“Sweetheart,” Lindsay said, leaning forward to take his sister’s elbow. “Who kept asking?”

“Walter. Stanley.” Saoirse spit the name like a curse.

“No,” Evie said, heart stopping. She moved forward. “Oh no. He didn’t– Did he hurt you?”

Saoirse laughed bitterly, madly. “Did he hurt me? Did he hurt me?”

Evie gripped her own elbows to keep her hands from going to her face. She needed to remain calm. Composed.

“Why the fuck are you hiding this woman?” Saoirse said, ripping her arm out of her brother’s grasp. “Why did this insane man kill Sal and then take me prisoner, because he was looking for her?”

“It’s complicated–” Lindsay started to say.

“Does this have to do with Tommy?” Saoirse nearly screamed.

The room fell totally silent.

“Does it?” she persisted, voice low.

“Yes,” Lindsay said quietly.

“I told them,” she said, almost more to herself than to anyone else. Voice pulsing with rage. “I told them not to do it. I told them to let it go. But this, this all happened because of your stupid fucking need for vengeance.”

“Saoirse, please, what the fuck did happen?” Lindsay captured her hand again, refusing to be put off by her rage.

“I don’t want to talk about it. ”

Evie and Lindsay exchanged a look. The anguish on his face and the blank, listless stare on his sister’s was almost more than Evie could bear.

“I’m so sorry,” Evie said, voice trembling. “I’m so sorry.” She pressed her hands over her own heart, eyes filling with tears.

“He kept asking me, ‘Where’s Evelyn?’ I told him I didn’t know, I didn’t know any Evelyn. But here you were, all along.” It wasn’t an accusation. But it still made her cringe with guilt.

This had happened because of her. Another person hurt because of her.

Evie swallowed hard. “I’m so sorry,” she said again, voice shaking. “I didn’t know.”

Saoirse didn’t respond, just settled back onto her heels. Exhaustion settled over her. A dazed look on her face.

“Please excuse me,” Evie said quietly. “I’ll be back. Lindsay, there’s laudanum in the drawer if…”

They shared a look and he nodded. Suffering was etched around his eyes and his mouth as he rubbed his sister’s back.

Evie quietly let herself out of the room and into the hall. She turned slowly and found herself face to face with the group of men who were exactly where she left them, talking quietly amongst themselves. They all straightened and looked at her expectantly.

She swallowed, wondering how much she should say. Hugging herself around the middle, she walked toward them slowly, allowing her eyes to settle on Ryan .

“What’s going on?” Malcolm asked in a gruff voice, his arms crossed. Evie looked at him and swallowed. Looked back at Ryan, who was watching her with a look so intense, it nearly withered the flesh on her face.

Evie had to open her mouth a couple of times to get the sound to come out.

“W-Walter Stanley,” she managed to say.

“What about Walter Stanley?” Malcolm said in a dangerous voice.

Ryan stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder, eyes burning. “What happened?”

“Sh-she–” Evie forced herself to swallow. “I don’t know all the details. She said that he shot someone—the bartender, I think. He took her prisoner. I think he– he hurt her.”

“What do you mean?” Malcolm leaned in, his eye practically glowing with anger.

“I don’t know, I don’t know the details.” Thank God for the warm weight of Ryan’s hand on her shoulder, surprising as it was. It was the only thing keeping her together.

The men looked past her at the closed door behind her. “Th-That’s all I know,” she said, managing to keep her voice relatively steady. She swallowed hard. “If you’ll excuse me.”

She made the mistake of glancing at Ryan’s face. His lips were parted, like he wanted to say something but instead he shuffled to the side so she could squeeze her way between the men and out onto the front porch. She let herself out the front door and left the deafening silence behind. The trill of the cicadas was a comfort as she went down the front steps of the cabin and walked around the house aimlessly, not really sure where she was going. She knew only that she needed to be alone, to reflect. To release the ache that was climbing her throat with long, jagged claws.

She wandered to the woodpile behind the carriage house and sat on a low end of the large stack, folding her arms around her middle and leaning forward. She stared at the turf between her bare toes, at the wet spots that materialized in the dirt as more and more tears dripped down her cheeks. She swiped at them with the back of her wrist, chin trembling.

A numb horror was slowly overtaking her as she swung wildly between trying not to imagine what Walter had done to Saoirse, and being tormented by every possible scenario in graphic detail. She pressed her hands over her face, trying to force her mind to be still.

“Sit there, a fiddleback might get you,” Ryan’s voice said nearby.

Startled, she brought her hands down and then jumped to her feet. She looked behind her at the woodpile and began to swipe at her backside, hoping she hadn’t just invited a nasty bite from a nasty spider. When she looked back at Ryan she was half expecting him to be laughing at her, but his face was solemn, his arms folded.

Evie looked at the ground, feeling heavy. Her whole body felt so heavy. “I’m so sorry,” she said, softly. Her lip started to tremble again.

Ryan was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Why are you sorry?”

“This is my fault.” Evie swallowed, unable to look at him.

“No,” Ryan began to close the gap between them and then stopped himself. She looked back at him in surprise before she looked away again, vision fogging with tears.

“Yes it is,” she said, more insistently. “Ryan, I need to go back. He’s going to keep– She said he kept asking about me. ‘Where is Evelyn?’ He hurt her because of me.”

She stole a glance at his face and the expression she found there stopped her breath. Ryan looked like he’d been slapped. She averted her eyes, wishing she hadn’t looked at him at all.

“You can’t go back,” he said after a moment, his voice tense and full of things he wasn’t saying. “This wasn’t your fault.”

“All of this is my fault,” she said, frustration unfurling itself inside of her. “I did this. Because I– Because of your brother.” She glanced back at him because she couldn’t help herself.

Ryan looked away then and she suddenly felt ashamed, unworthy to even speak of him. Tommy. She bit her lip, wishing she could take it back.

“He would have liked you,” Ryan said quietly.

She couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d fallen to his knees and declared his undying love to her. A knife twisted in her heart .

She swallowed hard, emboldened by Ryan’s mention of him. “I have to do right by him. By Saoirse. I have to stop Walter from hurting other people.”

“Evelyn,” Ryan said, moving forward, impatient. “He isn’t going to stop now. Not until we’re all dead or he is. There’s no going back.”

Evie twisted her hands together, her right hand catching on her wedding ring. As if seeing it for the first time, she held her shaking hand up and looked at it more closely. The intricate gold work. The huge emerald. The consolation prize she’d received for marrying Linus instead of Etian. It was so absurd now. All so absurd. She couldn’t even remember why she’d ever wanted to marry Linus in the first place.

She yanked it off and hurled it across the turf. Her heart raced and fluttered in her throat, but she turned away, not caring where it landed.

“Not your color,” Ryan said, blithely.

Her eyes burned again. Her lower lip trembled. She put her hands over her eyes, wishing to hide from the force of his gaze. From everyone and everything.

What a goddamn mess she’d made of her life. Of all of the people whose lives she touched. She gritted her teeth, trying to hold back the urge to cry. Saoirse was inside, being ripped apart by whatever Walter had done to her and it was Evie’s fault. What right did she have to cry?

A small sound leaked out of her. She tightened her shoulders .

“Evelyn,” Ryan breathed. He was right next to her. One of his big hands was on her shoulder again. Then, he was drawing her to him, enveloping her in the gorgeous scent of his body and the warmth of his arms.

“No,” she moaned, trying feebly to pull away from him. “Don’t comfort me.”

“Why not?” he asked, his voice a deep rumble that went to her core.

“Because I’m– I’ve done terrible things,” she said, voice trembling. “I don’t deserve to be comforted. You need to be comforted. Your cousin, she needs–”

All time, all thought, all existence stopped when he suddenly kissed her. It was abrupt but sensual. Hungry but restrained. The cost of that restraint was palpable in the way he slid his hand into her hair and his other hand down to the small of her back and pressed her body against his as if he would merge them together.

“Ryan,” she murmured, pulling away. She couldn’t help herself. She was shocked. There was no other word for it. “I thought you–”

He touched her lip with his fingertips and then his mouth surged forward as if he couldn’t wait another second to kiss her again.

It lit a blaze in her so hot that she could practically feel herself melting. The way his tongue caressed her lower lip and then parted her lips so that he could taste her mouth made her moan. She remembered the scent of him, the way he smelled when they kissed for the first time so many years ago underneath the wisteria. It brought the memories back so intensely that she could smell the earth and the flowers in the potting shed along with the warm smell of his body and his breath the first time they’d made love.

His hands were cradling her face now and his mouth was tasting hers with more and more urgency, a sinner desperate for absolution. She returned his desperation, arms around his thick, beautiful neck, pressing the length of her body tightly to his. The sounds he made, the soft way he panted when their lips broke apart were her undoing.

“Evelyn,” he murmured against her lips. Distantly she was aware that they were walking. “Evelyn, Evelyn,” he said again.

Then her back was pressed against something hard. The side of the carriage house. His hard, strong body was pressed against hers, pinning her there with his hips as his lips coaxed hers into complete submission.

Drowning, she was drowning in sensation. In pleasure. In desire. Never, never did she think it would be like this with him again. Not even after he fucked her the other night. She’d been telling herself that was a one time thing. He’d let the applejack get the better of him. It had been hot. It had been intense. But it hadn’t been this sensual, gorgeous cascade of sensation. Of feeling.

The hand in her hair drifted down to join his other hand at her waist, squeezing and kneading her flesh there before they slipped up to caress the shape of her breasts through her dress, lifting and pressing them until the breath escaped her and she kissed him with more intensity, moaning and writhing against him.

His large hands were catching at her dress, tugging it up, and then his fingers between her thighs. Stroking her cunt through the thin, wet fabric of her drawers.

He swore softly under his breath as he stroked her, forcing tiny sounds from her that she tried with all of her might to swallow.

“Ryan,” she moaned. “Someone might see–”

“Let them,” he rumbled. “To hell with them.”

Then he kissed her again with a new ferocity while his fingers fumbled with the ties on her drawers and then yanked them down. Biting her lip, Evelyn stepped her legs apart so they could slide to her ankles and she could step out of them delicately. Ryan kicked them away, and then pressed up against her again, slipping his fingers into the silken wet folds of her cunt. The touch of his fingers was electric and stole the breath from her body.

“Ryan,” she said again, just a breath against his lips. She held his face between her hands, staring into his beautiful eyes from inches away.

“I need you,” he murmured against her lips, voice hot and gravelly with his desire. He kissed her, their mouths tangling and melting together like honey.

“In the carriage house,” she said softly, panting.

He kissed her again, more intensely. More demandingly.

But she somehow found the strength to push him away just a little. He stepped back, his eyes glowing with unbridled lust and frustration.

She bit her lip and then slipped sideways. When she turned away from him, he crushed her back against him. His hands slipped over her thighs, her belly, her venus mound, her breasts, her ribs. The sheer hunger of his touch forced her eyes closed.

Then, suddenly, he released her again.

Evie dared a glance over her shoulder and almost yipped in delicious fright at the look on his face. Unable to help herself, she darted around the corner of the carriage house. She looked over her shoulder as she came to the door and found him rounding the corner, a dark look in his eye. She yanked the door open and had only set a foot inside when he was behind her, reeling into his arms again. She clutched at his hands, fighting the instinct to resist him.

Instead of walking her up the stairs, he walked her straight toward a stack of crates covered in canvas. When they reached it, he flipped her around and lifted her up, onto the crates.