Forbidden Lust: 3 (Lust for Life) Read online

  And when Oscar draped his arm over the back of the pew behind her to give them both more room, she did not elbow him in the ribs the way she might have wanted. She sighed instead, resigned to forever be tortured by him.

  She had no idea what she’d ever done to deserve the way he treated her—ignoring her for days at a time, mostly short with her when he did give her the time of day, and now what? Was telling her she looked good a new way he’d devised to get under her skin, or did he consider that flirting? And what was with cramming into the seat beside her when there were hundreds of other people he could have sat with instead?

  Whatever she’d done she was sorry. She looked up at Jesus on the cross above the altar and projected the thought really, really sorry in his direction.

  “Don’t you have a date you should be sitting with instead?” she asked him. Her tone might have been a little bitchier than she should have used in front of the boys.

  “No.” His eyes dropped to her mouth for a split second. “Don’t you?”

  She looked away and scratched the side of her neck that was facing him with her middle finger. He chuckled softly and the sound moved hot over her skin. It raised the fine hairs on her body, made her nipples get tight and caused a needy ache in her pussy that had to be a much worse sin than lying or cursing in church could ever be.

  It was a relief when the organist started playing the ceremonial music. Her throat got a little thick and her eyes started to sting again as she watched Leni’s mom and then her mother get escorted down the aisle by her brothers Steve and Diego respectively.

  Eva started to sniffle as Leni’s sister Jo made her way down the aisle. Jo’s daughter Frankie made the entire room laugh when she called out a cheerful “Hi, Mommy!” that rose high and loud over the organ music.

  Eva flinched when a hand holding a cotton handkerchief appeared near her arm. She looked at Oscar, who merely looked back at her, before she took it and dabbed her damn leaking eyes.

  The music changed and everyone in the church rose, heads turned expectantly toward the back of the room. The doors opened and there was Leni, her hand tucked into the crook of Eva’s father’s arm—Leni’s own father had walked out on her mother when she and her sister were infants—both of them grinning ear to ear.

  Leni was incredibly beautiful. Her blonde hair was half pulled back from her face and softly curled but not overly done. Her dress was an elegant, understated work of art made of off-white silk with a gorgeous lace overlay. It had short, off-the-shoulder capped sleeves and a sexy-but-modest neckline, hugged her body to the hip and then fell in a long, narrow skirt just to the floor. No long train. No fuss, no muss, just perfect.

  Eva looked at Jamie to see his reaction and knew immediately that she’d made a mistake. Her big-hearted sap of a brother was openly crying, tears running down his face as he beamed at his bride making her way up the aisle toward him.

  She held Oscar’s handkerchief to her nose, but it didn’t stop an embarrassing sob from escaping. Her own tears spilled from the corners of her eyes, and she couldn’t catch them in the clean square of soft cotton fast enough. Big, warm hands slid down her arms from shoulder to elbow and she could feel his body heat as he moved close.

  He was trying to comfort her, the fucker, and it was going to make her cry harder.

  His scent came over her like a dream, rich and musky and so incredibly male. He leaned so close his mouth was almost touching her ear and whispered, “Think of how bad you’re going to be able to tease him for crying like a big baby.”

  It was a damn good thing she had the hankie pressed to her nose and the organ music was loud because she snort-laughed at the idea.

  Neither of them would ever dream of actually teasing Jamie for crying at his own wedding. He showed his emotions all the time, just lived them right out there in the open where everyone could see them. It was beautiful and completely Jamie.

  She felt Oscar smile against her temple as he hugged her to him briefly, his solid chest to her back, then he released her as the priest started to speak. When they sat he draped his arm behind her again, his body closer.

  Scott, bored since his mom had taken the DS, climbed into Eva’s lap. He put his head on her chest and pulled her ponytail over her shoulder so he could twirl the end of it around his finger, signaling he was about to doze off.

  When Louis realized what his brother was doing, he looked around his brother at Oscar, who twitched his head to tell him come on over, then helped Louis get settled into the crook of his free arm. Louis pushed up the sleeve of Oscar’s suit coat and shirt and found the bracelets Oscar never seemed to be without—one a thin leather strap wrapped several times around his wrist, the other a bracelet of intricately woven leather and small conch shells Eva had given him years ago. Louis rubbed a small section of the leather strap between his finger and thumb as his eyes drifted shut.

  Tammy looked at Eva and raised her eyebrows.

  Eva gave her a bland look that said don’t get any ideas.

  Tammy lifted her camera and took their picture.

  Eva blushed, and hated herself for it. She hated herself even more when Tammy showed her the picture on the camera’s display and it didn’t make her gag. She and Oscar could easily have been a couple, the two dark-haired boys in their laps their boys.

  And the small, almost contented smile on Oscar’s face as he looked right into the camera gave her a thrill that raised the small hairs on her arms.

  “Delete it,” she whispered as she attempted to grab the camera.

  Tammy smirked and easily held it out of Eva’s reach. “Not on your life.”

  Eva looked to Oscar for backup, but he was focused forward. He looked as if he was listening intently to what the priest was saying, but that smile he’d been wearing in the picture was still on his face.

  Fucker.

  * * * * *

  Oscar was standing in a shadow next to a door marked “Employees Only” near the back of the reception hall, smoking a cigarette, when he heard heels on the sidewalk.

  It was Eva.

  For as much of a tomboy as she’d always been, she definitely knew how to walk in those shoes—one pretty foot in front of the other, slender hips swaying hypnotically.

  “Busted,” he said, and took another drag, which tasted pretty bad.

  “You don’t smoke,” she told him, reaching for the cigarette.

  He handed it over and blew the smoke away from her. “Neither do you.”

  Oscar, Diego Sr. and the couple of Rodriguez kids who’d smoked had all quit as a show of solidarity a few years ago when Diego Sr.’s doctors found a dark spot on his lungs. It had been benign, but none of them had smoked since as far as Oscar knew.

  She leaned against the wall next to him and took a drag that made the tip go bright orange for a long moment. Her head fell back against the bricks and she let it out in a long, slow breath that made his spine tingle and his cock stir.

  “Holy shit, that’s better than sex,” she declared in a whisper, eyes closed.

  His mind went blank. He couldn’t take his eyes off her throat or the way the angle of her head exposed every tempting inch of it. He took the cigarette back from her and ground it out against the sole of his shoe so she couldn’t do it again.

  “You might be doing it wrong if that’s the case,” he told her.

  She lifted her head and made sex kitten eyes at him. “You don’t know how much I just enjoyed that.”

  Oh damn. She was flirting.

  He’d gone back to keeping his distance from her after the ceremony. It hadn’t been hard to do since there were hundreds of people at the reception. Every time he’d turned around there had been someone new to talk to.

  But out there in the dark with no one else around and her looking at him that way? There was absolutely nowhere to run.

  “Why are you lurking out here in the dark by yourself?” she asked.

  He dropped the cigarette into the hole at the top of the outdoor ashtra
y. “Just needed a break. There are a lot of people inside.”

  “It is a little much,” she agreed and rested her head against the wall again.

  Oscar had to look away. The image he was getting of hiking up her skirt and burying his face in her neck as he fucked her against the wall was way too clear.

  He cleared his throat. “What about you? What are you doing out here?”

  “I had to get away from Mom,” she answered with a heavy sigh. “I’m the last of the kids who’s not married. The reception still has an hour to go and she’s already starting to talk about me being the next to walk down the aisle. I mean.” She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s cool that she and Dad got married and had half a pack of kids by the time they were my age because that’s what they wanted, but I’m nowhere near ready to settle down and have babies yet.”

  “Diego isn’t married,” he reminded her needlessly.

  She blew an exasperated raspberry. “She gave up on that lost cause years ago.”

  “You want me to run interference?” he asked. “I might be able to persuade her to leave you alone at least until Jamie and Leni leave for their honeymoon.”

  She pushed away from the wall and faced him, feet set in a wide stance and hands on hips, those shrewd eyes narrowed. “Are you dying?”

  He started, caught off guard. “What?”

  “You’ve been nice to me all day.” She crossed her arms. “Is it cancer? Heart disease? Leprosy?”

  He barked out a single, surprised laugh. “I’m not dying,” he assured her.

  “Then I don’t understand. You told me I was prettier than the bride this morning, you were nice to me during the ceremony and you’ve been looking at me like you want to eat me alive all night.” She was ticking points off on her fingers. “Now you’re offering to get my mother off my back? What’s your angle, Oscar?”

  He held up his hands. “No angle, Eva. I’m just trying to get along.”

  She propped her hands on her hips again and took a step closer. “Why?”

  Good question. After years of trying to keep her at arms’ length by making sure she didn’t like him very much, he didn’t blame her for being suspicious.

  “Weddings make me a little soft in the head.”

  She gave him that give me a fucking break look that never failed to make him want to turn her over his knee and paddle her sweet little ass.

  “Maybe I just wanted to tell you that you look good today,” he continued. “You know, for being somebody’s scrubby little sister.”

  “Fuck you, Oscar.” She turned and started to stalk away on those heels, then turned back. “I think you need to get your eyes checked, old man, because it’s been a long goddamn time since I was anyone’s scrubby anything.”

  That made him chuckle. “I don’t quite need spectacles at thirty-seven.”

  She made a disgusted sound and turned away again.

  “I see you, Eva,” he called after her quietly, half hoping she wouldn’t hear him.

  She stopped but didn’t turn around. Not at first.

  Oscar held his arms out at his sides when she faced him again. “I see every gorgeous, heart-stopping inch of you.” He let his arms drop to his sides. “You are, in fact, every fantasy I’ve ever had rolled into one hot as hell woman, but there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.”

  Holy shit it felt good to say that out loud, even if they were the last words he might ever speak before one or all of her brothers stomped the life out of him.

  She came back to him slowly. “You are some kind of sick fuck, you know that?”

  He put his hands in his pants pockets and waited for the rest.

  “Aren’t you a little old for this game-playing bullshit?” she continued. “No.” She shook her head slowly. “You don’t get to stand here and tell me you see me after the hell you put me through when you were supposed to be teaching me, making me scrub the corners of your room and pick up your lunch every day for months before you started to teach me how to so much as put a tattoo machine together.”

  He opened his mouth to tell her he hadn’t treated her any differently than he’d treated the other tattoo artists he’d taught over the years, but she raised her hand.

  “I’m not finished yet,” she told him in an eerily quiet voice.

  Jesus, she was eating his head off and his dick was getting harder with each word.

  “You have been a complete asshole to me every day since you moved back from California. No.” She grabbed his left arm, held it up and shoved down his sleeve. “You’ve been an asshole since the day I gave you this stupid bracelet.”

  She meant the bracelet with the little conch shells woven into the pattern. She’d brought it back from a trip with friends to Myrtle Beach the summer after she’d graduated high school. All the frustration of that day she’d given it to him welled up inside him as though they’d been launched seven years back in time.

  “What was I supposed to do, Eva?” he asked, keeping his voice low. He curled his hand into a fist and brought his arm close. She came with it and he leaned toward her until they were almost nose to nose. “You were seventeen years old, putting this thing on my wrist and breaking my heart. Propositioning me. Telling me you were almost eighteen and you wanted me to be your first.” He gently twisted his arm out of her hand and let it drop to his side but kept his face close. “I was a thirty-year-old man.”

  Even in the dim light cast by the light above that back door he could see she was shaking and her eyes had gone huge. “So you did want me?”

  He hung his head and blew out a frustrated breath. The shame he’d felt that day, for that split second he’d seriously considered her offer, burned through him. Because fuck yes he’d wanted her like no one else he’d wanted before or since.

  “And you’ve been an asshole to me since you moved home for the same reason.” He heard her single, breathy laugh. “You fucking want me.”

  Oscar raised his head and looked at her but didn’t say anything. They were heading into extremely treacherous waters and he had no idea how to turn the boat around. Suddenly he found himself wishing that someone, anyone, would walk around the corner and interrupt them. Because he was about to do something really stupid.

  For a moment he couldn’t hear her breathing, and then she said, “Prove it.”

  Every single cell in his body primed to answer that challenge. His vision cleared until all he could see was her. He drew in a deep breath and his head filled with the scent of her. His heart started to throb in his chest, rushing blood to his cock until it was full to capacity, beyond ready to answer her challenge.

  “Eva, I am practically one of your brothers,” he said with zero conviction.

  “No.” She crossed her arms and got closer. “If this isn’t just another one of your fucked-up ways of being a dick to me, come over tonight and prove it.”

  With that she pivoted on her toes and left him standing there, helplessly watching the twitch of her ass and the flex of her pretty calves as she marched away, knowing with a sick kind of certainty that he’d just become a dead man walking.

  Chapter Three

  Leni tackle-hugged Eva the moment she came around the side of her parents’ house the next afternoon. The backyard was already crawling with family and a few close friends who were there for Jamie and Leni’s gift opening lunch, which was actually a cookout the size of which rivaled one of their Fourth of July gatherings.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Leni gushed breathlessly. “I can not believe you agreed to tattoo that flower on his chest. What were the two of you thinking?”

  Eva’s brand new sister-in-law held her out at arms’ length, her pretty smile huge and her blue eyes wet with emotion.

  “It’s not like he wanted your name in gangster script on the side of his neck or anything,” Eva countered as if it was no big deal, secretly thrilled Leni was so happy.

  “Yes, but isn’t it the kiss of death to—”

  Eva clamped a h
and lightly over Leni’s mouth. “As you should know, Jamie doesn’t believe in that crap.” She gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m afraid the only death that applies here is that ’til-death-do-you-part nonsense.”

  Leni mumbled something. Eva removed her hand.

  “It’s really gorgeous,” Leni told her, fully tearing up now. “I love it so much.”

  Eva pressed the back of her hand to Leni’s forehead. “Still drunk, sweetie?”

  “I think I had one glass of champagne total, all night. There was no time to drink with all the talking and the dancing and everyone clinking their glasses so we would kiss every two damn minutes.” She didn’t look as if she’d minded that part one bit. She looked Eva over. “I love your dress. You look like all pinup-girlie today.”

  Eva glanced down at the breezy red- with white-polka-dot halter dress she was wearing. “I found it months ago. It’s not my usual style, so I’ve been waiting for a special occasion to wear it. This definitely qualifies as a special occasion.”

  Leni hugged her tight. “I love you,” she whispered.

  Eva hugged her back with equal affection. “I love you too, sis.”

  Over Leni’s shoulder she spotted Oscar watching them from where he stood with Diego and Jamie across the yard. In spite of the fact that she wanted to rip his stupid, pretty face off his head, he looked amazing in loose but well-fitting jeans, a casually stylish white shirt and tweed driving cap with the brim cocked at a slight angle.

  He made eye contact for a moment before he looked away and took a long drink from the bottle of water he was holding.

  Spineless bastard.

  He’d chickened out the night before. Not that she’d been expecting him to actually show up and make good on that lame confession.

  Fuck him for that bullshit about her being every fantasy he’d ever had.

  Fuck him for leading her into a false sense of anticipation, then punking her.

  And fuck him for the fact that she hadn’t slept for even a minute, because every time she’d heard a car on the country road outside her place she’d gotten out of bed and gone to the window, hoping it would be him.