Free Evanescent Ink (Copperline #4) by Sibylla Matilde

of me. You’re rebounding something fierce. You lost someone you thought was going to be around forever. That’s a volatile place to be. This needs to stay free and easy. Fun.”
    Looking down at her in the shadows, I felt something chipping away at my conscience. A hint of a kindred spirit. Someone who had lost, even if she didn’t want to share that part of her. I studied the sincerity in her eyes. They held a glimmer of something more. Some strange energy that almost seemed to buzz around us. It held us aloft for a moment, almost floating in the air. In the blink of an eye, it vanished to be replaced with a sly smile. She kissed me just below my ear and whispered in a throaty voice.
    “Now, what was that about wanting to get off again?”
    I felt a sharp and gentle tug of her teeth on my earlobe. She circled her hips and pressed against me, reviving the lustful ache that she had alleviated only a short time before.
    Serious time was over. Raven wanted to play some more.
    She didn’t stay all night, but she stayed for most of it. She did get me off… quite a few times. I got her off a few more. We danced around the sensitivity of her words and focused on the carnal. On the pleasure.
    I drifted off to sleep as the sun was just starting to appear over the mountains. When I woke up, it was noon. All that remained of Raven was the faint scent of her perfume on my dark blue flannel sheets.
     

 
     

    I wondered how things would be different at work after our heart-to-heart. Oddly, they really weren’t different at all.
    Raven was back to herself. All hints of vulnerability had vanished overnight. She wore her mask and piled her purple hair up on top of her head. She joked with the customers and Neil.
    And she treated me just like she always had… with the exception of the tiniest secretive smile now and then.
    So went the next day, and the day after that. A week faded into the past, then another.
    And Raven and I stayed free and easy.
    Every time we came together, she would leave me satiated and breathless. In my truck outside the Copperline. In my bed while a party raged downstairs. On my office couch at Ink while Neil ran to pick up lunch.
    She wove in and out of my every day, keeping me from falling too low.
    It was now a Friday night, and I had to cut out of work a little early to get over to the Copperline. As I arrived, Brannon was lending a hand to Cody and Denny as they set up. Even though Brannon wasn’t part of the band, he was always there. Always helping. Never far from her man, Sophie was perched on a barstool talking to Cody’s girl, Ilsa. Those two had become fast friends over the past year or so, having bonded over their own dysfunctional parents and quiet demeanors.
    I’d been there for about a half-hour when Justin made his appearance. He started tuning up as he scanned the slowly building crowd for hotties. A few of the usual bar-sluts fluttered their eyelashes his way. A few fluttered theirs my way as well, which had me feeling a little uncomfortable. I still wasn’t entirely sure what defined free and easy between Raven and I, but I was pretty sure that going manwhore like Justin would put a crimp in whatever we were doing.
    And I kinda liked what we were doing.
    We’d just left the stage for our first break when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see Raven standing there. Moreover, Raven standing there twisting her hands together nervously. This was so not the Raven I was accustomed to, and it freaked me the fuck out at first.
    “Rave, you okay?” I asked.
    She glanced over at the bar, then grabbed my hand and pulled me back into the hallway I had just emerged from.
    “I need to talk to you,” she murmured.
    “Okay,” I replied and followed her lead. Back to the stage steps where she stood one step up from me, raising her up to just a few inches above me. Even though I was concerned about whatever was troubling her, the horndog in me noted that the hem of her short skirt was at