“He does have some of the best speeches,” said Eva.

Will nodded. “So did Volumnia. Such a supportive mother.”

Eva let out a cackle. “Supportive? She encouraged his aggression! She almost ruined him.”

Will shrugged. “At least she understood how he felt. My favorite line from that wasn’t one of the big characters, anyway.”

“Oh?” The eyebrow raised on Eva’s face was a challenge, Will could see. With a cocky half-smile, he heartily accepted.

“ ‘Let me have war, say I: it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war's a destroyer of men.’ ” He took a drink of coffee and watched with satisfaction as Eva’s smile widened with every word.

She was quiet for a good long moment after he finished, like she was drinking it in. “Of course that’s your favorite,” she said softly. She shook her head at him and laughed, then got up from her chair and went to refill her coffee. Her bare thighs walked right by Will within touching distance, and he felt his cock ache against his jeans when he smelled her body wash.

It only got worse when she came back and stood in front of him instead of sitting in her chair. Will had to practically rip his gaze away from the flesh of her legs just begging to be touched to look up at her face. The expression she wore said she probably didn’t even realize what she was doing, and somehow that made it sexier to Will.

“You think force is the only way get things done, then?” said Eva. She shifted on her legs, hiking her robe up just a little bit more.

Will bit his lip and adjusted in his seat to hide his growing erection. “Not all things,” he said. “Some things require a bit more… delicacy.” He made sure his eyes were on the skin at her thighs when he said it. When he trailed back up her body, Eva’s mouth was open, realization slowly dawning in her eyes.

“Oh…” It was less a word, and more a sound that escaped her mouth with a breath.

When she didn’t back away, Will couldn’t help himself. He looked up in her eyes, and then brought his left hand slowly up from his side and laid it on the skin of her thigh. When his skin met hers, it felt like a jolt of electricity running through his nerves. Her skin felt even softer than it looked.

Eva gasped, but it was a drawn-out, heavy thing that was just as much relief as it was surprise. When he looked up he saw her eyes closed against his touch, her mouth half-open, taking in deep breaths. He watched her mouth widen even more as his hand softly traced up along her skin, from her knee, all the way back up to the bottom of the bathrobe. He only hesitated there a moment before he pushed up even further, palming the skin of her upper thigh, and moving around to grasp her ass.

Eva moaned, her hips bucking under his touch. Will’s cock pushed against his jeans, already painfully erect. Just as he felt the soft skin of her ass under his fingers, the sound of a door shutting and shuffling footsteps interrupted from the hallway.

Will yanked his hand back, and Eva went pale and stepped back until she was practically against the kitchen wall. Charlie must have been too tired to notice how odd it looked when he came into the kitchen. “Morning,” he said, heading straight for the coffee pot with a yawn.

“Morning,” said Will. He looked up at Eva, saw the heat flush still on her pale cheeks, and he grinned at her wickedly. He saw her struggling, trying to decide if she wanted to return it or not, still fighting the clear attraction she had to him.

I know you want me, he thought. I know it for sure, now. I felt the way you moved under my hand.

Eva and Will’s moment ended unceremoniously as Charlie joined them at the kitchen table. Eva went back to her book, ignoring Will for as long as it took her to finish her second cup of joe, then she disappeared into her bedroom. When they were alone, Will admitted to Charlie that he had been right about Eva not wanting to stay in the house.

“She does not like to feel confined,” said Charlie with a shake of his head. “Blame it on her ex-husband. He pretty much kept her trapped like a rat.”

Will raised an eyebrow, a bit of anger bubbling in his gut. “Is that right?”

“Yeah, that guy was a piece of shit.”

“Well, maybe I can find something safe for her to do, then.”

“As long as it keeps her out of harm’s way,” Charlie agreed.

After breakfast, Will waited patiently for the Murdocks to finish their morning routines. On his second extended intelligence-gathering mission ever for the MC, Will had learned the enormous benefit of keeping a compact travel toothbrush nearby, and he used the one he kept stashed in his saddle bags over the kitchen sink.

Eva met him first, coming out of the bedroom in a beautiful white dress that fell to her knees, sleeves halfway down her arms. He couldn’t remember the last time he met a woman who always looked so put together. She carried Coriolanus in her arms; the smile she gave Will when she saw him had a glint of mischief to it.

“Where is it you think you’re going?” he said.

“To help open the bar,” said Eva. In her eyes was a challenge, a dare for him to keep to his word from the night before and drag her back to the house for her insolence.

Oh, honey, you are definitely asking for more than that. “You can help open. But you’re coming back up here as soon as that neon sign gets turned on.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” she said, brushing past him and out the front door. He followed her out the door and through the forest meadow, trailing her like he was hunting a deer, smiling as he watched her move through the wildflowers like she belonged there.

Opening the bar didn’t consist of much except getting the daily ledgers cleared and ready, turning over stools, and making sure the front door was unlocked. At least, that was all Eva did as Will sat at the bar and watched her scurry around. Charlie came in after a few minutes and began doing heavier work, something with the keg connections under the counter and in the back. After an hour or so, when he was finished, Charlie asked Will if he wouldn’t mind holding things down for a bit while he finished the oak branches he had been working on the day before.

“I don’t want Eva in here alone,” he told him quietly in the kitchen.

Will nodded in agreement and patted him on the back. “I got you. I’m going to try and get her back up to the house, anyway.”

Charlie took off out the back door and Will watched him go before turning to watch Eva. She was sitting at a messy old desk stuffed into an ill-fitting office space to the side of the door, rustling through paperwork in a focused way.

“All right,” he said to her, leaning in the door way. “Time to go.”

“See ya,” she said without pausing or looking up.

Will snorted, folding his arms. “I mean it’s time for you to go back up to the house, out of the way.”

“I’m not in your way now,” said Eva, giving him a face. “You’re in mine.”

Something in her tone gave Will a little shot of heat, and he decided to tempt her a little. He stepped into the cramped office space and put one hand on the corner of the desk. “I’m in your what?”

Eva stopped rummaging through the papers and froze. Her gaze ran up Will’s body, starting with the bulge that was more or less at her eye level and begging to be noticed. Will enjoyed the feeling of her staring at his body until her gaze stopped on his face. “My way,” she spat out, flustered. “You’re in my way.”

“I can think of better things I can be in,” he said, taking another step toward her chair.

Red heat flushed over Eva’s face, and Will saw her lick her lips. For a moment, he thought he had her, but she stood up from the chair. He didn’t move; she was nearly pressed up against his body.