by Hazel Parker
Chapter Seven: Abby
Devon was waiting for her in the parking lot when Abby got off work. He honked twice to get her attention, as if she couldn’t see that his was the only pick-up truck in the parking lot amidst a bunch of minivans and cars, and she waved to him and went straight for his vehicle, sitting in her seat exhaustedly. Devon raised one eyebrow at her.
“Long day?” he questioned, and she offered a wan smile.
“You don’t know the half of it,” she chuckled. “Because of the snow, there were a bunch of accidents this weekend, so I’m getting even more angry customers than usual.”
“Angry?” Devon asked, frowning as he pulled out of the parking space to take her home. “Why would they be angry at you? You’re just doing your job.”
“You’ve never worked in customer service, have you?” she guessed accurately, and he shrugged.
“Point taken,” he said. Before he could tell her all about the new alarm system, he was distracted by the sound of her stomach growling. “Hungry?” She nodded enthusiastically.
“I didn’t have time to pack lunch since I was so late this morning,” she admitted, “and with all the angry clients, I couldn’t get away from my phone to go out for lunch. All I ate was a granola bar from my desk drawer. I’m starving.”
“Great,” he smiled, “because I found a pho place near here that I want to try, if you’re interested.” Abby couldn’t bring herself to say no to that excited face, so she rolled her eyes and gestured for him to go ahead.
After dinner, which Abby was surprised that she’d not only been able to eat but had actually finished and enjoyed, Devon brought her back to the apartment complex and pulled into a space near their front door. It was becoming more and more of a habit for her, she realized distastefully, to look around for Trevor when she was here. A thorough check through all the windows confirmed that he was nowhere in sight, so she threw open the door and waited for Devon to follow, but he didn’t.
“Is something the matter?” she asked worriedly, fearing that he’d seen something that she missed and relaxing when he shook his head.
“My check engine light is on,” he frowned, cutting the engine and restarting the car to make sure. “I just noticed it, but I’m not sure how long it’s been on. I want to check and see if something’s wrong.”
Abby hesitated nervously, not too keen on the idea of hanging out in the parking lot after dark and in the cold, and apparently she didn’t hide that fact well, because he smiled and nodded toward the door.
“You can go ahead inside if you don’t want to wait,” he said. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” The distance from the car to her apartment door was both short and completely visible from where Devon was standing, so she didn’t waste another second before heading inside to get out of the cold. She locked the door behind her just in case—Devon had a key, anyway—and hung her coat on the rack, then headed to her room to change out of her skirt and blouse in favor of a pair of sweats. Once she was dressed comfortably in her after work wear, Abby laid down on her bed to check any notifications she might have on her phone, scrolling mindlessly through social media and replying to messages.
After barely any time at all, her scrolling was interrupted by a loud, shrill siren coming from the front room. She startled, thinking for a moment that it was her car alarm, but when she rushed out to check, it was quickly apparent that the sound was coming from a number pad unit mounted on her wall, one which she did not recognize and was flashing red. As quickly as the alarm had started to sound, the sound of keys fumbling in the door and muffled cursing on the other side prompted her to open the door for Devon.
“Shit, I forgot about the alarm!” he exclaimed, quickly punching in a series of numbers to deactivate it.
“What alarm?” Abby demanded loudly over the sirens. “I don’t have an alarm!” When the cacophony finally stopped, he sighed in relief, then offered her a sheepish, guilty smile.
“I’m an idiot,” he admitted. “I installed one for you earlier today, but I completely forgot to tell you about it. The PIN is 0104 for January 4th, the day that you moved into this place. I thought it might make you feel safer.” Before Abby could reply or even really process what had happened, Devon was fishing his cell phone out of his pocket. “I should call the security company and tell them it was a false alarm. Give me just a minute.”
Abby didn’t have time to say a word before he hurried off to place the call. She felt a little dumbfounded: a lot had just happened. Still reeling a bit from the shock of the sirens going off, she couldn’t even really process the fact that he’d both purchased and installed a security alarm for her without even asking. It was sweet, in a weird way, to feel cared for. Apparently, she was still looking a little shaken up by the time Devon finished the phone call because when he re-entered the room, he took a look at her and frowned.
“Are you okay?” he asked, sounding as if he felt guilty for some reason. “I should have warned you; it slipped my mind.”
She nodded. “Did you figure out what was wrong with your car?”
“The gas cap was loose,” he replied. She nodded again.
“How much do I owe you for the alarm?”
Devon looked confused. “It’s a gift,” he said, “from Chandra and I.”
“Security systems aren’t cheap,” Abby argued, and Devon rolled his eyes.
“Well, this one was,” he said firmly. “It’s like ten dollars a month or something to keep it running, and you’re welcome to keep it even after your ex is booted out of the complex and I move back to my place.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” Abby argued, “and I can pay for it. Really. It’s something I probably would have gotten for myself eventually, anyway.”
Devon shook his head, seemingly not wanting to hear any more about her wanting to pay. Well, maybe she’d just give the check to Chandra, she decided. They’d kept their friendship strong and healthy by agreeing to go Dutch on anything that wasn’t a gift for a special occasion, so there was a good chance she’d accept it. Whether she gave half to Devon or not was another story.
“There’s also an app to go with it,” Devon added, grabbing a little booklet from the coffee table and handing it to her. “You can download it to your smartphone, and it’ll tell you if the alarm is tripped while you’re not home.”
Abby had to admit, that was a nice feature. She had found herself wondering about Devon throughout the day: whether or not he was okay alone. Thoughts, probably paranoid, played through her head of scenes in which Trevor broke in and hid while Devon napped or left the house to come get her, and she’d felt a bit distracted and spacey all day because of them. It would ease her worry to be able to check her phone and make sure she’d be safe to come home.
“This is so nice of you,” she told him, making sure that she remembered to thank him now that she could properly focus. “I’m not going to lie, I thought a few times about getting one of those security cameras that you can watch from your phone just to aim it at the door, but I felt like that might mean I’d officially lost it.”
He laughed. “Yeah, that does look a little paranoid,” he admitted, “but you do what you’ve got to do.” She smiled, turning her phone to show him that she’d downloaded the app and connected it to the alarm.
“Thank you. Really. For thinking of me.”
“Of course, Abby,” Devon replied, taking a step toward her. “I think about you a lot. You’re great.” His tone was sincere, and his eyes were warm as he took one of her hands in his bigger, calloused, warm one and stroked the side of it with his thumb. She was sure that it was just a comforting gesture, but she found herself wanting more of his touch and let herself lean in for a full embrace, wrapping her arms around his torso and feeling him wrap his around her without hesitation.
“I’m scared,” Abby admitted, “like, all the time.”
“I know.”
She looked up at him, strong and kind and here, always here, and suddenly
she felt her heart flutter a little.
“But I’m less scared when you’re around,” she added quietly. That made him smile. Their faces were close as they stood together in her living room, both of them still coming down from the adrenaline high of setting off the alarm, and she felt her breathing quicken as he leaned in a little closer to her.
“Good,” he said, his voice low and smooth, “because I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
She wasn’t sure whether she initiated the kiss or if that was Devon, but the next thing she knew, her lips were pressed tightly against his, and she closed her eyes and gave into the moment. This was bad, she thought. It was a bad idea to want her best friend’s brother; it was a bad idea to lust for her roommate; it was a bad idea to be making out with the only person who had a chance of protecting her from Trevor. However, now that she’d already done it…what was left to lose?
Abby parted her lips slightly and felt Devon’s tongue slip into her mouth, and she tugged his gray t-shirt shirt up and off, breaking the kiss only to toss it to the floor. Devon unbuttoned her blouse and slid it off her shoulders and over her head. She took his face in her hands as she deepened the kiss, trying to soak up as much of his presence as she could while she let him reach around her back and unzip her skirt. It fell to the floor to join the growing pile of clothes, and she kicked it away with her bare foot. Devon was quite a bit taller than Abby was, and she had to stand on her tiptoes to kiss him, but he seemed to know exactly when that became tiring, because just as her calves began to fatigue, he swept her off her feet: literally. Not breaking the kiss, he carried her to the futon and set her down gently so that she was sitting with her legs off the side, then pinned her to it with his arms on either side of her shoulders. Her hair, which she’d taken out of its bun before she had triggered the alarm, spread across the mattress, curled and wavy from having kept it up all day.
Devon found his way painstakingly slow to her breasts, massaging the nipple of one with his thumb with such ghosting pressure that it sent shivers shuddering through her small form. He played with such skill and gentleness that she could hardly keep her breathing even as he lightly brushed circles around the sensitive skin of her breasts, never squeezing too hard.
Abby could feel the soft mattress cushion her back as Devon’s body towered over her, easing her down into it. She had to kiss him extra hard to block out the guilt and uncertainty, but when she did, God, did it feel good. Part of her wondered if the intense feeling of exhilaration she was getting drunk on was because she liked Devon or because this was the first person that she’d been intimate with since Trevor, but that was another thought for a different time, so she shoved it away and allowed Devon’s tongue to slip into her mouth seamlessly. They kissed hard and long, his hands more often pinning hers to her sides than anything else, but when he did release them, she gripped the fabric of the sheets as he kissed her neck in ways that made her back arch and pressed his hips against hers so tightly that she could feel his erect cock against her. Abby could feel her heartbeat in her thighs, warm and strong, and Devon began to thrust to a different rhythm, eventually forcing the throbbing in her pelvis to match his rhythm.
She wasn’t sure when it happened, but at some point, Devon entered her, so gradually and carefully that she hadn’t even noticed just how far he’d gotten until he was there. It hadn’t hurt like it had with Trevor. This felt electric, an immense amount of pressure inside her ready to press all her buttons and skilled enough to know just how to get to them. Devon made the whole interaction about Abby. He never stayed in one place for too long, adjusting his attention from her pelvis to kissing her breasts to running his hands through her hair to nibbling her ear lobe so that she never knew what to expect. That excitement, the lack of ability to anticipate what was going to happen next was enough to make her orgasm happen faster and more vibrantly than she’d ever felt before. She could have sworn that she saw fireworks before her eyes, but she knew that it was all Devon. He didn’t need to pump against her for much longer, either, before he finished as well, easing himself off of her and relaxing in the bed next to her. The sheets had been kicked around so much during sex that he had to lean over the bed to retrieve them, and when he leaned over the bed to grab them, he stopped short, staring at the window for a long moment.
“Everything okay?” Abby asked, sitting up to look out the window herself. She couldn’t see anything in the dark. Devon shook his head as if to clear it, then covered both of them with the sheet.
“Fine,” he brushed off the concern, “just thought I saw something outside. I think it was just some headlights.” Abby nodded, too tired to ask more questions, and shut her eyes. She didn’t want to move to her bed, and not just because she was afraid to sleep alone this time. Now, it was because she was so much more comfortable against Devon’s chest. She let herself drift off into a hazy, satisfied sleep.
Chapter Eight: Devon
Devon woke up with a sore back from sleeping on the futon and had to take a moment to remember why he would be naked despite that he was a guest in someone’s house; then he remembered: Abby. She was still asleep, facing away from him, her bare back only shielded halfway by the sheets and blankets. Despite that she looked peaceful, one glance at his watch revealed that he’d woken only moments before her alarm was set to go off for work, so he decided to pull on a pair of sweatpants and gather up Abby’s clothes from where they were still lying on the floor, folding them nicely and setting them in his spot on the bed before she woke up. It might be awkward for her, he thought, to have to get out of bed still naked, so he wanted to get a head start on the morning by having a shower before she was awake and needed to get ready in the bathroom.
Grabbing a towel from the closet, Devon took a short shower and shaved his face before drying off and brushing his teeth. Steam escaped from the bathroom when he opened the door, and as soon as he did, he smiled at Abby, fully clothed and standing in the kitchen pouring a bowl of cereal for breakfast.
“Good morning,” she greeted cheerily. Had she already had coffee, or was this her usual demeanor?
“Hey,” he replied, taking a bowl for himself and pouring some corn flakes and milk into it. There was a pot of coffee making the hissing noises of completion on the counter, so he grabbed it on his way to sit down and poured some into her waiting, empty mug, then filled one for himself before he placed it back on the counter.
“Thanks,” she said, not looking up from her phone. “Did you sleep okay?”
The question felt conversational, more casual than it should for two people who had just slept together, but perhaps she didn’t want to talk about it yet.
“Fine, thanks,” he replied automatically, not bothering to mention his slightly aching back. He gestured to her phone instead. “Reading anything interesting?”
“Just the weather,” she said. “It’s supposed to snow again this weekend.” As they ate, they chatted about pleasant things like that: the weather, their work schedules, songs they’d heard on the radio recently. No talk of sex or of stalkers or anything else like that was even hinted at, and honestly, Devon was a little relieved. He was worried that perhaps she’d regret their night together, but if she did, she wasn’t saying so. Choosing not to acknowledge it was better than a meltdown or a fight, so he decided that he wouldn’t bring it up if Abby didn’t. After breakfast, Abby got ready for work, changing her clothes and doing her makeup and hair before returning to the living room in considerably less of a rush than the previous day.
“Ready to go?” she asked, and Devon nodded, taking his keys from where he’d tossed them on the coffee table and following her out the door—only to very nearly run into the back of her when she stopped short.
