Daring Devlin

by Jessica Lemmon

  “Come on, Dev. You understand odds. You’ve always been good at this. Better than me, even when you were a kid.”

  True. Growing up with a career gambler made me good at what I did.

  “One game,” he repeated. “You remember scores and matchups in the past. Your memory would save me looking up the stats. Help me connect the dots.”

  He was right. It was all logged in my brain. I could help him place a winning bet—or what the odds said would be a winning bet. Arguably, I owed him a debt that couldn’t be repaid.

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  He stepped past me, ignoring the ice cream melting on the floor, and gathered the sheets of paper strewn across the counter. “You’d think I’d be better at this since I’m an accountant.”

  “You’d think,” I said drily. If Sonny caught me helping Paul, he’d throttle me. At least fire me. I needed that relationship. Hell, half of Oak & Sage’s profits came from gamblers dining and drinking in my restaurant.

  “No harm, right?” Paul’s shaky smile returned.

  “Wrong,” I said. “I’m going to basically help you rob Sonny, which surprise, surprise, he will not appreciate.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” He shuffled the papers into an order that made sense to him. This man used to be confident, not the desperate, twitchy mess in front of me. But Dad had been like this right before he died, too. The pressure of owing money to big, bad guys could turn any grown man into a sniveling kid. “No more betting after this, Dev. I swear.”

  It was a lie. When someone was in as deep as Paul, it wasn’t as easy as one and done. But given the option of relinquishing his fate to Tex, what choice did I have? I didn’t know the rival bookie well, but I’d gotten as up close and personal with his guys as I cared to. Letting Paul walk off Bay Bridge on Christmas Eve with a bottle of Jack in his hand wasn’t an option.

  I couldn’t lose anyone like that again if I hoped to maintain my sanity.

  I leaned on the counter. “Show me.”

  Chapter Seven

  Rena

  At work the next day, my mind was predominately focused on Devlin. More accurately, Devlin’s lips. And how that kiss, despite the industrial freezer, had left me hot both inside and out.

  I’d had butterflies in my stomach the first time I’d seen my high school boyfriend so I knew what they felt like. A sweet flutter of possibility. But when I walked past the kitchen at Oak & Sage for the prep area in the back, those butterflies felt more like gargoyles with huge, leathery wings. And when Devlin dropped a knife onto the table with a clang and stalked away, the beasts took flight and rattled my bones.

  I followed him, trying to look like I wasn’t following him. He stepped into the storeroom and so did I. I sucked in a breath and waited for an answering heat in his eyes, or a nod of recognition.

  He gave me neither.

  Mouth set, eyes frowning, he didn’t so much as acknowledge me when he walked in the opposite direction. I’d been blown off before. This felt like the moment in high school that afternoon when Joshua avoided me for two entire days because my ex-friend Jackie had started a rumor that I’d kissed Carl Young.

  I dumped my coat in the storeroom and tugged my apron over my head. Devlin was back at his workstation, cubing steak and tossing the pieces onto a metal tray filled with various other vegetables. I watched him for a few seconds, trying to decide how to start a conversation. Should I be witty or—

  “What do you want?” he growled.

  I blinked at him. His face was stone. Angry stone. Was this the same man who had turned me inside out with an intimate kiss yesterday?

  I opened my mouth to say “Screw you” or a more colorful version of it, but then I remembered he was still my boss. Sadly, I couldn’t afford to be fired for giving my tongue free rein.

  So, I left the kitchen, unsaid words eating through my organs like acid.

  Around nine that night, I’d been cut from the floor. Relieved not to have any last-minute guests (or, campers) at my tables, I was past ready to go home.

  Devlin had gone out of his way to ignore me the entire shift. Even when he’d come out of the prep area to do some “general managing” of the kitchen staff. Of course, I didn’t go out of my way to speak to him. So maybe the fault was partially mine.

  No. Screw that. It was his.

  My side work duty for the night was the unpleasant job of hauling boxes of rolls from the freezer to a shelf in the kitchen where they would thaw overnight. I grunted past him four times while dragging a heavy box, and he did a spectacular job of refusing to lift his chin and concede that I existed.

  As I was huffing and puffing, I thought of Roy’s nephew, Barney, and wondered if he was a gentleman. Our kind-of-date was Sunday, and I’d begun to think I might enjoy meeting a nice guy. A real boy who wouldn’t ask me to do his dirty work and then punish me for it twenty-four hours later.

  I’d been used by Devlin. That hurt. My first venture out of my singledom cave and I’d been caught in a snare. So unfair.

  I blamed what happened next on being hopped-up on my own indignation.

  Someone called for a food runner for the dining room. My arms already hurt from a full shift, and the box-hauling. Plus, the tray was packed with four wide, oval platters of ribs and braised pork chops and surf and turf, and I knew from experience those suckers were heavy. All I wanted was to restock my sugar caddies, wipe down my booths, and go home. Maybe lick my wounds a little. Draw a cartoon image of Devlin with horns and a forked tongue.

  That might make me feel better. That, and a stiff drink.

  The call came again and I ground my back teeth together. Other than Bess, no one was in the kitchen but me, and she was busy tallying her receipts for the night. She wasn’t wearing an apron any longer and had taken down her curly hair. She’d swipe a few of those curls through barbecue sauce if she attempted to shoulder the tray.

  Sigh. I begrudgingly walked toward the tray as a voice boomed over my left shoulder. Devlin’s voice.

  “If I don’t have a runner for this food in three goddamn seconds—”

  Anger pent up from the day, I forgot my place entirely, gestured to the tray in front of me, and boomed back, “What the hell do you think I’m doing?”

  The kitchen had fallen so quiet it was like the air had been sucked out of the room. I’d screamed at him. Full-on screamed. All eyes were on me. Including Devlin’s. Finally. But the heat in his eyes wasn’t the answering heat I’d been hoping for earlier.

  He was pissed. And eerily calm. He pointed at the floor and said, in a voice of pure steel, “My office. Now.”

  He stalked away from me. I felt the fury broiling under his surface like I was standing at the mouth of a volcano about to explode.

  Melinda lifted an eyebrow. Then smiled. Her dancing on my grave was a sign that what I’d done was bad. Like, bad, bad. But I refused to be intimidated. Chin high, I marched toward the office, past the dishwasher, two other servers wheeling racks of frozen mugs to the bar, and a couple of prep guys who looked as pleased as Melinda had about my situation.

  Swallowing the last of my trepidation, I reminded myself that just yesterday Devlin had asked me for a favor and I’d done it. He’d kissed me after. I wasn’t going to be his girlfriend when he needed favors and his lackey at work. I’d been single far too long to allow a man to disrespect me. Even one as hot as him.

  I stepped into the office, and the second I was over the threshold, the door shut behind me. The tiny room was choked with a desk, computer, and chair. Over that hung clipboards with lists and checkmarks. The free wall was lined with shelves storing bottles of liquor for the bar, the other a large cabinet with double doors. There couldn’t have been more than three square feet of available floor space. I backed up, my heel bumping against a huge safe, and I nearly lost my balance.

  He grabbed my upper arm, I thought to save me from falling, and spun me so my back was to the door. The metal blinds covering the window crinkled behind m
y shoulders. I peered up at his angry line of a mouth and, for a scant second, felt afraid of him.

  He placed his hands on either side of my head and leaned close, the flare in his eyes causing my heart to pound. Heat poured off him in waves.

  “Say you’re sorry,” he demanded.

  My eyebrows slammed down, but the “Hell no” on my tongue wouldn’t come forth. He was too close. He smelled amazing, he looked even better. And even pissed off at him, he’d still muddied the signal from my brain to my mouth.

  “Why?” I said instead.

  “You humiliated me in front of the staff.”

  “So, I’m here to be punished?” I asked, my voice thready. It didn’t sound half bad coming from him, not while I was peering into his stunningly angry and handsome face.

  “So, if I didn’t march you back here and demand an apology, the rest of them would rise up. Then no one would respect me.” I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. His voice was low and sinister, but there was a twinkle in his eye. His nose was inches from mine, his blue, blue eyes regarding me from under a fan of dark lashes.

  He erased the distance between us. I could smell the food smearing his apron—blood from the steak and the vinegar tang of salad dressing tickled my nose.

  “Apologize,” he said. “And walk out of here looking dejected.”

  “Pass.” I snorted. “How about you chew me out and I’ll leave pissed off instead?” The devil on my shoulder lifted her palm for a high-five that the angel on the other shoulder happily returned.

  “Chew you out,” he repeated, his lips hovering over mine. “Mmm. I’d like that.”

  A thrumming heartbeat kicked to life between my legs, making this whole situation disconcerting.

  Desirable.

  That, too.

  It was as if I didn’t know myself at all whenever he was around.

  I licked my lips, watching his bright blues track my tongue’s movement. I decided to call his bluff. Drawing my shoulders back, I brushed against his filthy apron with my chest. See? I don’t mind getting dirty. From his clothes or from him. I could handle Devlin. I could handle a whole lot of Devlin.

  “So would I,” I purred, tempting the dragon.

  Devlin

  So. The good girl wanted a good fuck.

  Lots of girls looked at me like this. There was no other way to describe the heat in Rena’s eyes or the way she leaned close. She wanted me.

  I untied the knot at the back of my prep apron and yanked it over my head. Her eyes followed the apron’s path to the floor before she leveled her gaze on me.

  A good girl. I batted those words around in my head. A good girl would be a new experience for me, one I’d never tried. I’d long been a fan of the bad girl. The girl who wanted to shoot tequila, sixty-nine, and not call me in the morning. I liked that kind of girl. But then I pictured Rena underneath me, and then on top of me. And decided I liked that idea more.

  I’d been avoiding her all day. Not only had I not slept last night, unless you counted the thirty-minute catnap after Paul and I devised our plan to pull him out of this epic shit pile he’d buried himself in, but I’d also accepted that involving Rena further wasn’t fair. For her or me.

  Besides, I didn’t need her asking more questions, or assuming I was siphoning drug money for the restaurant. I decided on a clean break. She’d picked up one payment. I’d kissed her one time. Walking away now would be easy.

  Or so I’d thought.

  Don’t mistake my excuses for honor. This was more about self-preservation. A good girl would rat me out, would lose sleep over my so-called evil deeds. Dragging her in deeper would only inconvenience me more.

  She dropped her head against the blinds behind her. If anyone walked by, they’d know she was leaning against the door. They might even assume I had her pinned with my body while my mouth ravaged hers. I didn’t give a fuck what they thought. Let everyone think and suppose and wonder.

  She blinked big bedroom eyes at me, lashes shadowing their depths. But I saw what was there. Sloppy, unorganized emotions chicks I usually slept with didn’t have the brain capacity to catalog. Rena was a messy choice for me.

  Also, exciting.

  One long, loose lock of hair the color of molasses had come undone from her ponytail. I twirled it around the tip of my finger. She’d trapped me without meaning to, and I threw away the intentions I’d had prior to this moment.

  “Have you imagined this, Rena?” I asked, sliding the tip of my nose along the slope of hers.

  A sharp intake of breath preceded her tipping her head back. It was a yes if I’d ever seen one. And I’d seen a lot of yeses.

  Then her soft, pink lips formed my favorite word. “Y–yes.”

  I smirked. She made me reckless. Correction: more reckless. I ran my fingers along the column of her neck. Her pulse fluttered hectically beneath porcelain skin.

  She wanted me. Good girls didn’t want me. They thought they did, but the moment I laid the bad boy on thick, they shied away. Yesterday in the freezer, and now against the door… hell, when I was bloody and standing in her living room, Rena should have been intimidated. She should have been afraid.

  She wasn’t any of those things. The idea of someone so good wanting someone like me jolted my heart into a new rhythm. Like Frankenstein’s monster, alive after being cold and dead for so long. My stray, unfeeling limbs brought together with renewed purpose. Pins and needles prickled down my arms and legs.

  Amazing.

  Rena had pulled me into her house. She refused to let me leave. She’d tried to give me a blanket, for God’s sake. She’d turned me on that night. Turned me on in the freezer when I tasted her sweet mouth for the first time. She was turning me on now, according to the steel rod between my legs.

  Cock straining against my zipper, I leaned my length against her belly. Another test. Would she recoil? Her mouth dropped open, eyelashes fluttering. Hell, no, she didn’t recoil.

  I remembered our chaste kiss in the freezer, how I’d left her there, my fingers having destroyed her hair, a faint pink rash on her sensitive skin from the whiskers on my jaw. I could use another kiss or three like that from her if she’d let me.

  “Open your mouth.”

  Her jaw dropped gently open. I leaned forward and stroked the roof of her mouth with my tongue. When I drew away she blinked at me, her eyelids heavy. An excellent sign.

  I smiled. Couldn’t help it. She responded like an exposed wire to a puddle of water. Most of the time the girl I brought home attacked me. She had her tongue down my throat and her hand in my pants outside my door, and had dropped to her knees to suck me off before I had the key out of the lock.

  Not Rena. She was waiting for me to make a move. I liked that.

  “I’m not what you’re used to,” I told her. “But I’m what you like.”

  I nipped her upper lip and soothed it with a kiss.

  Maybe I was a notch on her cotton-candy pink compact. A chance to cross off “do the dirty with the bad boy” from her sexual to-do list. I didn’t care what her motivation was. She could check off every sexual position and I’d gladly oblige.

  The little hitch in her breath drew me in. Untying the bow from her apron, I pulled it over her head and tossed it to the floor with mine. Her belt went next. I tore open her pants and ripped down the zipper. Nostrils flaring, she met my eyes, clutched the sleeve of my uniform shirt with one fist, and boldly met my gaze.

  Look at her go.

  Trailing my fingers into the back of her pants, I cupped her ass with one palm. Thrusting my tongue into her mouth, I devoured her. She sparred with me for a few strokes before her lips closed over my tongue and sucked so hard, I saw stars.

  I had to swallow before I found my voice and even then it was scratchy, shaky. “Ever been taken against a door, Rena?”

  She shook her head, her lips tipping on one side. I bet she’d let me. Right here in this tiny, shitty office, with people outside the door. I liked that—knowing ho
w far she’d let me take her.

  She strained to kiss me, but I held my lips just a few inches from hers. Her warm breath dusted my lips and my cock gave an eager jerk. A tiny cry of protestation sounded in the back of her throat.

  “Ever been taken from behind?” I asked.

  Another headshake.

  “Would you like to be?”

  An eager nod. My balls tightened.

  “Right now?”

  She bit her lip. Almost time to let her off the hook. But this expedition had taught me plenty. I should be ashamed of myself for pushing her. Might have been if she hadn’t reached down right then and stroked my length over my checkered work pants.

  “Sweetheart.” My voice came out in a strangled moan. I was rock hard. In pain. I rested my forehead against hers, pulled her body flush to mine. Her soft curves molded with my hard planes. She stroked again and air hissed through my teeth.

  “That’s an invitation,” I growled.

  “Handwritten,” she muttered against my lips.

  Perhaps I’d made a mistake. This good girl was naughtier than I’d expected. I would have smiled if I wasn’t so into kissing her. I fisted the waist of her pants with one hand and tugged them down to her thighs.

  Someone banged on the door, startling us apart. The lusty haze that had slipped over Rena’s eyes receded. She ducked under one of my arms and refastened her pants in record time. I caught a glimpse of pale, plump thighs. No stick legs on this one. My raging erection approved.

  “What?” I yelled, parting the disheveled blinds with my fingers. One of the servers, Melinda, stood on the other side, her forehead crinkled.

  “I need change for a hundred.” She slapped the bill against the glass.

  Dammit. I brushed the blinds into place and ran my hand through my hair.

  “I should go.” Rena moved for the door, but I blocked the knob. I couldn’t let her go out there looking like she did. She looked—God—beautiful. But also like she’d been half-dressed against a door and nearly brought to orgasm by her boss. That wasn’t good.