by Nina Levine
I shook my head in mock exasperation. “I knew I shouldn’t encourage you.”
“And yet you did. That tells me everything I want to know, darlin’.”
I didn’t want to encourage him any further, so I shut up and walked the last few metres to my home in silence. Devil seemed to clue on to what I was doing and met my silence with that bloody grin of his that seemed to be permanently painted on his face.
He followed me up the few stairs we had to the front door and then down the hallway into the kitchen where he placed the groceries on the counter before saying, “For the record, you just looking at me encourages me, Hailee. But when you speak, it’s like a whole other world I never knew opens up, and I want in on that world. And I don’t give a fuck if that makes me sound like a fucking pussy. It’s the truth.”
My heart sped up to the point that I thought it would beat its way out of my chest. No man had ever said something like that to me before. My words sat in a big fat mess on my tongue, and I struggled with arranging them in a manner that they’d make sense if I said them.
My grandmother saved me the trouble of having to get my shit together when she entered the kitchen and cut in on our conversation. “It does make you sound like a fucking pussy, but hell if I wouldn’t have fallen for that when I was Hailee’s age. She’d be a damn fool not to give you a chance.”
Oh. God.
Jean Archer had a way with words, that was for damn sure.
Devil chuckled as he glanced at her. “I can see where Hailee gets her sass from.”
Without thinking, I flung my hand out and lightly smacked him on the chest. Our eyes met as I said, “I’m nowhere near as sassy as my grandmother, thank you.”
His chuckle turned into a belly laugh and he grabbed my hand before I could pull it back. Holding it against his chest, he said, “Maybe I should take your grandmother out for a drink on Sunday instead.”
It was my turn to laugh. “She’d probably love that.” I turned to her. “You do love your gin after all.”
Devil’s hand on mine was doing crazy shit to my body, and I attempted to pull away, but he shook his head and mouthed, “No” before looking at my grandmother again. “How about it, Gran? You up for drinks with me and Hailee on the weekend?”
She narrowed her eyes at him and tsked. “I know what you’re doing, young man. Trying to get into my granddaughter’s pants through me. You’re shit out of luck there, though. You want in, you’re gonna have to do the work yourself.”
I couldn’t believe she’d just said that. But I should have, because she’d never been one to beat around the bush in her life. Well, except when it came to my mother. She’d beaten around that bush for decades.
“Jesus, Gran,” I muttered as I pulled my hand away from Devil’s. “Do you have to be so to the point?”
She scowled at me as she hobbled around the kitchen with her cane. Her seventy-five years were catching up to her, and she was slowly starting to lose her health, but she had her wits about her still. “Life’s too damn short to fuck around, my dear. More people should just say it like it is, and then we’d all know where we stand.” I knew this was coming from all those years of her trying like hell to get my mother to like her, with no success. The minute my mother turned on her completely after my father died, Gran hardened a little more and began speaking bluntly to everyone. I usually appreciated it, but with Devil, for some reason, I felt a little ruffled that she’d speak so openly to him.
I shouldn’t have been concerned, though. He took it in his stride. Even seemed to welcome it. “Life is too damn short to fuck around. I agree. And yes, I was trying to get into Hailee’s pants through you, but I see that’s not going to work for me here. I appreciate the heads up. I’ll shift gears now and try other avenues.”
Gran nodded. I shook my head. “Really? You two are gonna stand here and talk about me as if I’m not even in the room?”
“Feel free to leave,” my grandmother said.
Devil’s lips twitched in amusement. “I’m gonna leave you two alone now. Maybe your grandmother can talk some sense into you,” he said with a wink.
I rolled my eyes and shooed him into the hallway. “Maybe she’ll tell me I should look for a man who’s not a fucking pussy.”
He stopped and turned, backing me up against the wall. He placed one hand on the wall above me and the other around my waist. Pressing himself into me, he growled, “You feel that, darlin’? That’s what’s waiting for you when you’re ready to acknowledge how much you fucking want me.” He bent his mouth to my ear and added, “When you’re ready to leave behind a man who doesn’t even have the fucking balls to tell me to back the fuck off when I’m watching you like I wanna run my tongue through your pussy before I fuck you into unconsciousness.”
My legs turned to jelly.
I forgot how to breathe.
No words came.
I was a mess.
An achy, needy mess.
Devil let me go, and I watched as he walked the short distance down the hallway to the front door. He exited the house without a backwards glance at me, which was a good fucking thing. If he had looked back, he would have seen how desperately I wanted to beg him to come back.
“I like that man,” my grandmother said, causing me to jump.
I stood straight and ran my fingers through my hair. My senses were scrambled, and I fought to unscramble them. “Huh?”
“I said, I like that man. He has some fire to him. You should dump Wayne and date him. What’s his name? You never did introduce us.”
“That’s because you two were busy with your conversation,” I muttered.
She stared at me. “Well, his name?”
God how I loved her, even when she was bossy and cantankerous. “Devil.”
Her forehead crinkled in a frown. “Devil? What kind of name is that?”
“It’s his nickname. I don’t know his real name.”
She hobbled back into the kitchen, throwing over her shoulder, “Find out his name. I want to know what it is. And invite him to dinner next week. I’ll cook.”
My eyes widened. She never cooked anymore. Hadn’t in the time we’d lived together. I’d begged her numerous times, because she was the best cook I knew, but she always fobbed me off with an excuse.
“Only if you cook roast pork,” I called out, holding my breath. She didn’t like roast pork, but she used to cook it for our family, and hers was the only one I loved. I could practically taste the pork crackling while I stood waiting for her reply. I’d invite Devil over, encouraging him further, against all my better judgement, just for her crackling.
“You buy it, I’ll cook it.”
Oh. God.
Devil was coming for dinner.
7
Devil
“You don’t like that King is looking after me, do you?” Jen said early the next morning when I dropped in to check on her.
I rubbed the back of my neck. Not a conversation I wanted to get into. Especially not at eight in the morning, after only a few hours sleep. I’d spent half the night thinking about Hailee, finally jerking off to those thoughts at around three and then falling asleep.
“It’s none of my business what King does,” I said, taking in her exhausted state. She’d looked tired the night before also, and I wondered if she’d had any sleep at all.
She ushered me into the house, and I followed her into the lounge room. Sitting on the couch, she curled her legs under her and rested against the arm of the chair. “It mightn’t be your business what he does, but if you’re gonna come over every day and check on me for him, I’d prefer you to not look at me like you’d rather be anywhere else but here. And I’m guessing you do that because you don’t like me.”
I sat on the edge of the couch opposite her and rested my elbows on my legs. “I don’t know you enough to decide whether I like you or not, Jen. But yeah, I guess I’ve formed an opinion of what you did to King all those years ago. Leaving a man for another man is
n’t high on my list of honourable things to do.”
She watched me silently for a beat. “No, I guess it isn’t. But you don’t know the full story, so I really wish you wouldn’t form an opinion.”
Fuck, again, not a conversation I wanted to be having. Ever. What King chose to do in his life had nothing to do with me. He could have allowed his women to fuck around all they wanted on him and I wouldn’t have cared.
I stood. “Do you need anything? I can swing by later and drop it off if you do.”
She joined me. “I loved King, still do. I would never have left him if he hadn’t given me good reason to, Devil.”
“Yeah, King said as much.”
“But you didn’t believe him?”
“Look, Jen, honestly I don’t care what went on between you two. And I don’t care that you’re back together n—”
“We’re not together.”
Her words caught me by surprise. I didn’t know why I thought that because they were having a child together, they’d stay together, but I had. I’d figured that’d be King’s style.
She must have clued on to the thoughts running through my mind. “I’m not pregnant with King’s child.”
I stared at her. There was another guy involved? Fuck, I was way over this conversation. “Okay.”
She grabbed hold of my arm as I turned to leave, stopping me. “The guy that I left King for? The one who was hitting me… he found me again…” She let me go and covered the sob escaping from her mouth. Tears slid down her cheeks as she tried to get herself under control. Her efforts were in vain, though. A moment later, tears gushed down her face and her body crumpled.
I caught her and held her while she sobbed. I didn’t say anything, but rather waited for her to cry it out, at which point I hoped that she’d just want me to leave without ending the conversation we’d been having.
No such luck.
She pulled out of my hold and wiped her face. “This baby is his.” She paused for a moment. “He forced himself on me about a month and a half ago. I didn’t tell King because I didn’t want to drag him into it any more than he already was. I really didn’t want to cause him any more problems. The only reason he found out that Shannon was still threatening me was because my friend rang him about it.”
“He knows it’s not his, right?”
“Yes, absolutely. And I never told Shannon I was pregnant.”
Thank fuck King knew this. I’d hate to see what he’d do if he thought the baby was his, only to discover later it wasn’t.
“King’s a good man,” I murmured, deep in thought. I wasn’t sure too many men I knew would do what he was for Jen.
She nodded and wrapped her arms around her body. “He is,” she said softly, her voice cracking a little. “I just wish things could have been different between us.”
“You’re not going to do anything crazy, are you?” I remembered the way King had said he wanted Jen to stay pregnant. Looking at her, all I saw was despair, and I had to wonder how her mental state was.
Sighing deeply, she said, “I’m not going to do anything crazy. I know King thinks I am, but I won’t. This baby may not have been conceived in love, but it doesn’t deserve to die because of that.”
“Yeah, that’s true.” Fuck, what a fucked-up situation. No wonder King was on a rampage to find this motherfucker.
“I’m sorry to drag you into all this.”
Something told me that as much as she made that conversation about my opinion of her to begin with, what she really wanted was someone to talk to. I couldn’t blame her.
“King gave you my number, right?” At her nod, I continued, “Call me whenever you need to, okay?”
Her eyes widened a touch—in surprise, by the looks of it. “Thank you,” she whispered, and I noted the tears that leaked from her eyes.
I nodded before turning and leaving. I still didn’t understand the whole King-and-Jen dynamic, but like I’d said to her, I didn’t need to. But fuck, to carry a child who was the product of rape, and to say what she’d said about that child… Jen had my respect for that.
Saturday passed way too fucking slowly. I couldn’t get Hailee out of my mind, so to pass time until I saw her, I decided to head over to my sister-in-law’s and hang out there.
“Are you psychic?” Sonya asked when she opened her door to me mid-afternoon. “These kids are driving me crazy, and I think that uncle time is just what they need.”
I grinned, stepping inside her house. “You wanna go out for the afternoon?”
As I made the short trek into her kitchen, I noticed the messy state of the place. Strange, because Sonya was a neat freak. Lego, dolls, and other toys littered the living room, and dirty dishes were stacked in a chaotic fashion in the kitchen.
“No, can you just play with the kids for a bit while I clean up? Adam has been sick the last couple of days, so I haven’t had a chance to do anything.”
“Fuck, Sonya, you should have called me to come over. When does Campbell get back?” Campbell was my brother and worked away from home most of the time with the navy.
“Oh, God, he’s not home for another three weeks.” Exhaustion and stress filled her voice, and I decided it was way past time for me to step in.
“Uncle Dominic!” Kylie squealed when she caught sight of me and threw herself into my arms.
I held her and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Hey, princess. What you up to?”
Her tiny mouth spread out into the biggest smile. God, she was precious. The last four years with her in my life had been some of the best years I’d known. When she was a baby, I used to lie next to her for hours while she slept. Just watching her. Making sure no harm came to her in her sleep. While they could be loud and demanding, children were so fucking peaceful. They didn’t yet carry the baggage of hate and fear and hurt and distrust and doubt. And while they often had a temper, they didn’t yet know anger.
Threading her little fingers through my hair, she gripped a few strands and said, “I wanna play on the swing!”
“Okay, we’ll take Adam and go outside to play while Mummy cleans up inside.” Sonya gave me a look of complete relief and thanks.
Kylie began kicking her legs in excitement. “Put me down! Put me down! I’ll get Adam.”
I let her go and watched as she ran out of the room in search of her brother. Glancing at Sonya, I said, “You do what you need to do here, and then I’m taking everyone out for dinner so you don’t have to cook.”
“Thank you, Dom. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you most of the time.”
“You’d get by.” And she would. Sonya was a strong woman. I just liked to be able to help her where I could.
“Yeah, but Campbell wouldn’t recognise me when he came home from sea. I’d be a messy, grumpy wife. Maybe even an alcoholic, too.”
“You wouldn’t be. You don’t have time to drink.”
She laughed. “True!”
Kylie came back into the kitchen, her brother in tow. Two years younger than her, Adam was often dragged around by his sister. He adored her, though, and never complained. She grabbed my hand. “Let’s go!”
I allowed her to pull me with her and a couple of moments later, we were at the swing in the backyard. I’d bought it for the kids a couple of weeks ago, and it had fast become Kylie’s favourite thing to do. Sonya both loved and hated me for that swing.
We spent the next hour playing outside. After they’d had enough of the swing, we kicked a ball around for a while, and then I chased them around the yard in an effort to wear them out for Sonya. When we went back inside, we found their mother asleep on her bed.
“Shh,” I said to them with my finger against my lips. Once I’d herded them out of the bedroom, I quietly closed the door and led the kids to the living room. Change of plans for the night. “Who wants macaroni and cheese for dinner?” I knew it was one of their favourites, and I knew how to cook it. They both squealed their delight, and when I added, “After dinner, we’l
l watch a movie, your choice,” they were completely sold on leaving their mother to sleep. And I managed to hold my title of favourite uncle for another day.
8
Hailee
As I entered the pub on Sunday afternoon, I adjusted the straps on my dress. It was hot as hades, so I’d worn a short flowy black dress to meet Devil for drinks. I’d paired it with flat sandals, which was not my usual style, but in this heat, I just wanted comfort and air on my skin.
I’d spent the weekend going back and forth in my mind between Devil and Wayne. My brain had whiplash over it, and I was thankful to be seeing Devil that afternoon. Perhaps spending time with him would push my mind in the right decision. The thing was, I knew it was my fear holding me back more than anything. And fear needed to be banished from my life. I’d worked hard over the last two years not to let it in, so I’d be damned if I did now.
Scanning the pub, I found Devil kicking back on a lounge, watching me with those eyes that told me how much he wanted to fuck me. He wore jeans with a black fitted T-shirt and a wicked smile. Jesus, the man was sin personified.
He didn’t stand to meet me, just waited where he was, not moving an inch. His eyes moved, though. All over me. So much so that when I finally stood in front of him, my carefully constructed thoughts about how I’d handle him were flailing helplessly. No way would today go the way I planned. Devil had taken charge without even uttering a damn word.
He did stand when I met him at the lounge. His hand slid easily around my waist, and he pulled me close so he could place his mouth near my ear. It seemed to be his favourite thing to do. Possibly because he’d worked out that it put me off my game. “Anyone ever tell you how sexy you look in that dress?”
I pressed a hand to his chest. His rock-hard chest. His chest that I wanted to get a glimpse of. Fuck, I needed to keep my thoughts in check. Pushing him away, I found his gaze again. “I can’t say they have.”
