by Lucy Score
I stroked his shaft with my hand, keeping my grip loose. He watched my every move, and I was happy to give him a show. I licked my lips and leaned in to sweep my tongue over the crown. His breath came out in a hiss. Using the flat of my tongue, I licked my way up the underside of his shaft, and when I got to the slit where moisture was starting to pool, Devlin’s knees shook.
“Again,” he rasped. I obliged, using my tongue like a weapon on him.
This time when I got to his purple, swollen head, I opened my lips and took his cock into my mouth.
His groan was music to my soul. I felt that insistent throb between my legs warm. Pleasing him made me wet and needy. I’d never felt this with anyone before. The mechanics were the same—tabs and slots—but somehow every touch meant more with Devlin.
I took him to the back of my throat and held there. He let me, a low rumble rising from his chest. “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than you on your knees like this,” he growled.
My thighs clamped together of their own volition. I wanted the invasion of him. I wanted him driving into me until I screamed. But I wanted to give him this more.
I fisted the last inches of him that I couldn’t get to and began to work him with hand and mouth.
Devlin’s head fell back for a moment, but when I flicked my tongue over the underside of his crown, everything changed.
“Fuck, Scarlett,” he hissed. He shoved his hands into my hair, roughly assuming control. His fingers closed in my hair, gripping it until my scalp hurt. Devlin used it to control my rhythm on his cock.
He started slowly, leisurely fucking my mouth. His head burying itself in my mouth to the back of my throat. I swallowed convulsively around his girth. “Yes, baby. Just like that.” He wasn’t so slow now. I reached up with my free hand to cup his balls. I loved the velvet feel of them in my palm.
I looked up at him and found him watching me from hooded eyes. His breath was ragged, and I could tell he was close. I tugged his balls, and he winced in a mix of pleasure and pain.
He wrapped my hair around one hand and placed the other hand on the wall behind us. “I’m gonna come in your mouth, sweet Scarlett.”
I moaned and swallowed hard.
“Fuck, baby.” He gritted the words out.
My jaw ached. But I needed to taste him, needed to give him this moment. To pour himself into me and lose himself. Release the anger, the frustration, the anxiety. I felt him harden painfully, felt his balls drawing up. I felt everything. The ache between my own legs, the pounding of my heart as adrenaline coursed through me pushing me past discomfort. And then he was coming.
On a long, guttural noise, Devlin orgasmed down my throat. Thick and salty and oh so satisfying. He flexed his fingers in my hair, bringing his forehead to the wall behind me, and loosed his seed in me. He grunted, both pained and satisfied, as I swallowed every wave of his release.
We collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath. He was still shamelessly hard. “Goddamn it, Scarlett,” he breathed.
“You’re welcome,” I said on a breathy half-laugh.
He spun me around on the rug, stretching out on top of me. “You have two seconds to get these jeans off.”
I didn’t move fast enough for his liking, and Devlin released my belt and yanked my pants down. I got one leg free, and then he was pushing into me. I made a noise between a sigh and a scream as he filled me without any preparation. I was wet, but so tight, and he had to force his way into the hilt. I was so wound up that I was already teetering on the edge.
“How are you still fucking hard?” I gasped, my breasts crushed against his chest. He wasn’t being careful with me, and I liked it.
He pulled out and sank back into me, rocking against that needy bundle of nerves. The power of his thrust moved us backward on the floor.
“You make me this way,” he said accusingly. I pulled my knees up, giving him the deepest possible access.
On his fourth thrust, I was coming. My walls closing around him in a death grip that had him groaning in my ear as he fucked me against the rug. The hardwood and wool biting into my back. But I was coming in explosions of color and light and heat.
“Scarlett!” It was a question, a cry, and then he was filling me with a second release. I felt him come raw inside me, felt the tremor of it and the hot wave of his seed as it spilled into me. We came together, orgasms milking each other and mixing in one beautiful, dark moment of holiness. Devlin thrust his hips against me and held there until our climaxes slowed and faded.
“I probably should have asked if you were on birth control,” he said, his face buried in my neck.
“I think we just made a baby,” I whispered.
He lifted his head, panic giving him swift energy.
I laughed at the startled look on his face. “I’m kidding!” I poked him on the shoulder. “Of course I’m on birth control.”
He lowered back down and bit my shoulder. “You’re evil.”
“You love it.”
“Yeah. I do.”
41
Devlin
We’d settled nothing in the two days since Johanna had showed up on my doorstep. And in remaining unsettled, we both tried our best to pretend that everything was fine. But now I knew Scarlett had been seeing a countdown clock in her head when it came to us.
And now I was seeing it, too.
I held the diner door for Scarlett and followed her back to the booth that Clarabell pointed us to. It was early, and she was booked with jobs for the day, so we decided to grab breakfast together instead of dinner.
She slid into the booth and picked up the menu. I noticed that she ordered something different every time. Variety was the spice of Scarlett’s life, which gave us one unforgettable summer together and nothing more. I was hurt that she wasn’t willing to at least try, that she was so ready to write us off.
But she’d made up her mind. And I didn’t know how to convince her otherwise. What would she do in Annapolis? Hang a shingle up and offer her handyman services? I couldn’t expect her to give up everything just to support me and my dreams. If they were still my dreams… It wasn’t a mistake I’d make again, asking a woman to give herself over to my goals.
Scarlett smiled across the table at me, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. We’d both taken to avoiding the “what’s wrong question.” She was dressed in jeans and a tank top. Her work uniform for summer in Bootleg. There was nothing Scarlett could put on that I wouldn’t find sexy. From plaid pajama bottoms to cutoff shorts to paint-splattered tank tops. If it was on her body, I wanted to take it off. Even though we’d labeled ourselves as temporary and both seemed to be carrying baggage from that decision, I still found myself plunging into her every damn night and coming like I was losing part of my soul.
“I think I’m going for an omelet today,” she decided cheerfully.
“Egg whites and turkey bacon for me,” I said with less enthusiasm. Jonah had become my trainer and was guiding me out of weakling phase. I’d already gained a few pounds of muscle back.
Clarabell arrived with the usual beverages we didn’t even need to order. “What’ll it be today, lovebirds?”
I watched Scarlett closely for a wince but didn’t see one. We ordered and then sat back in the awkward silence that was our new norm.
“So—” we both began.
“You first,” she said, deferring to me.
“I was just going to ask how things at your father’s house are going.” I’d offered to go back to help, but she’d insisted that she and her brothers had a handle on it.
Scarlett stirred her ice water with her straw. “Slow going.”
“Are you and Gibson on speaking terms?” I asked her.
She nodded and gave me an honest grin. “Yeah. And thank you for that. We’re all on the same page now.”
“Where you need to be.”
She nodded, but the smile faded, and I saw the shadows in her eyes. “What are you doing today?” she asked.
“I’m wading my way through constituent communications and a couple of drafts for next session,” I said. “We should be able to pass some significant legislation finally.”
“You must love what you do,” she ventured, looking at me with those big sterling eyes.
“I love the idea of it more than the reality of it,” I confessed.
“Really?” she asked.
“There’s a lot that gets in the way of actually doing the job I was elected to do.”
“Do you ever wish you did something else?”
I felt the weight of the question and wondered if that was hope in her eyes. But I’d never once lied to Scarlett. We didn’t do that.
“I’ve never considered doing anything else,” I said.
Her face fell.
Clarabell returned with our breakfast, and we ate in silence until Scarlett threw down her fork. “This is the stupidest thing in the world, Dev. I like you. I want good things for you. Can we please make the most of our time together?”
“I’m still hung up on the fact that you insist we don’t fit together.”
She stood up and rounded the table, sliding into my side of the booth so that we were hip to hip.
“Do you think I’m happy about this? If I thought for one second that I would be good for you, I’d be packing my shit, getting my nails done, learning to lose the accent, and heading to Annapolis. But we both know I’d be a complete disaster as a politician’s… girlfriend. I don’t fit. And I don’t think you’d like the changing I’d have to do to fit.”
She was right. And I hated that. Scarlett leaned into me, her bare arm brushing my forearm.
“This sucks,” I said succinctly.
“But it doesn’t have to,” she insisted. She wrapped a slim hand around my arm and squeezed.
“Just because we don’t make a permanent fit doesn’t mean that we should throw away the rest of our time together. I love being with you, Devlin. And I’m going to treasure these memories for the rest of my life. Also probably become a lesbian because no man is going to live up to you in the sack.”
I laughed even though I didn’t want to. Scarlett had that effect on me, and I wondered how in a few short weeks I’d gone from wondering how I’d ever sweep up the pieces of my life to wishing I could spend the rest of it with a sexy little brunette that could outdrink me.
“I just want to make the most of our time together. Okay?”
How could any man in the world look into the gray depths of those eyes and say no?
“Okay, Scarlett.”
She smiled at me, and some of the ice in my chest melted.
We ate our breakfasts on the same side of the booth, shutting out the rest of the restaurant, and made plans for the rest of the week. I felt lighter than I had when we came in, but the thought of a Scarlett-less life still left me feeling empty.
I walked behind her to the door and waited for her casual ritual with the Missing poster. True to Scarlett’s word, as an adopted Bootlegger, I’d been indoctrinated into the theories, conspiracy and otherwise, every time I stepped foot into town.
I saw the hitch in her stride, the slight pause, before Scarlett bypassed the poster and pushed the front door open looking straight ahead.
Odd.
I’d never seen her walk right out the door before. I stopped and stared at the poster.
“Come on, Dev,” Scarlett said, her voice tight. “I’ll give you a ride back before I go to work.”
42
Devlin
I browsed the grocery shelves and consulted my list, frowning at Jonah’s handwriting. I was cooking for Scarlett tonight. Jonah had given me a protein-heavy menu that “even an idiot could make.” I glared at the selection of chicken breasts. I was too distracted to pick the proper poultry.
“You keep staring at the chicken like that, and they’re all gonna get up and fly away,” Opal Bodine said. She was wearing overalls over her tall, lean frame. Her short dark hair was tucked under a ball cap.
I relaxed my face and offered her a smile. “Cooking stresses me out,” I said lamely.
“That’s what they make take-out for,” Opal said with a wink. She reached across me for a pack of chicken thighs and dumped them in her basket. “See ya at the game!”
I hadn’t played another inning for the Bootleg Cock Spurs. The hangover wasn’t worth it. But I had attended a few games since—and kept well hydrated.
I pushed the cart down the aisle, moving on to the spices portion of Jonah’s list, and my mind wandered back to Scarlett.
As an attorney, I’d developed a certain sense for when people were holding out on me. As a politician, that sense sharpened to a razor’s edge. Scarlett was keeping something from me. Something that had made her edgy and nervous. Something that kept her so tied up in her own mind that she’d checked out on me.
Was it even any of my business? I wondered, grabbing a jar of thyme and throwing it into the cart. Scarlett had, for all intents and purposes, broken up with me as soon as I headed back to Annapolis. She was convinced she’d be a hindrance to me, to my ambitions. And I didn’t understand how she’d come to that conclusion. Or why she hadn’t at least demanded a compromise. Yes, people had talked during and after the barbecue. However, very little of it had been negative. She was refreshing, honest, and interesting. That made her stand out.
Why couldn’t we try the long-distance thing at first? Or why hadn’t she demanded that I give up everything and move here. I had to admit, I’d at least consider it. Scarlett made me happy in a way I had never experienced before. But she was hell-bent on the idea that she was bad for me.
Her behavior had changed even before the barbecue. I thought back to the day at her father’s house. I wondered if I’d missed something.
I picked up a bottle of dried rosemary and held it up against the fresh sprigs Jonah had put on the list.
“What’s the damn difference?” I muttered.
“The one in the plastic packaging is fresh. The other is dried, giving it a strong flavor in smaller quantity.”
“Hi, June,” I said, shoving the herb back on the shelf.
“Hello.” She picked up a bottle of dill weed and tossed it in her basket.
“Know much about cooking?” I asked, making small talk.
“I know a lot about a lot of subjects.”
“Well, hi there handsome,” someone else purred from behind me.
I turned and found Misty Lynn in cutoffs that would be considered indecent in a strip club and a belly-baring t-shirt. She had a pack of Nicorette gum and a box of platinum blonde hair dye in her cart.
“Hello, Misty Lynn,” I said flatly. No matter what was going on between me and Scarlett, I wasn’t about to get tangled up in whatever web Misty Lynn was spinning.
“And look! It’s Bootleg’s favorite robot, JuneBot.” Misty Lynn’s smile turned to a sneer.
June sighed beside me. She ignored Misty Lynn and plucked a bottle of lemon pepper off the shelf.
“I hope she’s not bothering you,” Misty Lynn said to me in a stage whisper. “She’s just not good with people. I think she’s on the S-P-E-K-T-R-O-M.”
I blinked, trying to process.
“She means spectrum,” June filled in for me. “She’s claiming that I’ve been diagnosed with a form of autism when really she’s just threatened by my superior intellect. While I was weighing college scholarship offers as a junior in high school, Misty Lynn was offering oral sex in exchange for Cs.”
June didn’t seem like the type to lie. And, judging from Misty Lynn’s scowl, she’d just delivered the truth.
“Now that’s a low down, dirty lie, June Tucker! You take it back!”
June looked perplexed. “Mr. Hower the trigonometry teacher was terminated because of your relationship. Don’t you remember? Mrs. Hower filed for a divorce—”
“You shut the hell up right now! You hear me?” Misty Lynn poked a purple finger nail into June’s chest.
I stepped betwe
en them. “Why don’t we all just take a breath?” I suggested before Misty Lynn went for June’s eyes with those talons.
Misty Lynn’s face transformed to flirtation. A social chameleon. “Don’t listen to Juney. She’s not right in the head, if you know what I mean,” she drawled, twirling a finger around her ear. “You know, Devlin. I sure would like to get to know you better.” She lowered her lashes in a screen siren-worthy wink.
I cleared my throat. What was it with women this week? “I’m with Scarlett,” I reminded her. Temporary though it may be, I was committed to our relationship.
And Misty Lynn terrified me.
She pouted. “I’m just bein’ friendly,” she assured me, running her fingernails down my forearm.
Fuck. There was no Scarlett here to bail me out this time.
I grabbed Misty Lynn’s hand off my arm and dropped it. “Look, Misty Lynn, I’m just not interested.”
“Not interested?” Her mouth was open so wide I could see her gum. Apparently, she wasn’t on the receiving end of “not interested” often.
I stomped down the need to soften the blow.
“That’s right. Not interested. Now, how about we all get on with our shopping?”
Misty Lynn glared at June who was staring blankly at her.
“What the hell are you looking at?” she hissed, knocking into June’s shoulder as she stormed past.
“A woman who seems incapable of taking a hint,” June said flatly.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and hoped the jibe wouldn’t bring her back. But Misty Lynn just flipped us the bird over her shoulder and stomped away, her flip-flops flapping against the tile floor.
Between Scarlett, Johanna, and Misty Lynn, I’d had my fill of estrogen-fueled theatrics for the week.
“Goodbye,” June said abruptly and wandered off, leaving me alone with my herbs and spices.
I finished off the rest of the shopping and successfully avoided any other unnecessary human contact until the cashier.
