The Devil She Knows

by Kira Sinclair

  Willow pulled in a shallow gasp. A devilish grin played across his lips, but it didn’t quite fully form. He was holding back. And enjoying her shocked reaction.

  Bastard.

  What kind of game was he playing? And why was he using her? Had last night been some kind of sick payback for what had happened between them?

  God, she hoped not. But she was afraid she’d played right into his hands.

  He lifted a lock of her hair, running it through his thumb and finger from crown to tip. The back of his hand brushed against the side of her breast. Willow sucked in a breath. His eyes sharpened. And her body burst into life.

  His voice was a caress all its own, low and sultry. She couldn’t help remembering the sinful words he’d whispered to her last night. “I’m in your bedroom because you asked me to take you to bed.”

  God, she wanted him. Still. Even knowing what he’d done and how he’d deceived her last night, her body craved his touch.

  Somehow she found the strength to say, “You should leave.” But the words trembled. She hoped he didn’t hear the waver.

  Something sharp flared deep in his eyes. His mouth tightened and beside her head the fingers pressed hard to the mirror flexed dangerously. His eyelids slid down, hiding the rest of his reaction from her.

  He smoldered with anger. This close to him, she could practically smell the brimstone and fire of it. But he didn’t move. Instead, he let his hot eyes travel across her face for several seconds.

  Willow couldn’t breathe. She waited.

  “We aren’t done, Willow.”

  “Oh, yes we are. You ruined my sister’s life, Wick. Dev. Whoever the hell you are.”

  His head recoiled as if she’d hit him. Bringing them nose to nose, he stared into her, straight down to her soul. “You know exactly who I am, angel.”

  “Last night was a mistake. If I’d known who you were it never would have happened.”

  “I know.”

  Everything inside her stilled. Those two words managed to cut through the fog of desire he was weaving around her.

  “What do you mean, you know? Exactly when did you figure out who I was?”

  “The moment I got my hands on you. And once I touched you, I knew I couldn’t let you go until I’d had more.”

  “So to hell with what I might have wanted?”

  “Don’t kid yourself, angel. We both know you got exactly what you wanted last night. A taste of the wild side with a depraved devil. I did the right thing and kept my hands off you once before. I wasn’t about to make that same mistake twice.” He pushed away from her.

  She felt the loss of his warmth and hated herself a little bit for the weakness.

  “You really are a bastard, aren’t you?”

  His mouth twisted. “Actually, no, I’m not. This town just has the ability to pull the worst out of me. Believe it or not, Willow, I had no intention of seducing you last night. I was just as overwhelmed by the friction between us as you were.”

  His unexpected and candid confession left her speechless. The words deflated some of the self-righteous anger she’d been using to combat her own guilt and embarrassment.

  He’d even taken that.

  But before she could say anything more, he snatched the rest of his clothes from the chair in the corner and walked out.

  Although not before getting in one last parting shot. “You’re old enough to know better than to believe everything you hear, Willow. You have no idea what happened between Rose and me. But I promise you, it was nothing like last night.”

  * * *

  WILLOW TRIED TO go on with her day, to pretend nothing had happened, but it was difficult. In a bid for distraction, she barricaded herself in her design studio and tried to lose herself in the dress she was making for a country music star who had recently crossed over and become a pop sensation. She was also marrying one of the most well-known quarterbacks in the NFL.

  Unfortunately, every time Willow’s fingers slipped across the sumptuous silk of the dress her mind immediately jumped to the feel of Dev’s skin beneath her sensitive fingertips, and her entire body would clench and burn.

  Needless to say, after five hours she’d gotten very little work done while her frustration level had increased to critical mass.

  Sundays were usually her most productive design days since she had the place to herself, but not today. Not even cranking up the music could drown out the distractions, not when they were coming from inside her own head. Which was just one more accusation she could lay at Dev’s feet. He was costing her a day’s worth of work that she couldn’t afford to lose.

  Willow was staring with frustration at the yards of white clinging to the dress form when the notes of “Hell on Heels” blasted into the room. She still jumped at the unexpected interruption. Everyone in her life knew she holed up in the studio on Sundays and usually left her alone to work.

  She knew from the song that it was one of her friends. Snatching up the phone she’d thrown onto the table behind her, she registered the name on the screen even as she answered.

  “Hope, what’s wrong?” There were only a few reasons Hope would be bothering her and none of them were good.

  “What were you thinking, Willow?”

  “Huh?” She was immediately lost. “What are you talking about?”

  A loud sigh echoed down the line followed by a soft swear word that did nothing to settle Willow’s suddenly frantic heartbeat.

  Instead of answering her question, Hope said, “I’ll be there in five minutes. Don’t leave.”

  A protest was halfway out of Willow’s mouth but it didn’t matter. Hope had hung up, the harsh buzz of the broken line echoing through Willow’s head.

  She didn’t have to wait long. A knock on her studio door boomed through the eerily quiet space. But it wasn’t Hope who waited on the other side when she swung open the door. It was Tatum.

  “Oh, shit. This must be really bad if she called in reinforcements. What is going on?”

  Willow hadn’t realized Tatum was carrying a laptop tucked under her arm until she brushed past and set the thing on the nearest table, popping it open. The screen blinked to life, and Willow’s legs wobbled for a few seconds before she stiffened them.

  Her eyes devoured the words that accompanied the photographs she couldn’t seem to tear herself away from.

  Dev, half-dressed, his amazingly ripped chest clearly on display, was leaving her house right around dawn. His dark eyes were furious and his harsh mouth slanted in a dangerous frown.

  A shiver—that had nothing to do with the tingle of awareness and excitement—snaked down her spine. Who would take pictures of Dev leaving her house at dawn? Why? And why the heck post them online?

  “Well” was all she could say, her mind whirling with too many thoughts to process any of them.

  Tatum grasped her arm and pushed her into a nearby chair.

  Her eyes raced over the text one more time. The gist was that the devil had returned to Sweetheart and immediately sullied the first angel he encountered.

  While no one—well, no one other than Hope and Macey—knew what had happened between her and Dev ten years ago, everyone knew that he’d seduced her sister and broken up a marriage.

  She groaned, closing her eyes as embarrassment flooded through her. Was it asking too much to hope that no one else had seen this?

  “I don’t understand the significance of what’s going on, but Hope was adamant that you needed to see this immediately. The blog was posted anonymously and an email sent from a generic account to just about the entire town. And from your reaction, she was right. I’m guessing those regrets we talked about last night go a little deeper than even I anticipated. Tell me.”

  Willow’s mouth twisted into a dangerous frown as she looked between
her friend and the email that declared her sin for public consumption.

  “I know him.”

  “God, I hope so. That man was made for sex. If he left before you got to know him that would be a crying shame.”

  Willow shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. I already knew him before last night.”

  Tatum shrugged. “So?”

  “He’s the man who slept with my sister and ruined her marriage.”

  Tatum’s eyes widened into large pools of shock. “Oh.” Though she’d only been in Sweetheart a few years, even Tatum had heard the story about Rose and Wick. It was the kind of gossip that circulated as a cautionary tale about what not to do in Sweetheart.

  “It gets better. Only a few people know this, but...he and I...”

  Tatum’s eyes widened. “The bastard gets around.”

  Heat flooded Willow’s pale skin. “No. We didn’t. But it was close. Rose brought him around several times. I was seventeen. He was twenty. We danced around each other for a few months. I tried very hard to be good, but you saw him....”

  “Temptation on a cracker.”

  Willow nodded. She screwed her eyes closed, trying to shut out the memories. The heavy heat she’d been too young to understand or deal with. The overwhelming need. The oppressive pain of betrayal when she learned he’d slept with her sister.

  “One night he came over looking for Rose, but she wasn’t there. It was late and hot. I was in tiny shorts and a tank top.”

  Even now she could feel the pressure of the humid summer air on her skin. And when Wick had shown up on her porch, moonlight slashing across his hard jaw and sharp cheekbones, she’d felt as if her skin was tight enough to split. The only thing she’d known was that she needed relief.

  And he’d given it to her...or a taste of it. Before she’d realized what he’d intended, her back was pressed against the house and his mouth was devouring hers. That kiss was like nothing she’d experienced before. It was hot and hard, and made her whole body ache.

  She’d squirmed against him, wanting more. And he’d given it to her. Right there on the front porch where anyone could have seen. His hard body surrounded her. His hand had slipped beneath the high hem of her shorts, finding the slick heat that proved she wanted him even as she tried not to.

  Just like the night before, the moment he’d touched her she was gone. She let him drive his fingers deep inside her. Within minutes he’d had her coming, hot and hard. The best orgasm she’d ever had until last night.

  She’d slid back down into a boneless, panting mess, fully expecting him to take whatever he wanted from her. And she would have let him. But instead of opening his fly, he’d backed away, staring at her with hard, glittering eyes.

  In that low, rasping voice that sent shivers down her spine, he’d breathed, “Little girl.” And then he’d just...left.

  “Two days later the scandal with Rose broke. Apparently, he no longer wanted me. Why would he want someone so innocent and unschooled when he could have my worldly, uninhibited sister?”

  Tatum blinked, one long, drawn out motion. “Jesus, Willow. And you still let him spend the night?”

  Willow dropped her head into her hands and dug the heel of her palms into her eyes. “We kept the masks on. I didn’t know until this morning.”

  Tatum let out a low whistle, the single sound conveying absolutely everything she’d struggled with since she’d learned just who was behind the mask—shock, anger, desire, betrayal, self-recriminations, unwanted need.

  “Dev left town a few days later. I had no idea he was back until he walked into my bedroom this morning carrying a mug of coffee.”

  Tatum asked the logical question. “Did he know who you were?”

  Willow nodded.

  “That bastard.”

  Part of her wanted to let Tatum keep her poor opinion of Dev. It would be easy to bask in the unqualified support of her friend. But it wouldn’t be fair.

  “He gave me several opportunities to stop things, but I didn’t. I was the one who insisted on the masks. He tried to take his off. He had to know the moment I saw his face that I’d recognize him. He wasn’t deliberately trying to hide who he was from me...I did that all on my own. He even told me his name. We just called him something else when he lived here before.”

  The dark slash of Tatum’s eyebrow winged up into a silent question.

  “Devlin Warwick. Everyone called him Wick. Wicked Wick.”

  “Oh, yeah, that totally fits.”

  “Apparently he hates it and goes by Dev now. I didn’t remember his full name until this morning.”

  This time the other eyebrow joined the first, Tatum studying her with a quizzical expression that made Willow fight the need to squirm.

  “You’re defending him an awful lot.”

  Willow made a harsh sound in the back of her throat. “I’m not defending him. I’m taking responsibility for my own actions and decisions. I’d like to let him take all the blame, but that wouldn’t be fair. I made a decision—a bad one—and now I’ll have to deal with the consequences. Everyone in town is going to know what I did.”

  “There are worse things.”

  “Sure, although at the moment I’m having trouble thinking of any.”

  Hope burst through the back door and skidded to a halt, half in and half out of Willow’s workroom. Her quick eyes catalogued Tatum and the open computer, then scoured Willow’s face for clues to what her response needed to be—alcohol, anger, indignation, a shotgun...they were all viable options, depending.

  Willow saved her the trouble of guessing. “I’m fine. Angry, sure, but not at Dev.”

  Tatum snorted, doing a poor job at smothering the sound.

  “Okay, I’m slightly angry with Dev. I’m more upset with myself. And whoever thought it appropriate to splash my business all over the internet and then announce it to the entire town.”

  Had the person who’d taken the pictures been lurking outside her house, waiting? Or had they chanced on a moment of opportunity?

  A nasty thought blasted through Willow’s brain. Had Dev set the whole thing up? Maybe he’d had someone there waiting. She shook her head, dismissing the idea almost as soon as it surfaced.

  What did he have to gain by this? If he’d been out for a little humiliating revenge he’d gotten it already. Just thinking about how inappropriate and shameless she’d been with him last night...

  Besides, he’d told her that he hadn’t intended to seduce her, and for some reason she believed him. Or maybe she just wanted to. Either way, she couldn’t see an angle.

  “Who would do something like this? And why?” Hope asked, her voice ringing with an indignation that Willow appreciated. It was nice to know she could count on her friends.

  “That’s a great question. They must have been right in front of your house.” Tatum crossed her arms beneath her breasts and narrowed her eyes to slits.

  Tatum’s words drew Willow’s eyes back to the screen and the photographs she’d tried to ignore. Her friend was right, they’d been taken from in front of her house, but that wasn’t what kept her staring.

  The first couple of pictures showed Dev exiting. Willow could practically hear the reverberation from the slammed door, his stiff shoulders and thunderous expression easy to interpret.

  What had her tongue licking across suddenly dry lips was the way the black dress shirt he’d been wearing at the party hung loose and open, showing the dented planes of his abs. The gray tie trailed across his shoulders. Willow wanted to reach through the screen and run her hands across his silky skin.

  The next photograph had his back turned, the tip of a red horn clearly visible sticking out from the back pocket of his slacks. Even without the mask, he was clearly dangerous enough to be a devil.

  More dangerous th
an he’d been last night.

  And still, Willow couldn’t look away. She knew the sinuous twist of muscles hidden beneath the disarrayed clothing. She knew what he could do with those powerful legs and talented hands. Her body hummed with the memories, begging her to forget everything and find him for a repeat performance.

  In the last photograph, Dev’s head was turned in profile. He stared up at the covered windows of her bedroom. The expression on his face was partially obscured, but that didn’t prevent her body from reacting. She’d seen it last night when he pushed deep inside her—predatory, dangerous, promising and sensual.

  Devlin Warwick wasn’t finished with her yet. He’d said as much. And she wasn’t exactly sure what to think about that. Her body buzzed with anticipation. Her brain screamed a warning.

  “Willow!”

  “What?” She jerked her eyes away from the computer screen and up to Hope and Tatum. Both of her friends stared at her expectantly. Guilt heated her skin. Willow sighed with barely checked exasperation.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to ignore him.”

  Tatum shook her head, fighting a smile that she couldn’t quite keep from tugging at the corners of her mouth. Willow appreciated the effort even if her friend failed miserably.

  “Not about Dev, about the blog post.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yes, that.”

  “I don’t know. What is there to do?”

  Nothing. She’d witnessed enough gossip to realize that a public search for whoever had invaded her privacy would only keep the story on everyone’s tongues longer. Better to ignore it and hope everyone moved on to juicier tales soon.

  She definitely had no intention of giving them any more fodder.

  5

  DEV WAS STILL pissed that she’d kicked him out. Although it was exactly what he’d expected her to do.

  It was his problem that he’d hoped she wouldn’t.

  He couldn’t get rid of the residual buzz of anger mixed with the constant hum of need. Not even being upset with her could stop him from wanting her again.