Fighting for Devlin (Lost Boys #1)

by Jessica Lemmon

  I took a huge bite. Groaned again.

  Sonny chuckled. “You make my heart feel good, kid.” He sipped his steaming coffee. “So? Talk.”

  I swallowed my bite and carefully brushed my injured lip with the napkin. My mentor didn’t do much bush-beating. Unless you count the chicks thirty years his junior he banged on a fairly regular occasion.

  I wiped the grease from my fingertips and dragged an envelope out of my pocket and dropped it on the table in front of him. “Benny’s,” I said of the eight hundred dollars inside.

  Sonny extracted a pen from his front shirt pocket and jotted something in his illegible shorthand on the outside of the envelope. I never wrote anything down. Since I could remember figures as easily as my name, I didn’t bother. Plus, no evidence.

  “Travis is dodging me,” I told Sonny. “I’ll go to him.”

  “No need.” He chuckled again as I took another bite. He didn’t bother counting the cash I’d handed him, stuffing both the envelope and pen into his shirt pocket. “I got ahold of him. Or, well…” He shrugged and smiled the kind of mean smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Nat got ahold of him.”

  Literally, I’d imagine. So Sonny had bypassed me entirely. I tried not to be offended.

  “Nat was over on Travis’s side of town,” he explained, picking up on my thoughts. “He talked to him. No visible work-over.” He gestured toward my face. “Can’t say the same for you.”

  I polished off my slice and wiped my hands on a few cardboard excuses for napkins.

  “Donna! Pepsi!” Sonny called. She scuttled out from behind the counter and delivered my soda. “Anyway,” he said after she’d gone, “Travis will be in to see you tomorrow to pay in full.”

  I nodded.

  “Paul?” he prompted.

  “Working on it,” I said.

  Stone silence greeted me. I ventured a glance at him to see a matching stony glare. I supposed I ought to elaborate.

  “Must be out of town.” Another lie. I locked it into memory and leaned back in the booth. “He didn’t answer his door and there wasn’t a car in the drive.” I sipped my soda and talked to fill the air. “I’m returning to work tomorrow, but it’s going to be back of the house.” There was no way I could walk the dining room looking like a spent punching bag.

  “Pickups?” He meant the visitors who would be coming in to drop off their payments. “Want me to send Vaughn?”

  I felt my lip curl. Karl Vaughn was Mr. Slick. In a slithering way. Like, if you shook his hand, he’d leave a trail of slime on your palm from the tons of pomade he pushed through his hair. Fucking hipsters. He’d be less successful at getting money for Sonny given that he looked about as trustworthy as a used car salesman. I blamed the pencil-slim suit pants. Never trust a man whose junk you could see at a glance.

  “I have someone else in mind,” I said, unsure if I could trust my own plan.

  “I was kidding about Vaughn. He’s the wrong fit for Oak & Sage clientele.” Sonny leaned back in the booth, his fingers spinning his cup of coffee. I wondered if it ever became too much, being the biggest bookie in town, buying off cops, putting up with lowlifes every damn day. Or maybe he was too old to give a shit about much of anything. “Plus, Vaughn’s a rookie.”

  I couldn’t keep from grunting my agreement.

  “Who are you thinking?”

  I balled the napkin while I thought. Of all the staff I had employed at Oak & Sage, only one face came to mind as my fill-in. The same face that had popped into my head repeatedly since the night she dragged me in from the cold, loaned me her phone, and offered me a blanket.

  “New girl,” I muttered.

  “Can you trust her?”

  I wanted to say yes. Instead, I told the truth. “Maybe.”

  He nodded, content with the fact that I was on top of it. “Know for sure by Tuesday afternoon. Travis will be there at two. And it’s a stack of cash, kid.”

  “Okay.”

  “Stay out of sight. Travis is a good old-fashioned scumbag. He’ll rat to everyone in town if he sees you looking like—”

  “Son,” I interrupted, cutting him a petulant glare. “I know.”

  “I know you know.” He smiled.

  I stood to leave, dropping a twenty-dollar bill on the table as a tip for Donna. As I exited the restaurant, Sonny called, “Say hi to Paul for me.”

  Dread covered me from head to toe.

  Rena

  Tasha handed over my Starbucks cup. The sloppy handwritten marker read “Tina.” They rarely got my name right. I’d given up spelling it to them.

  “Who picked him up? Was she a hot blonde?” She took a sip out of her cup.

  I’d told her about the other night while we stood in line, leaving out the part about Devlin busted up and bleeding. I didn’t want to make his visit sound more sinister than it was so I kept it simple: He knocked on the door; he borrowed my bathroom.

  Any more details might raise a red flag and Tasha might warn me against him. I didn’t want to be warned against him.

  “No idea,” I answered. “The windows of the Mercedes were tinted.”

  “Ugh. I hate rich, pretty girls.”

  I stifled my comment about how Tasha was a rich, pretty girl as we made our way to a small corner table in the coffee shop. It was nine-thirty and my shift started at ten, which gave me roughly ten minutes to down my macchiato.

  “What if he’s married?” she asked, her tone aghast.

  “He doesn’t wear a ring,” I said a tad defensively. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t. Still, I doubted someone like Devlin was married. Monogamy didn’t fit.

  “He could be married and not wear the ring to work. Maybe he picks up chicks that way.”

  But he hadn’t attempted to pick me up. Not that he’d been thinking of sex at the time. I pictured his cuts and swollen eye and cringed.

  “He’s probably a jerk. Most hot guys are.”

  I waited for an “I Hate Tony” story.

  Instead she smiled. “Tony and I are going to Parade tonight. It’s ladies’ night. Free margaritas. You in?”

  I shook my head. “I work tonight. Until close.”

  “We aren’t going until midnight, Reen.” She rolled her eyes.

  I didn’t want to go to a club and attempt to entertain myself while Tony and Tasha ground against each other on a smoky dance floor. And I didn’t want to expend the energy it would take to avoid the throngs of drunk guys on the prowl on ladies’ night.

  What I wanted was to go to work and see if Devlin was there. I drummed my fingers on my cup with impatience. Sitting here was killing me. Would he be there today or not? He hadn’t been there the last two days. If he did show today, I wondered if he would mention the other night.

  After I’d turned down the sausage-fest that would be Parade for the third time, I left Tasha to her phone (sexting Tony, I guessed) and hustled to work. The kitchen was cool, since the grills hadn’t been turned on yet. Typically, I’d find Devlin in the back office or the dining room, but I didn’t see him in either place as I made my way to the storeroom with my coat.

  Melinda was leaving as I entered. I dumped my coat onto the large cans of tomatoes lining the shelves. Only then did I register a figure on the opposite side of the storeroom. At first I assumed it was one of the prep guys. Until I caught his profile.

  A pair of black pants with white pinstripes hugged Devlin’s incredible butt and a white chef’s coat covered his upper half, buttoned to the neck. A black cap shadowing his features completed the uniform.

  “Hey,” I said on a breath. Because he looked damn fine. His jacket was cuffed, revealing the same naked forearms he’d showcased under his T-shirt sleeves last Friday. His handsome face was still battered, but the swelling had gone down. Bruises couldn’t hide how painfully good-looking he was. My eyes automatically went to his lips.

  He brushed the side of his mouth with the back of his hand and I realized I was staring.

  “Sorry.” I shoo
k my head. “You look…better.”

  He moved his hand away and I watched his tongue dart out to wet the corner of his lips. My thighs clenched. I couldn’t get over the visceral reaction I had to this man.

  “Working the back?” My plan must have been to fill the quiet air between us by stating the obvious. Without waiting for an answer, I pulled my apron over my head and turned for the doorway. Devlin was in front of me in an instant.

  “Thank you. For Friday,” he added in a whisper, as if it was an afterthought. His mouth dropped open like he was going to say more, but he didn’t.

  We stood there for the longest time, me watching him, his shadowed eyes under the bill of his cap watching me watch him.

  “Have a good shift,” he said, finally.

  I tried for “okay” but only managed a nod. Turning my back on his powerful presence, I walked out but felt the weight of his gaze on my back the entire way.

  Chapter 5

  Rena

  The next day was better. For my tongue, anyway. It managed not to trip over my teeth and collide with my palate when I ran into Devlin. He was in the kitchen, slicing vegetables with a huge knife and dropping them into a tall stockpot.

  “Soup?” Ah, yes. My superpower of pointing out the obvious was still strong.

  “Vegetarian.” He wrinkled his nose. “Tell me you’re not one of ’em.”

  My eyebrows went up. Was Devlin Calvary…talking to me? And not only talking, but actually, maybe, possibly joking.

  “What if I am?” I teased.

  His lips tipped. The spark in his eyes hinted at something naughty going through his mind. I thought of all the possible “meat” comments he could say. I’d learned in my short stint as a waitress that kitchen guys had filthy mouths and even filthier minds. I assumed Devlin was no exception.

  “I’m…I eat…” Don’t say meat. “Whatever,” I finished lamely. I walked away from him with a cringe, stopping in the storeroom to slide my coat from my shoulders. Two warm hands caught the collar and slid it off the rest of the way.

  “Flexibility,” Devlin said. “I like that in a girl.” I felt his breath in my hair. He was close enough that he barely had to raise his voice. Close enough his body heat blanketed my back. If I turned, where would his delicious lips be in proximity to mine?

  A girl could have a heart attack just thinking about that.

  I forced my feet to walk—one step at a time—deeper into the storeroom, where I dropped my purse on a shelf. Devlin tossed my coat over it and assessed me, arms crossed, the muscles there shifting.

  Trying not to fidget under his scrutiny was akin to breathing underwater—I couldn’t get my body to comply. My hands shook as I put my apron over my head and pulled the ties around my back.

  He unhooked his arms and took the ties from my hands, his warm fingers brushing my cooler ones. Then he turned me, pulling the strings hard and I nearly backed into him.

  “Rena,” he said, his voice husky and so sexy my legs began to shake. I was a living, breathing pair of maracas around him. I heard the canvas-on-canvas swish as he crisscrossed the ties at my back. “I have a question for you.”

  The contents of the storeroom blurred, then disappeared as my lids slid over my eyes. He was just over my ear, leaning in without touching me, but still managed to make every cell in my body dance.

  Bow knotted, he freed my hair from the neck of the apron, and a zillion goose bumps popped up on my skin from my neck to nipples to kneecaps. I hadn’t wound my hair into a ponytail yet, and wow, was I glad. My lack of preparedness was worth it to feel his fingers sift through the strands.

  Le meow.

  “What was your question?” On the inside I was melting into a puddle. On the outside I stood ramrod stiff, waiting. Waiting for whatever question Devlin Calvary was about to ask me.

  And knowing, regardless of what it was, that I was going to say yes.

  Devlin

  It was an act.

  That’s what I kept telling myself while I tried to make small talk and warm Rena to the idea of meeting with Travis in my place. But the second the silk of her chestnut hair ran between my fingers, my act of seduction began resembling the real thing.

  She smelled good. Like apples and a soft, feminine scent that could only be her skin. As I dropped her mane of hair, I brushed my fingertips along the back of her neck.

  God damn. Was she this soft everywhere?

  Blood rushed to my groin and I clamped my teeth down and forced my thoughts back to the goal. I needed her to pick up cash from Travis, and I needed her to not ask too many questions. Which meant she needed to trust me.

  If she was as good a girl as I suspected, that would take some finesse.

  She faced me, her cheeks pink, her eyes wide, her breasts rising and falling with each heaving breath.

  I could kiss her.

  I could. Mash my lips into hers and taste the candy she rolled from one side of her mouth to the other. A wave of cool peppermint hit me, and my hand, clutching the bow of her apron at the back of her waist, tightened around the fabric. My eyes zoomed in on her lips.

  Then I snapped myself back to reality. Reality was a storeroom at work where I was charged with picking up and dropping off Sonny’s bookie money with a certain level of professionalism—a level that did not allow for getting towed in by big brown eyes and pursed pink lips.

  Peppermint-flavored lips.

  I dropped my hand and took a deliberate step away. Palming my neck, I tried to look chagrined, like she’d bewitched me and I hadn’t mustered the courage to go through with the kiss. I offered her half a smile. She frowned. I decided to get to the point.

  “My buddy’s coming in today to see me,” I started. That was the truth, though the “buddy” thing was a stretch. “He owes me some money”—also the truth—“and I don’t want him to see me like this.” I gestured to my face.

  Her brows bowed in concern as she studied my face. Perfect. Her caring about my well-being was the perfect primer for what I had to ask.

  “Did you tell anyone I was at your house on Friday?” I blurted. I needed to know how loyal she’d been, but I could have eased into that topic with more subtlety than a runaway freight train.

  She started to shake her head, then paused, her mouth forming a little O. “Sort of.”

  Shit.

  “ ‘Sort of’?” I stepped closer, standing over her in order to intimidate her into telling me the truth.

  She tipped her head back and pinned me with those earnest eyes. “My friend Tasha.” I smelled mint when she spoke. Thought of kissing her again. Swallowed the urge. “But I didn’t tell her that you were beat up in a bar fight.”

  I narrowed my eyes. Really. Because that was the most interesting part of my being there. Unless…the subject of her story to her friend was only that I’d come over. Which was interesting in a whole other way.

  “What did you tell her?” I gave Rena a severe look.

  She shifted on her feet but never took her eyes from mine. “Th-that you showed up because you didn’t have your phone, then you called your girlfriend to pick you up.”

  My look of severity faded into bemusement. “My girlfriend?”

  “Your…wife?” The slightest tilt of her eyebrows gave her discomfort away. “Nat is short for Natalie, I assume. That’s why you didn’t want her to see me.”

  There was general curiosity and then there was this sort of questioning—which was Rena’s way of asking if I was single. It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep from smiling down at her. What was it about this girl?

  Knowing now seduction would work on her, that she’d do whatever I asked and protect me in the process, I closed in on her. Or maybe it was the smell of intoxicating peppermint mingling with the apple smell of her hair drawing me in.

  Hovering over her, I said, “Nat is about three hundred pounds of huffing and puffing indignity. He is married. I am as single as you are, sweetheart.” Which I didn’t know for sure, b
ut assumed Rena wouldn’t be interested in me if she had a steady boyfriend. That wasn’t the way good girls rolled.

  I lifted her hand and brushed my lips along her knuckles. Unable to resist, I stroked the tender flesh between her index and middle finger with my tongue once and watched her pupils dilate.

  I did it again…She bit her lip.

  The third time I closed my lips over her skin in a wet kiss. Her hips canted left then right in a barely noticeable squirm. That’s when I knew.

  I had her.

  Rena

  The hostess came for me while I was ringing in an order for one of my tables.

  “Rena, table ten is asking for you,” Laura said, popping her gum and leaving the kitchen. Table 10 wasn’t in my section. Must be the guy Devlin had told me about—Travis.

  I finished punching in the order, pleased my speed had increased since the night Devlin had taken over the screen and fixed my order for me. I started for the dining room, but backtracked to get an iced tea refill for table 60, dropped that off, then made my way to table 10.

  A youngish, short guy with dark spiked hair and a pathetic, patchy attempt at a goatee shot me a shaky smile. I paused at his table and smiled back.

  “You Rena?” he asked.

  “Yes. Are you—”

  “Set your book down.” After a furtive look around, he reached into his coat.

  I blinked, not understanding. “Excuse me?”

  “The black book. Your order book.” His forehead glistened. Was he…sweating?

  “Oh. Sorry.” I pulled the book from my apron and placed it on the table. He opened it, slipped in a bank envelope—a fat one—and then lifted his glass of water and sipped, keeping his eyes on the side exit.

  I took his ignoring me as a hint our transaction was over, lifted my book, and shoved it back into my apron pocket. Entering the kitchen, I stole a look over my shoulder to find Travis, hands in his pockets, rush out of the exit he’d been eyeballing.