“Yes.”
No sweeter word could have been spoken. Bending my knees, I lined us up and eased into her. She accepted me, inch by agonizing inch, her channel wrapping around me like a warm, wet fist. She threw her head back, the strands of her hair spilling over my chest and shoulder, sending a full-body chill racing down my spine and legs.
Holding on to her hips, I held her ear between my teeth and listened to her breaths. Uneven, hectic.
“Okay?” I asked again.
Her hand clamped onto my hair and tugged. I took that as an affirmative. I drove into her to the hilt. She cried out and I uttered a harsh curse, sank my teeth into her shoulder, and eased up before I left a mark.
Longevity hadn’t been a problem since I’d been a teenager, but I found myself struggling; listing stats from horse races and football games from the last decade to keep myself distracted. But the numbers were obliterated when she squeezed me from within, and moaned my name.
Moaned. My name.
Air stuttered from my lips as I slid in and out of her in a maddening rhythm. The way she’d said it, Devlin. Devlin…like a prayer. Or a wish. Or a dream that caused her to thrash and tangle in her sheets, then wake sweating and pulsing for release.
I wanted her there, too. In sheets. This wouldn’t be enough, this hallway hookup, I thought with sudden, sickening clarity.
She slammed against my hips, taking me deeper. I made it two more, maybe three more thrusts tops, before I spilled into the condom. I had to move one hand from her and brace the wall to keep from collapsing to the floor with the force of my orgasm. My other hand was on her hip and I squeezed her flesh with my fingers, struggling to even my breathing.
“Devlin.” She turned her head and kissed my face, half on the corner of the mouth, half on my chin because of the awkward angle. “Devlin,” she repeated, her lips soft on mine. Her pliant body yielding to mine.
Damn.
Every clanging bell rang an alarm in my head. A “time’s up” panic button telling me I needed to go. That bell had been my only ally for years. I backed out of Rena’s incredible body with a grunt and saw the damp hair matted to her temple, and a smile…a fucking smile…resting on her plump, pink mouth, and then I knew.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
Not just yet.
Chapter 9
Rena
Devlin disappeared into my bathroom across the narrow hallway, leaving me to survey the damage. His jeans, my pants, our shirts were spread across the carpet, his boots several feet apart, one standing up, one on its side.
I’d just had unplanned, amazing sex. Against a wall. My smile didn’t fade for a second. After disentangling my panties, I slipped into them, then into my yoga pants, and pulled my shirt over my head. Socks were still in place, which made me wonder if I’d looked silly wearing only a pair of black anklets. If so, I hadn’t heard a single complaint from Devlin.
In fact, I suspect I’d heard a few compliments. Words like “beautiful nipples” and “you’ve been making me crazy for a week” bounced in my brain. They’d sounded like compliments to me anyway. I gathered a guy like him didn’t exactly bare his soul during hallway sex. If ever.
Muscles sore and legs spent, I sank down the wall and sat, watching the bathroom door. Water from the sink was running. I spotted Devlin’s wallet open and lying on his jeans. I bit my lip, debating, but before I thought about it too hard, picked it up and peeked inside.
A driver’s license photo showed his hair much shorter than it was now, a formidable scowl lining his forehead. I also spied a gas card, a grocery store card. How…pedestrian. The edge of a business card with handwriting on it peeked out from under a flap, but reading it seemed like an even bigger invasion of privacy so I didn’t look. After a quick glance at the bathroom door, I did look in the money compartment.
Holy shit.
Hundreds. A lot of them. Twenty? Thirty, maybe. And a few folded and off to the side. I fanned through them at the same time I heard the doorknob turn. I slapped the wallet shut and tossed it next to his jeans as the door swung open.
Devlin’s gaze went from where I’d been standing down to my seat on the floor. I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, feeling guilty but trying not to look it. I gave him what I hoped didn’t look like a guilty smile. I couldn’t believe I’d spied on him. What was he doing with all that cash? I had like…thirteen dollars in my purse. Maybe.
My thoughts blanked as I eyed his naked, beautiful form. Thick, muscular thighs, flat, flexing abdomen, wide chest, broad shoulders. A face handsome enough to stop my breath. Had I really just had sex with the most beautiful man I’d ever seen?
My eyes trailed down to his penis, large and tempting enough to make me stab my lip with my teeth. He bent to retrieve his jeans and a small complaint sounded in my throat when he covered himself and buttoned his pants.
Shirtless, he sat down next to me, his bare upper arm touching my clothed shoulder.
“Aren’t you cold?” I asked. He wasn’t. Heat rolled off his body.
“Nah. You?”
I shook my head.
He mimicked my position, locking his arms around his knees, then turned his head to the left to study me. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. What to do.
Finally, words came. Not all that elegant, but I’d take just about anything over this penetrating silence. “What’s next?”
“Next?” He looked halfway amused, his eyebrows set at a regal slant, his lips quirked.
“Yeah. I don’t really hook up. So…”
So, I had no idea if I was supposed to show him out, invite him to my bedroom, or make him a snack.
“I guess you have to decide if you’re going to kick me out or go another round.”
I faced him, my eyes wide, my breasts growing heavy at the idea of “another round” with the sexy man in my hallway. I trailed my eyes down his tempting bare chest and back up to his face. Another round sounded amazing.
I was greeted with the unforgiving set of his lips as they formed the words, “Didn’t you find another condom when you were digging around in there?” He tipped his chin at his discarded wallet.
“Um—”
“I told you if we were going to be friends, we couldn’t lie to each other.”
True. He had said that. I wondered if he’d tell me why he had so much money. Only one way to find out. “What are all the hundreds for? Do you cash your checks when you get them?”
Or are you a drug dealer?
He didn’t hesitate. “Not mine.”
I blinked, wondering if he’d say more. Then he did.
“It’s bet money.”
Bet. That word again. I thought of his “friend” Travis and who owed him cash. “Do you bet often?”
“I don’t bet ever. People lose bets and deliver the money to me. Sometimes they win and I deliver the payout to them.” His gaze was steady, his explanation unapologetic. “Sonny gets the rest.”
“Sonny?” I asked.
“Sonny,” he confirmed, as if that cleared everything up.
I thought for a moment. And then guessed. “Is Sonny…like a bookie?”
“Exactly like a bookie.”
“Oh.” I digested this fact. “Isn’t being a bookie…illegal?”
“Completely.”
Completely. I tried to decide if I cared that my new boyfriend—er, hookup—was involved in “completely” illegal betting. I didn’t think I did care. What did that say about me?
“So?” he asked after a few seconds had passed.
I turned to find Devlin watching me with interest. I shook my head, asking a silent So, what?
A grin split his talented mouth as he came to a conclusion on his own. “Yeah, probably enough for one night for you, huh?”
He stood from his position on the floor and I moved to follow. He offered his palm, which I took, then hugged me against him and locked his arms around my back. The move was unexpected, but it felt nice being held by him.
My arms were pinned against my front, hands resting on his bare chest. I toyed with the dark hair there and gazed into his blue eyes, not wanting him to let me go.
“We’ll save the other condom for next time, sweetheart,” he said, his voice low. As he released me, he tugged on the hem of my shirt, let it go, then retrieved the remainder of his clothes from the floor. I watched as he pulled on his shirt, coat, and scarf, and headed for the door.
Next time.
My heart sank to my soles. I wanted a next time. I wanted a next time right now. But something told me my escalating pulse and the temptation to latch onto his arm would be met with resistance. I held myself in check.
Before the door shut him outside in the cold, I spotted his wallet still on the floor.
“Devlin, wait!”
The door opened, and seeing him appear again levitated my entire being. Which was bad. So, so bad.
I offered the wallet, and the thousands of untaxed hundred dollar bills within. He opened his palm and waited, forcing me to walk the rest of the way to deliver it without taking a single step to meet me. It said so much about this entire situation. How invested he was. How invested I was.
Laying the wallet in his hand I asked, “Was that a test?”
He smiled in response. A small one with a secret meaning I couldn’t quite read. Then he waved his wallet at me and walked out into the snow.
Waved. No kiss. No goodbye.
He left me alone, and wondering if this entire night had been some form of test.
Devlin
“Hot damn!”
The final score for the rivalry college football game flashed on the screen of my sixty-inch television: a cool 47 to 46. Paul had won by a point. One point. In overtime. It’d been almost too close for comfort, and I didn’t technically have anything on the line. Still, I’d been sweating it.
I drained my beer down my throat as I stood up from the couch. Before I made it to the kitchen for another, my cell rang. Watching the television stadium’s fans pour onto the field, I shook my head with pride. Somewhere deep inside, I knew they’d win this one.
Paul’s name flashed across my phone’s screen. I pressed Accept.
“What did I tell you?” I answered.
He replied with a loud whoop, followed by, “You did it, Dev!”
“Yeah, we got this one.” Barely. But a win was a win.
The take wasn’t much. I’d managed to double Paul’s money, but it wouldn’t get him completely out of debt with Tex. It would get him a good head start on a payment plan, however, and that made Paul no longer my problem.
“It’s a great start, Dev. A great start. Once I reinvest—”
Reinvest? Oh, hell no.
“One and done.” I reminded him, my scalp prickling. “Five hundred goes straight to Sonny for your payment and the rest you arrange with Tex.”
I heard a swallow, an audible gulp, and my hand curled around my phone tight enough to crack the plastic. Another warning bell rang in my head, different from the one I’d heard at Rena’s, but in the same foreboding tone.
“Paul,” I started, really not wanting him to confirm what I already knew. “Did you bet again?”
“Not exactly.”
“Paul.”
“Double or nothing,” he muttered.
I swore as I paced my living room floor.
“Still need your help, Dev.”
I opened my mouth to say, Fuck no, but I couldn’t leave the man on his own to make a double-or-nothing bet his pathetic ass would lose. Didn’t he know that’s what Tex wanted? To get Paul even more in debt until he’d be bound to Tex permanently? I thought of what the pair of giants that worked me over would do if Paul couldn’t pay. Without my permission, my chest clenched when I thought of him getting hurt, or worse. Hurting himself. My dad had hurt himself after he’d determined he was so much in debt there was no feasible way out. A deep, dark part of me wondered if I thought saving Paul might balance out not being able to save my dad. Maybe then I’d be whole instead of the broken mess I was now.
Rena’s sweet face popped into my head and my stomach tossed. No. No fucking way was I trying to be “good enough” for the good girl. She was a preoccupation, a temporary friend. That was it. That was all. I couldn’t afford to go there.
Yeah? Then why did you tell her there’d be a next time?
Because I wanted her again.
On the drive home from her apartment, I tried to push the desire away. Tried to convince myself my need for her was only physical. Didn’t work. I shut my eyes and dragged in a breath knowing it wouldn’t work now, either. Desire was complicated. I needed to keep things simple.
I wanted her again. I’d have her again.
But not without first making sure Rena understood the deal. She wasn’t special. For this to work, she couldn’t be. She had to be a friend who could come and go. A hookup. That’s all she was to me. I ignored the further clenching of my chest, suggesting I was full of shit.
“I didn’t give him my bet yet for the next games,” Paul said, his voice small.
“Games,” I repeated grimly. He was a junkie. He hadn’t been snorting coke or smoking meth, but he was an addict all the same.
“I have to, Dev. It’s the only way.”
“It’s not the only way. Pick up some overtime.” Did accountants have overtime? I had no clue. “Get a second job. Something.”
“The only money I have left is Caden’s college money. I won’t ask him to leave Ridgeway U. because I owe some low-life bookie money! No offense.”
I was too pissed to be offended. Silver-spoon-born Cade could use a hard knock or two and I couldn’t resist my next comment. “Going to an overpriced university isn’t at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid.”
“The what?”
“He’ll survive,” I said flatly.
“And the car.” Now Paul was muttering to himself. “I can’t take away his Audi. I’m already behind on the payments and to be able to…God. Devlin. What if he finds out I gambled, that I lost my job, that—”
“What?” This was the first I’d heard about job loss. “When?”
A pause, then, “Eight months ago.”
I tipped my head and studied the high ceiling of my apartment. Everything in this place, from the sleek TV to the furniture, to the rarely used dining room table and chairs, had been purchased with Sonny’s money. Money I made through Oak & Sage, sure, but it was tangled in an agreement—a promise—I’d made to him long ago. And tied with the bow of illegal gambling—the very thing that had killed my father.
Money I’d earned from encouraging guys like Paul, who couldn’t turn off the need to go “double or nothing.”
I knew I was going to help him. But Paul being saved had nothing to do with “saving” my father, I reminded myself solidly. Helping him was about evening the score for him doing me a solid when I was eighteen and had nowhere to live. He wasn’t my father. Saving him wouldn’t bring my dad back. Nothing would.
“What do you need me to do?” No tone. My voice had no tone.
Paul’s, on the other hand, sounded like he’d just won the purse for betting on the underdog. “Advice. That’s it. The next game is—”
“Stop. I’ll come over.” Doing this over the phone was making me twitchy. I wasn’t sure if I trusted him. But I owed him. If not for the time he’d allowed me to live in his house—with his wife and Cade, instead of tossing me out on my ass—then because I was partially responsible for keeping him on the path of unrighteousness.
He was thanking me and I cut him off, hating the desperation in his voice.
“Don’t do anything until I get there,” I said, then I hung up on him and palmed my keys.
Chapter 10
Rena
Melinda sidled up next to me, her eyebrows pinched. “Most frustrating shift ever. Did you see that old guy at table nineteen? He actually refused to order. Refused. He literally said, ‘Pick a meal for me.’ So, I did, and then h
e complained about his surf and turf dinner! He didn’t like lobster. I felt like saying…”
I tuned her out, sorting my own cash and receipts while servers bustled around the kitchen behind us. It was around nine, early by restaurant standards. Melinda and I had been the first in, so we’d been cut from the floor first.
Devlin hadn’t worked tonight or the night before, leaving me at a loss for how to behave. I didn’t have his phone number or any other way to reach him, save for work. But then, I’d kind of gathered we weren’t really “seeing” each other, so I shouldn’t be thinking of texting him anyway.
It didn’t stop me from scouring the Internet for a social media account under his name. He didn’t seem to be cataloging his life online like the rest of us, but part of me wished he did. I…well, I missed him.
It’s like I’d gone crazy.
I turned in my cash to Chet, who was managing the floor tonight. He swept into the office ahead of me.
“Have your tables checked for cleanliness,” he said in his ever-present lisp, “and then you can go.” I nodded the affirmative while he settled into a chair in the small office. The memory of how Devlin had my pants halfway down my legs in a matter of seconds swamped me as I backed into the kitchen.
Everything made me think of him. Of that moment…or the other night in my apartment. I thought of him whenever I walked through my hallway. Or glanced into the hallway. Or just thought the word “hallway.”
The back door leading to the outside swung open, letting in the bitter, icy air. I bristled. Miguel, one of the prep guys, lumbered in, an empty trashcan in his hand. I stepped out of the way. A moment later, I heard the back door open again and a few seconds later felt strong fingers wrap around my upper arm. I spun around, startled.
Devlin tugged me close, his face calm, his eyes blazing. Oh, he looked good. Cheeks red and cold-bitten, lips rimmed in the slightest shadow of stubble. His black leather jacket and scarf were the same as the night he’d come to my house, but his jeans were black instead of faded blue.
Fighting for Devlin (Lost Boys #1) Page 9
