Daring Devlin

by Jessica Lemmon

  Unless they ask, I thought with an internal smirk.

  But I didn’t piss where I ate. I’d crossed a line when I went to Rena’s house. Wouldn’t happen again. Sonny encouraged charming the staff, but bedding the staff was discouraged. We had to be careful who found out what we did. Our kind of power drew women like butter, but it didn’t mean we had to stick our fingers in and taste.

  “Hey.” Sonny slapped the table, jarring my thoughts away from—where else?—Rena. Something about drawn butter and tasting her had nearly flattened my last brain cell. I feigned fatigue, pulling my hand down my face.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You should see the other guy.”

  I’d told Nat my injuries were incurred in a bar fight. On the ride home, I’d elaborated, explaining (even though he hadn’t asked, nor would he have) that I’d had too many shots of tequila, and some guy had looked at me sideways. Nat didn’t talk much, but if he had repeated any of those details, that was the story I’d have to stick with for now.

  Donna showed up with Sonny’s coffee and my Triple Threat. I groaned with no small amount of ecstasy when she slid the paper plate under my nose. Oak & Sage had a peppercorn-encrusted filet, a poached halibut in lemon sauce, and a wall of chocolate cake that would make Donna, here, cream her panties, but a slice of Sonny’s Pizza rivaled them all.

  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 counted the chicks thirty years his junior he banged on a fairly regular occasion, ha-ha.

  I wiped the grease from my fingertips and then 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 a hold of him. Or, well…” He shrugged and smiled a mean smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Nat got a hold of him.”

  Literally, I imagined. Sonny had bypassed me entirely. I tried not to be offended.

  “Nat was in the neighborhood,” he explained, picking up on my thoughts. “He talked to Travis. No visible work-over. 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. A moment later 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 and found 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. I’ll stay in the kitchen.” 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 collecting 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 hand wrapped around the mug 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 grunted my agreement.

  “Who are you thinking?”

  Of all the staff I 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, balling a napkin in my fist.

  “Can you trust her?”

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

  “Know for sure by Tuesday afternoon. Travis will be there at two. And it’s a stack of cash, kid.”

  I nodded my understanding.

  “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 cut him a petulant glare. “I know.”

  “I know you know.” He smiled.

  I stood to leave, dropping a twenty-dollar bill on the table 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 sipped from her own 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 used my bathroom. Any more details might’ve raised a red flag.

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

  “Ugh. I hate rich, pretty girls.”

  I stifled a smile as we made our way to a small corner table in the coffee shop. Tasha was a rich, pretty girl. 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 paused to allow room for an “I Hate Tony” story.

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

  I shook my head. “Work. I close tonight.”

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

  I didn’t want to have to entertain myself while Tony and Tasha ground against each other on a foggy 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. Gross.

  Impatiently, I drummed my fingers on my cup. What I wanted was to go to work and see if Devlin showed up today. He hadn’t been to work in two days. The suspense was killing me.

  After I’d turned down the would-be sausage-fest at Parade for the third time, I left Tasha to her phone (sexting Tony, I assumed) and hustled to work.

  The kitchen was cool since the grills hadn’t been turn
ed on yet. Typically I’d find Devlin in the back office or the front of house, 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 a flat of giant cans of tomatoes. 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. Then I caught his profile.

  A pair of black pants with white pinstripes hugged Devlin’s incredible ass. 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. Even bruises couldn’t mask his painfully beautiful face. My gaze flicked to his lips.

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

  “Nothing.” I shook my head. “You look… better.”

  His tongue darted out to wet the corner of his lips. My thighs clenched.

  “Working the back?” My plan to fill the dead air by stating the obvious was going swimmingly. Without waiting for an answer, I pulled my apron over my head and turned for the doorway. He 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 away from his powerful presence, I walked out but felt the weight of his gaze on my back the entire way.

  Chapter Five

  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 in the back. He was 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 were?” I teased.

  The spark in his eyes hinted at something not nice going through his mind. Probably a juvenile “meat” remark. 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. Cringing, I turned and walked into the storeroom where I slid my coat from my shoulders. Two warm hands caught the collar and pulled it off the rest of the way.

  “Flexibility,” Devlin murmured. “I like that in a girl.” His breath warmed my neck. He was close enough that he’d barely had to raise his voice. Close enough that his body heat blanketed my back. If I faced him, where would his delicious lips be in proximity to mine?

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

  Putting distance between us in the storeroom, I walked to the other side and dropped my purse onto a shelf. He tossed my coat over it and assessed me, arms crossed. Trying not to fidget under his scrutiny was akin to breathing underwater—I couldn’t force my body to comply. My hands shook as I looped the 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. He turned me around, pulling the strings hard enough that I nearly backed into him.

  “Rena.” His voice was sexy and husky. 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 leaning in without touching me, making 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 for-work ponytail yet, and wow, was I glad. My lack of preparedness was worth it to feel his fingers sift through my strands.

  Le meow.

  “What was your question?” On the inside I was melting into a puddle. On the outside I stood ramrod stiff, waiting. And knowing, regardless of what he asked of me, my answer would be yes.

  Devlin

  It was an act.

  That’s what I told myself while I tried to make small talk and warm Rena to the idea of meeting with Travis for me. 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.

  Goddamn. Was she this soft everywhere?

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

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

  She looked up at me, her cheeks pink, her eyes wide, her breasts rising and falling with each heavy 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. 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 big brown eyes and pursed pink lips.

  Peppermint-flavored lips.

  I dropped my hand and took a deliberate step away from her. 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 a half smile. She frowned. I decided to get to the point.

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

  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.

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

  Shit.

  “‘Sort of’?” I stood over her, trying to be intimidating. She studied me curiously instead.

  “My friend Tasha.”

  I smelled mint. 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?”

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

  Bemused, I sort of repeated, “My girlfriend?”

  “Your… wife?” She tilted her head. “Nat is short for Natalie, I assume. That’s why you didn’t want her to see me?”

  Was this general curiosity or was Rena asking if I was single? It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep from grinning. Wha
t was it about her that made me feel so fucking happy all the time?

  If seduction worked on her, she’d do whatever I asked and protect me in the process. I closed in on her, testing that theory. Either that or the intoxicating scent of peppermint mingling with the apples drew me in.

  “Nat is 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, but 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 touched the tender flesh between her index and middle finger with the tip of my tongue. Her pupils dilated.

  I did it again… She bit her lip.

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

  I had her.

  Rena

  I was ringing in an order for one of my tables when Laura, a hostess, interrupted.

  “Rena, table ten is asking for you.” She popped her gum and left 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. My speed had increased since the night Devlin had taken over for me. I dropped off an iced tea refill for table 60 and 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. “You Rena?”

  “Yes. Are you—”

  “Set the book down.” He tapped the table with his index finger.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The black book. Your order book.” After a furtive look around, he reached into his coat. His forehead glistened. Was he… sweating?