by A. C. Arthur
“If I stay what happens?” he asked her before running a hand down his clean shaved head. “You said so yourself earlier tonight that we’re only sex partners. How long does that last, Bailey?”
“How long does anything last, Devlin?” she asked and then ran a hand quickly through her hair. “I was involved with a guy for five months and he was a total jackass. I got pregnant and he denounced the baby and then he tried to choke me to death. So that didn’t take long to go downhill, did it?”
Her heart was pounding as she’d spoken, her hands shaking at her sides. She hadn’t intended to tell him anything about Stewart, had actually vowed never to speak of that horrible time again, but the words had simply spilled out.
“You were pregnant?” Devlin asked. “And the jerk said it wasn’t his? Who was he? Where is he now?”
Bailey shook her head. “It was a long time ago,” she said. “I lost the baby while I was working on a case.”
“The Carmen Stafford case,” he said. “It was one of your first cases for D&D. And no, I didn’t get that info from a background check. Trent was pissed at Sam for letting you hurt and he bitched about it to me for weeks.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” she told him. “I mean it does when I’m trying to be smarter about who I get involved with.”
“It’s not smart to get involved with me,” he said sternly.
“I agree,” she replied. “Unfortunately, it’s too late for that warning now.”
Bailey inhaled and released the breath quickly.
“Whatever this is between us has lasted for more than a year so far,” she told him. “But you’re right, that’s not what I want forever.”
“And I don’t know what the hell forever is,” he snapped. “I don’t know how to do what Trent and Linc and Adam do. The husband and wife dynamic, the father, the son, none of that is in my M.O.”
“Running isn’t either,” she said quietly as he’d turned his back to her after speaking.
“I don’t know if I’m asking for forever, Devlin. Right now, what I know at this very moment is that I want you to stay. Tonight,” she said. “I want you to go upstairs with me and to say you’ll stay because that’s what we both need right now. It’s what we both can do in the midst of a situation that we have no idea how to handle.”
“Oh, I know how to handle it, Bailey. Make no mistake about it, I know how to handle this situation,” he said with a glance over his shoulder.
“Everything in life is not a military assignment. You can’t just plan a strategic strike and then lie in wait until it’s time to take action. That’s not how this works.”
“It’s how my life works,” he told her. “It’s always how my life has worked.”
He started walking, heading for the door. Bailey almost let him leave. She was tired, physically and mentally, and dammit she was not in the habit of begging. But something deep inside her warned that if he walked out that door in the next few moments that she’d never see him again. That thought was just too much for her sensible mind to contend with. She didn’t want him to leave. It was that simple, and she guessed, for Devlin, that difficult.
She took hurried steps to meet him at the door the moment he put his hand on the knob. Bailey touched his arm. She let her fingers splay over the hard bicep and then clenched tight to show him how serious she was.
“Don’t go,” she whispered. “Please, Devlin. Don’t go.”
“If this is what you want, it has to be my way,” Dev said the moment they were in her bedroom.
They’d gone through the downstairs one more time, making sure everything was locked down tightly. That silly bird had followed them upstairs, but Dev hadn’t seen her come into the bedroom. He was alone with Bailey now. She’d switched on a lamp from her bedside table and he’d taken a seat on the edge of her queen-size bed.
When she came to stand in front of him he saw that she’d removed the sweater she had put on earlier so that now all she wore was a thin white t-shirt, still tucked neatly into her jeans. The shirt was so thin Dev could easily see the lines of the beige bra she wore. He loved the way her bras cupped her breasts until they were high and just spilling over the top of the material, just as they did when he palmed them. Her hair was hanging loose around her face and she tucked her thumbs in the belt loops of her pants as she tilted her head and looked down at him.
“Tell me what you want then,” she said, her voice already taking on that thick husky tone he loved hearing when they were having sex.
“I want you on your knees,” Dev said without hesitation, the scene appearing clearly and concisely in his mind. He’d dreamt it so many times, there wasn’t one detail he couldn’t explain, or one sensation he could ignore.
“Naked and on your knees in front of me,” he continued.
His hands were sitting still on his thighs, his legs slightly spread. He looked at her, his gaze holding hers. She was listening.
“I’ll touch your hair first. It’s soft and smells like fresh rain. Then your shoulders, they’re strong and yet the skin is irresistibly smooth. I’ll want your neck then, the long line of you against the palm of my hand. My mouth wants to go there too, but I’ll resist. Sometimes it’s better when you have to resist.”
Dev licked his lips then and took a deep breath, releasing it in measured intervals. Bailey’s breathing had increased, her chest was rising and falling faster. She licked her lips too and he had to resist the urge to stand up and kiss her right at this moment. What had he just said about resisting being better?
“Take off your shirt,” he told her and only had to wait a couple of seconds before she acquiesced.
Her long narrow fingers pulled the material from the ban of her jeans. She lifted the shirt up and pulled it over her head, tossing it to the floor when she was done.
“The bra,” he said. “I like when you wear dark colored bras. The contrasting colors against your skin is arousing.”
Not that the beige wasn’t sexy with its lace trim, but that wasn’t what had appeared in his dream.
She reached around to unsnap the clasp and then the bra was falling down her arms. Her breasts were bare and full. Her nipples dark and already hardening beneath his perusal. She knew he liked what he saw. She knew it and she used it. Dev swallowed hard when she lifted her hands to her nipples, squeezing them tightly between her fingers.
“What else?” she asked.
It sounded like a dare and Dev’s erection pressed painfully against the zipper of his jeans.
“Take it all off,” he told her then.
He was reaching for the button on his own jeans before she’d touched hers. He pulled the zipper down, releasing his burgeoning arousal and holding in the moan of relief.
When she was naked, her hips splaying to the rounded globes of her ass Dev dragged a hand down the back of his head as he told her to, “Turn around.”
She did, slowly and Dev removed his shirt.
She had long legs and thick thighs. He loved her thighs and clenched his fingers at the thought of feeling their softness against his palms very soon.
“Come here,” he said next.
She paused with her back partially turned to him. One sultry look over her shoulder was all it took for Dev to say the hell with resisting at this point. He groaned, “Now,” and had already stood up to remove his boots, jeans and boxers. He grabbed a condom from his wallet and dropped it on the bed.
Bailey hadn’t moved from the spot where she stood, but continued to stare at him.
“On your knees,” he insisted when he was naked. “I want you right here in front of me and on your knees.”
There was a slight movement of her head before she turned and walked toward him. His mouth watered as his gaze dropped to between her legs. Tight curls covered the V of her juncture and desire punched him deep and hard in the gut, until, for the first time in his life, Dev was breathless. As if recognizing that moment of weakness, Bailey’s palms flattened on Dev’s chest. With a littl
e force she pushed him back onto the bed where he fell all the way back. Before he could say a word Bailey had straddled him.
“Your plan sounds good,” she whispered as she reached between them, wrapping her fingers around his length. “But I’ve got an even better idea.”
She continued to move her hand up and down his shaft until Dev couldn’t wait another second, he cupped her breasts and panted beneath her seductive ministrations.
“This is not right,” he mumbled.
“You’re correct,” she said and moved down until his hands had no choice but to release her.
“Is this better?” she asked just before touching the tip of his length with her tongue.
Dev sucked in a breath at that moment. He closed his eyes and saw nothing but exploding lights, as if there were some type of celebration going on in his mind. She circled his tip with the moist heat from her mouth and every muscle in his body tensed. His fingers were immediately in her hair, pulling it back so that he could look down and see her mouth on him. She moved slowly at first, taking him in inch by excruciatingly good inch. The skin on her fingers was lighter than his. The contrast in their complexions nothing in comparison to their backgrounds and personalities. This wasn’t supposed to work. They weren’t supposed to be this compatible, on any level. She’d already been hurt by a man before. Dev was being a total ass by setting her up for a similar outcome again.
Even with that thought, his hands tightened in her hair as Dev began to guide her. She took him in, and let him out, the heat of her mouth stroking every pleasure spot in his body. He needed more, now. When he attempted to sit up and readjust them, Bailey released him with a loud plopping sound.
“No,” she told him and pushed back on his shoulders once more. “My house, my way.”
She was straddling him again, reaching for the condom packet on the bed. Ripping the foil she released the latex and smoothed it down over his length. In seconds, she was guiding herself down over his thick erection. He closed his eyes to the pleasure, and to something else he couldn’t quite explain. When she was fully ensconced she whispered, “Look at me, Devlin.”
He opened his eyes to stare up at her. She lifted his hands then and placed them on her breasts.
“I want you to watch me make love to you. Touch me as I move. Feel me as I give you everything I have.”
No! His mind screamed at her words. This is not how it’s supposed to be. Yet he let himself enjoy the feel of her breasts. He kept his eyes trained on her as she began to move. Her hips circled. She lifted slightly, came down softly. And repeat. Dev moved his hips to match her rhythm. She was all over him at this point. Looking like a goddess with her wild curls and sensuous body, he was convinced she had to be ethereal. Was this the dream again? Had it changed?
Yes and no, Dev thought as Bailey moaned and whispered his name.
This wasn’t the dream, but things had definitely changed. He’d known it the moment he whisked her off to New York that he was treading on a new playing field. Each time he touched her after that, whenever he watched her when she slept and worried about her when she was out of his sight, he knew. It was too late now. He couldn’t pull out of her and even if he could physically, she was embedded deep in a part of his soul that he’d never wanted occupied.
She arched back, her hands flattening on his thighs, her knees on the side of his hips and she pumped. Up and down, his length slid in and out of her, the blood pounding deeper in his head, his chest continuously tightening with emotions that swirled through him like a vicious storm.
“This is what I want, Devlin,” she told him through panting breaths. “This right here. This with you.”
Hell, he wanted it to. He wanted this and so much more, but Dev didn’t have the words to express that. His hands moved down her torso, until his fingers slipped between the slit of her juncture. She was very wet and when he found that tight little bud he declared, “It’s you. I should have known it was going to be you.”
He circled her clit until Bailey was trembling over him, her gasps and moans coming louder, her honeyed walls gripping his length tighter. When her nails dug into the skin of his thighs Dev knew she was coming, he knew she was doing exactly what she’d told him she would do—she was giving him everything she had. And he took it. Greedily, hungrily, he took every spasm and every groan of delight and when she would have fallen over him in her rapture, Dev moved quickly. He turned her over and lifted her legs until her ankles were locked behind his back.
He entered her with one quick thrust and didn’t hold back an ounce of his need for her. Going deep and fast he moved over her in what felt like a race against his desires and his feelings. There was only supposed to be sex. That’s what he’d told himself that night at Savian’s wedding. They were quenching that thirst and he’d warned her. Damn, he’d warned her so many times. It was too late now, he thought as his arms began to shake. She’d grabbed his arms and was asking for, “More, Devlin! Yes, more!”
Dev was giving it to her. He shouldn’t be because it was dangerous. For both of them. But he did. He couldn’t stop. Even when his release pulsated into the condom, Dev continued pumping. He pulled her up in his arms and hugged her tightly to him as he emptied himself.
He gave her all he had. Everything.
And he fell. Hard and completely, Dev knew at this very moment that he had inexplicably fallen for a Donovan.
Chapter 13
Bailey’s first inclination had been to sit on the side of the bed and cry. The whole “why me” theme floated around in her mind for all of ten seconds, before her true personality kicked in and she cursed instead.
Devlin was gone.
It had been just after eight in the morning when she finally awoke. She’d slept like a baby last night. Literally and figuratively, since her last memory of the night was when Devlin held her securely in his arms. The warmth and comfort had been almost overwhelming, but welcomed at the same time. She’d snuggled closer, absolutely loving the moment when he kissed the top of her head and whispered her name. There’d been something in his tone when he’d said it, something that made her feel like he was giving in. They were both finally giving in to what was really going on between them.
While they had not had a traditional dating scenario going on this last year, they were definitely becoming more emotionally entangled with each other, every time they slept together. Maybe that was because of the turmoil that was surrounding her family. Or maybe, they were entitled to the unconventional considering that neither of them were what people thought they should be.
Whatever the case, Bailey knew that moment he’d walked into that room in the cabin that everything had changed for her. She’d known someone would come for her. Each day she’d thought that someone would be Trent because she’d convinced herself that what was between her and Devlin was on a casual level. There’d never been a guy that Bailey had wanted to take home to meet her family and Devlin certainly wasn’t the one. Considering her family had already met him, actually made the fact that she’d started sleeping with him a little more precarious. The bottom line was that Bailey had never considered this a real relationship, not until she’d almost lost it all.
Devlin, apparently still did not consider what they were doing real. Or rather, Bailey thought, after straightening the sheets on her bed and heading to the bathroom, he was feeling everything she was, yet he still chose denial. Well, just as she’d thought last night that she wasn’t in the habit of begging, Bailey didn’t think she should have to convince this man that she was a good catch. With that in mind she headed into the shower, letting the very warm water run over her face and down her body. She bathed with her favorite jasmine scented soap and switched the settings on her shower head to massage her tired muscles. She did not think of Devlin while she was in the shower, but instead considered what she was going to fix herself for breakfast and the joy of hearing her father’s voice when he realized she was calling from her own home in Connecticut.
&nb
sp; Still, once she was dressed and had unpacked the duffel bag she’d grabbed The Beast stuffed animal and her laptop and headed downstairs. Propping The Beast up on one end of the sofa she moved into the kitchen and immediately picked up her canary yellow tea pot and filled it with water. Peaches made her good morning visit by flying into the kitchen and resting on the island while Bailey made a cup of tea. Her mother said tea was calming and should be enjoyed whenever someone was stressed. Well, considering the year she’d been through, Bailey figured she should have stock in a tea company by now.
Instead she hummed while she scooped fresh peppermint tea into the strainer in her mixer. When the water boiled she poured it into the mixer and stood there inhaling the invigorating scent of tea brewing. About two minutes later she was pouring the tea from the mixer to her mug and squeezing in a few drops of honey before taking the mug into the living room and sitting on the couch. She took one quick sip of the very hot tea before setting the mug on the coffee table. Then she was opening her laptop and booting it up. Bypassing her email Bailey did her first preliminary search for the name DEVLIN EDWARD BONNER.
Trent and Devlin thought they were the only ones that could perform background checks. Well, they were wrong. She’d never thought to do one before, probably because she believed people deserved their privacy, at least until they did something that warranted her invading it. Well, Devlin had slept with her, he’d made her fall for him and then he’d up and run away. She’d say that was more than enough to justify this search, and she wasn’t going to think any differently.
A half hour and an empty mug later, Bailey had started a document for her notes and was waiting for a reply email from Jamie Sower, one of her friends from the police academy who now worked at the Pentagon, when there was a loud knock on her door. Her fingers stilled on the keyboard, and her gaze went immediately to Peaches who came flying wildly into the living room, banging into her cage as if she suspected this visitor wasn’t a friendly one. With that and everything else that had been going on in mind, Bailey moved her laptop to sit on the couch right next to The Beast. She got up slowly and moved with her sock covered feet over the hard wood floors to the coat closet.