Forcing his stubborn male body to stand down, Seth offered Devereaux his hand. She grabbed hold, her fingers tight around his forearm instead of his palm as he’d expected. He gripped her arm accordingly. With an easy tug she cleared the boat, grinning when she landed off balance and one feminine palm made solid contact in the center of his chest.
And damn. Standing there looking up at him with the breeze whipping at her skirt, Devereaux was as slight as a water nymph, as ethereal as a goddess, and he had no business thinking what he was thinking. Everything ground to a halt. The planet. The waves lapping at the dock. His heart.
“Thanks for helping me tonight,” she whispered, those fluttering fingertips echoing the pounding beat in his veins. For two cents he’d thread his fingers into her hair, pull her to his mouth, and kiss her.
“Night’s not over,” he reminded hoarsely, more to keep his mind on track than to warn her. They still had a short walk to her place, or so she’d said, and he wanted every last step of that walk with her. A tiny thing like Devereaux wasn’t safe alone on this island or in this world, not at this time of night.
“’S okay,” she murmured, her eyes gone dark and hooded, her lips pursed and moist and begging for a kiss. What was it about this woman that made saying goodbye to her not only difficult, but impossible?
Seth drew her into his arms. Devereaux turned her head and nestled under his chin, her ear over his heart. Unable to stop, Seth dipped his nose to the top of her heard, breathing her scent into his soul.
His love for Katelynn cried out, ‘What are you doing?’
Inhaling deeply, Seth answered honestly, ’Living. I’m just… living.’
Chapter Six
Dev lifted her cheek from the masculine comfort of Seth’s warm chest. He towered over her, but never had she felt more protected than here in his shadow. The universe seemed to have conspired against her, melting her resolve to be a smarter woman for a change and keep this handsome guy at bay.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, begging again for something she had no right to expect from a stranger. Knowing his name made him no more a friend than the next guy she’d pass on the street, but could she tear herself away from this haven of masculine tenderness? Did she want to? Not. Yet.
He cocked his head and looked down into her eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed—just once—before he closed the distance. One big palm shifted to the nape of her neck as he covered her mouth with an oh, so tentative kiss.
Moaning from the sensual taste of aftershave mingled with whiskey, she let her tongue dance over his sealed lips. Not once did he squeeze her too tight or mold her to do his will. Not once did he push his body or his mouth at her. If anything, Seth was too nice. Too good. Until the barest manly groan rumbled against her breasts, inciting her nipples. Then Dev was in it to win it. Narrowing the tip of her tongue, she pressed it against those sealed tight lips. Playfully. But earnestly. This man needed a good hard kiss, and she meant to give it to him.
Clutching the back of his neck with both hands, she pulled him down to her level and leapt off the dock, wrapping her legs around his hips, matching her core to his belly. Surely he couldn’t resist now. As if in answer, his palms cupped her ass, his fingers clenching both cheeks. Kneading her backside. Her libido soared.
Delirious with need, she kept up the assault on his lips until—at last—she breached his defenses. Just as she delved into the warm recesses of his mouth… Just as he groaned deliciously loud… She found her back pressed against one of the pier’s uprights, and Seth’s impressive erection against her belly. Sliding one hand over his belly to his shorts, she stroked him with the flat of her palm, impressed at the size and the heat of this man.
“Not here,” he growled and that made her smile.
“Where then?”
“Who’s watching Scottie?”
She liked that about Seth. He called her son by his given name instead of calling him ‘the kid’ or something just as impersonal. “My girlfriend’s watching him.”
“Damn,” Seth mumbled around her lips and tongue, one hand in her hair now, holding her head in place. “Guess your place won’t work then.”
Breathing hard, she mashed her mouth to his, needing his air and every last inch of his rugged male body inside hers. “Boathouse,” she mumbled. “I have a key.”
Seth took instructions well. With long strides, he cut the distance to Molly’s Boathouse. After Devereaux fumbled the lock and nearly dropped the lanyard that held both of her keys, she managed to unlock the building. Hurriedly, he toed one of the barn-style doors open and ducked inside, bumping it shut with his hip. Soft lights glowed from one end of the boathouse to the other, bathing the placidly bobbing watercraft in dim, golden light.
Shivering with anticipation, she rubbed her nose into the hollow of Seth’s neck like a cat with her very own catnip-man. The salt and the sea had never smelled so good as it did on his skin. Her senses flared, searching after every last atom of him.
He set her carefully on the padded storage bench that ran the inside wall of the boathouse, the perfect place for what Devereaux hoped happened next. Yet when Seth scooped her legs to the side instead of kneeling between them, when he sank to the bench and dragged her onto his lap instead of shoving her skirt over her hips, Devereaux’s libido calmed. He wasn’t as out of control as he needed to be. What was up with this guy?
“You taste good,” he breathed as his tongue tangled with hers.
Arching into him, Devereaux gave Seth all he was willing to take, which seemed to be nothing more than kissing and heavy petting at the moment. His right hand now palmed her breast, his thumb strumming her nipple into a tight little diamond hard knot of hurry-up-and-kiss-me-now. But even that was done over her blouse and bra, not skin to skin. Except for her lips, he had yet to touch her like other men had. There was no groping or tearing of clothes. No sweating. No grinding against her like he had something to prove.
Aching for what she knew he could do to her, Dev rubbed her body against Seth, filling his hand with her breast and urging him to get down to business. She was no child and he was definitely all male. What would a little harmless sex hurt?
“No,” hissed out around his busy lips. “I’m not what you need.”
“Yes, you are,” she told him, biting his bottom lip to prove she knew what she wanted. “You’re exactly what I need.” Right here. Right now.
“Devereaux…” he breathed.
Darn it! Seth needed to get with the program! Wiggling to face him, she lifted one knee over his lap and straddled his hips. Her skirt rolled up to her hips, offering him a look if he wanted to take it. There, now. Much better.
His dark, mercurial gaze drifted down her centerline to the dampening cleft between her legs and, ah. His throaty groan was music to her ears. Drenched and hungry for this timid guy, Dev launched a full-frontal assault, grinding her pelvic muscles up and down that fine rock-solid bone in his boat shorts. How on Earth could this big guy resist her now?
“I can’t,” he growled, his hips still telling her oh, yes he could.
“Why not?” she asked petulantly and annoyed to her toes. Obviously, he had no ED issues, and he certainly wasn’t gay. What else could there—?
“Shit,” she hissed, shoving to her feet, and fighting mad that he’d tugged her skirt off her ass. “You’re married! You’ve got a wife back home and you… you’re…” She covered her face with both hands, so damned sick of lying, cheating men.
“No!” Seth was on his feet. “It’s not like that. I’m engaged only—”
“Jesus Christ!” She punched that big broad chest she’d just been seducing and let him have it. “One step away from the altar, and you’re cheating on your future bride? You ass! How could you do this to me? To her!”
“I don’t cheat,” he said sternly, the anguish in his tone palpable. He reached for his forehead, scratching his left brow, the one with the scars running through it like a hashtag
. “It’s not like that.”
Palms to her hips, Devereaux stood her ground. “You know what? I don’t care what your noble excuse for cheating with me on your girlfriend is. Stay the hell away from me. I don’t need the drama.”
“Dev,” he coaxed, his voice soft against the quiet sounds in the boathouse.
“No!” she screamed, stamping her bare feet to the dock, her eyes brimmed with tears that she refused to let fall. Not for this guy. The high and mighty Seth McCray wasn’t worth her regret. She bit her lip and turned on him with one parting shot. “Go to hell, McCray. I was wrong about you. You’re nothing like your uncle. God! Why do I always go for all the wrong men?”
Stomping to the double door, she flung it open and ran into the night. All men were bastards. They used, and they abused. They lied, and they cheated. By the time she cleared the end of the dock, she could hardly see through the torrent that her bitter reality had let loose in her foolish heart. She’d almost fallen for this guy. This creep! Worse, she’d been ready to give him everything. Like a slut, a desperate, needy slut. She sucked in a sob. How desperate am I? Well, no more! From now on, I’m celibate. Like the “Flying Nun!”
To make everything worse, she heard his footsteps on her trail. Damn it, Seth. Why couldn’t you be a good guy like your uncle? Why couldn’t you take the hint and leave me alone?
Furious and bawling her eyes out now, she curled her fingers into tight fists and whirled on the loser of all losers. Engaged! The asshat was engaged! “Leave me alone!” she yelled, blinking to see the idiot lurking in the shadows like the coward he was!
He stepped into the light. Only it wasn’t Seth. Sylvester Valentine sneered at her. “Not going to happen, Baby Doll. I get what I want, and now you’re mine.”
Chapter Seven
It’s complicated.
Seth closed the boathouse door and turned the knob to lock it. For the rest of his life, he had to be that better man. He’d follow Devereaux at a safe distance and he’d give her space, but he wasn’t letting her go it alone, not at this time of night. He’d make sure she got home safe and then? He’d head for Uncle George’s island. George moored a boat somewhere close by. Seth just had to find it. Along with his pride.
He’d hurt Devereaux’s feelings without meaning to, but she’d given him no chance to explain. He wasn’t a cheater, at least not in the typical sense. If anything, he was loyal to a ridiculous fault. Fact was that his heart hurt, both for the woman he could never hold again and for the one he’d let get away. For Katelynn and for Devereaux. What kind of two-timing loser was he?
Devereaux was right to be angry. In a way, he was a cheater, yet he wasn’t at the same time. For years he’d idolized his fiancée. Put Katelynn on a pedestal. That was just the way he was made. A one-woman man to his core, he’d been ever faithful to the love of his life. Yet he’d known to his soul that something critically important was missing in his life during the long years after she’d died. It wasn’t just her physical presence or the way her soft green eyes used to light up with love when she’d look his way. It wasn’t that he’d never hear her breathy voice on the other end of the phone.
Nah. It was more than the fact that he wasn’t just grieving. He was damned near mentally ill, and he knew it. If anything, he’d embraced grief as a lifelong friend instead of a challenge to overcome. Instead of grief counseling, he’d chosen mind-numbing alcohol to deaden the pain in his broken heart. It worked. He’d numbed his heart all right, but in choosing that course of action, he’d also pushed everyone away, including his parents. He’d withdrawn because, well, hell. Losing Katelynn hurt, and he never wanted to feel that kind of bad again.
But the feisty woman marching away from him was alive and vibrant. Maybe a little headstrong and foolish, but a flesh and blood woman with needs and wants. She’d made him feel something he hadn’t felt in years. She needed him. He could tell, but what’d he do? Revert into a moron the moment things got too hot to handle. And Devereaux was hot. He could still taste her lips. If she’d let him, he wanted to taste a lot more.
Seth quickened his steps. A man shouldn’t waste away, pining for a ghost he could never have, while the world went on without him, damn it. That was what he’d been doing. Pining. Dying a little more each day. Drinking alone and crying in his beer, wine, whiskey—whatever—like a pansy-assed fool. Being stupid and turning himself into a martyr.
For the first time, Seth weighed his loss against others and found himself wanting in the buck-up department. His best buddy Eric had lost his only child, a daughter. Had he quit living and giving back? Hell, no.
Seth’s boss Alex had lost a young daughter, too. Kelsey, his pretty wife had lost both of her sons before she’d met Alex. Yet all three had managed to get on with their lives. They weren’t drunks and losers. They were valiant, that was what they were. They were brave. Courageous in the face of incredible personal loss. In Kelsey’s case, she’d overcome the brutal murder of her children and became the face behind the movement in the District that helped get street kids into warm shelters. Had she given up and wallowed in her beer? Another hell, no.
‘Stop being a damned crybaby, McCray.’ Alex Stewart’s precise words had he been there. ‘Course, he would’ve peppered that order with a few colorful expletives. Might even toss a chair out his window to emphasize his point. Seth knew it to his soul. The poor me shit had to stop.
But how did a man put what he’d thought was his one eternal love on hold long enough to make a meaningful course correction back to the real world? How did one renege on the everlasting vows made in the reverent wintery woods behind his parents’ house on a still December night?
The moment he’d given Katelynn the diamond ring still called to Seth. It might sound crazy, but they’d loved each other since grade school. Even as a young man of only seventeen, he’d believed their love could transcend the last bitter, empty years of life when one spouse passed away before the other. That it was strong enough to reach through time and space, binding them to each other for eternity. All he’d known how to do was to honor Katelynn until his dying breath.
Until Devereaux showed up.
“I still love you,” he told his dearly departed, even as he trailed after another woman he couldn’t resist. Didn’t that make him a total bonehead, the prize of his heart in one hand, while he chased after another? “I always will, Kate. I don’t know how to do anything else. Only…” Dare he say it? “I’m lonely, sweetheart. I miss you every day, but I’m dying here without you. I can’t live alone like this day after day. This isn’t living, it’s....” It’s Hell, one damned long, winding road into Hell.
His gaze dropped to the weathered planks leading him onward and into temptation. “I’m worthless without you, and I hate feeling this way, like I’m cheating on you. I’m sorry if I let you down tonight, but…” As Mom would say, rip it off like a Band-Aid. Get it out in the open. Spit it out. “I have to move on.”
Instead of ghostly cries of protest like Latoya would’ve shrilled, Seth’s ears picked up the soft shuffle of heavy shoes on the dock ahead of him, punctuated by the quiet slap of bare feet. He quickened his steps in time to see some guy following Devereaux. Around two-fifty in weight, maybe five-nine in height, the guy ran a hand over the slicked black hair streaming down his neck and over his shoulders. Petting himself.
Seth caught the last of the guy’s taunt. “…happen, Baby Doll. I get what I want, and now you’re mine.”
We’ll see about that. “Devereaux! There you are,” Seth called out, loud and clear. “Wait up!”
Already turned around and now facing both men, she looked like a deer caught in a hunter’s crosshairs. Devereaux’s gaze skated between Seth and the stranger between them. Her eyes were wide, and her chin was up. She’d already canted her body to the side and braced her feet. Damn, the little thing’s fists were clenched. She was frightened, but she meant to fight this creep.
Or she means to fight me.
>
Seth brooked no argument, just hurried past the intruder and straight to her side. She might not like him at the moment, but there was no way he’d let her face this jerk alone. Planting a hurried kiss to her temple, he wrapped one arm around her waist and flattened her to his hip and thigh, keeping a sharp eye on the intruder. “Thought we were going to your place, hon?” he asked her sincerely. “Told you I’d just be a minute. Why didn’t you wait?”
Tension coiled in her body. The poor thing trembled like a reed in the wind, but he caught her sharp intake of breath. “Um, yeah,” she said, following his lead. One sweaty, twitchy palm settled at the center of his chest as she turned into him, molding her body to his. “It’s about time you caught up. Thought I’d lost you for a minute there.”
“Not happening.” Seth gave the stranger his chin. “Anything I can do for you, buddy?”
Dark, shrewd eyes scanned Seth from the dock up, but the guy was smart enough to keep his distance. He must only bully women and children. Smaller things that couldn’t fight back.
“Nothing tonight, but thanks for the offer,” he replied, his tone as smooth as twenty weight oil on a steaming pile of shit. “Baby Doll and I go way back. Just looking out for my talent.”
“I’m not your talent,” she corrected, swallowing hard enough that Seth could hear the gulp. “And stop with the Baby Doll crap, Sly. Take a hike. I’ve told you no, and I mean it. I won’t work for you, not this week. Not next. Not ever.” She ended with one short stamp of her bare foot.
Figures. Sly Valentine. The creep who thought he was tough because he owned a few bars. The guy muscling her to work—probably on her back—for him. So not happening.
Seth extended a hand to said douche bag but kept his tone low and sharp enough to cut nails. Devereaux had backup now. Valentine needed to understand that, here and now. “Name’s Seth McCray, Valentine. Former Army Sergeant Seth McCray. I’ve heard about you. Good to finally meet the guy who’s been looking out for my Devereaux.” It felt damned good saying those two words. Saying it out loud made it seem real and right. My Devereaux.
Seth (In the Company of Snipers Book 17) Page 6