Downtown Devil: Book 2 in series (Sins in the City)

by Cara McKenna

  He liked thrills, liked that edge. Liked the high he got when he sensed that someone wanted him, and the anticipation of unwrapping an encounter. He liked figuring out where a person’s boundaries were, then leading them just beyond them. After all, there was nothing in life quite so suffocating as the familiar.

  Vaughn’s familiar.

  The man was one of a very few people Mica kept in touch with, year after year. And why, he couldn’t say. Normally, the better someone knew him, the harder he pushed them away.

  Could it be that you don’t like yourself? That you’re worried that if you let anyone get to know you too well, they won’t like what they find? That they’ll leave you first?

  Fuck you, Dr. Schelling.

  She was the shrink Mica had been forced to see when he’d been in high school, in exchange for getting a juvenile offense dismissed. Six sessions he’d sat through. Six hours of being lectured about self-esteem and abandonment issues by someone who knew him from a folder full of social workers’ notes. Like he was too stupid to know what his fucking problems were.

  Why do you think it is that you’re so disposed to taking risks, Mica?

  He hadn’t said, Because when I was three my foster parents tied me to a high chair for hours at a time while they went to work. So he wouldn’t get hurt or break anything.

  Because sitting in a wet diaper all morning, with dry cereal for food and a view of the peeling wallpaper for entertainment didn’t fucking hurt. Because being just old enough to know your real parents were out there but didn’t want you, wouldn’t come and rescue you, didn’t hurt.

  Try that. Try being tied to a chair or locked in a closet and see how eager you are to sit still and behave. See if you don’t try to punch a teacher for holding you by both your arms. See if you don’t want to run every fucking chance you get.

  But that was all just boo-hoo bullshit sad-sack crap, so he’d never said those things. He’d shrugged and told the doctor, I’m bored.

  Bored, sure. Bored just happened to snap him right back to those ugly, tedious, neglectful years, had him feeling tied up and locked away and forgotten, so yeah, he’d do just about anything to escape that sensation. Run when you feel trapped, turn away when a friend or a job or a lover began to feel too familiar, like that wallpaper. Get the hell out of there, go see something you’ve never seen. Move your body up a cliff face or fuck somebody new. Do anything but sit still, see anything you haven’t seen before. Taste anything other than the same stale Cheerios and warm water from yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Taste everything. Drink it down. Drown in it.

  A shrink’s couch was just another chair they roped you to for an hour at a time. Her face had been just another patch of peeling wallpaper, her voice the din of passing cars and arguing people out on Somerset Drive. Fuck her, thinking he didn’t know what his own goddamn issues were—

  His phone buzzed in his pocket and he checked the screen, expecting Clare. Nope—different girl. Amanda. He’d met her at the café the day before.

  I’m down for that drink tonight if you are, she’d written.

  Too easy. She was cute, and if he didn’t already have plans, he’d have said sure, met her at a bar, taken her home, had some fun. But nothing was trumping round two with Clare and Vaughn.

  Not tonight, he wrote, maybe this weekend. I’ll call you.

  Or perhaps he wouldn’t. It depended on what came his way in the meantime, and indeed if he’d even remember he’d said that tomorrow.

  He turned his phone off and hit the shower, changed into clean clothes. Clare would be here in twenty minutes or so. She still felt new, even after two encounters. She still wanted him, and still hadn’t figured him out. She looked at him with wonder and lust and just a little misgiving, and she didn’t know him, not really. He liked being looked at but not seen.

  Vaughn sees me. And yet Mica kept him close. Why? Who the fuck could say? Because he trusted the guy, maybe. With his life on those trips. And he trusted Vaughn to know him without trying to change him, fix him.

  Mica had known he was bi for about as long as he’d known what sex was. He’d wanted guys the way he’d wanted girls, but also not. He might not be the most romantically available person, but what he felt for women was still deeper than with men. With women, there was a connection he wanted, albeit briefly, that he didn’t want from men. Men were easy. Men were filthy, and he liked filthy. You want to get laid, just find a guy and you were there. Girls required more effort, and if you needed that softer presence, the effort was worth it. But if all you wanted on a given night was to get off, men were the way to go.

  Mica had never hooked up with the same man more than twice, with the exception of Vaughn. None had ever held his attention, sexually, as his friend did, either. Maybe it was the fact that, like a woman, Vaughn wasn’t easy. Hell, he was straight. He was a challenge, and Mica did love a challenge, after all.

  He’d also never had anyone be so many things to him, the way Vaughn was. No one had ever made him feel so many ways, not any other man or woman. Mica envied his friend. Envied his family and his childhood, how together he was. Sure, the man’s mom was dead, but at least she’d been good to him for as long as she’d been there. At least she’d left him with memories, not a load of question marks, a half ton of tiresome baggage. He also envied Vaughn’s ability to settle in one place and make a home of it, not to panic and bolt the second the walls felt too familiar. Mica wanted his best friend, as much as he’d ever wanted any other man or woman, way down in his guts and bones and blood.

  He admired Vaughn even as he occasionally resented him. The guy could do things so effortlessly, things that struck Mica as all but impossible. Make promises, keep dates, get to work on time, focus for longer than ten fucking minutes when he needed to.

  Mica hated his own head. The thing was full of chaos, too many voices, too much music, so much static. His skull felt like a massive subway platform on a bad day, all noise and momentum, everything . . . scattered. Sometimes he broke dates because he was a shit, sure, but more often than that he broke dates because he just fucking forgot. Some days his brain felt more like a junk drawer than a subway station—good luck finding anything in there. Vaughn’s brain must look like a toolbox, with all the different parts in the right compartments. Promises in this slot, schedules in that one; ethics in this tray, emotions over in this one.

  But I can make a mess of him.

  Maybe that was the crux of it. When things turned dirty between them—out in the desert or just down the hall, the other night—Mica could take the most together man of his peer group and leave him uncertain, confused, wanting things he normally wouldn’t, questioning himself.

  Vaughn had already been a man when they’d met. He’d been one of those rare teenagers who looked older, talked older, knew better. But Mica could change all that, leave him panting; pleading with his body, if not his words. For those brief, fiery minutes, he was the cool, controlled one, and Vaughn the one drowning in scary emotions. That kept him wanting his friend. That power, coupled with the history and the trust. Something a little dark and fucked was always at play when Mica and sex overlapped, but it was the healthiest relationship in his life.

  He knows me, Mica thought, snapping his leather cuff at his wrist, toweling his damp dreads before the closet’s full-length mirror. But I know him right back.

  He knew what Vaughn thought he wanted, and also what he actually wanted, deep down beyond his identity let him peer. Vaughn was in the kitchen or the living room right now, telling himself he was deciding where to go once Clare got here. Where to vacate to, because he wasn’t joining them again. But Mica knew him better than he knew himself.

  “He’ll stay,” he told his reflection. He knew that, sure as he’d known Clare would say yes when he’d called. He knew what he did to people. Knew that where sex was involved, he pulled all the strings.

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nbsp; And Vaughn wasn’t going anyplace tonight, aside from down the hall with the two of them.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Clare blew out a long breath in the little foyer, smoothed her hair back, and rang Mica and Vaughn’s bell. She knew better now than to wait for the intercom. She held the door handle and hauled it open when the lock buzzed.

  She looked cute—a short green cotton dress cinched with a thin leather belt, her Toms again, a cardigan to combat the night’s mild chill. She’d come prepared, as well, with a toothbrush and a few toiletries in her bag, makeup, and a change of clothes for work the next morning.

  Would she ever get to a point with Mica where she held a spot in the toothbrush caddy at their place? A little sliver of real estate in his dresser? Unlikely, she thought as she hiked up the stairs to their floor. That was boyfriend-girlfriend territory, and even if he wasn’t as flighty as he appeared to be, he was gone by the close of summer.

  The door was ajar and she let herself in, finding Mica at the counter, his back to her. A gorgeous back, she thought anew—long and lean, his shoulder blades and elegant muscles hugged by a sage-colored T-shirt.

  “Hey,” she said, shutting the door.

  He turned, a bottle of wine and corkscrew in his hands. “Hey, yourself.” His smile was warm and mischievous, and those qualities blossomed in her body in response.

  No Vaughn? she wanted to ask. Except just then, a door opened down the hall, emitting the whir of the bathroom fan, then the man himself. He disappeared into his room.

  He just showered, she thought. Was it narcissistic—or perhaps merely hopeful—to wonder if it was for her benefit?

  When Clare looked back to Mica, that smile seemed sharper. He’d watched her watching Vaughn. God knew what her expression had been saying. Had she looked nervous? Curious? Downright hungry?

  “Red?” she asked, turning her attention to the bottle.

  “That okay? You said you’ll drink either.”

  “Perfect.” And if she’d soon be tasting merlot or cabernet on Mica’s tongue as they kissed, it’d likely change her preference for good.

  “How was your day?” she asked.

  Mica shrugged. “Nothing to write home about.” He filled two glasses and lifted one. “Here’s hoping the night’ll make up for it.”

  She claimed the other glass and drank when he did. A nice wine. Warm, dark. Dry and earthy.

  “Only the two glasses?” she asked, keeping her voice low and glancing in the direction of Vaughn’s room.

  “He doesn’t drink wine.”

  “Ah.”

  “He also doesn’t think he’s sticking around tonight.”

  She frowned, surprised to discover it was disappointment she felt at that, not the relief she might have expected. It was the edge Mica brought to things that she wanted, the adventure another night with him promised, and another threesome was nothing if not adventurous. She’d be happy enough if it was just the two of them, but she couldn’t deny that yes, she did want them again, together. “Shame.”

  He held her stare with a pointed look, eyebrows rising. “Maybe the invitation would be more enticing coming from you.”

  “Oh. Well, what did you say to him, exactly?”

  “That you were coming over. That he ought to join us.”

  “And he said . . . ?”

  “That it was a one-time deal, for him.”

  “If that’s true, we ought to respect it.”

  “He wants what we do. Trust me, I know him. I can read him. He just needs to hear it from you.”

  Which would require her to speak the truth aloud, tell a near stranger that, yes, she did want to be with both him and his best friend, again. It was so much easier when Mica stole the reins, steered everyone directly where he wanted them all. But for the sake of another night like that first one . . . ?

  “I’ll try,” she said. And if she failed, she got Mica all to herself. Not exactly a tragedy.

  Mica took her glass, smiling. “Good girl.”

  She went warm at those familiar words, like she’d gulped an extra dose of wine. Some liquid courage wouldn’t go astray, in fact, but she mustered the balls to walk down the hall and knock on Vaughn’s door.

  “Yeah,” came his reply, and Clare pushed the door in. He was stuffing jeans into a laundry bag by his closet.

  “It’s me,” she said.

  That got his attention. He stood up and turned straight to face her. “Clare. Hey. Mica said you were coming over.”

  “And he said you’re heading out someplace . . . ?”

  “I thought I might swing by the bar, see who’s around, or maybe see what my dad’s up to. Give you guys some space.” He regarded her subtly, just for a moment.

  She leaned against the doorjamb and replied quietly, “That’s too bad.”

  Vaughn swallowed. “I figured last time was . . . you know. Just a one-time thing. A crazy, drunken . . .”

  When no words came to him, she hazarded one, smirking. “Mistake?”

  His parted lips closed, then opened again. He shook his head. “No, not quite. But not anything any of us planned.”

  Any of us except perhaps Mica.

  “Not planned, no,” she agreed. “But kind of awesome.”

  His gaze darted between her mouth and eyes, unsure. “Glad you think so.”

  “Don’t you? Or are you regretting it, now?”

  “Not regretting it. Just . . .” He sighed. “I dunno. It’s not the kind of thing I ever imagined myself doing.”

  “Me neither.” Though now that she had, she wanted to go there again. Tonight. Tomorrow. Again and again and again. “But I also haven’t stopped thinking about it since that night.”

  He regarded her with a steady stare, his shoulders dropping, relaxing. “I haven’t, either.”

  “Stay,” she said softly. “Tonight.”

  Again, those full lips parted.

  “I want you to,” she told him, straight up.

  “Do you?” What was that she saw in his eyes now? Heat, but exactly what sort . . .

  She nodded. When Vaughn didn’t reply, she took a chance. Crossed the room and took his hand. She led him slowly down the hall to the den, where Mica was waiting, sitting in the easy chair. The bottle sat on the coffee table by their two glasses, plus a tumbler he’d clearly prepared for Vaughn, half-filled with whiskey.

  “I used my womanly powers of persuasion,” she said to Mica, letting go of Vaughn’s hand, “and he’s decided to join us.”

  Mica leaned forward, slid their glasses over when they sat on the couch. “As if any man could resist you.”

  She rolled her eyes at his sweet-talking and took a sip.

  Music was playing on the stereo, old R&B. Make-out music, though it sounded strangely innocent, given the things Clare suspected would shortly go down between the three of them.

  “Small talk seems silly now,” Vaughn said mildly.

  Mica smiled. “Let’s play a game.” Oh, that gleam in his eye. A shiver moved through her, chased by a blush.

  Vaughn tasted his whiskey and set it down, then leaned back, seeming to ease into the scene. “What sort of game?”

  “A drinking game,” Mica said. “We take turns guessing things about each other. You guess wrong, you drink. You guess right, they drink, and you get to dare someone to do something.” A little bit Truth or Dare, a little bit Never Have I Ever.

  “Okay,” Clare said. “Though I may skip the drinking bit after the first few rounds. No sense getting drunk enough to blur my recollection of whatever’s going down tonight.” Plus, it wasn’t as though she needed the alcohol to find herself following whatever Mica had planned like a lemming. “Who’s first?”

  “I’ll start,” Mica said, and looked to Vaughn, thinking a moment. “I bet the other night was your first three-way.”r />
  “You bet right. So I drink?”

  “Drink, and take whatever dare I give you.”

  “Which would be . . . ?”

  His eyes narrowed as he glanced between Vaughn and Clare. “We’ll start off easy. Kiss. Don’t stop until I say.”

  Clare met Vaughn’s gaze and shrugged gamely, smiling. He took a sip of his whiskey and she scooted over to make space on the couch, patting the cushion. He looked stoic as he joined her, but didn’t hesitate—he held her jaw and brought his mouth down to hers. Damn, those lips. It felt nearly romantic for a moment, then hot. Hot as fuck, deep and dirty and wet. Like they’d just had a perfect date and couldn’t wait to find themselves naked in a bed together. The hand on her face dipped lower to cup her neck, the other feeling possessive on her arm. She touched him in turn, rubbing his chest through his soft tee. All the while, she sensed Mica’s attention on them, as erotic as Vaughn’s fingers or heat or tongue. It dovetailed with the way he’d issued this supposed dare. Don’t stop until I say. Less a dare than a directive.

  Her body wound up tighter with every second they kissed, peaking when she felt another touch—Mica’s hand, on the back of her neck. It was so like that first time, she broke out in goose bumps. She’d been naive that time, nearly innocent. Tonight she knew exactly what was in store for her, and she wanted it just as badly with her eyes wide-open—

  “That’ll do.” Mica’s voice was warm and mischievous. She and Vaughn separated after a final deep sweep of his tongue, and they swallowed in unison.

  “Happy?” she asked, turning to smile at Mica. Her lips felt swollen, her face hot. She wondered if he could tell. She wondered if Vaughn felt the same.

  “Very.”

  “Who’s next?”

  “Vaughn.”

  She looked to the man at her right, then bumped his shoulder playfully with hers. “You heard him.”

  “I’ll ask you, then. Um . . .”

  “Make it specific,” Mica urged, then added, “And make it nasty.”